Dead Ringers

Being a twin myself, I think I'm in a position to adequately judge this movie, as far as the portrayal of twinning goes. Unfortunately, portrayals of twins in literature and film rarely have anything to do with accurate representation of what being a twin is like... and honestly, it would be kind of boring if that was the aim. This, er, condition, if you want to call it that, offers an incomparable stage for authors to play out their complexes.

In Cronenberg's film, Jeremy Irons turns in a brilliant performance as both Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Not only does he act out a good half of the film against himself, but he creates two very different characters without taking the easy way out and polarizing them entirely. Both are very real and unique, while also being subtly similar, as real twins might be. Irons' performance is just one thing that makes this film great. The rest has to do with the atmospherics that Cronenberg always brings to his films, as well as psychological turmoil, and good ol' Howard Shore tagging along to create mood music.

The brothers, although obvious individuals (one course, one more gentle), live life almost as if they were a unit. They share a profession (incidentally, at a fertility clinic), an apartment, and the sleep with the same women. When Claire (Genevieve Bujold) steps into the office, Beverly and Elliot prey on her immediately. It is this misstep that sends a unfathomable chain of events rocketing into motion. Claire is no ordinary woman. She is an actress. She wants a baby... She has three sets of ovaries. Unlike most people, she is perceptive enough to figure out on her own that she is sleeping with two different men.

This film is an exploration of the surface and the metaphysical that lies behind it. The Mantle brothers are preoccupied with inner beauty in the way most people are preoccupied with outer beauty. But their version of inner beauty is equally superficial. They are fascinated by internal organs. It is perhaps even more unsettling that the human obsession with outer beauty. In film and subsequently, often in reality, the appearance of a person is perceived to be symbolic of the kind of person they are. When it comes to admiring the beauty of internal organs, what exactly is the denotation? Presumably, all organs are nearly exactly the same. Interestingly, the internal organs the brothers have primary contact with are the female sexual and reproduction organs--the origins of life. Beverly and Elliot cannot seem to fathom their own uniqueness, as they are physically identical. Claire, on the other hand, has, out of necessity split her outer self from her metaphysical self; she is an actress. Her constantly changing facade represents nothing of what she actually is.


One of my favorite scenes was especially representative of this. Claire is in the make up room. We see her in profile as Elliot comes to visit her, to rectify what he and Beverly have done and to get her back. He insinuates that most women are more than happy to overlook the difference between them, and to take them both. Claire refuses him. During their conversation, the camera jumps from the initial profile to her opposite cheek, on which a bruise has been colorfully applied with make up. "Are we really that different?" he asks. "Yes," she replies, "you really are."

It is interesting that this is the woman they both initially fall for: imperfect by their standards of "inner beauty", and also incapable of conceiving.

Later, we get into more Cronenbergian territory when Beverly has special tools made up for dealing with "mutant women." As he becomes more tortured (as his relationship with his brother becomes more tortured), he becomes frightened by the women he sees, claiming that their bodies are "all wrong." His tools look like Medieval torture instruments, with no discernible purpose. In the operating room, Elliot is suited for surgery in a red, full-bodied gown that looks like something out of A Handmaid's Tail. Framed in the window with arms outstretched, he is some kind of twisted Prometheus. With the power he holds over human conception, he is, perhaps the closest thing to a God on earth.

This was my first time viewing this film, and though it failed to answer any questions for me, the meditation it inspired was fantastic. Sometime soon I'm going to give it another try, but not before it must go back to the library, from whence it came.

American Psycho

In accordance with my promise to make women directors a prominent feature of this blog, I recently watched American Psycho, which is a Marry Harron film. Actually, it was more of a fortuitous accident, since my family felt like communing to watch some kind of horror movie. The Blockbuster selection was epically weak, but they did have this one. And I thought, aha!

For the most part, I really dig this movie. It's an excellent adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis book. Harron's film is equal parts satire and moody horror. For the most part, she manages to negotiate between fear and humor (though more fear and less humor would have been appreciated on my part, but that's just personal taste). Both the film and the novel are an overt criticism of the Reagan era. It appears that the deranged psycho-path, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is forged in the primordial ooze of inescapable superficiality and dog eat dog economics that characterized mega-rich society in Reagan's America. With his immaculate exterior and rotten core, Bateman is the embodiment of the Regan 80s. Working an ambiguous job on Wall Street, Bateman spends his free time either fantasizing about or commiting brutal and disgusting crimes. It is the American dream gone haywire. When you were born at the top, I guess the only place to go is down, and to take as many people as you can with you. Interestingly, Bateman does not have a preference for victims. He takes the lowest of the low (a homeless man, a hooker) along with the most successful, without discretion.

One can never quite tell whether Bateman actually performs the gratutious acts depicted, or if they are elaborate, consuming fantasies. If they are real, they are readily ignored in the solipsistic city-dwellers. Not only are the characters self-absorbed, but they are practically interchangeable, reduced to virtual clones by marketing schemes, the drive to have the best. Actually, they are literally interchangeable--so alike that men are constantly mistaken for one another. It is never apparent whether Bateman gets away with murder because the people around him are truly apathetic, or if his fantasy world has overtaken his reality. This is just one more way Harron creates a duality throughout the film. She also has a way of portraying unease through the extravagances of the rich, showing the rawness lurking behind the perfect facade. The intense close up of syrup on a gourmet plate is blood spatter, and the face mask Bateman removes makes him look like a slasher villain a la Michael Myers.

Visually, this film is practically noirish. In the office buildings, we often see the shadows of venetian blinds cast across the scenes. In a way, its not hard to draw comparisons to noir, here. A private detective even shows up, yet there is too much conflicting evidence to pin down whether a crime has been committed or not. Shot mostly at night, the city is very Gotham-esque, overbearing, angular and grim; it is a city where evil abides, yet there is no superhero to counteract this menace. The outdoor scenes starkly contrast the interior scenes, particularly those in Bateman's apartment, where there is nothing but clean, uncluttered, modern lines.

The film would have benefited from a larger part for Bateman's secretary, Jean (Chloe Sevigny), who offers a more empathetic perspective. She is bumbling and pathetically naive. As a result, during her too-short screen time, I found myself praying for her deliverance. It's an interesting film, although it sort of peters out at the end. It is left ambiguous whether Bateman has imagined it all. As a result, nothing changes. There is no digging to find a message, either. At times the satire is just a bit too over the top, like the moment where Bateman is dragging a body through his building and an acquaintance inquires about the make of the bag. It's an imperfect film, but still a very interesting one.

Where the Girls are

I have decided to make a greater effort to get some women filmmakers on here. There just aren't enough of them out there, and I think that most casual viewers would be hard-pressed to name even one. Even now only a handful come to mind...

Agnes Varda, Sofia Coppola, Mary Harron (American Psycho, etc), Leni Riefenstahl (Nazi propagandist), uh... the woman who directed Boys Don't Cry... and the one who directed The Savages last year...

There really aren't very many female directors who have been canonized. Part of the problem is that there aren't many females in the business of filmmaking to begin with. Why is this? Perhaps it is because the director is a high-powered position of control, something that still has a male association. Adding to the problem is the fact that the few women that are working in Hollywood are making such films as Something's Gotta Give and You've Got Mail. (This all sort of brings to mind George Eliot's famous treatise on frivolous women's writing in Victorian England, "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists.")

The male monopoly on creative activity is in the process of being overturned in every arena, but not film. I also wonder if this also has to do with the nature of film as an artform. Film is still highly collaborative, as well as expensive. It is still a business, and the in the business world, women remain at a disadvantage. Up until very recently, film was not something you could easily make on the fly. With the advent of digital and Youtube this is beginning to change. Maybe it won't be long before we see more women behind the camera. Until then, part of this little project of mine will be to explore the works of the fantastic few who have survived the boy's club.

Moon

I was basically obligated to see Moon, because it was directed by a fellow alumnus of my undergrad school. Although, Duncan Jones has been in the alumni category a decade or so longer than me. He was famed, previous to his first feature length release, for being the son of David Bowie. This was buzzworthy at my school. It is rare that celebrity children end up in the philosophy department of small town Ohio--Wooster, OH, to be more exact, and of all people, David Bowie's son. But no matter whose son he had been, I probably would have have thought, "of all people!" I guess that's the way it goes.

Anyway, it doesn't matter whose son he is. He clearly has a talent all his own, although reviews of this film will probably have a hard time separating his subject matter here from the aura of his father. Jean Renoir probably had the same problem when he was starting out.

In Moon, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is up on the eponymous cratered orb harvesting something or other, because it has recently been discovered to be a solution to Earth's energy crisis. He is approaching the end of a three year stint, completely alone except for the robotic GERTY, who is placidly voiced by Kevin Spacey. GERTY is a fairly brilliant creation, in my opinion. He seems immediately archaic, big and bulky like the first models of computers. Though his voice reveals nothing about his emotions (if he indeed, has any), he has a screen on which an emoticon pops up to accompany his dialogue and give it an emotional spin. GERTY's initial interactions with Sam introduce a philosophical discussion of what exactly makes us human. Advanced as GERTY is, and as much as we view him as a character, he is programmed. Throughout the film, he displays only about five emotions, and most of the time he is either happy, sad, or perplexed. GERTY's emotions begin to mirror Sam's as he is thrown into the turmoil that results from meeting oneself.

...Zounds! Yes, Sam does meet himself. As it turns out, Sam is a clone of the original Sam. His memories are implanted. When our Sam's succeeding clone is awakened too early, the two come in contact with one another. What follows is sort of a fascinating character study and analysis of human nature. By inserting the original Sam's memories, they replicate him exactly. Or do they? While their life experiences differ only by three years, this distance is enough to mollify Sam I into a mellow, albeit moderately deranged person, while leaving Sam II erratic and angry. The two begin to acknowledge their shared memories, and still they act as individuals. What we are left to question is whether every Sam evolves the same way.

By setting up an army of successive clones, the regime that implanted them attempts to mechanize humanity, to program it as GERTY has been programmed. Up until a point, they practically succeed. For instance, we see Sam charting his time on the moon by drawing smiley faces on the wall that mirror those on GERTY's screen, as if his capacity for emotion is waning with only a robot's interaction. Still, as Sam insinuates, the complexities of the human mind and spirit cannot be harnessed in this way. He says something to this effect to GERTY, as he removes the "kick me" sign from his monitor. Still, the fact remains, outside of Jones construction, that much of human history has demonstrated how the human will can be pathetically weak, as often as it can be strong. We can become like machines, if we lose our self-awareness.

Like all good science fiction films, there is much more to this film than clones in space. It's worth seeing, and it has a nice score from Clint Mansell, who brought us the memorable soundtrack to Requiem For a Dream.

Out of the Past

The plot runs thick in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past. I'm still not sure that I caught every twist and turn and every motivation, but that's only for real sticklers. The film's structure is relatively unique, in that the first third is told in flashback, while the rest occurs in the present.

Jeff Bailey is a former private detective who is now living in a small town with his lover, Ann. Bailey is deftly played by Robert Mitchum, who is, as always, full of win. As it turns out, he has a past he has kept hidden, which he is forced to reveal when it tracks him down. Here, the film goes into a lengthy flashback, in which we see that Bailey has been hired by crime lord Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) to track down his girl, Kathie (Jane Greer) and bring her home. In doing so, big surprise, Bailey falls for her and they go on the run. Back in the present, Sterling seeks revenge by attempting to frame Bailey for murder, and weaving a plot almost as intricate as the mis-en-scene that the narrative is all staged upon.


What is really eye-catching about this film is its look. Each frame seems to have been crafted with deliberate intricacy, as a result, I often found myself lost in the imagery, exploring the canvas. The film time is divided between natural settings and urban ones. With the mis-en-scene, Tourneur draws out a sense of ominous entrapment from both. The film opens with an almost pastoral view of Bailey and his new lover, Ann, rendezvousing by a lake. Contrasting this, the waterfront in Mexico becomes a cage with the use of the fishing net suspended behind Bailey. At the very end, the claustrophobia of the woods, as well as the skeletal shadows of the trees across his face, demonstrate a final trap from which Bailey cannot escape. I found these natural settings the most intriguing because they are relatively out of place in a noir, but with Tourneur's skill, they are no less bleak than the angular buildings and neon lights of the city. Kathie, while standing on a balcony overlooking the mountains, recalls them fondly, as a representation of freedom, but this is an ideal that does not hold up in this dark universe.


As a character, Bailey is the standard noir private eye with a personal code of honor. Despite stealing Sterling's girl and running off with her, he feels burdened by the money he owns the crime lord. For this reason, he is easily drawn in by the vengeful Sterling, all the while knowing that he might be confronting his doom. As the two men note, it is in their respective natures to follow the courses of action they are both now following, as if they cannot help it. This is also a line that Kathie repeatedly uses when she gets in trouble; she couldn't help it, her hand was forced. This is true in the sense that she can't help but do whatever she can to help herself. One gets the sense that the characters are all trapped by their natures, that every step of the narrative is predetermined, not by fate in the traditional sense, but by a fate that results from the nature of the self, an unwillingness to swerve from their motivations.

This is a great film--as entertaining as it is beautiful.

The Sweet Hereafter

Now that I'm home again, I once more have access to the printed New York Times (if only on Sundays). First, I always tackle the arts section, because it feels so good to hold in my hands the kind of information I usually have to scour the interwebs for. The New York Times Arts is a great resource for film news of all kinds. I especially like how they don't discriminate between big Hollywood blockbusters and the oft overlooked works of smaller production companies, or the work of Egyptian-Armenians who were raised in Canada, as the case may be.

I wasn't familiar with Atom Egoyan, but after reading the write-up of his forthcoming Chloe, I thought I'd take a look at some of his earlier work in order to prepare myself. After reading Katrina Onstad's article noting Egoyan's penchant for exploring "Sexual taboos," "miscommunication," and "complicated puzzles... in which characters misread one another and the world, cornered by sexual desire and technology," I was intrigued. Hm, I thought. This sounds like all that I love, and more! The more I write on here, the more it might become apparent that I am drawn to remorselessly depressing and disturbing films. (If you have any suggestions, send them my way.)

I just watched The Sweet Hereafter and I was suitably impressed. This is the kind of film to which one might prescribe the term "elegiac," particularly in response to the heavy subject matter. Egoyan is not kidding anyone with the plot; there is no suspense. The film is about the aftermath of a terrible accident. Therefore, the aftermath is exactly what the narrative begins with. The opening is quite haunting, and we are confronted with a beautiful image that will not be truly explained until later, although it reveals immediately what the film is concerned with. The film opens with a long pan across dark wooden floorboards, ending with an overhead view of a family in bed--a mother and father with a young child cradled between them. This is the most unifying image of family life that is portrayed in the film, and it occurs in the first few moments. Directly following this, Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm) becomes trapped in a carwash, a moment that suggests a parallel to the fate of the many children involved in the bus accident.


The film's narrative is fragmented, weaving in and out of the present. Throughout, Stevens attempts to extract the particulars of the accident from the townspeople in order to construct a litigation case. He is, as it turns out, a lawyer. He is also a father who has lost a child, although in a different manner. He is encumbered by a drug-addicted daughter, who calls him from payphones to beg him for money. The film explores the tracts of grief--the need to assign blame where there is none, the refusal to accept an unordered universe that claims young lives without reason.

Visually, the film is stark--set in mid-winder with bleak twilight snowscapes. The town seems like the edge of the world. Capturing his characters as distant silhouettes against this snowy backdrop, Egoyan invokes a kind of desolate loneliness that even the desperate dialogue of the grieving parents cannot render. As the bus goes over the highway barrier, the camera keeps its distance. From a distance, we watch as the bus slides onto a thin layer of ice, slowly sinking in.

To me, the pinnacle of this film is Sarah Polley's performance as Nicole Burnell, the angelic teenager who is the sole survivor of the crash. Opposing her performance is Ian Holm as the wily and world-weary lawyer. Add a haunting soundtrack, mostly sung by Polley herself, and you have a powerful, lingering vignette of the most innate human characteristics. I can't wait for Chloe.

Spellbound

Steadily, I am working my way through Alfred Hitchcock's ouevre. Over the course of several film classes, I have seen both Rear Window and Vertigo a thousand times each. They are awesome films, but the time has come to branch out. I've also seen the other usual suspects--The Birds and Psycho. Also, I just watched Notorious recently, so I decided to stick with Ingrid Bergman, because she's the best.

Spellbound is fun, because it is incredibly overt. Instead of the lurking, subtextual psychoanalytic elements that comprise standard Hitchcockian fare, psychoanalysis comes to the forefront, as a plot element. Dr. Constance Peterson, played by Ingrid Bergman, is a psychoanalyst who unexpectedly falls for the new head of staff, Dr. Edwardes (Gregory Peck). When it quickly becomes apparent to the others that he is not who is says he is, the two of them run off together. She attempts to penetrate his repressed memories to discover whether he has committed murder. In this midst of a psychological frenzy that is already totally extreme, Hitchcock employs Salvador Dali to create a dream sequence. Far out.

Edwardes portrays a fear of emasculation, particularly by his lover, as she attempts to penetrate (key word) his subconscious. He becomes incredibly defensive, consistently spouting pathetic phrases like, "If there's anything I hate, it's a smug woman," while she continues to look at him smugly. He is similarly emasculated by his lack of identity. As such, he expresses surprise at Dr. Peterson's willingness to love someone who is no more than a set of initials. He is just a specter, haunted by his own ghosts.

There is a great deal of gender discussion, particularly in relation to Bergman's character. She is the only woman in an office full of men. Devoted as she is to her work, they describe her as unfeeling. Yet, the minute she falls in love, taking on more feminine characteristics, they assume that she is acting foolishly. As the men surrounding her continually purport, she stops thinking with her head, and begins thinking with her heart. Her mentor states, "women make the best psychoanalysts... until they fall in love. Then, they make the best patients." Eventually, she overcomes this defamation when her instincts turn out to be correct.


Like always, Hitchcock has a unique visual style. In this case, the more severe the characters' psychological state becomes, the more severe the perspective becomes. As Edwardes relapses, the blade of his razor is the central image of the shot. In moments of greatest danger, the viewer enters the perspective of the psychotic character. As Edwardes experiences a revealing flashback, we are put in his perspective. Later, as Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll) aims a gun at Peterson, we see his quarry framed behind the mouth of the revolver, as if is we who are fingering the trigger.

Of course, Dali's contribution is beautiful too--a surrealistic tableau with eyeball-lined walls, faceless men and angular shadows. In the course of this sequence, someone takes a pair of scissors to one of the eyeballs, in a moment reminiscent of Dali's first foray into filmmaking, Un Chien Andelou. Directly following this, there seems to be another filmic reference. Edwardes is set off by the sight of children sledding. The composition and deep focus, as well as the subject of children sledding outside suggests a nod to Orson Welles.


Film has an enormous capacity for representing dreams. It is unparalleled in its capacity to portray the mind's eye. For Hitchcock, the cinematic eye basically is the mind's eye, and narrative cinema is an outlet for his obsessions. In a way, the dream that Dali constructs forms a parallel to the one we are already watching. We, like Peterson, use the evidence to dissect the puzzle of Hitchcock's complexes. This relation of the subconscious and the cinematic is sort of an earlier version of the self-reflexivity he later demonstrates in Rear Window.