A Serious Lack of Civil War Films

Lately, I've been reading up on the Civil War. There was a time during High School when I became interested in the Civil War on my own accord (this was an anomaly, as anything unrelated to video games or film never caught my fancy), The Killer Angels being my first real exposure to the subject. I recently finished Battle Cry of Freedom, and am currently reading Ulysses S. Grant's Autobiography and Grant Moves South. So I've developed some sort of foundation to build upon.

My Brother-in-law knows a fair deal about the Civil War, and during a conversation, he brought up the fact that there are few narrative features that deal with the Civil War, let alone any good ones. Glory, I believe, is arguably one of the better films on the subject. Gettysburg has some great performances, but, strangely, completely omits the gritty realism that its story necessitates. A lack of realism (i.e. blood) results in immediate actions without immediate consequences.

Searching for "Why aren't there more Civil War Films?" in Google results in no satisfying explanations, so I guess I'll have to - reluctantly - draw some of my own conclusions. One reason is that the war still lies deep within American consciousness. As much as people like to argue, "The Civil War wasn't really about slavery," this was the single biggest influence that caused the first cannon to fire on Fort Sumter and the wars bloody, drawn out duration. We can all agree that slavery is - and continues to be - one of the worst institutions that humanity conceived. The Emancipation Proclamation swept slavery away, but did not dissolve racial divides between African Americans and Whites. Lincoln and Frederick Douglas recognized this and did what they could to expedite this process as quickly as they could (giving freed blacks free land to cultivate after the war, attempt to bring them suffrage, etc.). Obviously, their actions alone would not cut it, and deep racial divides still exist today. In short, to make a film about the Civil War is to make a film about slavery and thus contemporary racial divides.

There still lies an enormous economic divide between North and South. I'm sure I could find statistics on this, but this is unnecessary - the divide is clear. This was the other big reason that the South decided to secede from the Union. History and time have substantiated this claim. Although this subject is not as difficult to approach as the former, this divide brings up more bad blood that still runs deep on the Mason-Dixon Line.

I remember visiting Gettysburg with my dad and brother as a high school student. I was fascinated with Little Round Top during that time - The Union was the Underdog in that fight, defeating the South in one of the most important confrontations of the war. Without this victory, the Union would have likely dissolved.

I stood in front of the memorial for Joshua Chamberlain, who commanded the victorious regiment, with interested eyes. While wondering how many skin cells were left from the men who fell in this fight under my feet, I happened to look to my right and saw a family - mom, dad, and two children around 9 or 10 - fully clad in Confederate gear: bandannas, t-shirts, shorts, socks, the works. They approached my flank across the ridge and I was left surprised and off guard. I looked at my commanding officer, Dad, who couldn't have cared less. Left with few options, my eyes retreated to the ground. The enemy was at my doorstep, and I refused to even hear their knocks.

And then there were a lack of films on The Civil War.

Let's All Have A Good Cry

Imagine this:

You have untold millions of dollars. You have a massive base of fanboys and fangirls- also ranging in the millions. You have the ability and connections to hire a staff of niche experts (gaffer, cinematographer, offline / onlinie editor, producer, electrics, PA's for miles), and distribution up the god damn ying yang.

You work as a contracter with Political Campaign Ads

Never have I seen one that I like. Not from Clniton, Bush, Gore, Dole, Obama, McCain, not even Nader (who I'm partial towards). Every ad I see feels like a forced lie: pandering to just the right demographic at just the right time. They are all hyperbolically present and dramatic like plastic candy. They lie to your face, and when one realizes this, retorting is like screaming into a black hole. Everytime I bear witness to these pathetic excuses for politicin', I find myself so angry I find it hard to contain myself. I often will speak in a somewhat restrained yet completely irritated voice to the screen, "Sometimes I want to punch myself in the stupid goddamn face with my stupid fists," with my kid in the room.

For all the anger these provoke in me, there is one draw to them I can't resist: Shameless, Ridicuous Propaganda. It's traditional, and I love tradition. "Vote for me! I won't fuck you!" And then they fuck you anyways because that's what they're supposed to do. One day - and soon - they will penetrate us for too long and Mother Nature will destroy us without batting an eye.

The End









Now, let's all have a good cry.

A Vicious Circle

“Hide the ideas, but so that people will find them. The most important will be the most hidden”

-Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer

Everyone I know who owns a Roomba absolutely loves them.

“Roomba Cleans Routinely So You Don’t Have To”.

And that’s great. More importantly, one can claim they own a robot. Apparently they’re programmed with scientific diamonds that tell them exactly where to go, and if you’re nice, they’ll actually give you a high-five.

Folks like Ayn Rand and Ron Paul tend to believe that Capitalism is A.) a robot and B.) programmed with scientific diamonds, which demand participants to progress indefinitely and without end until death – moreover, no one needs to make any rules!

A Vicious Circle (dir. Charles Tashiro) whimsically tackles Capitalism, and not only addresses robots, but the violence (both mental and physical) that inherently accompanies an unfair economic system. This criticism lies within Tashiro’s signature style: distant, suggestive, and always challenging.

Past films by Tashiro often barrage the viewer with so many visuals and sounds that we’re forced to submit and simply let the experience wash over us. Post completion, we’re left to our own devices to explore the details of the film and decipher a deeper meaning. Tashiro’s mise-en-scene fills the screen with thematic information, glowing with color and intimacy. 1-2-3-4-5 actually breaks down each of the perceptive senses and translates them to the screen with a certain amount of success. In The Smell Of Gasoline, Tashiro recombines all these senses, resulting in an inundating and meditative car ride that commands his viewers to relax – while simultaneously seducing them to read deeper into it’s themes.


A Vicious Circle departs from these past films on a stylistic level. The visuals continue to stun and the sound remains complex, but that intimacy seems to evaporate. Although the film has a “plot”, it’s certainly not regarded with much importance, as the film jumps from scene to scene without letting the characters explain the scenario suitably. This creates a certain effect where we’re left to ask ourselves, “What were the characters talking about, exactly, and why?” To some extent, this allows the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions, but as this happens in every scene, we’re often left playing catch-up with the plot. These short scenes with abrupt cuts feel almost standoff-ish – like Tashiro is intentionally keeping us at arms length for reasons we’re not allowed to know.

That said, the only reason I think a narrative even exists in A Vicious Circle is to destroy it. The film almost laughs at itself at times. The Businessman, who commissions The Killer to do his dirty work, speaks almost exclusively in clichés. “The world is yours, if you have the balls to take it,” he says hinting at Scarface, followed by a whole string of laughable business lingo. Not only is the film mocking it’s own plot, it’s pointing to the downfalls of Capitalism, and also poking fun at Hollywood clichés. This, my friends, is economy of dialogue at it’s best.

The film is located in Big City, USA – never named but omnipresent. Tashiro often uses the city as a convenient segue between scenes, framing the killer walking through the night, or buildings against the sky. City lights float atop the thick, black night, crisp reflections highlight the films décor, and pale colored lights cast their mood across the cityscape. All of this is reminiscent of Alphaville – relying on the camera to create a futuristic feel, rather than changing the environment. When I asked Tashiro about this, though, he replied:

"The science fiction feel… came about almost by accident. Ironically, I think it results from my desire to create a vaguely period feel that evokes (without literally recreating) late 50s and early 60s LA. Since one of the popular styles of that period was a kind of comic book Futurism (what I refer to as "Jetson Moderne," but which is also known as "Populuxe") that "science fiction" feel comes through."

So the sci-fi feel is, strangely, based in the past. This may be a sort of unintentional oxymoron Tashiro created, which only expands the theoretical swimming pool that the viewer can dive into. At the same time, this idea forms the foundation of Tashiro’s seductive and original images, blending the past, present, and future into the timeless.

To pin a genre on A Vicious Circle would be an unnecessary chore, but let’s try it anyhow. Experimental: too easy. Drama, Crime, Comedy, Dramedy: not exactly. All of these are pulled together into a pastiche –at one time Dramatic, at another Comic, both interchanging constantly throughout scenes and even within sentences. For instance, in one scene The Businessman sweats with nervousness next to the stoic Killer. They exchange words, playing psychiatrist to one another. The Businessman leans over and gives him a white envelope – filled with Monopoly money, which he calmly stuffs back inside. These little gems are scattered throughout the film, repeatedly destroying our expectations and providing much needed chuckles.

(*Spoilers*)
Towards the end of the film, The Businessman pleads with The Killer to not bludgeon him to death with a club. The mood is instantly tense. The Businessman anxiously rubs his knees, while the killer rolls the tip of his golf club across the floor, contemplating murder. “What do I have to do?” the businessman begs. “Maybe you should start singing that little song I taught you,” suggests the killer. Cue Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He sings it like the robot he is – out of pitch, tone, cadence. However poorly, he does sing it, and this provokes a sort of sympathy within the viewer. The addition of the children’s song – which recurs throughout the film – is reminiscent of Winston and his paperweight from 1984. The past is easily whittled down into a simplified memory, so childhood often remains pure. When the Businessman sings even the most rudimentary song, he sings it like a lifeless, ultra-dead zombie-robot. Thus, his ruthless murder by the existentialist Killer.

The title of the film points to the obvious – plot, greed, violence – which are all poignant observations. The most interesting aspects of the film, though, lie outside these directed themes. The dialogue and its delivery, the set design, and the editing all hold a massive amount of meaning – enough to mull over for days. To interpret A Vicious Circle properly is to make the experience itself cyclical – there’s a compulsion to watch it over and over again.

Reviewers and My Hypocrisy

Emanuel Levy

Film review culture remains - and will continue to remain - one of the sluttiest cultures in the Continental United States of America. There are few other areas of review where at junkets - a time for critics to jerk each other off - they are occasionally given cards with a variety of statements on it (probably to the tune of "One of the best family films of the year!" and "An edge-of-the-seat thriller you won't forget!"), where they then proceed to check one of the boxes, sign their name, and put it into print. These quotes are then translated into advertisements, where - at the sight of their own name - critics arouse limp dicks into about three boners, essentially selling themselves for a free vacation, some food, and an intense erection.

The following are some of my most despised film reviewers / critics: the titular Roeper of 'Ebert and Roeper", Emanuel Levy, anyone writing for E! Online and Filmmaker Magazine, most of the people at The Stranger in Seattle or The Chronicle in Austin, and many many more.

Generally, my hate does not stem from their writing style; quite the contrary actually, as pretty much everyone working in the review field is well versed in the English language (I, on the other hand, am still working on this). Their language is typically flamboyant and extravagant, resulting in an entertaining read, but entertainment should not be their only aim. Reviewers and critics should provide justified opinions, because direct opinions are worthless. The most important and didactic part of reviewing lies in the justification. Sure, they'll tell anyone what they think, "A film for philistines from up-state New York," or they'll claim many times a year that this particular film is "The Best Film of the Year!" and get paid spectacularly for that.

The type of review that infuriates me refuses to provide context for their opinion - to go outside the film further than just using similar titles as descriptors ("…like The Godfather series with a dash of Donnie Darko and a splash of Johnny Depp's Captain Sparrow - slap Sally a couple of times and you've got a winner of a film!"). The following excerpt of a review by Emanuel Levy articulates the former statements perfectly:

(Review of Hard Eight)
"Hall, who has become Anderson's quintessential actor (he'll appear in ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Magnolia’), gives Sydney a touch of grave dignity and sad melancholy. As John, a dim but decent fellow, Reilly is sympathetic. Paltrow looks beautiful, but has hard time [sic] conveying Clementine's sudden mood swings and self-destructiveness. Jackson's flamboyance as a small hood with big ambitions recalls his turn in "Pulp Fiction" and other films."

Maybe Mr. Levy really does know his stuff, but if he doesn't have the balls to truly express himself on his webpage, then his soul is done for. Either that or he's just been such a gigantic toolbox for so long, that anything of the slightest importance he had to say was widdled down long ago. The above quote says nothing. It might as well be piss-smeared poop. And, to boot, it has grammatical errors and is ultra sexist: "Paltrow is beautiful, but has hard time [sic] conveying Clementine's sudden mood swings and self-destructiveness." So, in other words, "The make-up artist make Paltrow look like great big slut. Me like that. That kind of makes up for shitty performance. Whatevs."

There is a simple tactic employed by a majority of reviewers: 1/4 opinion - 1/2 summation - 1/4 opinionated description. Opinon is a device honed to suck readers in by the opening paragraph, which involves a reasonable amount of skill. Summation, 1/2 of their talent, relies solely on the translation of the films content, thus requiring the intelligence of an 8th grader. Opinionated description - such as the example above - is a mix requiring varied levels of writing skillz ranging from God-awful to enlightening. This formula is used with surprisingly large numbers, leaving most readership bored.

The New York Times Arts section has its faults, for sure, but generally overcomes this monotony with the touch of A.O. Scott. His reviews are sharp and backed with reasoning, and his insights reveal more about the world and cinema at large, rather than a particular film. A.O. Scott is at a point, though, where he can probably choose what films he wants to review or spotlight, where as other outlets don’t have the same freedom.

One such is TheReeler.com, where S.T. VanAirsdale and his co-editors are forced to review everything from the shittiest summer Hollywood films to foreign art house flick, because they need to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. For this reason, they continue to destroy most films that come their way, as a majority of popular films nowadays are trash.

The antithesis of TheReeler.com would be Jonathan Rosenbaum: an impatient heavyweight who hurls honesty with brutal intent and is threateningly knowledgeable. The day after Ingmar Bergman died he wrote a piece in The New York Times that pretty much said, “He’s not all that great. Here’s why.” Very few people can get away with this type of bluntness, yet somehow he does. It probably has to do with the fact that he’s been writing about films critically for 30+ years, writes for The Chicago Reader, and has published several books in academia. But the latter is also a fault: he often gets too pompous and wordy, to the point of pushing away his readers, which is self-defeating, unless he enjoys appealing to aristocratic jerk-offs.

And, in my opinion, herein lies the void: a middleman between academia and the general public. Translators, so to speak. Someone who can look at contemporary popular film from around the world, evaluate it, judge it, back it up, and write about it in a clear way, therein educating and entertaining people simultaneously. Where light meets dark. A place where king and peasant can shake hands. Where X-Men meet city council.

It’s depressing how much trash is out there. The few critics writing thoughtful reviews provide some comfort: as I mentioned, Jonathan Rosenbaum, TheReeler.com and A.O. Scott, Roger Ebert, everyone from Cineaste, CineAction (notably Robin Wood), occasionally Sight and Sound, and a few others. These people are trying there hardest to deconstruct film criticism and reconstruct it, but this is a daunting task. There are many reviewers, production and distribution companies, and editors who defy them daily in order to keep their effortless monopoly on top. And they do this with regular success.

They do this, in my opinion, by writing too directly towards their audience. Definitley, differences should exist between reviews from different magazines and journals, but everyone’s goal should be the same: To use entertainment as a vehicle for education. Style and substance should be of equal importance. Like advertisements, though, more often than not, style prevails.

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner and Dirty Kitchen Sinks

“I’m telling you straight: they’re cunning, and I’m cunning. If only ‘them’ and ‘us’ had the same ideas we’d get on like a house on fire, but they don’t see eye to eye with us and we don’t see eye to eye with them, so that’s how it stands and how it will always stand. The fact is that all of us are cunning, and because of this there’s no love lost between us.”
- The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (short story)

The short story of THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER identifies its “hidden” themes a bit more bluntly than the film adaptation. Told from a first person reflective standpoint, Collin Smith looks back on his days as a younger man in a Borstal (juvenile detention center), resisting authority and making mischief. The governor of the school, a fair and practical man, sees potential in Colin as a cross country runner, and so pushes him to take first place at an upcoming meet. Author Alan Sillitoe writes this in the same stylistic vein as Catcher In The Rye – using grammar as musical notation and occasionally taking advantage of phonetic spelling. Sillitoe’s own translation to the screen obviously required a lot of restraint, relying much more on the filmic qualities of mise-en-scene (everything inside the film frame) and editing to reiterate these ideas through subtleties. The short story renders the reader as a participant in the story, Collin occasionally speaking directly to the reader, “…In-law blokes like you and them, all on the watch for Out-law blokes like me and us – and waiting to ‘phone for the coppers as soon as we make a false move.” Smith assumes that you’re guilty until proven innocent, and will not hasten to speak it to your face. He’s lost faith in society, and yearns to escape it.

Tony Richardson took on the project as director, having spearheaded the “British Kitchen Sink Realism” (Also referred to as British New Wave and British Realism) movement alongside Karel Reisz (SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING) and Lindsay Anderson (THE SPORTING LIFE). Sillitoe’s story lent itself perfectly to their cause: an angry young man seeking a self-indulgent, almost masochistic, sort of vengeance for the various injustices put upon him by the Borstal and society at large; the only problem being that he is part of that system which pushes him down time and time again, and thus the repression is nearly impossible to escape. The core problems lie in the heavily engrained classicism that Britain was built upon, and the social and economic inequalities that this inevitably leads to.

As an Oxford-educated director, who owned a village of 10 houses and eventually moved to LA to live a life of lush glamour, Tony Richardson doesn’t sound like the most ideal candidate to have founded such a movement. But Richardson possessed a calm yet demanding demeanor, and had reputable ambition. He formed The English Stage Company at The Royal Court Theater, where his theatrical productions, in collaboration with writer John Osborne, (notably LOOK BACK IN ANGER) became the foundation from which “British Kitchen Sink Realism” was built.

For all of the privileges in Richardson’s life, most of his childhood was spent living atop his father’s pharmacy, cooped up in a small room with his father, brother, two grandmothers, and his mother who had the duty of “incessant preparation for the next meal and the next and the next – work day in, day out, without respite and without end.” His aristocratic roots lie in one of his grandmother’s who came more from the northeast where his extended family “had tennis courts and Labrador retrievers and guns.” Richardson visited them every Sunday, “but not too often – as that might be ‘taking advantage.’” Richardson grew up with a taste of both worlds - the exploited and exploiters – but those of the latter would be his ticket to Oxford, The Royal Court Theater, and eventually his friends and collaborators.

In an essay by Tony Richardson entitled, “The Two Worlds of Cinema,” Richardson also acknowledges the two different realms in which films are made: Independent and Hollywood pictures. These two worlds are not so different from the two worlds Richardson grew up in. Woodfall Productions, which Tony Richardson also founded with his first film LOOK BACK IN ANGER, worked well outside the bounds of any Hollywood-like environment. Richardson used fresh actors with little experience, real locations when feasible, and small crews. After the success of SATURDAY NIGHT…, he went on to direct a film in Hollywood based on a William Faulkner novel entitled SANCTUARY. Richardson reflects on his experiences.

"I’m thrilled I went there because I know that I never want to make a film in Hollywood again… When one enters the Hollywood setup, one is always promised the earth, and you think that you can beat them at their own game and that you can handle these people. But you can’t, because the underlining is not big and dramatic. It is not as though there are great issues in which one refuses in a black and white way not to compromise, it’s in every tiny detail that the whole quality of the picture is eroded away leaving nothing."

This passage is, interestingly, a perfect insight into LONELINESS, as Richardson and Colin Smith face very similar problems. When Smith enters the Borstal, he thinks he can “beat them at their own game,” and although he succeeds in creating an impression on his keepers, nothing lasting is achieved. Smith compromises no “great issues” in his thoughts or the way he thinks about the world, but in his plans to escape the system that holds him prisoner, he fails to recognize the little details, and ultimately sinks to the bottom of the Borstal’s world at the conclusion of the film. The only things that keep him going are his ideals, arrogance, and that he’ll one day be released. Richardson, as well, would be released from the clutches of Hollywood, and return to Britain to direct A TASTE OF HONEY, followed by LONELINESS, both directed within the true vein of independent filmmaking.

Italian Neo-Realism, its predecessor from the mid-1940’s, also worked outside of the mainstream, using the same minimalist techniques that Kitchen Sink Dramas used, in an attempt to give voice to the lower-classes. Since these movements hold much in common, Italian Neo-Realism is considered more significant since it was the originator of the form. In addition, The French New Wave was just getting off the ground at the same time as British New Wave. The highly acclaimed films of Truffaut, Godard, and Resnais, tended to overshadow the importance of Kitchen Sink Dramas during that time, and continue to do so today. For these reasons, British Kitchen Sink Realism continues to be a specialized subject, left mainly to academics who lack the critics to translate their texts into readable English for typical moviegoers.

The back story of LONELINESS is told through flashbacks, providing the story of how Colin got pent up in the Borstal, which is rooted in his dysfunctional home life and lower class background. More importantly, the flashbacks give Colin the opportunity to escape and free himself of his present reality. Much of LONELINESS revolves around the idea of freedom, and how one can possibly be - or become - “free” in a society that constantly cannibalizes each other for their capitalist ends. Colin’s mother uses the insurance money from the accidental death of his father to go on a four month shopping spree. The Borstal’s governor uses Colin to win a race against a respected school. Colin even thinks about playing it straight and conforming properly to the Borstal, just so he can be released early. The catch-22s and contradictions of British society (and many other societies) leaves very few possibilities for escape. There are a few liberating moments in the film when this seems possible, notably when Colin and his lover go to the beach for an isolated weekend where debauchery is overlooked and there is plenty of room to run around. For the most part, though, all one can do is run. Run away from various problems, for very long distances over an extended period of time.

It is while Smith is running that he has the opportunity to think clearly. He’s so busy thinking that by the time the race is almost over, he has all the energy to blow in the world, because he’s barely realized he’s been running at all. Smith says at the beginning of the film that, “Running’s always been big in my family. Especially from the cops.” But this is the beauty of running in an organized event: it gives each player equal chance in a game with rigid rules. This is not true of, say, Smith’s education, as he can’t learn without the money to buy books, intelligent professors, and the like. But when Smith says that, “The winning post is no end,” this clearly indicates that he has very little interest in sports. In an exchange between The Governer of the school and the new psychologist, the true nature of the school’s sports program surfaces.

Psychologist: “How do we tackle the basic aggression, which these lads obviously feel?”
Governor: “By channeling it in the right direction.”
Psychologist: “I was just wondering if life isn’t more complicated than a football match.”

The fact that The Governor exploits his students for a personal goal is exactly what makes Colin detest not only him, but most of the world. What makes this worse, is that The Governor is, in effect, doing nothing to help them emotionally or psychologically as he is only “channeling” their energy, rather than understanding where their anger comes from.

Tom Courtenay, on the otherhand, knows exactly where this anger derives from. Deep down, the Smith on screen holds those same subversive thoughts and fiery hatred as the literary one, but as film can’t express internal thoughts directly in the same way writing can, this has to be expressed through other means. Voice over is one technique, and is utilized to some extent, but it can only be used so much without overshadowing the unique qualities of film. Courtenay’s facial features alone have the ability to express exactly what the short story aimed for and more, with a smirk that hints strongly at contempt and a gaze that penetrates with obviously subdued arrogance, Courtenay transforms the typical “angry young man” into an even more sympathetic antihero. Richard Burton of THE ANGRY SILENCE was the archetypal angry young man, Alan Bates came along in SATURDAY NIGHT… adding a whimsical innocence to the character, and Tom Courtenay just builds upon this character once again with his restraint.

When considering how long this movement was in the making, The Kitchen Sink Dramas seem restrained. The young, the angry, and the impoverished waited impatiently for a voice to popularize their injustices, and British New Wave delivered this lavishly. The tradition of giving a voice to those who need one most has been carried along cinema since the Lumiere Brothers, each generation represented by one movement or another.

For all the jabbering that I’ve written about thus far, Iron Maiden summarizes all of these thoughts and more into their succinct song “The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner.” This is, surprisingly, homage to the film LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER.

Iron Maiden is the new Tony Richardson.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
By Iron Maiden


The tough of the track
With the wind
And the rain that’s beating down on your back
Your hearts beating loud
And goes on getting louder
And goes on even more til the
Sound is ringing in your head
With every step you tread
And every breath you take
Determination
Makes you run never stop
Got to win got to run til you drop
Keep the pace hold the race
Your mind is getting clearer
You’re over half way there
But the miles they never seem to end
As if you’re in a dream
Not getting anywhere
It seems so futile

Run on and on
Run on and on
The loneliness of the long distance runner

I’ve got to keep running the course
I’ve got to keep running and win at all costs
I’ve got to keep going be strong

Must be so determined and push myself on

Run over stiles across fields
Turn to look at who’s on your heels
Way ahead of the field
The line is getting nearer but do
You want the glory that goes
You reach the final stretch
Ideals are just a trace
You feel like throwing the race
It’s all so futile


Sources

Claydon, Anna. The Representation of Masculinity in British Cinema of the 1960’s. Edwin Mellen Press Ltd. Lewiston, NY. 2005

Richardson, Tony. Long Distance Runner.
Woodfall America inc. London. 1993.

Sillitoe, Alan. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.
Signet Classics. New York, New York. 1959

Geduld, Harry. Film Makers on Film Making.
Indiana Unviersity Press. Indiana. 1967.

www.wikipedia.org

www.imdb.com

*Soon to be published at www.austinfilm.org

On The Air, Slightly Off

"I'm talking about little details, little abstractions. God is in the details."
-David Lynch on Twin Peaks


In 1992, riding the wave of the pseudo-success of Twin Peaks, David Lynch tried his hand at TV for the second time with On The Air. Lynch recycles many of the same actors he used in the past – Ian Buchanan and Miguel Ferrer – as well as collaborating with Robert Engels and Mark Frost with writing and direction. The result feels very much like Twin Peaks, but with less constraint and guidance by the story, making a more immediately satisfying experience, but without the feeling – as a viewer – of accomplishing something.

There are no through-lines to speak of. On The Air follows the cast and crew of ZBC's production of "The Lester Guy Show," a live variety show broadcasting the nation over in the year 1957. Lester Guy (Ian Buchanan), a fallen screen actor, is raised again, as a risk investment, by the hands of Bud Budwaller (Miguel Ferrer). Like clockwork, the show fails time and time again, but succeeds for this very reason. Their audience thinks this incompetence is hilarious. Although Lester Guy is the titular character of the show, Betty tends to steal his glory each and every time with her beauty, innocence, and hyperbolically liberating stupidity.

All of these characters give brilliant performances, as one can only expect from Lynch. And even though the characters of Ferreer and Buchanan are suspiciously reminiscent of Twin Peaks, this does not detract from their endearing qualities. Ferrer is only viscious and unrelentingly blunt because of his passion for his profession, and his need to create quality work. Buchanaon is a dramatist, and even though his true intents lie beyond the desire for drama, his ambition and talent alone leave the viewer with a sense of sympathy, if not soiled in a puddle of distrust.

It's easy to compare On The Air with Twin Peaks, but it's difficult not to: their succession in Lynch's timeline, same actors playing similar roles, and – at times – a similar overall tone. The most significant difference lies in the fact that the story does not make a large, unending arch, but rather it rushes from beginning to end many times from episode to episode. The characters and their conflicts, rather than plot, create a string from which to hang each episode. Also, it’s important to note that On The Air is a comedy, not a melodrama. Saturated in physical and slapstick comedy, with splashes of nostalgia for Chaplin and the silent era, Lynch renews this generic form with his own style. He is only predictable so much as he’s unpredictable, which is why his work is so interesting, and worthy of study.

Lynch is often considered more or less modernist in his approach to self expression, and this is true, I think, for the most part. There seems to be a way to "crack" each one of his films and scoop up some sort of absolute truth. On The Air, on the other hand, is ridiculous silliness – plain and simple. Postmodern one might say. The director of the TV show, Mr. Zoblotnick (Sydney Lassick), inexplicably speaks with an indecipherable accent that mixes Irish, Russian, Italian, French, and Extraterrestrial English simultaneously, and without explanation. Globalization? Lynch also pokes fun at a variety of genres throughout the show, for instance, when a the TV troupe attempts to remake a death-row scene from a film, and completely butchers it – Bud reading from last week's script, people forgetting lines, ducks going in and out of the frame. Parody? Pastiche? Of course, there are also the surrealist elements mixed up in there, as well.

Ironically, the main piece that seems to be missing from On The Air is that modernist touch. That reassuring pat on the back that seems to say, "Don't worry, there's at least something at the end of the tunnel." There are moments in On The Air that have such great potential for genuine beauty, and Lynch comes within a hairs width of achieving this at times – setting the stage for a character's performance to really shine through – but he simply cuts it too short. All these pieces needed was another 45 seconds and beauty would have been attained.

To do this, though, would be to break away from what the show is really about: criticizing the world of television coldly and ruthlessly without exception, audience, writer, director, producer, crew all included. There's a good possibility this stems from Lynch's discontent working with ABC on Twin Peaks, and, indeed, they did fuck him. Royally so. But, as anger and retaliation so often is, the result is unsatisfying. Twin Peaks felt more wholesome, always working towards something with the concrete and allowing for space with the abstract. On The Air leaves only the abstract in a space where viewers typically expect the concrete – the TV series. It was a healthy, sound idea, and it only adds to the history and experience of television, but it's reasons for flopping are obvious and abundant. Those little details aren’t there. And, as Lynch puts it himself, “God is in the details.”

Cyclo and Loving Movies That Hate Me

As a former member of the upper-middle class, sporting a suburban background as a white male, most movies I love don't reciprocate. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way, because - and I think this is true of a lot of people - I kind of hate myself. I don't possess masochistic tendencies and I'd like to think I'm a pretty stable guy, but it gets pretty exhausting being constantly assaulted by every film I watch - because any film worth a damn is going to be rooted in it's present social context to some extent, and most likely criticize it. It’s only natural that films take dead aim at me. That said, there are infinitely worse things than this.

For instance, Cyclo (1995) made me feel like a real big piece of shit - that is, of course, within a whole myriad of other emotions and reactions. And feeling like a piece of shit isn’t a reflection of a soiled cinematic experience, but rather proof of its effectiveness. Anh Hung Tran, Cyclo's director, is a top secret up-and-comer in the international film scene, having only directed five films to date - three of which come dangerously close to achieving brilliance (The Scent of Green Papaya [1993], Cyclo, and Vertical Ray of Sun [2000]). And yet, somehow, these films seem to have slipped under the radar of most critics. Maybe this is because it’s difficult to categorize within a genre or dictate a country of origin. There is little doubt that this is a Thai film, but it’s interesting to note that Tran, originally from Thailand, fills most of his key crew positions with Frenchmen (and women) and currently resides in France. Despite this, all of his projects thus far have been shot in, about, and on Thailand.

Cyclo follows a number of nameless young adults struggling to come to terms with adulthood, attempting forget their respective pasts and move forward in life with a good economic foothold. An honest, hard-working kid stumbles deep into the Thai underworld and tries to resist the temptation and allure of death, along with other disparate characters whose paths cross occasionally throughout the film.

Cyclo hammer's it's viewers in the face. With a cinematic style close to the visual and vocal poetics of Terrance Mallick and taking narrative pointers from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Italian Neorealism, Cyclo jumps all over the thematic map - from loss of innocence to alientaed rural areas, from substance abuse to collective subconscious and more. Even then, though, Tran has the ability to bring beauty to anything he pleases with ostentatiously relaxed control. He is not afraid to break stylistic consistency in order to communicate an idea in a more efficient manner. Cyclo, at the halfway point, for a few moments, seems to drop everything it's been working towards to allot time for Tran to guide us through the dilapidated decay of the Thai country side, using the poetics of Tony Leung on top of jump cuts of children standing still as stone, who standout sharply against the piles of trash that background them.

When all was said and done, I thought about a Podcast that a friend of mine - Charles Tashiro - had published on "Liking vs. Loving Movies" It's difficult to say whether or not I "love" Cyclo, but it certainly hit me in much the same way that others have in the past. Sans Soleil or In The Mood For Love, for instance are films that I love, and it's for this reason that I don't watch them very often. They're very intense, involving films that require a lot of effort on both sides of the screen, and unless I amp myself up for a good little while, I most likely won't choose to watch it. Lost in Translation, on the other hand, is a film that I enjoy very much. A film I can pop in at any time and watch endlessly, until my eyes bleed and I unknowingly sit in a pile of my own excrement.

But if films were people, then I'd say that most of the films I love would hate me - that is if we met at a party and shook hands, and then began to judge each other from across the room. If we were to actually sit down and shoot the shit, I'm sure we'd become great friends. As things stand now though, I have yet to chit chat with any of the films I love.

AKIRA: Critics take note

It's easy enough to get lost in the immense spectacle of Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA (1988), from the vividly lush landscapes of it's setting - Neo Tokyo - to the plethora of detail stuffed into every frame. To do this, though, is to circumvent the story, characters, and themes without acknowledging and understanding them sufficiently. Definitely, the visuals alone have the ability to terrify and belittle viewers with their awesomeness, a form of education in their own right. But even film critics have stopped at this, simply identifying thematic elements and leaving it at that. In academic circles, too, AKIRA has remained largely unanalyzed, and will most likely remain so until it's remade into a live-action film 5 or 10 years down the road (there have been talks and rumors since the mid-90's)

The story is an epic one. Set 30 years after WWIII in the year of 2019, Neo Tokyo is in a state of fractious civil uprisings. Suicide bombers, organized attacks on the government, and political corruption are all too ubiquitously routine, and yet, through it all, everyday life continues. Kaneda and Tetsuo adapt to their environment as best they can, riding the streets recklessly in search of trouble and debauchery. But there’s a freak occurrence during a battle with a rival gang, and Tetsuo becomes deeply intertwined with a dangerous government agency involving ESPER children (individuals born with telepathic abilities). Tetsuo finds himself in a lab and discovers that, years ago, Akira was born in the same set of experiments, only to be frozen shortly after because of his catastrophic power. If Akira awakes for a second time, it will be the responsibility of all mankind to deal with – united or divided.

Director Katsuhiro Otomo began his career as an aspiring manga artist in the rural landscape of Miyagi Prefecture. After graduating from high school he picked-up and tried his luck in Tokyo, attempting to find commissions as a professional manga artist. Beginning at Action Magazine drawing short comic strips, he would later move on to publish DOMU, a manga more in the vein of a graphic novel, which launched his career as a nationally renowned artist. Serialized from 1980-1982, here, too we find Otomo grappling with collective subconscious, juvenile delinquency and adult disenchantment with youth, all central themes that permeate both AKIRA and his second feature film, STEAMBOY (2004).

Directly after DOMU’s popular acceptance, Otomo began what would define his career with the most internationally influential manga to date, AKIRA. Beginning in 1982 and culminating in 1990 (note that AKIRA the film was released in 1988), this epic cyber-punk sci-fi serial finally concluded at 2000+ pages, and was later bound into 6 separate volumes. With each page composed of 8-12 frames, Otomo stood facing the daunting task of adapting roughly 16,000 shots for the film.

And so the long adaptation process began. The disparities between the manga and film are plenty: from the complete absence of central characters to neglected themes. So the film is by no means an accurate translation, but rather a re-envisioning of the original ideas. For instance, the entirety of AKIRA vol. 5 is dedicated to the various competing factions that skirmish for power over the new “Tokyo Empire”. The major ideas in question are, “At humanity’s current state of social, physical, and cultural evolution, how do humans organize themselves?” And, “How does the need to hold and control power implicate this organization?” Definitely, these questions are omnipresent throughout most of the manga, but in vol. 5 it is made almost black and white: There are four powerful groups who want control of Neo Tokyo, and not all of them can have it. In the film this is, more or less, paired down to a conflict between the army and Akira and Tetsuo, so the conflict seems more of a dichotomy - conjuring connotations of the long-winded battle between “man and nature” - rather than the more chaotic urban fighting involving many parties.

That said, human organizational complexity is still present in the film, somewhat through the plot and characters, but also through subtleties in the environment. A neat little feature on the special edition DVD points out and translates a choice of graffiti riddled throughout Neo Tokyo, and, curiously, a vast majority of the writing bears revolutionary messages such as, “Struggle, Oppose Imperialism!” and counter-cries as well, to the conservative tune of, “Smash The Strike!” So, although the various revolutionary rivalries are not physically foregrounded in the film, they are certainly present in the background, and thanks to this nifty feature, foreign audiences are allowed at least a little taste of these important tidbits strewn throughout the film.

These messages are just a small element in helping create a more holistic environment for a revolution / apocalypse. AKIRA is notorious for its use of “excessive violence”, and although this is forgrounded to some degree in the film, it’s used as a sort of punctuation, rather than a means to an end in itself. To depict this sort of revolution and destruction without violence would be an inaccuracy. But, even respected critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader states that, “Grade-school violence freaks may find a few kicks…” and Michael Adkinson of Village Voice coins it, “juvenile and baffling.” A typical review of AKIRA is composed of the identification of groundbreaking visuals, and then moves onto the condemnation of violence, followed by a summation comprising _ of the review, and finally a tip-of-the-hat for internationalizing the anime genre.

While there is much more to AKIRA than critics give it credit for, some people might give it a little too much credit. AKIRA’s cult following has cultivated the film’s original ideas, elevating it to a new plane of reality – much like that of STAR TREK, STAR WARS, or THE MATRIX trilogy. Various unofficial websites are dedicated to AKIRA, covering everything from character history to Kaneda’s bike specs (if anyone is curious, the bike is “rumored to be a Honda” and has a drag coefficient of CD=.024).

This is simply an indicator of AKIRA’s enormous international influence, shaping viewer’s interest in animation and raising-the-bar on professional animation techniques (at $8 million, AKIRA had the highest animation cost of all time, and was also considered the most detailed animation ever created, merging over 7 production companies together just to gain sufficient labor power). One objective that AKIRA’s release failed to capture, though, was to persuade critics to take anime seriously. As things stand now, AKIRA will probably go down in history as purely visual stimulus, while its much larger questions of human nature remain undiscovered and unanalyzed.


Sources

www.wikipedia.org

http://www.akira2019.com/

http://www.bbakira.co.uk

Akira Special Edition DVD

ÉAÉLÉâ(AKIRA) Vol.1 – Vol.6 English and Japanese edition

The Chicago Reader – Capsule – Jonathan Rosenbaum

Village Voice – The Art of The Ridiculous Sublime – 03/26/01 - Michael Adkinson

www.imdb.com

Apologies....

... to the 1.5 people reading my blog out there.


I've been very busy the past couple weeks, namely graduating and work. The better of my two jobs entails film research, so for the past week or so I've been looking into "British Kitchen Sink Realism" (also referred to as British Realism or British New Wave), a brief film movement from the late 50's, early 60's, that foregrounds working class citizens - typically 20-somethings - struggling against the deeply entrenched class system in England. The directors are relatively unknown today - Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Bryan Forbes, Jack Clayton to name a few - with the exception of John Schlesinger, who continued to make movies until his death in 2003.

The titular "Kitchen Sink" is meant to be slightly ironic, deriving from the way kitchen sinks are typically viewed in British films before and after this movement: clean, pearly white porcelain that idealizes the bourgeois household - a kind of holy grail of success. This is precisely the portrayal of Britain that Tony Richardson - the father of the movement - intended to destroy with his first theatrical production Look Back In Anger, which was only later adapted to the film medium. It was a critical success to be sure, but certainly not fiscally. On and on the story goes. The establishment of Woodfall Films, the creation of some of the most highly acclaimed British films (The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Taste of Honey, Room at The Top, etc.), it's failures and subsequent demise.

All that said, I have yet to see any of these films. Ha ha! I'm still waiting on a few to arrive, at which point I'll start studying and writing on those. As a result of the research, I've posted a few more links on the side bar.

At any rate, lack of writing = No Good. Definitley go time.

Bubble: Already Forgotten

This film will be forgotten and overlooked. The characters, and the millions of people they represent, will also be forgotten and overlooked. Time has already proven both to be true.


Bubble, conceived, produced, and cast in the small town of Belpre, Ohio, follows the lives of three working class citizens trying to eek out living wages at depressingly dead-end jobs producing dolls. Kyle – an awkward, 20-something, high school dropout - molds the dolls from plastic and passes them off to the hulking, red hands of Martha, where she applies facial cosmetics for an undoubtedly diminutive wage. This, they do daily, passing the time with small talk in the breakroom and between shifts, sustaining off of fast food and soda. Much of Bubble is composed of what a typical TV show or film may refer to as “filler”, and is in fact the focus of the film. With foley, seemingly unprocessed sound, and being shot on HD with a hand-held camera, Soderbergh attempts to give that - yet again - documentary feel to his subjects, presenting them with candid grace.

Released in 2004, this was supposedly the first of 6 locally shot, small town films to be directed by Soderbergh and released through HD networks. What happened to this deal? No one seems to be too sure. Then again, Soderbergh is one of the more interesting exploiters of Hollywood cash, his career entirely composed of contradictions and surprises, so it’s no wonder the deal mysteriously vanished. His films post-Bubble have ranged from the third installment of the lucrative Ocean’s series to the absolute flop of The Good German. It’s a bummer, though, that this deal wasn’t seen through, as the films would most definitely create local film collectives around the country, while simultaneously providing a small economic boost for the communities as a whole. But, alas, it’s quite possible that Bubble simply did not do well enough in the boxoffice, on TV or DVD, as not even the progressive distribution idea didn’t provide a big enough push for the film (Grindhouse recently attempted the same with it’s trailer, also falling flat on it’s face).

This creative form of distribution logically follows the experimental nature of Bubble (that is, by Hollywood standards). Soderbergh does his best to properly represent this growing class of the borderline impoverished. For the most part, he does a fantastic job of remaining subtle and implicit, eliciting wonderfully ad hoc dialogue from his inexperienced cast with his well-worked script (by the talented Coleman Hough). The film works precisely because nothing substantial takes place for the first half of the film, that is, until Rose comes along.

The doll factory receives a large order from an ambiguous buyer, hiring Rose as a temporary to fill in the labor holes this creates. She’s introduced to her co-workers through her manager - who gives one of the best, most forgettably amazing two-appearance-roles to date, fitting the “I’m a gigantic middle-management toolbox” position better than any of the other alarmingly few American films that attempt to portray the lives of the lower-middle class.

Rose befriends both Martha and Kyle in a hurry, seeking companionship from Kyle, and debtless favors from the morally guided Martha. Martha becomes deeply jealous of Rose – the audience only made aware of this through ever-so-slight, off-kilter behavior – and as one conflict leads to another, murder ensues, at which point Bubble sells the appeal it garnered for cheap narrative convention. Bubble takes a unadventurous narrative function, displaces it in a relatively unexplored locale in smalltown Ohio, and captures it’s inhabitants with an unconventional style, in the hope of attracting the type of viewership that is accustom to this type of storytelling. The result is a pastiche of form and content rather than symbiosis, clutter instead of fusion. Thus, as the story goes – and has gone since the silent era, the earliest days of literature, and the ancient pictographs of days past - the remainder of the film is dedicated to the inevitable capture and incarceration of the culprit, leaving little to the imagination.

It’s the lack of narrative direction that made Bubble so interesting in the first place, and this is shattered through generic convention. Sodeberg has, essentially, through imperial mandate, made a film about a people whose jobs he, “…cannot imagine doing [himself]” (DVD special features).

Luckily, the first half of the film resonates across the American class-scape, and the consistent realist style thoroughly engages the viewer to the point of forgiving the second half of the film. At the same time, we can all be glad that Bubble has already made the inevitable plunge into the awkward space of non-memory. In this sense, the film – and the public at large – remains true to the meandering characters of Bubble, and the people it represents.

Inland Empire: Experiential Cinema

Staggering beauty infused with insane terror, reflexivity contrasted against intensely driven characters, reality paired against levels of fantasy: Inland Empire has the imprints of a master’s touch, everything Lynch has aspired to through Transcendental Meditation, spirituality, and his pursuit of film as the highest form of Art.

Hints of Lynch's past films linger in Inland Empire, like the many traces of the Mystery genre that provide the plot driving force of all his films. The innocent introductions of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Wild At Heart invite the most conservative filmgoer to enter his work through conventional beginnings, speckled with punctuations of the insane, only to be exposed to the full onslaught of Lynch's psyche much later than expected. Most likely unconscious, Lynch shatters expectations and completely destroys the very idea of genre through abrupt shift in tonal qualities, an example of which is physically manifested by The Blue Box in Mulholland Drive. Once opened, there is no turning back for both the character and the spectator.

Both Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire share much in terms of "plot", but when considering style, Inland Empire demonstrates a maturity that shies in comparison to the rest of his work, but not at the expense of his impromptu, almost youthful buoyancy. The most obvious stylistic departure can be found in the very existence of reflexivity in Inland Empire. Camera lenses, projectors, and plot construction discussions are liberally peppered throughout the film, exposing Lynch's new hope – and cynicism – with the medium of film, or more specifically, video.

Inland Empire is the first video project in Lynch's oeuvre. In every recent interview I've seen with Lynch, there has been a repetitive mention of how "liberating" video is, and how he will never return to film. Anyone who reads these interviews – as I was – will most likely find this the regretful last words of an absolutist. After viewing this film, though, I truly hope he never returns for the following reason: as an auteur, Lynch is more versatile and free to express himself in his ostensibly stream of consciousness filmmaking style. Without gigantic 35mm film rigs to haul around, big budgets, or large crews, video bodes well with Lynch’s content and thoroughly compliments his style.

Inland Empire exploits the simplest of plots in a big way. By stripping away typical storytelling conventions, he simply throws results into the viewers face. Sure, there’s a semblance of a story, but this only provides the thinnest through-line to hang Lynch’s style and subplots off of. For better or worse – this line snaps about 20 minutes into the film, and never ties itself back together. Laura Dern in the most unmotivated, yet acutely affective role of her career, portrays Hollywood celebrity, Nikki Grace. Boosting her career to an even bigger stardom, she manages to snag a leading role in an upcoming Hollywood film with co-star Devon Berk (Justin Theroux). In the most evocative turning point in Inland Empire, they rehearse the blockbuster script with the film’s director, and are informed that the last two times this script was attempted, both lead actors were killed – both times. They joke and beat around the bush, and then dive right into a read-through. Close-ups of Devon and Nikki fill the screen - the hand-held camera providing that loose, documentary feel - emotionally tearing at each other with poetic lines of dialogue. The sequence peaks with Nikki trying to subdue an escaped tear that discreetly rolls down her cheek . As always in Lynch’s films, moments like these tend to verge on the melodramatic (music serves as the backbone), but Lynch manages to bring a very real poignancy to the scenes through intense direction – to both his actors and technical style. We hear a crash on the set behind them, halting their performance. Regrouping, they attempt to proceed with the scene again. A crash strikes once more. Each character silently waits for someone to take action, staring with profound concentration for a few moments, and Devon is off to investigate the still echoing noise. Whispers and distant taps amplify the viewers suggestive powers tenfold, the sounds resonating through mysteriously empty frames that both constrict and liberate our senses. This is a key moment where fantasy and reality first collide.

It’s at this point that the mysteriously cryptic script begins to take on a life of it’s own. Nikki’s character in this script, and Nikki in Inland Empire are weaved in and out of each other in a pastiche of scenes as disparate and far ranging as musical and horror. It is at this moment the film becomes completely incomprehensible and – partly thanks to this – comes to be deeply frightening.

There are always those people who will say, after all’s said and done, “Wait, what happened?” This is a futile and pointless question, although very tempting to ask. So tempting, in fact, that on the DVD of Lynch’s last film, Mulholland Drive, there are a list of 10 questions to help guide the viewer to “figure the story out.” This cute, mystery-solving (and thus, spoiling) feature, when applied to Inland Empire, will only result in annoyance and aggravation.

My advice? Don’t study it. Don’t attempt to understand it. Don’t try to make connections. Just experience it and let it wash over, at least once. And if that human instinct for understanding sneaks up on you, then, by all means, watch it again, pick it apart, and get frustrated.