Bite Your Lip, Hold Their Nose

Titicut Follies {Fred Wiseman, 1967}

Pictures that involve reform, in my opinion, all deserve to be produced under the same canopy of "direct cinema" as Titicut Follies. It is this tight-lipped cinematic style that makes the images of Follies cause a similar delirium in its viewers as in the patients of the facility it documents.

Wiseman seats his camera ambiguously in the back of the room, often cutting only between the figures in full, and then to their faces, which carry a range of both vacant and terrifying expressions. We sit in our auditorium chairs as viewers, staring back ourselves with the same vacant and terrifying expressions. Often the patients walk bare across cold cement floors contrasted by a gaggle of guards clad still in their uniforms accompanying them. This regulatory practice of stripping patients to prevent the transportation of dangerous items (razors, rope, etc.) calls into question a different ethical dilemma when captured so implicitly on film. Does the artistic dictum of ambivalent truth really justify the shedding of these helplessly inturned people's most basic layers of privacy?

Also, what of the film's initially passive but ultimately relentless scrutiny of the administrators present in the institution? Is there an understood right of the public to be allowed access to every minute detail or procedure that goes on in the penitentiaries funded by their tax dollars?

In my personal opinion, there is a strange limbo in the limits of privacy that becomes muddled when someone of seemingly little personal or psychological restraint, who having lost some level of control is accused of a crime and sentenced to imprisonment alongside medical treatment. It seems that the criminal act, if judged correctly by our system of law, should warrant the kinds of humiliating but often sadly necessary statutes that exist within these institutions.

That being said, I am of the opinion that the public has a right to know what goes on behind any closed door, and thus, I feel that Wiseman is perfectly within his bounds as an artist and a public servant in making this film. Now whether or not you think this film is a cake walk, is the real question. I personally enjoy how remorselessly Wiseman shoves his imagery down your nose and funnels it in your tummy, whether you're able to stomach it or not. And we all know, censors and of course federal legislators have the weakest stomachs of them all.

Intimately Lightweight

Primary {Robert Drew & Co, 1960}

As an extension of LIFE magazine's photojournalistic methodology, Primary does something quite outstanding in progressing the realm of candid art. The economy and mobility offered by the introduction of the first lightweight synchronized sound systems certainly spawned the first instances of true reportage in documentary cinema. Also, the collectivist approach of Robert Drew's team in both the editing and capturing created what has become the modern standard of "coverage" in following cultural and political happenings.

What struck me as unique about Primary is the sense of historical present offered by the absence of both interviews and inserted text. This observational film escapes the limitations of narrative reorganization (whether intentional or accidental) by arranging its material in a forthright, highly photographic manner. It shows the two candidates out in public working, not as talking heads, or up on pulpits. It even shows, without a fixed perspective, the mundanely repetitive nature of the work that these candidates assign themselves. The film makes its purpose one of revelation, not motivation, and thus frees itself from being in any way idiosyncratic or commanding in its examination.

Hypersensitive

Czech Dream {Vít Klusák/Filip Remunda, 2004}



Czech Dream certainly calls into question a few ideas that are tough to swallow, but do they chew it up for you the right way? Of course there is the obvious examination of our susceptibility to corporate marketing, but more interestingly, the film corners itself into a whirl of controversy by causing us to ask whether a hoax of this size can really be considered an act of artistic merit. At the film's conclusion, when the facade is dropped and the masses who gather learn that they've been fooled, Remunda and Klusak (who have been present for the entire process as the face of this fabricated market,) take the heat well as they explain their intentions to this reasonably upset crowd. However, seeing those who have gone out of their way in search of lower prices reads to me as an unfair exploitation of the desperation inherent in a tattered economic system. I'm one for seeing capitalism bare ass with its pants around its knees, but if you were to trick my grandmother into waddling across a field on legs riddled with rheumatoid arthritis, we'd have a few words.

To me, it appears that the pair of filmmaker's are assigning a grounded vendetta against capitalism on top of what most would consider a rather harmless product of the capitalist system. Hypermarkets dont seem villainous enough for this argument. In fact, they're actually painted here as a relatively positive symbol of progress in an economically crippled and confused country as the Czech Republic.

However, shedding light on the advertising groups who put together these psychologically attractive marketing packages works much better for the pair's thesis. The segments they have of their arguments with the ad executives are priceless, portraying them as a mesh of the utopian idealist, the sleek corporate gear, and the heady, presumptuous "artiste." They do a wonderful job of fooling those involved in commercial exposure and distribution into thinking they are showcasing their talents, while in reality they are really contributing to damaging their own image as a reputable enterprise.

Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands {Tim Burton, 1990}



Its really tragic that Tim Burton's inner child as a method of cinematic articulation has had the adverse effect of prefacing a sort of "eyeliner manifesto." For a whole generation of delusional, upper to middle class junior high mall-rats, this film is a fashion staple for those teens bent on externalizing their angst with as much leather as possible. Tim Burton seems to have intended a far more personal allegory dealing with alienation and abandonment, but instead his childhood drawings from which the basis of the film was derived, have been robbed of their originality by the greedy tentacles of gothic cult mania. If removed from its post-premiere ripple effect, however, Burton's magical vision stands as pruned and flawless as one of the eponymous Eddie's garden sculpture's.

The film is a treat for those who are used to sorting a difficult subtext. Its wonderfully straightforward, without relinquishing any of the depth in its social commentary. It's like Burton sits you down in the back yard, in a prim yellow lawn chair, puts you at ease with a shoulder touch of quirky simplicity, and then proceeds to dexterously sheer out a new hairdo without you ever having noticed a thing. Tim Burton makes his film so easy to read that exploring the different platitudes of the story itself seems irrelevant. This is a movie you should just see, as stupid as that sounds, because you'll get it better than if I stammer in this review to summarize this efficient, autonomous piece of film.

Spin

Spin {Brian Springer, 1995}



Calculated Truth

For me, prescience and poignancy are more valuable than urgency or agenda in any work that attempts to properly canvas our country's modern politics. It is especially enjoyable to witness how a piece like Brian Springer's 1995 Documentary Spin homogenizes a sensitivity to bias with an obvious call to action. The uncanny scrutiny provided by Springer's use of the unique informational source of unedited (or "unspun") satellite feeds from major news networks lends his content a level of validity that comes with any form of dedication to research like the kind he exhibits here.

Along with a fantastic soundscape (ripe with the creepy ambient buzzing pops and cavernous space rattle that could make any piece ominous) and a carefully narrated text that uses his title word Spin as a brilliant foundation for both a literal and subtextual discussion of media content, Springer most eloquently employs motivated edits in a way separate from how our favorite blood-boiling, polarized documentarians tend to use their censor scissors to shepherd an audience into their own opinion corral.

Unlike the favoritism and partiality (insert sigh here) that Michael Moore and Alex Jones have a penchant for, Springer strings only a subtle hint of a leftist approach in his composition. Unfortunately inherent in any filtering (or "spin") of media is an air of zeitgeist that most viewers dont appreciate. Instead, here, Springer simply rattles out a thesis that asks "what are we really missing" without asking it with a raised eyebrow.

Auch Zwerge Haben Kleine Angefangen (Even Dwarves Start Small)

Auch Zwerge Haben Kleine Angefangen {Even Dwarves Start Small} - (Herzog, 1969)

For once, the 48 inch height regulation at most commercial theme-parks instituted as a cut off for who is able to ride the most extreme rides, is thrown fervently to the wayside by director Werner Herzog. This charismatic giant in film history chooses to stand no taller or more prominent than the shortest of human dwarves, in his influential film Auch Zwerge Haben Kleine Angefangen (Even Dwarves Start Small.)

Herzog is famous for creating allegories for the broad human condition in his films manifested by figures or groups that are commonly rejected or disregarded as progressive to modern human development. In this film, however, instead of having to peruse the subtext of Herzog using a conspicuous category of non-human subjects, like those native cultures seen as "savage," varied social outcasts (artists) or examples of monstrous, blinded misanthropes (conquerors), Herzog hits the viewer right on the head with the "human handicap" he uses in his allegory. He uses, in fact, on of the very few groupings in society where a filmmaker can be solely reliant on the pure physical image of this group to establish both a sympathetic regard or perceptual discomfort, as well as an immediate dissociation from our understood standards of human evolution and progress.



Herzog makes high art out of our bad taste. He uses experience to make invisible the technical mastery of his work, enabling us first to capitalize on our well-learned judgmental nature and the human compulsion towards mockery at any and all forms of deformity, only to later shame us with the strength of his drawn parallels to the absurdities of human nature, overpowering our superficial instincts to laugh and taunt what is essentially only a physically miniaturized (not sociologically or mentally) diorama of our problematic human condition.

The dwarves create an empowered rebellion as is common in a layered society, but its effectiveness seems to falter under the lures of human nature's tendency towards acts of depravity and destruction.

If you treat them (the dwarves) as Herzogian allegorical representations of "us" (the larger dudes,) then sitting and watching the lot of them still unabashedly abusing and slaughtering animals (the poultry and livestock), tormenting the handicapped (the blind dwarves), striving to compete amongst one another (the bug comparisons, arranged marriages, and porn collections) and finally protesting and violently revolting against any form of control (firebombing Pepe and the assumed administrator of the compound) seems to be just your average study of human behaviour.

American Gangster

American Gangster {Ridley Scott, 2008}

I'm ace-in-the-hole sure this film has been chalked up in an insufferable amount of film criticism blogs. It's wet out of the womb, and so therefore, I'm going to let it grow into itself before I snip its umbilical cord or sever it's foreskin without its consent.

Still, though, I think it is appropriate to apply some first impressions, in order to compare them to my later opinions.

Pluses:

1) Russell Crowe. Typically great actor. Sort of unilateral. Not very Jewish. Not very good at faking a Jersey accent. Perfectly acceptable as a 2007 interpretation of Frank (Paco) in Serpico without the beatnik-vibe or the accusations of sexual deviancy.

2) Denzel Washington. Typically great actor. Sort of unilateral. Not usually a screen devil (though the opening shot of the film nullifies the extremes of his murderous actions for the remainder of the film, simply by surmounting them with the live cremation and execution of an anonymous victim right away.) Very very good at acting the role of a harlem-ite, as well as a noble man within the confines of poverty. Convincing as hell as any form of black activist, from the legitimate influence of Malcolm X, to the felonious impact of a corrupt drug czar or mob boss, just like Fred Williamson in Black Caesar.

3) Ridley Scott did good. Some of his shotwork was brilliant (directional parallels/ orchestrated composition i.e. the plane crossing behind several street markers). Chiwitel Ejiofor (Children Of Men) masks his anglo-speak exceptionally in playing the flashiest brother of co-protagonist Frank Lucas, just as Josh Brolin masks his tendency towards unintentional overacting exceptionally (see Hollow Man and the television series Into The West for reference) in his portrayal of the prick cop in the film who's' the most blatantly "on the take" (a la Serpico) from the criminal bankroll.

Minuses:

1) Hip-hop's big fat nose in this film is quite visible, especially the nose of America's modern hip-hop. This pitfall again seems acutely typical of the implicated 'trappings' that a white (in this case germanic) director faces in making a 'black' film that will inevitably draw a heavier 'black' audience. In an attempt to appease what is currently a ghetto-vitalized populous, the allowance of sluggish, cavorting, badly performed cameos by music media figures (like rapper T.I. [though, not really too shabby] and RZA (who cooly sports his poorly disguised Wu-Tang Clan tattoo no less than a foot away from the camera in one or two shots) drowns what credibility the filmmaker build up. These ego-insertions cripple the work as a strong piece that communicates skillfully among more diverse audiences.

The use of this tactic of "filling out the molds of a type of racial film," to me seems counterproductive. In an attempt at cinematic egalitarianism, why further ostracize, as well as distract more major audiences, by choosing instead to only appeal to an informed, select few attentive to your central subject's racial disposition? If Frank Lucas ever stuck out loudly as a "black man in the white man's world" it was certainly made the loudest in this film.

I guess because I'm more versed in civil rights than the prototypical moviegoer I can cast down these judgments more easily believing I am above the common viewer.

This does not, however, discard the fact that instrumental constructs that often strengthen racism, nationalism, and the West's lust for economic individuality and privatization, are further fortified by the modes and ethics of this film.

2) New York is ___________ this close to being dead as a setting. It is now ___ this much closer.

Conclusion:

If a stage rendition of Black Caesar played in a broadway double-up with a rendering of Serpico, then American Gangster would be appraised as a lousy film rendition of the broadway hit that featured a goody two-shoes cop running down a self-made black mafioso. The papers might say "the camera work and special effects were nice though."

Cinematic Excess

Cinematic Excess

(response again to an exam question asking what the role of "cinematic excess" is in modern cinema)

The atypical Hollywood narrative structure means to be as readable and stimulating as possible. We are all aware of this, and fall victim to it, switching off for a little more than an hour, behind our popcorn jacouzzi and our odd footing that cuts off toe circulation whilst we're wedged between the duplex soft-chair armrest zones. It is obvious then, in discussing the role of "Cinematic Excess" (in these well defined structural boundaries), that the two (convention and excess) are destined to conflict!!!!

(F***ING DUH).

(*ahem) With "Cinematic Excess," the plainly material and objective nature of all the elements of a film can be interpreted as "subjective," and makes it a very 'opinionated' argument whether or not a specific film falls victim to such awesomely intellectual critical categories (*cough*).

However, on the basic level, Cinematic Excess (that is, things that are labeled as such) usually rings loud and clear to the viewer or critic simply because it defies the structure most familiar to modern cinema (the Hollywood schtick, one would say).

It is clear, therefore, that like most "movements" or "rebellions" against a tradition or a strict coda, an ebb and floe soon will be produced that undulates between the two opposing points on the spectrum. Eventually, aligning with the cyclical nature of any political or hierarchical structure (which film in a lot of cases certainly represents,) that which is 'revolutionary' solely because of its counteraction of the 'evils of normalcy' within our typical parameters, tragically ceases to be revolutionary after a certain amount of overstudy and varying disagreements. The applicable revolutionary idea made pertinent to defying this societal structure is nevertheless inevitably adapted directly into the same system it initially rebelled against.

An "obtuse narrative structure"* (according to Roland Barthes) is a lengthy of saying the above. Usually, the 'obtuse' label marks that a film is the offspring of the fundaments beneath the above process (that is, the essentials of the typical Hollywood narrative.) Elements or structures that do no fit (such as rearranged chronology, unconventional composition, a spoken or textual approach to storytelling, or most commonly an extreme sense of style exuded from the filmmaker) or that are regarded as "Cinematic Excess" have slowly been transmogrified into working neo-tropes within the Hollywood labyrinth, which they previously riled against.

In a nutshell, what's different is so cool, that it becomes cool and marketable to seem 'different' and the entities that the "different" strive to segregate from themselves in turn absorb that 'angst' and 'nonconformist behaviour' into their condescending, subversive, capitalistic vocabulary.

Cache Opening

Cache [opening] (Michael Haneke, 2005)

(Also an edited 'exam response' to (basically) the question: "Please analyze the opening scene of Cache (Michael Haneke, 2005) and discuss how the director disregards a typical cinematic language and how he goes about doing so)

Oh those french. They sure do know how to shake things up. Putting an Austrian in charge, well that's a confidently guaranteed shake. Haneke trumps several key conventions in the language of cinema within Cache, namely his vague regard for the viewer in the film's transmission of information. The titling, first, runs over the establishing shot in a paperback novel reading direction, printed in a small and difficult font that makes the credits of this film nearly illegible, (aside from the word Cache, that is,) the first hint that Haneke does not want to spoon feed you his narrative.

His initial shots leave it severely unclear whom (out of the dozen or so persons who meander through the shot[s]) is the subject of the narrative. Then, instead of modern film's inherent use of sound to thread both form and structure to a piece, Haneke lets off-screen dialogue, both diegetic and extracted in post, to drive the images without driving the narrative along as well. This sound and image relationship creates an almost completely disjointed form of dialogue. The revelation of the viewer's involvement in a "surveillance" in the late opening is as obvious a shock value method as Haneke's apparent rebellious test of form.

What to me really separates Haneke's structure of the cinematic language from the conventional comes from his reign over sound and its contrast with the emptiness of certain images. To elaborate on that reign would be redundant of the above paragraphs, so read this piece as a recycle sign (in a loop) and the thesis will become easily evident.

Paisà

Rossellini's Paisà (1946)
as a film of "Memory"



(Notably shorter as it is an edited 'exam response' to the broad academic question: "Please analyze the opening scene of Roberto Rossellini's (episodical sextuplet) film Paisà (the newsreel segment) and discuss it, paying specific attention to its relation to André Bazin's idea of "realism" and also David McDougall's article "Transcultural Cinema: Films Of Memory"...)

In crafting his opening for this disguised fictional film, Rossellini employs historical reference as well as a reliance on photographic iconography (the highly recognizable image of the 'wartime newsreel') to achieve a notion of realism necessary in driving the action and thesis of his film. The opening footage automatically assigns a reconstructive "memory" that gives validity to the rest of the film, offering, quite bluntly, a purely visual or 'lexical' representation of memory that is quite direct. What is lacking is the expressionism or dialectic strategies of montage cinema, which Rossellini puts at bay, in favour of the "realism" that is well defined by Bazin.

David MacDougall, in his article on *Film as Memory, states that "films condense such multidimensional thinking into concrete imagery, stripping the representation of memory of much of its breadth and ambiguity." It then seems certainly that in Paisà, the opening 'Florence episode' evidently wields the heavy influence of memory in it's conventional, accessible mode (that is, one of journalistic hubris,) in order to smoothly meld an ambiguous psychological phenomenon with the clarity of representation modeled within Bazin's cookie-cutter of "realism." By simply streamlining conscious and subconscious human thought into an organized temporal progression, first with the 'reel,' and then with the film's clear and informative dialogue coupled with the historical accuracy of the mise-en-scene and the heightened drama of the music (par excellence), and even the occasional Rules Of The Game depth of field with simultaneous action detectible within the frame, Rossellini achieves his "easy influence" through the weak but successful use of his notably "easy opening."

*David MacDougall, Transcultural Cinema: Films of Memory