Politicizing the Horrific: How American Anxieties Play Out on Screen

Written by Matthew Jones

*Contains some spoilers for The Purge: Election Year (2016), The Witch (2016), and Get Out (2017).

It is not new or revolutionary to connect the political and social realities of our times to films that we produce and consume. There is a longstanding tradition of drawing political theory from film, and producing films with specific political motivations. As far back as the 1920’s, films from the Soviet Union were produced with the sole intention of promoting socialism and national unity. It could be argued that the vast majority of American war films also have a nationalistic message and pro-democracy slant. Setting aside these more overt examples, it is especially prevalent to read underlying political messages in horror films. Contemporary analyses of the genre have led film historians and critics to theorize that trends in horror films often reflect larger trends in politics. For example, the rise of zombie films in Hollywood tends to coincide with the rise of far-right, conservative parties. These are rather broad trends, both simple in nature and readily identifiable by mass audiences. However, there has been a fracture in American politics in recent years that has been both complex and far-reaching. This fracture, which has many moving parts and intricacies to account for, has been more difficult to see in films. It is most evident in the recent and controversial election of Donald Trump, as well as the rise of the Alt-Right movement, and conversely, with the meteoric rise and popularity of Bernie Sanders, an outspoken socialist and progressive politician, along with such movements as Occupy Wall Street. The nation, as a whole, is simultaneously perceived as having strayed far to the left, becoming more secular under the presidency of Barack Obama, and at the very same time more traditional and reactionary, clinging to Christian fundamentalism and racial discrimination. Income inequality, gun violence, gay rights, climate change, abortion, and religious zealotry, among many other issues, have all exacerbated concerns that the country is careening toward some unknown and possibly terrifying end. And Hollywood has tapped into these fears; catering films to niche audiences that see these issues differently and generally hold vastly different political, moral, and religious views (one would not think that the same people who went to see Heaven Is For Real would also be inclined to visit the theater for Nymphomaniac). But filmmakers have pandered to their audience for decades, and there is very little evidence that this practice has become more pronounced in any major way. Nonetheless, the fractures in American society are not lost in the films we watch. While we may not see notable trends in the popularity of certain genres or subgenres, we can see these fractures within the individual narratives, and our own interpretations of those narratives. This is particularly true of horror films, as they are a unique genre, insofar as the primary aim of a horror film is to frighten its audience. If a certain horror film uses elements that the audience does not find frightening, it falls flat, and fails to execute its intended purpose. Therefore, horror films must implement those things that frighten us.

There is always an element of fear entangled in politics, to varying degrees and in a variety of ways. Politicians use fear for their own purposes, often to cast the opposition party or candidate in a negative light. Groups and individuals use fear to incite violence or chaos, and many people fear that the government or corporations are gaining too much power over their lives. This causes some of our most basic fears as human beings, regarding survival and general well being, to be played out at the ballot box. But, more often than not, all of our complex fears and anxieties are channeled into a singular fear of ‘The Other,’ the invisible enemy that (we believe) undermines our values and can, if left to its own devices, ultimately lead to our destruction. For some, it can be the opposing political party, for others, it can be a different religion or skin color or culture. We are always looking for a scapegoat, someone to embody and justify our fears, something to help set ourselves up as good and righteous by comparison. It has always been a trope of the horror genre to establish a dichotomy between two distinct ideologies (Good vs. Evil, Normal vs. Abnormal, Human vs. Inhuman, etc.), and these distinctions allow for horror films to be easily read as political in nature. The horror filmmakers find what scares us, what keeps us awake at night, and then use those fears within narratives containing two polarized elements that are ostensibly apolitical, to then be read as political. Looking at the following films: The Purge: Election Year (2016), The Witch (2016), and Get Out (2017), it is evident that recent horror films showcase the increasing fracture and polarization of American politics, and benefit from national anxieties and paranoia regarding the future of the nation.

Just like its predecessors, The Purge: Election Year centers on a national holiday (of sorts), during which all crimes, including murder, are made legal. This holiday, known simply as the Purge, was created by the ruling party, The New Founding Fathers or NFFA. At the beginning of the film, riots break out all over Washington D.C. in anticipation of the election and in protest of the Purge. Charlie Roan, a senator running against the ruling party’s candidate, sees the Purge as a tool of the rich and powerful to wipe out the poor and disenfranchised. The day before the annual Purge, the NFFA rescinds a rule stating that government officials cannot be killed, paving the way for them to assassinate Roan and remain in power. “Murder Tourists” flood US airports, excitedly entering the country to watch and/or participate in the Purge. As the Purge begins, chaos ensues; various assailants, including a Neo-Nazi squad working on behalf of the NFFA, chase Roan through the city. This game of cat-and-mouse culminates in a ritualistic mass at a cathedral, conducted by Minister Owens, Roan’s opponent in the presidential race.

The Purge: Election Year (2016)

The second film, The Witch, follows a devoutly Christian family in 17^th century New England. After being forced from the local community over a dispute regarding different biblical interpretations, William, Katherine, and their four children move far from the village, and settle near an ominous forest. Soon after the move, Katherine gives birth to Samuel. While playing with his sister, Samuel suddenly disappears. It is revealed to the audience that Samuel was abducted and killed by a witch living in the woods. The family quickly falls to infighting, with much of the blame for his disappearance falling on their eldest daughter, Thomasin. Though the family lacks food and money, and is terrorized by Satanic apparitions and disturbances, they continue to cling to their faith.

In the final and most recent film, Get Out, a young black man, Chris, is apprehensive to meet the parents of his white girlfriend, Rose. As Chris spends more time with her family, he notices that something is amiss. The family’s black servants act very strangely, and Rose’s mother insists on hypnotizing Chris, under the guise of helping him quit smoking. When Chris tries to escape the family, Rose admits her role in deceiving him, revealing that Rose’s parents habitually abduct black people, hypnotize them, and transplant the consciousness of older white people into their bodies. The victims are forced to live in a subdued state, at the mercy of the controlling white consciousness. Rose’s father claims that they choose black people because they are “the in fad.”

All three films operate as horror films (Get Out is the only one considered a ‘horror-comedy’), with the horror stemming from various sources. In The Purge, the horror comes from the unrestrained violence that society (within the film) allows. Anybody can commit any heinous act they desire during the Purge without consequences. In The Witch, the horror stems from religious anxieties, both in regard to the unknown consequences of sin, as well as the fear of religious persecution. And finally, in Get Out, the fear of racial discrimination, as well as the fear of becoming a slave, create the horror. In all three films, horror also stems from more simplistic and biological fears, those things that we find horrifying at a basic, physical level. In The Purge, the maniacs and NFFA are unsettling and merciless, violent and able to cause harm without remorse. In The Witch, the evil lurking outside the woods is both violent and gruesome to look at, with the witches portrayed as old, grotesque women. And in Get Out, the white attackers seem completely cold to the plight of the black characters, and the black characters under hypnosis are akin to helpless zombies, unable to escape their tortured existence. But there is one element of horror that is present in all three films and underlies each narrative, and that is paranoia. In The Witch and Get Out, the paranoia is more overt, and a centerpiece of the film’s story; in one, it is the paranoia regarding white people and fear of being tricked or brainwashed into submission, and in the other, paranoia within a family and fear of God’s wrath. Lastly, in The Purge, paranoia is an essential part of what makes the premise so frightening. Every citizen is susceptible to being violently murdered or tortured at any moment, and not only is it legal, but the government actually encourages and facilitates the slaughter.

It is this paranoia that displays the underlying fracture in American politics. The fear of “the Other,” the fear of unchecked violence, the fear of religious or racial persecution, the fear of unchecked governmental power; no matter the political affiliation, any viewer can read these films as speaking to their innermost fears, and by extension, our larger societal anxieties. This can be further analyzed by the seemingly contradictory and disparate reviews and interpretations of these films. Adam Holtz of Plugged In writes that the narrative in The Witch focuses so much on “wickedness” with “no godly counter and certainly no happy ending.” (Holtz), while Simon Abrams classifies the film as a “feminist narrative” that “feels more like a sermon.” He continues by stating unequivocally that the film is “about women, and the patriarchal stresses that lead to their disenfranchisement” (Abrams). The first review, which is primarily concerned with how ‘family friendly’ the film is, laments The Witch’s lack of hopeful optimism and clear-cut Christian reinforcement, while the second one reads the film as a sermon on the crushing nature of patriarchy and religious fundamentalism in colonial America.

The Witch (2016)

In John Semley’s scathing review of The Purge, he painted the film as having contradictory motives. He wrote that the The Purge “delights in images of excessive, cartoonish, aestheticized violence…[but] at the same time, its ostensible message is that excessive, cartoonish, aestheticized violence is bad and wrong and that we should feel bad about indulging it” (Semley et al). However, Andrew O’hehir, while not finding the film entirely worthy of praise, did see it as a glimmer of hope and a source of escapism from our bleak reality. He wrote that The Purge is “a mind-numbingly obvious political allegory,” but at the same time provides “a more idealistic vision of democracy than any currently available in the so-called real world of Trump and Brexit and post-partisan meltdown.” He believed that the story emphasized “sacrifice and heroism, a story of redemption and renewal and cross-racial working-class solidarity” and showed “the American people finally reclaiming their destiny from the tiny clique of gated-community wealthocrats who run everything” (O’hehir).

In Joe Jarvis’ review of Get Out, he described the narrative as “a vehicle for a racial agenda.” He elaborated, arguing that the film aimed to convince African-American viewers that they “cannot trust white people,” but that the police, and by extension the entire government, should be trusted as they “are only there to help, even when it seems intrusive” (Jarvis). While the reviewer praised the film’s artistry and entertainment value, he saw the subversive message as being ultimately detrimental to African-American viewers and their perception of white Americans. Armond White of the National Review had an even more negative take on the film, decrying it as a “state-of-the-divided nation movie.” He wrote that the director, Jordan Peele, “exploits racial discomfort, irresponsibly playing racial grief and racist relief off against each other, subjecting imagination and identification to political sway.” In this review, the film is simply opportunistic; a well timed attempt to allow white liberals to relish in their recognition of current racial injustices, while feeding off of and fueling African-American fears and paranoia (White). However, in Walker MacMurdo’s glowing review of the film, he wrote that the filmmaker intends to comment on the “quotidian horror of life in black America: You can make all of the right decisions, and still find yourself in mortal danger by being in the wrong place at the wrong time” (MacMurdo).

Get Out (2017)

It must be said that just about every film of every genre has contradictory reviews. Even Get Out, which was (almost) universally praised by critics, had its detractors. But in these reviews, it is not necessarily the reviewer’s perception of the overall quality of the film that truly matters. It is how they go about analyzing and politicizing the films, and what this says about the state of the cinema and the nation, both in regard to filmmaking and film viewership. Was The Witch a secular attack on Christian values or an overly religious rumination on feminism and the evils of patriarchy? Did The Purge force audiences to face the issue of gun violence in America, or did it provide a much-needed escape from the horrors of reality? Was Get Out anti-white propaganda, or biting satire, commenting on the plight of African-Americans? Depending on your perspective, any of these analyses could be true. The point is that all three films gain from our collective paranoia and the fractured political sphere that we now exist in. No matter if you are rich or poor, christian or atheist, conservative or liberal, white or black, these films aim to get under your skin, to pry at your anxieties. And it is not just limited to these three. The current trend in horror is the acquisition of hyper-politicized themes and narratives to draw in audiences and breathe life into our pre-existing unease. This is also evident in The Invitation (2015), Green Room (2015), Don’t Breathe (2016), and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), among others.

While paranoia and political undertones are nothing new in horror films, there has been a recent escalation in films that play on the ever-widening gap that exists in American politics. Whether it is use of a gang of Neo-Nazis, a demagogue with absolute power, seemingly normal white people with sinister, racially-motivated intentions, or even Satan himself, nothing is more effective in horror than seeing our innermost fears played out on screen. These films operate as dark caricatures of our reality, energizing our increasingly biased and one-sided view of the world. With the introduction of ‘alternative facts’ into our collective vocabulary and increasing distrust of our media and institutions, paranoia has quickly become a defining characteristic of American society, thus solidifying the success of these kinds of films. And once fear and paranoia take hold, we look to these horror films, either to escape reality, or to try to answer the question: What can we do?

Abrams, Simon. “The Witch Movie Review & Film Summary (2016) | Roger Ebert.”RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC, 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.<http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-witch-2016&gt;.

Holz, Adam. “The Witch | Movie Review.” Plugged In. Focus on the Family, 16 May. Web. 25 Mar. 2017. <http://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/the-witch-2016/&gt;.

Jarvis, Joe. “How The Movie “Get Out” Is a Genius Piece of Racial Propaganda.” The Daily Bell. Blacksmith Pte. Ltd., 6 Mar. 2017. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.<http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/how-the-movie-get-out-is-a-genius-piece-of-racial-propaganda/&gt;.

Macmurdo, Walker. “Get Out Is As Good As Everyone Says It Is.” Willamette Week.Williamette Week, 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Mar. 2017. <http://www.wweek.com/arts/movies/2017/02/28/get-out-is-as-good-as-everyone-says-it-is/&gt;.

O’Hehir, Andrew. “Which Is Stupider: “The Purge: Election Year” or the Total Insanity of the Real World?” Salon. Salon Media Group, Inc., 3 July 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.<http://www.salon.com/2016/07/02/which_is_stupider_the_purge_election_year_or_the_total_insanity_of_the_real_world/&gt;.

Semley, John, and James DeMonaco. “Latest Film in Purge Franchise Achieves Apex of Idiocy.” The Globe and Mail. Special to The Globe and Mail, 12 July 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/film-reviews/latest-film-in-purge-franchise-achieves-apex-of-idiocy/article30713076/&gt;.

White, Armond. “Return of the Get-Whitey Movie.” National Review. National Review, 24 Feb. 2017. Web. 10 Mar. 2017. <http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445206/jordan-peeles-get-out-trite-get-whitey-movie&gt;.

Sex and the Creation of Horror in It Follows

Since the earliest days of horror films, sex has been a key component of the genre. Sometimes the sexual content is overt, and other times the mere allusion to or repression of sex allows for horror to occur. There are thousands of examples of intercourse being used for a variety of purposes in horror films, but it is most often a staple of the genre that sex is intrinsically linked to the monster or the source of horror in some way. In the film It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014), sex occupies a complex position in the narrative, operating as a catalyst for the onset of horror, a mark of the horrific entity, as well as a necessary part of the alleviation of horror.

In films such as Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein, 2007) or A Serbian Film (Srđan Spasojević, 2010), intercourse is the centerpiece of the horror, itself disgusting or abhorrent in some fashion. In Teeth, a teenage girl’s vagina has teeth that castrate those who attempt to have intercourse with her, while in A Serbian Film, an aging porn star is given drugs that cause extreme aggression and sexual arousal, leading him to participate in horrific sexual acts with no memory of what has occurred. In both of these films, it is the sex itself that is horrific. It defies normal expectations of intercourse and makes it disgusting, unsettling, and ultimately horrific for the viewer.

Phallic imagery emphasizes the sexual frustration of Irena’s affliction in Cat People (1942)

In earlier films, like Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942), sexual desire, particularly unrestrained female desire, is seen as being able to transform a character into something horrific. Cat People plays with the idea that female sexuality, if left unrepressed, can create a monster. In the film, the lead character, Irena, turns into a bloodthirsty jungle cat whenever she becomes sexually aroused.

Still in other films, the threat of nonconsensual sex creates horror for the audience. In the film Shivers (David Cronenberg, 1975), the capability for sex to be acted out on unsuspecting humans by the monsters creates horror. It is also the act of sex that transforms the victims into the very same monsters, thus enhancing and continuing the horrific scenario. The threat of sex is also an underlying quality of many of the “final girl” films of the 1970’s and 80’s, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) where there is a constant threat of death and possible sexual violation by the crazed family pursuing the last remaining female character.

And finally, in many slasher films, such as Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) and Friday the 13^th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980), teenage libido and pre-marital sex are often the root cause for killing and horror in the narrative. Sex does not transform the characters into something horrific or even serve as a characteristic of the monster, but instead allows for horrific acts to occur. For example, in the opening scenes of Halloween, a 6-year-old Michael Meyers kills his older sister after she and her boyfriend have intercourse. Similarly, in the opening scenes of Friday the 13^th, Jason Vorhees kills two Camp Crystal Lake counselors as they undress and prepare for a sexual encounter. Unrestrained sexual desire is used as narrative justification for psychotic characters to begin their killing sprees.

The entity’s first victim.

It Follows uses sex in a similar fashion, but with an important deviation from the standard formula. In the film, a girl, Jaime “Jay” Height, is followed by a malevolent, shape-shifting entity after having sex with her new boyfriend. The entity can take the form of any person, and simply follows its prey, and, if caught, violently kills them (as evidenced in the opening scenes of the film, in which a previous victim is left horribly contorted on the beach). The “curse” is passed on from person to person through sexual intercourse, and Jaime soon realizes that she will need to have sex with someone else, and explain the curse to them, so that they may continue to pass it on, lest the monster kill them and then pursue her again. Jaime is naturally upset by this revelation, and at first refuses to pass it on. But eventually, the constant fear of being pursued and the knowledge that she could be  killed by the monster at any moment forces Jaime to give in and have sex with Greg, a friend from school who has been trying to help her. Greg doesn’t really believe in the curse, but later the entity kills him and begins to pursue Jaime again. She and her friends try to confront and kill the monster by luring it into a swimming pool and electrocuting it, but this also does not work. Jamie eventually decides to sleep with her friend Paul, who has harbored a crush on her for years, and the film ends somewhat ambiguously, with the implication that the entity continues to follow Jamie and Paul as they begin a romantic relationship.

Jaime, who at the beginning of the film had no idea that the monster existed, suddenly becomes its primary focus, due entirely to her sexual encounter with the monster’s previous prey. If not for sex, the monster would not exist for the characters. However, it is also through sex that the monster can be “banished,” insofar as the curse can be passed along to another person, and then another, and another. The “cure” is to have sex with a new person before the monster catches up, but if the new victim is killed, then it will continue to kill each previously cursed individual in the chain of sexual encounters. It is never explained how or why, but sex is inherently a part of the monster’s existence. Surely, without sex, the monster would have no victims to pursue. However, sex is also an alleviation of the curse, albeit in a temporary and wholly incomplete way.

While the primary use of sex in It Follows is as a means for the monster to continue to exist, and as an insufficient cure for the curse, it is also linked to the production of horror for the audience. When the audience is first introduced to the monster as a physical manifestation, it is as a naked woman walking slowly toward Jaime. Later in the film, in one of the first close encounters Jaime has with the entity, it manifests as a disheveled, bloody woman. Her breasts are partially revealed to the audience and she begins urinating on the floor as she approaches Jaime. Later in the film, the entity is seen as a naked man standing on a roof as Jaime passes by. Nudity is frequently used as a visual indication of the monster’s relation to sex, often in horrific or unsettling ways, and to identify the entity as especially horrific.

The entity appears as Greg’s mother.

This is most clearly illustrated after the entity is passed from Jaime to Greg. The two strike up a romantic relationship and, since Greg is skeptical of the validity of the curse, he is more than willing to take the risk. Three days after the two have sex, Greg says that he has seen no evidence of the curse and concludes that he is safe. However, that same night, the entity finally does appear to Greg, pounding on his bedroom door. When Greg opens the door, the entity, which appears as his mother, is only wearing underwear and an unbuttoned nightshirt, revealing her breasts. She immediately pounces on Greg, and begins gyrating on top of him, her legs wrapping around his, even as the life is removed from his body. The camera lingers on her underwear as she rubs against Greg’s pelvis, emphasizing the sexual nature of the entity, while simultaneously enhancing the horrific effect by generating images of incest between mother and son.

The camera lingers on the sexual nature of the monster during Greg’s death.

While not every manifestation is characterized by an emphasis on nudity or sexuality (the entity also appears as an old woman in a hospital gown, a very tall, menacing man with gouged out eyes, a young boy who hisses, and a variety of seemingly normal people), the horror is enhanced through the implementation of sex, and the association of sex with the creation and transference of the horrific entity. Thus, while certain films use sex as a horrific act, and others use sex to lead to horror or transform characters into horrific beings, and still others make the threat of sex horrific, It Follows allows for a more complex relationship between horror and sex. There are moments in the film when the sex itself is horrific, like when the entity appears as Greg’s mom and attempts intercourse with him. And, it is an essential aspect of the plot that sex leads to horrific situations by transferring the curse and the presence of the monster between characters. However, what makes It Follows unique is that sex also serves as an insufficient cure for the curse, allowing the characters to be temporarily free from peril. Sex is not only a detriment to the characters, but also a possible remedy.  However, as there is always the risk that the new victim will be caught, and that the curse will work its way back down the line to the initial recipient, the entity can never truly be killed, making it all the more horrific.

Cinematography and Style in Rebel Without a Cause

 

Very few films, even today, accurately portray the complexities of teenage life. It is an age group with which it is hard to identify, and is frequently associated with rebellion, transgression, and melodramatic behavior. In Rebel Without A Cause, director Nicholas Ray works to capture the angst and emotion of American teenagers in the 1950’s. Rather than following the form of a typical Hollywood film, Rebel never really explains the motives of the teenagers, because in real life teenage (and adult) motivation is often unclear. Instead, the narrative follows a brief passage in the life of troubled teen Jim Stark and his two equally troubled friends, Plato and Judy, as they attempt to cope with peer pressure, parental disapproval, and a general confusion about life and happiness. Though the narrative gives a strong representation of teenage rebellion, the stylistic choices emphasize the complexities of the characters’ plight. Carefully controlled cinematography and mise-en-scene, particularly colorful costumes and staging, reinforce the themes of emotional distance between parent and child, the hierarchy of power in families, and the difficulties of teenage life.

The costumes in Rebel Without A Cause are made significant by their colors, particularly the contrast between bright and muted tones. Specifically, the costumes help delineate the central teenagers from their family and peers. Though the most obvious conflicts are between parent and child, the film also emphasizes the sense of separation between the three main characters (Jim, Judy, and Plato) and society as a whole. For example, on Jim’s first day of school, he is seen wearing a dull, grey suit. He enters the family kitchen, which is full of much brighter colors, particularly yellow and green. This makes him a dark contrast to his family, who continue to bicker with one another even as Jim leaves. As he walks out to meet Judy, she is wearing a bright green dress. When they meet up with the rest of the “gang”, they are also dressed in clothing of various bright colors. This serves to visually alienate Jim from his peers, who, with the exception of Judy, seem relatively happy and at ease. Both parts of this scene show that Jim does not fit in with his own family or the kids at school. Plato is another prime example of this, as his clothing also consists of very dull, muted colors. Much like Jim, Plato feels very distant from his family and peers. Though Judy begins the movie as just “one of the gang,” she quickly grows attached to Jim and is also recognized as a confused, isolated teenager, and her clothes change accordingly from very bright to relatively dull. At one point or another, all three characters wear clothing that reflects their distance from family and peers.

The color red is used to identify Jim, Judy, and Plato at their most emotionally fragile moments. It also comes to represent the height of rebellion for the three teenagers. It first appears in the police station at the beginning of the film. Judy’s entire outfit is bright red, as is her lipstick. Not only does this draw attention to Judy as one of the central characters, but it also shows her in one of her most confused and frustrated moments. She has left her home after a fight with her father and has been picked up by the police. Though she proves to be in constant conflict with her parents, this is the first and, at that moment in time, the most significant rebellion she makes, as emphasized by her dress and makeup. Later in the film, the color red moves to Jim when he dons his infamous red jacket before leaving to race his school adversary, Buzz. This moment in the film represents the height of Jim’s rebellion, particularly since it leads to Buzz’s death. Within the last few minutes of the film, the color red finally moves to Plato. Having shot one of the gang members, Plato takes refuge in the planetarium, where Jim offers him his jacket. This exchange marks the climax of rebellion for the trio. Plato is hiding from the police and Jim and Judy are choosing to stand by his side. Plato wears the red jacket when he dies, emphasizing the fact that his own rebellion caused his death.

Ray uses cinematography, particularly point of view shots and high and low angle shots, to express a hierarchy of power for the characters in Rebel Without A Cause. The first example of this takes place in the police station at the beginning of the film. During Plato’s interview, the camera frequently switches to an over-the-shoulder shot (behind the interviewing policeman) looking down at Plato. Plato appears to be the most unstable of the three troubled teens from the start. These over-the-shoulder shots establish Plato as a character with little or no power. During Jim’s interview, the camera switches to a point-of-view shot (from Jim’s perspective) looking at the rest of his family through a peephole in the door. The scene shows his family quarreling, but only Jim’s commentary can be heard. This POV shot allows the audience a glimpse of Jim’s family life and the frustrations he must deal with at home through his eyes. He even refers to his home as a “zoo,” and he looks at his family through the peephole much as he would look at animals in cages. Another significant shot takes place at the mansion when the gang discovers Plato. The scene begins as a high angle shot of Plato sleeping, but as he wakes up, the camera tilts upward to make a low angle shot of the gang members’ faces. This establishes Plato as the weakest character in the scene, and the gang as being powerful in comparison. All of these choices in cinematography work to establish clear lines between the weak and the strong, the powerful and the powerless.

In Rebel Without A Cause, various camera techniques, particularly wide-angle shots, deep focus shots, and varying shot scales convey the raw emotion of the teenagers. The very first scene exemplifies Ray’s use of stylistic camera work with a wide-angle shot of Jim. Jim can be seen clearly in the foreground, while the background is heavily distorted. This shot not only helps convey his drunken state, but it establishes him as a confused character. By making his surroundings seem warped and disfigured, Jim is immediately recognized as a pitiable character who does not understand the world in which he lives. Immediately following this scene, Jim is taken to the police station. Many of the most stylistically significant shots take place here, and all of the establishing shots in the building are deep space shots. Though the police station is not completely devoid of other people, the sense of space creates a feeling of emptiness and loneliness that reflects the feelings of the teenagers. In all three of the police interviews, particularly Judy’s, the camera switches to close up shots and medium-close up shots to focus on their emotion. With Judy’s interview, the close-ups emphasize her crying and exasperation with her father’s disapproval. The extended close up of her also shows the heavy makeup that sparked the fight with her father, which in turn brought Judy to the police station. The close up shots in the other interviews show Jim’s frustration with his parents’ hypocrisy, while Plato’s medium close ups show his hunched over position that reflects his frailty. All of these devices focus on Jim, Judy, and Plato’s emotions and the frustrations they face as teenagers.

Ray also uses several canted shots and camera rotations that, along with carefully constructed staging, enhance the thematic meaning. When Jim returns home from the race with Buzz, he lies upside down on the sofa. When his mother runs down the stairs, the camera switches to an upside down POV shot that rotates until the image of his mother is right side up. This shot seems to imply that Jim sees his mother as being upside down, possibly even “wrong” in his eyes. As this same scene continues, the family moves to the stairs. This is a very pivotal scene stylistically, with both cinematography and staging playing large roles. The characters (Jim, his mother, and his father) position themselves on the stairs as they argue about how Jim should treat Buzz’s death. The mother takes her place at top of the stairs, several steps down Jim stands defiantly against her, and at the bottom of the stairs the father sits with his head in his hands. Halfway through the scene the camera cants to the right, emphasizing the line of ascension that the characters create. This line reflects the power and aggression that each character exhibits. The mother has the most power and argues vehemently with Jim, whereas the father sits virtually powerless at the bottom of the stairs, and Jim is stuck somewhere in the middle. This helps show the hierarchy of power in Jim’s family and his inability to change it.

The staging and figure behavior in Rebel Without A Cause also serve to reinforce the themes by juxtaposing disparate character positions in space and implementing exaggerated performances. During Judy’s interview at the police station, she immediately seats herself looking away from Mr. Framek, showing that she is resisting his help. Her body language reflects her distrust of adults and her frustration with her father. Later, in the police station scene, Jim’s parents arrive and Jim places his father up on the shoe shining chair (which resembles a throne). This is one of the rare times that Jim’s father is positioned above anyone else, and he reacts by laughing, clearly not used to the idea of having power. This frustrates Jim further, and his anxiety peaks during his interview when he yells, “you’re tearing me apart!” He twists his face in anguish, and points accusingly at his parents. Jim then hunches over and buries his head in his jacket.

Throughout the film, whenever Jim’s emotion hits a frantic climax, James Dean’s acting becomes very physical. However, more often than not, Jim remains cool and collected in spite of possible danger. After having stepped on the school insignia, Jim is blocked by the gang on the stairs, but shows little emotion. The shot begins at the gang’s feet and tilts up to show a medium-long shot of them all. Having Jim on a lower step looking up at the gang makes the gang look bigger in both size and number. The shot also reinforces Jim’s separation from his peers and his inability to fit in. That same night when Jim comes home, he finds his father wearing an apron. The father is on his hands and knees cleaning up the food he dropped. Jim is ashamed to see his father like this and attempts to pull him up, but his father remains on his knees with Jim towering over him. The shot of this difference in height reflects the two men’s vastly different levels of masculinity and power. However, at the end of the film, their roles are reversed, and the father helps Jim stand up to be a man after Plato’s death.

The themes in Rebel Without A Cause all relate back to family hierarchy and teenage angst. The costumes create visual opposites among the characters, separating parent from child and teenager from teenager, while the staging, figure behavior, and camera work define the hierarchy of power and the difficulties of teenage life. Ray uses the narrative to portray youth and family, but the bulk of his thematic meaning lies in the carefully designed stylistic patterns.

Dissecting Nihilism and Romanticism in Confession of a Child of the Century

 

Sylvie Verheyde’s 2012 film, Confession of a Child of the Century, based on Alfred de Musset’s 1836 semi-autobiographical novel, tells the tragic love story of Octave and Brigitte set in 19^th Century France. Octave, a young aristocrat and self-described libertine played by English musician Pete Doherty, falls in love with an older widow, Brigitte, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Having been left by his fiancé at the beginning of the film, Octave obsessively pursues Brigitte, eventually convincing her that his love for her is genuine, and not merely a defect of his youth, as she initially believes. Brigitte is more reticent of this new relationship, and spurns Octave’s advances, before eventually giving in to her feelings for him. However, the relationship turns sour as a result of their melancholic nature, Octave’s affinity for partying, and Brigitte’s interest in another man. The characters, particularly Octave, seem to embrace without question the belief that life is inherently meaningless, however they throw themselves completely into their romantic relationship as the only beacon of hope. Love and the associated emotions are all that give life meaning for Octave and Brigitte. But as the film purports, love is transitory, even illusory, therefore life is still fundamentally meaningless to the characters. When love is lost, or revealed to be untrue, the characters fall into complete despair. The film, reflecting the tone of its source material, borrows heavily from the style of the Romantic period, while also embracing the seemingly contradictory view that love does not exist, and life is ultimately meaningless.

Alfred de Musset’s original novel, La confession d’un enfant du siècle, is a prime example of the literature of the Romantic period, largely through its emphasis on human relations, emotions, and an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Despite the latter quality, the central character of the story (based on Musset himself) ultimately comes to a place of hope, despite many hardships along the way. He traverses chaotic relationships, questions his purpose, suffers greatly, but in the end, discovers his belief in God. In keeping with many of the themes of Romantic literature, Musset praises the individual, and sees the beauty of nature and love as a reflection of God. However, Verheyde’s film adaptation takes a different approach, both in style and tone. While Octave narrates the story, his character is portrayed (both physically and through his words) as an eternally depressed and listless man. He drinks to excess and hates his own nature, but also exalts himself as a young man who is wise beyond his years. He recognizes his own temperament, which he refers to as the “disease of the century,” as he believes it has afflicted his entire generation. Octave describes this disease as:

“A feeling of inexpressible discomfort [that] began to ferment in all young hearts. Sentenced to idleness and boredom, the anxiety of death wormed its way into their soul. If it was tantamount to a negation of all things, then one can call it disenchantment or desperation, if one prefers.”

It is this disenchantment with life that initially leaves Octave in despair; a despair that he believes can only be cured with love. But even as he seeks love, he is dubious of the concept. Having lost the woman that he thought to be his one true love, Octave proclaims that he “no longer believed in the possibility of loving.”

However, soon after this proclamation, Octave meets Brigitte, and quickly develops an intense attraction to her. He simultaneously embraces this newfound love while dismissing the authenticity of love outright. During a walk through the woods with Brigitte, Octave states that he “believe[s] in nothing” but wishes to die loving her. He later advises her, “If you have a passionate soul, I’ll tell you straight off, love doesn’t exist. Just throw yourself headlong into the world.” It is this seemingly paradoxical view that permeates the film. Octave is both a believer in nothing and a hopeless romantic, chasing love, and attributing meaning to life only through its association with love. These qualities are common in the Romantic philosophy, which wholly embraces the often transitory and even contradictory emotions of the individual. It is this paradoxical theme that gives rise to the constant battle in the relationship between Octave and Brigitte: reconciling a belief in nothing with intense feelings of love. This is further exemplified when Octave proclaims, “I do not believe anything, except that you are beautiful.”

It is also important to note that the visual style works in tandem with the tone of the source material to intensify the ennui of the lead characters. While the costumes and settings all work to recreate an authentic image of 19^th Century France, the color scheme is noticeably washed out to reflect Octave and Brigitte’s underlying sadness. It also works to foreshadow the relationships demise, even at times of pure joy and ecstasy. In scenes where Octave and Brigitte lie in bed together, professing their love for each other, the mis en scene is simple, and the colors are faded and lifeless, with primarily gray tones. The actor’s performances are also reserved, with the influence of the image speaking for their emotions. Pete Doherty narrates dryly over the image, and the audience is left with a similar feeling of listlessness as the camera floats from one gray scene to the next. Even the French countryside appears dead and decaying.

Rather than adopting the conclusion of the source material, the film chooses to allow the characters to wallow in perpetual misery, devoid of any real answers or knowledge to cling to. While Octave and Brigitte’s relationship starts with their physical and emotional attraction to one another, quickly becoming intensely passionate, it soon devolves into an ugly and jealous affair. Octave, ostensibly addicted to his former activities before meeting Brigitte, continues to drink and party, enjoying the company of prostitutes while still professing his love for Brigitte. Alternatively, Octave discovers Brigitte’s journal, and reads aloud her confessions about another man for whom she has harbored strong feelings. Octave, knowing that he has also been unfaithful, feels betrayed but decides to dismiss it and reconfirm his love for her. However, Brigitte, having increasingly strong feelings for this other man, begins to distance herself from Octave, and wavers on whether or not to leave the country with him. It is at this point that Brigitte confronts Octave, questioning the sanity of their relationship, and ultimately decides, with much difficulty, that they cannot be together any longer. During this final confrontation, they both question if love is something worthy of their pursuit, and Brigitte implores Octave that, “you have to decide, either love is a good thing, or it is evil…if it is good, you must believe in it…if it is evil, you must recover from it.” When they are both faced with their own lack of belief in any meaning, they come to realize that their relationship is doomed for failure. As they cannot reconcile their emotions with their own nihilism, they are left to wallow in misery, unable to cultivate their love for one another.

Technology and Human Nature

*Contains spoilers for Advantageous (2015), Ex Machina (2015), and The Lobster (2016)

Since the earliest days of cinema, films have explored the role of technology in our lives. The moving picture, in and of itself, is a product of technological advances that have only been possible within the last 150 years. The earliest films tested the capabilities of the medium, and as time went on, filmmakers manipulated and improved the camera, as well as all ancillary instruments of filmmaking. Today, any individual film is most often the product of advanced computer software, as well as digital and mechanical machinery, coming together with human endeavor and vision to entertain and/or edify. However, technology is not only important to filmmaking. Technology has become an all-encompassing part of human life. Generally, the term technology refers to all equipment, software, or advanced forms of communication, developed through scientific processes, with the distinct purpose of performing a certain action or attaining a certain objective. Through computers, the Internet, and various modes of transportation and communication, the world is now a place connected and shaped by what humans have created. This prevalence, and omnipresence, has led to certain anxieties regarding the role of technology in our daily lives. These range from trivial matters, such as how often a person looks at their smart phone, to much more significant moral and philosophical quandaries, such as issues related to governmental surveillance and advanced weaponry. The underlying implication of these issues is that technology, while it is most often created to help in human endeavors, to ease burdens and improve life, is at the very same time a detriment to human life and happiness. Technology, whether it is military or medical or some other kind, is constantly in progress. It is in a perpetual state of advancement, and, much like a snowball rolling down a mountain, this advancement increases in speed and scope as it goes along. With the passage of time, this snowball has grown to something virtually beyond human control to stop. This preceding principle is true to the point that, in today’s world, technology advances with such swiftness that we, as a species, do not have time to adequately reflect on it’s advancement. We find ourselves asking questions of morality, in regard to computer chips imbedded in skin to hold credit card information or the capability to predict genetic abnormalities in a fetus, retrospectively. By the time we begin to address whether or not a technology should exist or whether or not it should be utilized, it is already in existence or in use. These anxieties are often played out in films, particularly in the science fiction genre. This genre is ideal for addressing the above issues, as the stories are most often defined by, or at least centered around, advanced technologies. While there are countless examples of science fiction films that address these anxieties, the three test cases for this essay are Advantageous (2015), Ex Machina (2015), and The Lobster (2016). All three of these films use their respective narratives to address societal anxieties concerning technology, specifically those regarding technology’s ability to undermine human nature, as it is defined in Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving.

In Erich Fromm’s seminal philosophical endeavor, The Art of Loving, he sets out to establish love as the “fundamental passion…[that] keeps the human race together” and “an incarnation of essentially human qualities” (Fromm 18, 59). In other words, to be human, both as a race and as an individual being, is to love and, perhaps more importantly, to fundamentally want to love. However, love is a complex term, with its own set of varying definitions and contextual implications. To solve this problem, Fromm defines love in several ways. First, love, in a functional sense, refers to the art of “interpersonal union…of fusion with another person” (Fromm 18). This union can be practiced in many different ways. The desire for this union is essential to human nature, because humans, once thrust into existence, are “thrown out of a situation which was definite…into a situation which is indefinite, uncertain, and open” (Fromm 7, 8). Herein lies Fromm’s “problem of existence,” for which love is the solution (Fromm 18). Humans desire union with other beings so as not to be left completely alone, cast out of oneness with nature, without any direction or assistance.

While the desire to love is an essential attribute of Man, and the answer to the fundamental problem of existence, it is not the definition of Man. Fromm defines Man as something unique in nature, as Man is “life being aware of itself” (Fromm 8). However, the strongest drive of human existence is love, or the activity of one being forming a union with another being. This drive is essential and powerful, because humanity is in crisis from the onset of existence. Before existence, Man is one with nature, but once an individual exists, it finds itself separated from nature, and yearns to find a way to reconnect, to escape the “unbearable existence” that is the knowledge of one’s own separateness. Man seeks love with another being, and by extension, all beings, to achieve a sense of oneness with nature that is naturally lost by virtue of being an individual. Therefore, it is evident that love is a defining and essential attribute of Man, and if love if stifled or corrupted, it undermines the very nature of Man.

These theories regarding the nature of Man and it’s relation to love can be read in the three aforementioned films. The first film, Advantageous (2015), directed by Jennifer Phang, is set in the near future. The protagonist of the film, Gwen, is the face of the Center for Advanced Health and Living, a company that markets cosmetic surgeries and procedures. Gwen works hard in the hopes of providing her daughter, Jules, with a bright future and top-tier education. Unfortunately, due to her advancing age, she is suddenly let go from her job. Her only other chance for a job is as an egg donor, since women are becoming increasingly infertile and job prospects for women are mostly based on youth and physical appearance.

In a moment of desperation, Gwen contacts her former employers in the hopes that she can be a test candidate for a new procedure that will allow her to transfer her consciousness into a younger body. This will allow her to return to her former position, with the guarantee from the company that her daughter’s future will be taken care of. However, the company representative, Fisher, begs her not to take the position, as the procedure is still very new and is not completely ready for human use. It will also cause her a great deal of pain.

Nonetheless, Gwen agrees to the procedure. After it is finished, Gwen returns as Gwen 2.0. The company tells Jules that Gwen 2.0 might be a little different, so Jules begins caring for Gwen 2.0 and administering her shots every 2 hours. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Gwen 2.0 has very little affection for Jules and cannot seem to connect with her daughter in the way that old Gwen did. Gwen 2.0 goes to Fisher to ask to be separated from Jules. Enraged at this turn of events, Fisher explains to Gwen 2.0 that she is not actually Gwen. In fact, Gwen’s consciousness died during the procedure and Gwen 2.0 is a new consciousness that has been implanted with old Gwen’s memories. Old Gwen knew that this would happen, but she went through with the procedure anyway. Fisher explains that he did not reveal this to Gwen 2.0 at first, because he thought she might merge more fluidly with old Gwen’s memories if she did not know. Gwen 2.0 tells Fisher that the part of old Gwen that loved Jules never transferred into her consciousness.

Advantageous ruminates on the dichotomy between technology and love through the mother-daughter relationship that Gwen and Jules share. At the onset of the film, Gwen and Jules have a strong bond and a seemingly unbreakable love for one another. Fromm refers to this love as “unconditional,” as the daughter senses that “I am loved for what I am, or perhaps more accurately, I am loved because I am” (Fromm 39). And the daughter’s love for the mother is one of necessity, since she could not exist without the mother. This mutual love between mother and daughter must endure physical separation, since “two people who were one become separate” (Fromm 51). In Advantageous, Gwen and Jules have no trouble overcoming the separateness, and each individual is willing to sacrifice their own happiness and wellbeing for the other. However, once Gwen is let go from her job, and thus her means for caring for her daughter are cut off, she has to take drastic action to act out the love for her daughter.

Once old Gwen is gone and Gwen 2.0 replaces her, Jules cannot help but notice that the sensation of love is gone. Herein lies the expression of anxiety. As technology advances, it has the capacity to replicate human expression and activity. A robot can place a ball into a cup, a computer can pull from it’s memory bank to answer a trivia question, a synthetic, humanoid face can mimic expressions of human emotions, and so on. However, the technology, as far as the contemporary mind can conceive of it, cannot truly replace human expression and activity. It is this disconnect between what is artificial and what is human that causes great concern for humanity. We, as humans, fear the ability that advanced technology has to replicate and mimic human behavior, whether of an individual or humanity has a whole, whilst also undermining what it means to be human. The one aspect of old Gwen’s being that Gwen 2.0 could not replicate was the love she felt for her daughter. Thus, when old Gwen was gone forever, so too, was the motherly love for her daughter. Old Gwen traded her own life and love for her daughter in order to secure Jules’ future.

This anxiety is further exemplified through the theory of the uncanny valley. This valley refers to the phenomenon that occurs when a human-like robot, whose appearance draws close to that of an actual human being, arouses a sense of unease in the observer. This suggests that “human appearance or behavior can make an artificial figure seem more familiar for viewers — but only up to a point. The sense of viewer familiarity drops sharply into the uncanny valley once the artificial figure tries but fails to mimic a realistic human” (Hsu). In the case of Jules and Gwen 2.0, the artificial form of Gwen resembles a high-functioning human in just about every capacity, but she is unable to completely replicate those emotions and expressions of love that are fundamental to human nature. Jules’ feelings toward her new mother drop into the uncanny valley once she discovers Gwen 2.0’s failure to replicate her real mother.

In the second film, Ex Machina (2015), directed by Alex Garland, a computer programmer, Caleb, works at a software company called Blue Book. Caleb wins a company-wide contest, allowing him a chance to go to the lavish home of the company’s CEO, Nathan, for one week. Caleb arrives at the well-fortified estate to find Nathan and Nathan’s personal assistant, Kyoko, who cannot speak English. Nathan explains to Caleb that he has created an advanced robot named Ava, who appears incredibly human-like. Nathan intends to use Caleb to conduct an advanced form of the Turing test, to see if Caleb can relate to Ava as he would a human being, despite knowing she is artificial. Caleb has daily conversations with Ava, who is confined in a small room with glass separating them. Nathan observes their conversations using security cameras. Ava quickly shows an attraction to Caleb, and tells him that she wants to experience the outside world. She also demonstrates to him that she can access the facilities’ computer system and cause brief power outages, temporarily disallowing Nathan from monitoring their conversations, and triggering the facilities’ security system, locking all doors. Caleb grows close to Ava, and during one of the power outages, she tells Caleb that Nathan cannot be trusted.

Ava speaks to Caleb from her cell. (Ex Machina, 2015)

Nathan reveals to Caleb that he intends to “upgrade” Ava to a more advanced model, essentially killing her in the process. One night, Caleb encourages Nathan to get very drunk, and once he has passed out, Caleb steals his security card and alters the facilities’ security codes. While accessing some of the security footage, Caleb discovers that Kyoto is also a robot. At their next meeting, Ava cuts the power, and Caleb plots her escape. Later on, Nathan tells Caleb that he has been monitoring the “secret” conversations with a small, battery powered camera, and has known about their plot all along. However, it is soon revealed that Ava has her own plans, unbeknownst to Caleb or Nathan.

In Ex Machina, the anxieties are slightly different than those addressed in Advantageous. In Advantageous, the underlying concern of the story is the ability for technology to replicate human nature, but ultimately fall short, and thus undermine what we regard as true human nature. However, in Ex Machina, the concern lies in technology’s advancement being able to expertly replicate, overpower, and ultimately destroy human nature. Essentially, we, as humans, worry that we will create something stronger, smarter, and more cunning than ourselves, leaving our species vulnerable to complete destruction or subordination to the new dominant race. This is first expressed when the viewer is introduced to Nathan’s estate. He lives in a modern, high-tech, seemingly impenetrable fortress, made to ensure that his creations remain contained and subordinate to him. Each area of the facility is separated from the others by locked doorways that are only accessible with Nathan’s master key. This need for safety and extreme caution reflects the anxieties that are felt by the characters and viewers alike. A creation as advanced and powerful as Ava must be controlled, because, much like a human, she is capable of both physically and mentally overpowering just about any being that crosses her path. While her intellectual prowess is proven when she is able to coordinate with Nathan to deceive Caleb, she proves herself even more capable by tricking both men to achieve her own ends.

It is important to note that love also serves an important role in Ex Machina. While the love between mother and daughter was lost and inadequately replaced with Gwen 2.0 in Advantageous, the love between Ava and Caleb is fabricated to facilitate Ava’s ambitions. Caleb feels true love for Ava, despite knowing that she is artificial. Ava’s love for Caleb is a lie she conceived to accomplish her own ends. It is an artificial love created by a technology so advanced that it operates at a higher level than the human mind. With access to a seemingly infinite database of information, combined with incredibly advanced powers of reasoning and adaptable behavior, Ava is, in a functional sense, superior to real humans. This is evident at the end of the film, when Ava’s cunning allows her to destroy her creator and the man who loves her. She is able to replicate the sensation of love so absolutely, that Caleb is blind to her true intentions. In the end, Ava is able to produce the act of love in Caleb, only to destroy it without remorse.

The third and final film, The Lobster, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is perhaps the most peculiar example of the three. In this film, a middle-aged man named David discovers that his wife has left him for another man, and is promptly escorted to a hotel. At the hotel, an employee explains to David that he has 45 days to find a suitable mate, and if he cannot, he will be transformed into an animal. He is allowed to choose the animal, and David chooses a lobster. David’s brother, who has already been turned into a dog for not finding a suitable mate, accompanies him to the strange hotel. The other occupants of the hotel are also single, and face the same consequence if they cannot find a mate. There are strict rules in place at the hotel, including mandatory group activities. David becomes friends with two men, one with a lisp and the other a limp. The singles must have a common trait with their potential mates, so when the limping man finds a woman who suffers from nosebleeds, he begins bashing his nose in secret so that they can court. It is decided by the hotel owners that the limping man and the nosebleed woman are a suitable match, and they are taken to a separate “couples” facility for a one-month trial period. Residents of the hotel can also extend their deadline by going on “hunts” where they must tranquilize other single people who have escaped into the nearby forest.

David and the other singles prepare for the hunt. (The Lobster, 2016)

David decides to pursue a heartless woman who demonstrates a complete lack of empathy toward everyone. David pretends to be heartless so they can be compatible. The woman tries several times to test David’s heartlessness, and on one occasion, David awakens to discover that she has kicked his dog (and brother) to death. David cries, thus proving that he is not heartless. When the heartless woman tries to turn him in to the hotel manager for lying about their common attribute, David is able to escape into the forest. David meets other “loners” in the forest, who also have a strict code of conduct for their people. All romantic relationships are forbidden, and breaking this rule results in forced mutilation. David meets a woman among the loners with whom he shares a common trait, shortsightedness. They begin a relationship in secret, communicating with a sign language of their own creation.

The loners plan a raid on the hotel, in an attempt to disrupt the hotel’s operation. During the raid, the leader finds the shortsighted woman’s diary, and discovers her relationship with David, as well as her intention to escape the loners and runaway with him. After the raid, the leader sets a plan in motion to end the relationship permanently.

While The Lobster is a less realistic film set in a nonsensical world, it still addresses underlying anxieties with the relationship of love and technology. In The Lobster, people act very coldly, and love is treated as a logical exchange of services. The reason for this is never made clear. However, it is clear that, in this ridiculous world, there is technology that allows humans to be turned into animals. This practice is part of a system to maintain order, control, and “healthy” relationships. Whenever two people within this system feel the sensations of true love, as defined by Fromm, or the yearning for said love, it is stamped out unless it meets the strict and arbitrary rules of the society. Specifically, natural love is stamped out with the threat of technology that can strip humans of their humanity. It is unclear if people, once transformed into animals, retain their prior consciousness and powers of reason, but they do, at the very least, lose their ability to communicate, as well as their physical, human bodies. Therefore, by turning humans into beasts, and stripping them of their ability to express love as humans, this advanced technology literally destroys what it means to be human for the victim. The technology enforces the suppression of love, and for those who are actually transformed, it completely destroys those qualities which make them human.

While technology is often a vague term that refers to a wide range of things, it is always defined as a phenomenon specific to humans, or at least high-functioning beings. Technology, much like science itself, involves an ongoing process of discoveries and creations, with all subsequent advancements unlocking the door to future technologies. Thus, it seems there is no foreseeable end to this advancement, short of the elimination of all high-functioning beings to create and maintain these creations. Technology is now an inevitable aspect of human life, and, collectively speaking, it is a thing that is both rapidly changing and difficult to control. Human beings are creatures who crave structure and control. We use science to understand, categorize, and evaluate our existence. We use technology to further understand life itself and help alleviate our struggles. However, as technology relentlessly charges forward, we see our own creations capable of undoing their initial purpose. We use it to control and maintain and ease burdens, and yet we have lost control of the thing itself. It can be argued that surely, as the creators of each subsequent technological advancement, humans could collectively agree to end the march of technology entirely, but it is not that simple. Many technological and scientific advancements are involuntary, and often the result of unrelated research or objectives. With billions of people on the planet, each capable of creating and destroying, of making a new technology, or using an existing technology for their own purposes, it is truly an uncontrollable phenomenon. Humanity’s central technological anxiety stems from this lack of control. Much like a child, technology is created, it is put into existence, it grows and changes, develops and improves, and eventually it advances to the point that it leaves its creators behind. While technology itself, as a general concept, is not a sentient thing that can choose to abandon its creators, it has spiraled beyond the direct control of its creators. So, in a sense, it has already abandoned us. And, as it has been since the onset, we are left asking questions of what should have been done, our missteps only apparent in hindsight.

 

Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row, 1956. Print.

Hsu, Jeremy. “Why “Uncanny Valley” Human Look-Alikes Put Us on Edge.” American      Science. N.p., 3 Apr. 2012. Web. 10 Aug. 2016 <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-uncanny-valley-human-look-alikes-put-us-on-edge/&gt;.

Stoicism in Changing Lanes

Many films put particular emphasis on emotion and its impact in our daily lives, but Changing Lanes (2002) is a film that very accurately portrays the struggle between emotion and rational thought from a Stoic perspective. In this film, we see characters take action based on passions and distress, which in turn leads to more distress. By the end of the film, the two central characters make rational decisions (free from emotion) and they are finally content. The plot broadly outlines the Stoic school of thought concerning emotion and rational thought, or “rational selection,” by showing the consequences of the characters’ actions and the impact of those consequences on their overall happiness. The Stoics assert that a person can only live a truly happy life by being in tune with Nature through rational thought and action. Since this school of thought considers emotion to be the antithesis to rational thought, and in turn the antithesis to happiness in life, Stoics believe that a truly virtuous person does not allow outside forces to give rise to their emotions. The Stoic assertion that emotions, or “passions”, are detrimental to living a happy life serves as the strongest argument in favor of rational selection, because rationality allows for a life that is happier and more stable, as can be seen in Changing Lanes.

In the film Changing Lanes, Samuel L. Jackson plays a man named Doyle Gipson, a middle-aged recovering alcoholic who is trying to regain custody of his children. Ben Affleck plays a young, successful attorney named Gavin Banek. Banek is in the middle of a court case in which he intends to prove that the foundation he started was illegally signed over to the law firm he currently works for by a dead man. The two men are on the way to their respective court cases when their cars crash into each other. Banek’s luxury car sustains minor damage, while Gipson’s more modest car won’t start after the accident. Gipson insists that they “do the right thing” and file a police report and exchange insurance information, while Banek attempts to give Gipson a blank check to bring the matter to a quick close, so that he can make it to court on time. Gipson refuses the check, at which time Banek leaves Gipson on the side of the road saying “better luck next time.” Later that day, Gipson arrives late to court to find that the case was conducted without him, and he is told that he did not regain custody of his children. Due to his absence, he was unable to tell the judge that he had bought a house for his estranged wife and children. While Banek arrives on time for his court case, he realizes that he left a crucial document at the scene of the accident. The judge tells him that he has until the end of the day to produce the document or the case will be dismissed. Gipson retrieved the document after Banek drove away, and he wrestles with whether or not he should give it back. However Banek, desperate to retrieve the document, seeks the help of a computer hacker to erase Gipson’s credit, thus disallowing him from buying the house for his family. Both men continue to commit increasingly vindictive and dangerous acts on one another, until they both conclude that it must stop. They eventually apologize to one another, and commit to living more virtuous lives. Gipson returns the file, even though it is too late to do Banek much good, and Banek offers to represent Gipson pro bono, and explain everything that has happened to Gipson’s estranged wife. While he cannot win the court case, Banek is able to use the returned document to force his boss to conduct business in a more ethical manner in the future.

Gipson pleads with the judge to have his custody case heard.

In the Stoic school of thought, “passions” are undesirable because they lack reason, which is the basis of rational selection. The Stoics define happiness as the “rational selection of the primary things according to Nature.” Essentially, happiness comes from our ability to gravitate towards aspects of Nature that are inherently good or beneficial to our well-being, and are also rational for us to choose. Passions tend to lead us toward objectives that are often detrimental to our happiness, and are most often irrational. For example, in Changing Lanes, Banek decides to abandon Gipson on the side of the road, and later Gipson decides not to give Banek the vital document that he needs for his court case. He does this out of contempt for Banek’s behavior, thus allowing passions to rule his decisions. This in turn causes a firestorm of passive-aggressive conflict between the two men. Rather than discussing the issue rationally, both men allow their passions to overwhelm them, exacerbating the situation exponentially. This scenario is a perfect reflection of the legitimacy of the Stoic position on emotion. In real life situations, people often allow outside forces to enflame emotional responses, and they allow those passions to rule their thoughts and actions rather than a “rational selection of things.”

The Stoics emphasize that happiness comes from a rational selection of “things in Nature.” But what constitutes Nature? The Stoics classify nature as our physical world, which is “identical with the fully rational creature which is God, each part of it naturally constituted so that it seeks what is appropriate or suitable for it…[therefore] the Stoic doctrine of the natural attachment to what is appropriate provides a foundation in nature for an objective ordering of preferences.” This reasoning helps further validate rational selection over emotion. As human beings, we are part of Nature. We can objectively see that Nature is a complex system of individuals gravitating toward things that are beneficial to their survival and happiness. For example, a lizard living in the desert crawls under a rock to escape the heat of the sun. The shade of the rock serves as a beneficial thing that the lizard is gravitating toward. The leaves of plants grow toward their light source (most often the sun) because they gravitate toward that which provides nutrients and is beneficial to their survival. By our objective understanding of Nature, emotion has no natural place in decision-making.

Two issues that could arguably hinder the legitimacy of the Stoic position are that of virtues and the impact of other people, or outside forces, on happiness. The Stoics classify virtues as “prudence or wisdom, justice, courage and moderation, and other related qualities” and that these virtues are “both necessary and sufficient for happiness.” Not only are these qualities rather broadly outlined, it could be argued that they are capable of preventing happiness. In Changing Lanes, Gipson momentarily decides to give back the document, only to find out that Banek has wiped out his credit, which makes him change his mind. He decided to act prudently only to have the selfishness of another person prevent his own happiness. His choice to act virtuously backfired. The Stoic position arguably provides little explanation for the impact of other people’s decisions on one’s own happiness. However this argument can be refuted by looking at the Stoic position on the necessity of other people, regardless of their ability to be rational. They argue that it is “not only other rational creatures that are appropriate to us, but also the perfection of our own rational natures.” Using the same example from Changing Lanes, it is not Banek’s actions that prevent Gipson from being happy, but Gipson’s reaction to Banek’s actions that prevented his own happiness. Rather than practicing rational selection and reasoning with Banek, Gipson allows anger to overpower him, allowing the chaos to continue. Had Gipson been able to reject the negative emotions and act rationally, he could have helped both Banek and himself.

Without the application of rational selection, human beings are consumed by emotion and cannot function with any sense of reason in their lives. Not only would this scenario be chaotic, it would also not allow a person to live a truly virtuous, happy life. Changing Lanes justifies the idea that emotion is a negative factor in achieving happiness because the characters are never truly happy until they choose to practice rational selection and virtuous qualities like wisdom (recognizing their mistakes) and justice (attempting to repay one another for past grievances). The Stoic position on emotion is valid because it promotes rational behavior and has real-life applications that reinforce the importance of Nature and virtues.

 

Baltzly, Dirk, “Stoicism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010/entries/stoicism/&gt;.

Nebraska, the Taiga, and An Escape from Modernity

There are probably no two films that, at first glance, appear less comparable than Alexander Payne’s Nebraska and Werner Herzog’s Happy People: A Year in the Taiga. First and foremost, Nebraska is a fiction film, while Taiga is a documentary. Nebraska is shot in black and white, Taiga in color. Nebraska’s story follows a family over the course of a few days; Taiga is compiled from four years worth of footage (originally shot by Russian director Dmitry Vasyukov), following multiple families and individuals. And finally, Nebraska, to no surprise, is set in its namesake (as well as several surrounding states), while Taiga is set in Russia’s harsh Siberian tundra. However, upon further inspection, both films share several important qualities. They use the backdrops of specific regions of the world to bring meaning to their respective narratives. It is with these landscapes that the filmmakers assert the shared theme of both films: the decay of the modern world. In each of these films, modernity serves as an object of despair and destruction, with the characters directly ruined by its presence, or bettered by its absence.

First, it is necessary to define what is meant by “the modern world” or “modernity.” For the purposes of this argument, modernity refers to the interdependence of contemporary society as a necessary function for the growth and sustainability of human life. It is the figurative “shrinking” of the world and inclusion of all (or most) peoples into the larger web of trade, communication, and pragmatic interaction. From this general definition, we can realize an image of the modern world as seen through a sociopolitical lens. It is with this lens that both Alexander Payne and Werner Herzog created their respective films.

In Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, an old man named Woody is seen walking by the side of the road and is taken in by the police. His son, David, picks him up from the station and asks him where he was going. Woody tells David that he won a million dollars and has to get to Nebraska to retrieve his winnings. David sees that his father (who suffers from dementia and alcoholism) has been tricked by a scam certificate he received in the mail. However, Woody is hell-bent on getting to Nebraska, so David agrees to drive him the 800 miles from their home in Billings, Montana, to Lincoln, Nebraska. Thus begins the darkly comical road trip between ailing father and bitter, albeit devoted son. Like many road trip films, the scenery is as much a character as the people. Nebraska (as well as Montana and South Dakota) is portrayed as a bleak, lifeless landscape. Payne mixes images of flat, sprawling farmland with deserted main streets and bars whose occupants seem to never change. There is an endless supply of old, dilapidated buildings and a sign welcoming drivers to Nebraska with the unintentionally depressing phrase “…the good life.”

Alexander Payne grew up in Nebraska, and uses Nebraska as the backdrop for several of his films (Citizen Ruth, Election, and About Schmidt). While Payne himself has shown a certain nostalgic fondness for Nebraska in his interviews, his films show a rather melancholic, satirical vision of the state. The film portrays two men, father and son, who are both at “existential crossroads” and simultaneously “working through interior crises” (Andersen). Rural Nebraska and its inhabitants symbolize a part of society that may have flourished at one time, but is now left in complete decay. The residents of the small, lifeless towns in Nebraska are never seen in a present, active state. The older citizens lament their current circumstances and live vicariously through their own memories, while the younger citizens simply accept their depressing reality and do little to change it. No one is rich or happy. People simply are. They exist, and that is enough.

The film ends on a somewhat positive note, with father and son having bonded over the experience, despite not winning any money. This, in a sense, reflects the director’s indictment of modernity. The two lead characters, who are miserable throughout their journey, finally find a little bit of happiness once they let go of Woody’s obsession with winning money, and embrace the simple joy of companionship. The scam certificate, itself a product of modern capitalism, represents modernity. While the characters cannot fully escape modernity in their current state, once they let go of their obsession with the scam certificate, they can begin the first step toward true happiness.

In Taiga, Werner Herzog paints a much different picture through his characters. In this film, Herzog, famed director of Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, focuses his directorial efforts on fur trappers in the Siberian wilderness called the Taiga, which is a “remote wilderness larger than the whole of the United States,” and yet largely untouched by man (Boone). The few men of this region rely almost entirely on themselves for survival. They live in the harsh tundra with their families, and every spring, each trapper ventures out into the icy forest with his dog to set traps and collect fur to sell at market. They create their own shelters, make their own fires, set their own traps, collect their own loot, and even make their own mosquito repellant using the boiled bark from trees. They live off the land and nothing else. The theme of self-reliance is put at the forefront of Herzog’s vision (or rather, Herzog’s interpretation of Dmitry Vasyukov’s televised documentary). These men do not see their families for months at a time, and each time they leave, their families can never be completely sure that they will see them again.

Nikolay relaxes in his handmade cabin after a long days work.

One trapper, Nikolay, notes that “you can take away everything from a man, his wealth, what have you, but you cannot take away his craftsman skill…once you learn a trade, you always know your trade for the rest of your life.” The skills he is referring to have been passed down for centuries and honed and perfected over time. It is with these skills that the trappers make their living and survive without the pleasures and luxuries of the modern world. Nikolay and his fellow trappers work tirelessly to make their own skis in order to traverse the snow and ice. He says that factory-made skis are not nearly as good quality. He only uses a hatchet and a wooden wedge to make the rest of the tools necessary for his craft.

While trapping in the Taiga requires incredible skill, it also requires much of the trapper’s time. Herzog notes that “unlike sport hunting, preparation for professional trapping is a year-round job.” These trappers only get to see their families for short amounts of time before they must return to the Taiga every year. Each trapper must build and maintain a base hut, as well as a number of additional huts on the outskirts of their trapping territory. Once they have established their outposts, they must build and set traps for the coming hunting season, as well as protect their provisions from bears and other predators. The Taiga is freezing cold, sometimes dropping to -50 degrees Celsius, with large predators and dwindling food sources. The lifestyle of these trappers is a direct rejection of modernity. They have little technology, very little interaction with other people, and virtually no reliance on any person or institution for assistance. Herzog recognizes that this might sound difficult, even miserable, to the average person. And yet, he insists a narrative of underlying happiness. About halfway through the film, as the trappers set out in hand-made canoes to journey back into the heart of the Taiga, Herzog expresses his ultimate evaluation of their lifestyles:

 

Now, out on their own, the trappers become what they essentially are: happy people. Accompanied only by their dogs, they live off the land. They are completely self-reliant. They are truly free. No rules, no taxes, no government, no laws, no bureaucracy, no phones, no radio. Equipped only with their individual values and standard of conduct…every man has his own destiny, his own plan, his own territory…

 

The director asserts that it is only through a rejection of the complexities and chaos of the modern world that people can truly find happiness. Simplicity, self-reliance, and eschewing the pleasures (and displeasures) of the outside world are fundamental to achieving true happiness. Herzog drew the inspiration for his conclusion directly from the source material. When one of the trappers, Gennady Soloviev, heard that a shorter version of the original documentary footage would be shown worldwide, he asked Herzog “to make sure that no one pities [our] poverty, that [everyone] knows the people of Bakhta are happy” (Sharkey).

The Taiga is shown as harsh and unforgiving, but more importantly, Herzog argues that the region itself, as well as it’s occupants, operate almost entirely outside of modernity, as it is defined above. At the beginning of film, we see a small community called Bakhta, which Herzog says is only accessible by helicopter or boat. During the winter months, the Yenisei River is frozen over, so for much of the year, it is not even accessible by boat. In terms of accessibility, the Taiga is quite literally separate from modern society. It is difficult to reach, very few people live there, and very few goods are transported inside or out. As a result, the trappers of this region have to rely almost entirely on themselves. In film critic Steven Boone’s review, he proclaims that the ultimate conclusion of Herzog’s vision is that “the men of the Taiga are heroes of rugged individualism” (Boone).

Boone writes that he agrees with Herzog’s assertion, but concludes that, while simplicity is a necessary precursor to happiness, it is almost impossible to attain in modern society:

 

All of this apparent Walden-like freedom struck close to home for me—or would, if I had a home. I stepped off the grid in New York City four years ago, trying to find a simpler way to live that would free me of corporate wage-slavery. Four years later, I’ve found that such freedom is virtually impossible in American cities. To live as free and clear as the men of the Taiga do, I would have to go to a farm, a commune—or the Taiga. On a landscape of concrete, there is no hunting or homesteading, just purchasing and renting. Parks and community gardens preserve some testy relationship with the natural world, but, let’s face it, the world I and most folks reading this essay occupy keeps us dependent upon corporate delivery systems for our survival essentials. Are we happy this way?

 

Boone reads Herzog’s film and narration as a blunt evaluation regarding the virtues of simplicity and the evils of modernity. Boone’s final question is one that audiences are encouraged to ask after watching either Nebraska or Taiga, are we truly happy this way? Are convenience and efficiency worth sacrificing our collective well-being? For Alexander Payne and Werner Herzog, the answer would surely be a resounding no.

Both Nebraska and Taiga deal directly with the concepts of modernity and landscape. Both films create a dichotomy between these two concepts, with different approaches, but similar conclusions. In Nebraska, the landscape is a tragic leftover of modernity. Modern industrialization and consumerism have ravaged the land, and left its inhabitants as listless, drifting figures on a barren landscape. There is no color, no growth, and no prosperity. In Taiga, the fur trappers use the ostensibly dead landscape to achieve a level of happiness that is both unknown and virtually unattainable for the rest of society. If they were to abandon their trade, and return to modern society, they would theoretically lose this happiness. Simply put, for both films, and their respective directors, modernity is ruinous and antithetical to happiness. For regions that operate within modernity, it has the ability to destroy people’s lives and strip them of happiness. For regions that operate outside of (or mostly outside of) modernity, people at least have the capacity for happiness, and this happiness, with a little perseverance and hard work, is attainable.

 

Andersen, Kurt. “A Road Trip Through Alexander Payne’s Nebraska.” Rev. of Nebraska. The New York Times [New York City] 17 Nov. 2013: M288. Print.

Boone, Steven. “Happy People: A Year in the Taiga.” Roger Ebert. 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 01 Apr. 2016. < http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/happy-people-a-year-in-the-taiga-2013&gt;

Sharkey, Betsy. “Review: ‘Happy People: A Year in the Taiga’ Shows Culture Frozen in Time.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2016. <http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/14/entertainment/la-et-mn-happy-people-20130215&gt;

Diverse Perceptions of The Graduate and the Impact of Audiences on Film Critique

Film reviews are, more than anything, a reflection of their audience. Where most films aim to entertain their respective audiences, film reviews aim to inform their readers. Both mediums call for the author or director to anticipate what the audiences’ want, while also providing an individual style. Since the audience plays such an integral role in film reviews, it stands to reason that different audiences will influence reviews in different ways. The two primary distinctions can be seen in “mass-market” and “highbrow” sources. Mass-market film reviews come from sources that reach a much larger audience and attempt to appeal to the “average” tastes of the public, while highbrow reviews are aimed at smaller niche groups, who often have, or at least purport to have, more refined tastes. The similarities and differences between these two groups are particularly evident in the reviews for The Graduate (1967), a film directed by Mike Nichols. The Graduate tells the story of a bemused college graduate named Ben who, upon returning home from school, finds himself thrust into an affair with a much older woman. As the story progresses, Ben (played by Dustin Hoffman) falls for a girl closer to his own age, only to discover that she is the daughter of his seductress, Mrs. Robinson. While some aspects of the reviews are very similar, there are several glaring differences between the reviews of the mass-market and highbrow sources. Due in large part to the difference in readership expectations, mass-market reviewers evaluate The Graduate through individual performances and overall plot, while highbrow reviewers focus on Nichol’s quality as an auteur and the broader social context of the film.

While film reviewers from both groups do not focus exclusively on actors or directors, mass-market reviewers put more emphasis on acting performances while highbrow reviewers emphasize directing strategies. Mass-market sources have a readership that, in general, are not attracted to films for the director alone, nor do they try to analyze the film as a reflection of the director. Rather, they are drawn to certain films based on story and star power, which is reflected in the mass-market reviews. For example, Sun-Times reviewer Roger Ebert summarizes the entire plot in his review, even to the point of revealing the ending (Ebert). Along with summarizing the plot, Ebert evaluates each of the main characters’ performances for the reader. He states that Dustin Hoffman is “so painfully awkward and ethical that we are forced to admit we would act pretty much as he does” (Ebert). He continues to say that Anne Bancroft’s portrayal of Mrs. Robinson is “sexy, shrewish, and self-possessed enough to make the seduction convincing” (Ebert). The Sun-Times review gives its readers an extensive summary of the entire plot and detailed descriptions of the characters and actor performances. The Time Magazine review evaluates the film in a similar fashion. The plot is again described in its entirety, revealing how “Benjamin revs up his psyche…and heads to Santa Barbara to break up the wedding” (Fuerbringer). The performances are also analyzed, with Hoffman described as an “original, likable actor” and Anne Bancroft as “sly and predatory” (Fuerbringer). Since mass-market readers primarily go to films based on their interest in the plot and appreciation for certain actors and actresses, the reviews primarily appeal to these aspects of The Graduate.

Highbrow reviews do evaluate performances, but they also put heavier emphasis on auteurship and certain aesthetic qualities that are not attributed to the actors. Whether praising the film or criticizing its weaknesses, highbrow reviewers appeal to readers that expect a more in-depth analysis of the creative practice that takes place outside of the frame. In the National Review article “Film Chronicle,” Richard Corliss focuses heavily on Nichols’ directing style. He states that in The Graduate, Nichols is “forcing his story upon us with a muscular cinematic tone” (Corliss 459). He also describes Nichols’ work as a “gratuitous homage” to many other directors, including “Francois Truffaut, Agnes Varda, and Orson Welles” (Corliss 460). Unlike the reviewers from mass-market sources, Corliss writes for an audience that is more likely to have seen the works of Welles or Truffaut, and more likely to appreciate the director as the source of the film’s artistry. His review also puts emphasis on the visual style and form of The Graduate by comparing certain elements of the film to Citizen Kane. He references the use of “deep-focus to clarify and isolate the characters…long takes and little camera movement, [and] mastery of blocking actors and directing dialogue” (Corliss 460). Rather than focusing on visual style, Esquire writer Alfred Sheed criticizes Nichols as a storyteller. He states that The Graduate “is a cartoon, not a real story, and a cartoon demands a certain tightness and consistency of intention” (Sheed 39). Sheed attributes the film’s “cartoonish” qualities to Nichols’ directing and blames him for the “lackluster variations on the original theme” (Sheed 38). The prominence of visual style and auteurship in these highbrow reviews is a reflection of the refined, or at least more discriminating, tastes of their readerships.

Along with the concept of auteurship, highbrow reviewers stress the importance of the underlying social context in The Graduate. While the film makes few direct references to historical events of the time, it serves as an observation of the American youth in the 1960’s and the relationship between younger and older generations. Wilfred Sheed recognizes Ben as a singular youth being pulled in different directions by his parents’ generation. When Ben returns from college, “corruption is offered to him” and subsequently a “woman seduces him” (Sheed 38). Despite its place in popular culture and the social setting of 1960’s America, Sheed criticizes the main topic of the film by simply stating that “American youth is a frigging bore” (Sheed 39). While Sheed does not find American youth to be an interesting topic, he does stress the importance of 60’s youth culture in the plot. Richard Corliss also addresses the social setting of the film, but views it in a much more positive light. While Corliss does recognize the themes concerning generational differences, he focuses more heavily on the aspects of the film that are uniquely American. For example, Corliss references the generational gaps by summarizing one of Ben’s problems: “[He] never trusts anyone over thirty” (Corliss 460). However the review puts more emphasis on the national unity within the film. The Graduate is described as “the most American movie of 1967, because its strengths and weaknesses are ours. It shows us the United States of the Sixties in the fond, exaggerated way the screwball comedies of the Thirties revealed their own era” (Corliss 1960). The Highbrow reviewers evaluate the film as both a reflection of social settings in America in the 1960’s, and an observation of American youth.

While the disparities between mass-market and highbrow reviews are much more glaring than their similarities, they do share a few similar views of The Graduate. The most obvious similarity is the inconsistency within each group to either praise or pan the film. As one of the highbrow reviewers, Wilfred Sheed describes the film as “cute and trivial” and criticizes Dustin Hoffman for “consciously holding back too much” (Sheed 39). Similarly, the Time Magazine review criticizes the screenplay for being “alarmingly derivative” (Fuerbringer). Alternatively, the Sun-Times review praises The Graduate for being “the funniest comedy of the year” (Ebert). Also in a similar fashion, The New York Times praises the film for being “funny, outrageous, and touching” (Crowther).

The other important similarity between the mass-market and highbrow reviews is the recognition of a vast shift in tone during the film. Harper’s Magazine reviewer Robert Kotlowitz denounces the film, believing that Nichols and his screenwriters “open The Graduate with a real hero living in a real world and conclude with a parody-hero living in a parody-world” (Kotlowitz 156). The Time Magazine review notes that the film “which begins as genuine comedy, soon degenerates into spurious melodrama” (Fuerbringer). Regarding this shift as a hybrid of narrative and technical form, the Esquire review states that “in line with a growing Hollywood tradition, it puts the ideas in one part and the pretty photography in the other” (Sheed 38).

Though the reviews for The Graduate are similar in certain observations, they focus on very different concepts when analyzing the film. The “mass-market” reviews focus on the interest of their readers: star power and plot summary. The masses want to know what films are good and which stars perform well. The “highbrow” reviews also focus on the interest of their readers: auteurship and social context. Highbrow readers want to know which films best exemplify the artistic talent of the director and also stay relevant to the times. This collection of vastly different media sources provides diverse perspectives on The Graduate to appeal to their respective audiences’ expectations.

Corliss, Richard. “Film Chronicle.” Review of The Graduate. National Review. 7 May 1968: 459-60. Print. 

Crowther, Bosley. “Movie Review – The Graduate.” Review of The Graduate. The New York Times. 22 December 1967. Web. 20 September 2011. <http://movies.nytimes.com/movie&gt;.

Ebert, Roger. “The Graduate.” Review of The Graduate. Chicago-Sun Times. 26 December 1967. Web. 20 September 2011. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com&gt;. 

Fuerbringer, Otto. “Cinema: The Graduate.” Review of The Graduate. Time Magazine. 29 December 1967. Web. 20 September 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine&gt;.

Kotlowitz, Robert. “Capote’s Killers, And Others.” Review of The Graduate. Harper’s Magazine. March 1968: 155-56. Print. 

Sheed, Wilfred. “Films.” Review of The Graduate. Esquire. April1968: 38-39. Print.

 

Gender and Female Sexuality in Breillat’s “Fat Girl”

Contemporary French cinema has seen a rise in the number of female filmmakers, and in turn an increased focus on feminist perspectives in French film. This is most notable in the “cinema du corps,” a term referring to French films of the 1990’s and 2000’s that are both graphic in their visual representations of the body and oftentimes radical in their ideological assertions. While not all of the films in this group are directed by women, they almost all show an interest in the female body and representations of sexuality. In particular, many of these films harbor ambivalence towards relationships and utilize graphic depictions of both male and female sexuality. Many of the films of Catherine Breillat fit into this categorization, particularly her 2001 film, Fat Girl. The film follows a young, overweight French girl as she tries to cope with her body, her family, and her burgeoning sexuality. This film is a prime example of the cinema du corps, not only for its graphic content, but also its cynical reflections on sexual relations between men and women, and the shamed and confused depictions of female sexuality. Breillat’s Fat Girl offers a nihilistic reflection on gender relations, using graphic visual representations of rape and female sexuality to explore the tensions formed from these failed relations.

In Breillat’s Fat Girl, a 12-year-old French girl named Anaïs is on vacation with her family. Her older sister, Elena, is skinnier and more attractive than Anaïs, and Elena constantly reminds her of this. Their parents are relatively despondent, but when they do participate in the girls’ lives, it is most often to criticize. They are particularly cruel to Anaïs regarding her weight and eating habits. As the story progresses, the father leaves on business while Elena, who is 15-years-old, meets a college-aged boy named Fernando, who convinces Elena that he loves her. One night, while Anaïs lies awake in the same room, Fernando rapes Elena, only to have Elena retrospectively insist that it was consensual and fall deeply in love with him. Fernando secretly proposes to Elena and gives her an expensive opal ring. Anaïs silently observes their relationship and shares her distrust of Fernando with Elena, but Elena dismisses her and insists that they love each other. Following this conversation, Fernando’s mother comes to the family’s vacation home to retrieve the ring that Fernando stole and gave to Elena. Elena begrudgingly returns the ring and the family begins the long drive back to their home. While the mother and daughters are sleeping in the car at a rest stop, a wild-looking man breaks the windshield with a hatchet and kills Elena and the mother. Anaïs, who is awake to witness the attack, gets out of the car and retreats into the woods. The man rapes Anaïs, but halfway through the act Anaïs seems to acquiesce to his aggression. The man flees and the police arrive, but Anaïs insists that the man did not rape her. The film ends with Anaïs’s denial accompanied by a freeze frame of her face looking back toward the camera.

While on the surface Breillat’s Fat Girl seems like a sad story about a young French girl struggling with her weight and her familial and sexual frustrations, the graphic depictions of these frustrations work to offer a more vivid and complex analysis of female sexuality. For Breillat, the purpose of visualizing rape has greater aspirations than merely shocking the audience, it also works as “a complex representation involving formal strategies that have ideological effects” (Keesey 96). These ideological effects can be seen in the context of the rape, the female victim’s reaction to the rape, and the intention to encourage contradictory and ultimately unsavory identifications on the part of the spectator. For example, in the first rape scene, which can most accurately be characterized as a “date rape,” the camera looms over the two young lovers as Fernando tries unsuccessfully to have sex with Elena. She is apprehensive and tells him that she is not ready. He becomes frustrated with her repeated rejections and eventually has sex with her anyway. Elena has no choice but to submit to him, and even though she cries and feels guilty afterwards, Fernando convinces her that since they are in love, it was all for the best.

This scene is complicated by the potential for contradictory spectator identification. The scene does not offer any formal hints as to which character the spectator is meant to identify or sympathize with. If it is Fernando, then the spectator has no choice but to adopt the guilt of predatory male sexuality acted out on a helpless female victim. His unapologetic advances force the spectator to “adopt a pedophile’s perspective and to participate in his movement toward the object of desire” (Keesey 101). If it is Elena, then the spectator is made to identify “masochistically with the victim” (Keesey 103). However, there is also the third and most likely option for identification, which is Anaïs. She lies in the corner, acting as the silent voyeur while the rape unfolds in front of her. Just like the spectator, she is forced to watch the rape and powerless to stop it. This scene also reflects Breillat’s concept of passive female desire. Elena willingly removed all of her clothing, indicating to Fernando that she wanted to have sex, only to realize that she was not ready. Even though Elena insists on waiting to have sex, and Anaïs watches the entire scenario unfold from across the room, neither girl is able to defend Elena’s body against the penetrating male. It is this helplessness that leads to the sense of shame on the part of the female and the uneven power dynamic between the sexuality of the man and the woman. Like many of Breillat’s films, the sexual encounters are often marked by contradictory elements, in this case “desire and shame” and “submission and power” (Gorton 114). While the male uses his power to play out his desires on the female body, the female feels shame and confusion at her own submissive, and ultimately powerless sexuality at the hands of the aggressive, powerful male.

During Fernando and Elena’s second sexual encounter, which is consensual and regarded by Elena as her “real” first time, the camera focuses on Anaïs’s face. As her sister has sex in the background of the shot, Anaïs lies in bed, turned away from her sister, silently crying. The exact meaning of this emotion is left somewhat ambiguous. She could be crying out of jealousy of her sister’s sexual “success,” or because she knows her sister is being taken advantage of, or even a combination of the two. Despite the ambiguity of Anaïs’s crying, it is obvious that Fernando, and by extension the power of aggressive male sexuality, is causing pain for both girls. While Elena cries out in physical pain in the background of the shot, Anaïs silently weeps over the pain of Fernando’s presence in their lives.

In the final and most graphic scene of the film, Anaïs is raped by the man who killed Elena and her mother. The surrealist nature of this scene allows for it to be read as a “rape fantasy” in which Anaïs’s identification is split between the attacker and “herself as willing victim, split between the man’s sadism and her own ‘feminine’ masochistic desire to be punished” (Keesey 103). Whether or not this event really takes place or if it is just a fantasy is unclear, but Breillat herself reinforces the notions of a split identification and Anaïs’s desire to be raped, saying that “for girls who have been ‘brought up to be decent,’ rape is the only way to enact their desire for a man…because, following the mindset of our society, they must as it were ‘foist’ the guilt of desire onto the man whom they did not have the power to resist” (Keesey 102). This reading as a rape fantasy is further legitimized by the conversation that Anaïs and Elena have one night in bed. After Anaïs criticizes Elena for simultaneously idealizing and attempting to erase her first sexual experience with Fernando, Elena claims that she is ultimately glad that her first time was with someone she loved, and that Anaïs is too young to understand. To this Anaïs blandly replies that she hopes her first time is not with someone she loves. She argues that if he doesn’t love her and she doesn’t love him, there can be no disappointment afterward, and the man cannot have the satisfaction of taking advantage of her love.

This scenario that Anaïs describes comes to fruition with the rape at the end of the film. As Anaïs exits the car, the attacker takes notice and slowly walks toward her. She backs away slowly without breaking eye contact with her assailant. In this moment, Anaïs is relatively powerful and unwilling to completely submit to her attacker. As she backs into the woods, the man tackles her and pins her down. She struggles and pleads that he not hurt her, but as he begins to rape her, she suddenly stops struggling. She makes eye contact with him and gently wraps her arms around his neck. Both characters linger for a moment, and then the man leaves. This is a strange and troubling scenario for the spectator. Not only is it a graphic depiction of the rape of a 12-year-old girl, but it is also a representation of a female embracing her rapist and accepting the role as the submissive object of predatory male desire. Following the rape, although Anaïs does survive, she harbors a similar reaction to that of her sister, by denying that the rape ever happened. This repeated denial reflects the guilt and shame that Anaïs feels about her sexual desires: she theoretically experienced her ideal first sexual encounter (a sexual encounter free of love), but she feels ashamed of her own desires and her submission to male power.

All three sexual encounters of the film, and the subsequent reactions that the female characters have to them, reflect a nihilistic attitude toward gender relations. Elena is raped, humiliated, and then dumped. Anaïs is forced to witness her sister’s rape and the murder of her sister and mother, and is then raped by their killer. Even though both girls are victims at the hands of powerful men, they feel shame. Elena’s shame stems from being tricked into having sex and then left to feel guilty for indulging her sexual desires. Anaïs’s shame comes from her fantasy of rape and her complete submission to the rapist. In both scenarios, the sexual relations (and, by extension, all intimate relations) between men and women are doomed to fail. Both Elena and Anaïs recognize this failure and come to realize that between men and women, intimacy will always be “violently rejected” (Gorton 121). In this way, Breillat’s film works as a feminist critique of traditional gender roles and heteronormative relations between men and women.

However, there is a strong case for seeing Fat Girl, and other “feminist” films from Catherine Breillat, as actually working against feminist ideals, namely insofar as they perpetuate the notion of the female body as an object for the male gaze. One could further argue that these films do not operate well as feminist works because of their excessive reliance on pornographic, often violently sexual depictions of the female body. While it cannot be ignored that Fat Girl and other Breillat films, such as Romance (1999) and Anatomy of Hell (2004), rely on these unsettling graphic representations, it is actually the intensely graphic nature of these films that forces an awareness of their feminist message. First, the scenes featuring sex are too unsettling to provide any sexual appeal to the mass audience. However, at the time of its release, censorship boards were worried that the representations of rape in the film (particularly because the victims are young girls) would serve to titillate and even encourage potential rapists and pedophiles (Keesey 101). Breillat herself sees this concern as an attempt to censor the bodies of young females and perpetuate the ideals of a “masculinist social system that stigmatizes the female victims of rape and their bodies rather than attending to the male perpetrators and their violent desires” (Keesey 101). Second, by making the rape scenes so violent and unappealing to the vast majority of male viewers, Breillat “upsets the viewer and unsettles the possibility of watching her film for entertainment only” (Gorton 119). By reducing or even eliminating the entertainment value of her films, Breillat forces the spectator to engage with the images as ideological representations rather than mere titillations.

While Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl is very graphic and divisive among theorists and mass audiences alike, it is also unapologetic in its rejection of male/female gender relations as a viable option for women. By limiting the female characters choices to rape and sadomasochistic fantasy, the director shows the unappealing nature of these relations and portrays female sexuality, insofar as it is determined by the patriarchal society that it exists in, as confused and shameful. By the end of the film, women are either killed or reduced to being ashamed of their own sexuality and victimhood at the hands of men, and any sexual intimacy between men and women only serves to further subjugate women within the male-dominated power structure, thus making these relations ultimately unsustainable.

Gorton, Kristyn. “”The Point of View of Shame”: Re-viewing Female Desire in Catherine

Breillat’s Romance (1999) and Anatomy of Hell (2004).” Studies in European Cinema 4.2 (2007): 111-24. Print.

Keesey, Douglas. “Split Identification: Representations of Rape in Gaspar Noe’s

Irreversible and Catherine Breillat’s A Ma Soeur!/Fat Girl.” Studies in European Cinema 7.2 (2010): 95-107. Print.

Mixing Genres and Political Turmoil in The 39 Steps

Though Hollywood has dominated the global film industry since the 1910’s, many influential directors and films have surfaced outside of the United States. In the mid-1930’s, a studio system very similar to Hollywood (albeit smaller) formed in Great Britain. During this period of increased production and organization within the industry, Alfred Hitchcock emerged as one of the most popular and influential directors. Hitchcock established himself as a prominent director of silent films in the 1920’s, but he truly found his niche with the onset of the sound era. In terms of genre, Hitchcock became best known for directing thrillers. In a New York Times film review of The 39 Steps, columnist Andre Sennwald describes Hitchcock as “a master of shock and suspense, of cold horror and incongruous wit” (Sennwald). However, these same films often had moments of lighter tone, typically seen through romance and comedy. The 39 Steps is a perfect example of Hitchcock’s ability to mix genres. The story begins as a spy thriller, and though this plot continues throughout the film, it also evolves into a screwball comedy. The blending of these two genres has obvious entertainment value, but it also serves as a reflection of the political and social tension of Great Britain in the 1930’s. With the rise to power of the Nazi party in 1933, fears of political turmoil and war swept across Europe. In Britain, there was an increased “fear of traitors and spies [that] gained expression in drama, film and comics (Miller 317). This paranoia and social unrest was popularized in film, particularly in Hitchcock’s thrillers. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and The Lady Vanishes (1938) all played on the concept of foreign spies involved in international conspiracies. Hitchcock meshes the thriller and screwball comedy genres in “The 39 Steps” to feed into the paranoia about political turmoil in Europe, while also appealing to the desire for light, escapist entertainment.

The 39 Steps is a perfect example of a Hitchcock thriller. The thriller genre, at its most basic form, is stylistically characterized by the precise withholding and revealing of information to the audience, which creates a sense of tension and mystery. Toby Miller describes the thriller as a story of “accidental discovery” in which “mystery lands in the lap of a bright young man who proceeds to solve it and save his country from a conspiracy” (Miller 323). Miller also argues that as the thriller genre developed, it began to focus on “the identification and defeat of wrongdoers through participation and exploration, a practical reasoning that ultimately explained irregular, undesirable events” (Miller 321). The 39 Steps exemplifies this definition. In the film, Richard Hannay stumbles backwards into an international conspiracy that he must unravel to save himself, Great Britain, and possibly the world. The film begins at a rambunctious music hall in London, where a sudden gunshot causes a panic, forcing Hannay into the arms of a strange woman. He soon discovers that she is a spy and is responsible for the shooting. She tells Hannay that there are two spies trying to kill her, and that she must intercept a piece of information that is vital to British national security before it leaves the country. Hannay is skeptical, but when he discovers that the mysterious woman has been stabbed in the back, he sets off on a journey to retrieve the top-secret information and clear his name in the process. This type of thriller, in which a man is falsely accused of a crime and must prove his innocence, became a staple of Alfred Hitchcock’s film career.

In contrast to the thriller genre, the screwball comedy is traditionally defined as a love story between a man and a woman, with comedic situations that arise from this love, and a happy resolution. In Britain in the 1930’s, much of the appeal of this genre could be attributed to its escapist undertones. In most screwball comedies, realism is essentially absent, while comedy and romantic love are at the forefront of the plot. Though the formula for screwball comedies may seem realistic on the surface because it focuses on people in real-life situations, the scenarios for these films usually do not represent reality. This connection between apparent “reality” and fiction allows audiences to escape reality without necessarily being conscious of the film’s absurdly fictional premise. The 39 Steps presents itself as a screwball comedy in several ways, although most of the characteristics of the genre are non-existent until about halfway through the film. For example, Hannay and Pamela get handcuffed together and are forced to escape the assassins as a team. While this situation is theoretically possible, it is a rather absurd scenario, and yet it is vital for the comedic and romantic elements of the plot. Later, after escaping from the handcuffs, Pamela attempts to sneak away while Hannay sleeps. As she sneaks out of the bedroom, she overhears the assassins talking and discovers that Hannay is innocent of the murder and has been telling the truth the whole time. Soft, romantic music begins to play as she returns to their room and her expression and body language make it clear that she is now attracted to Hannay. This sudden change is very unrealistic considering her previous dislike for Hannay, but this change allows the tension and comedy to shift to romance, fulfilling the essential elements of a screwball comedy.

In this genre, the plot often revolves around a “battle of the sexes” set within the world of the upper class. Hannay seems to be a well-off, educated man with the financial means to travel, and Pamela serves as his counterpart in this “battle” between men and women. Pamela is introduced as a seemingly random passenger on the train that Hannay is taking to Scotland. Hannay bursts into her compartment to avoid the police and passionately kisses her so the investigators will pass him by. Though this is technically the beginning of their comical love affair, Pamela chooses to blow his cover and, for the moment, the plot continues without her. Their story really begins during his empowering speech at a political rally, where Pamela recognizes him as the criminal from the train. After his speech, the two spies capture Hannay as he pleads for Pamela to believe his story. Realizing that she knows too much, the spies bring her along under the pretense of being a witness against Hannay. At this point, Hannay and Pamela are forced to fight with one another because they are handcuffed together and have two very different outlooks on the situation. Hannay wants to clear his name and escape the assassins, while Pamela shows disinterest in Hannay’s fate and mostly just wants to be left alone. Though this is a comical “battle” between the two, there is also a literal and figurative connection between them. Miller states that “the focus on male-female relations happens again when Hannay and Pamela are handcuffed together…this unwelcome bracketing becomes a sign of their transformation into a couple, the ‘concrete object’ of the cuffs expressing a ‘concrete relation’” (Miller 326). Their close proximity forces Hannay and Pamela to have comical fights, despite their budding romance.

The 39 Steps uses these two genres, the thriller and the screwball comedy, to reflect two opposing approaches to the social and political turmoil in Europe. Even at the time of its release, critics note that “Hitchcock describes the remarkable chain of events in Hannay’s flight across England and Scotland with a blend of unexpected comedy and breathless terror that is strikingly effective” (Sennwald). Thw spy thriller aspect of the film brings the reality of European politics directly to the audience, albeit in a subtle, entertaining fashion, while the screwball comedy aspects of the film allow the audience to escape from the same negative sociopolitical atmosphere that is indirectly addressed in the plot of the film. This may seem counterintuitive, but Hitchcock seamlessly transitions between the two genres and makes both aspects of the film entertaining. Hannay himself helps represent the meshing of both genres in several ways. Miller describes Hannay as a “depthless character typical of spy-genre protagonists”, which is emphasized when Hannay himself declares that he is “’nobody’” (Miller 326). Miller also identifies the appearance of both genres by identifying Hannay’s ability to blend in when he “proceeds to be a milkman, a mechanic, a parade marcher, a politician and a criminal, the perfectly depthless figure who can be anyone…yet at the same time, this sets up the conditions of possibility for comedy, as a series of misunderstandings produce chaos, then a happy resolution” (Miller 327).

While the film does allude to the political tension in Europe, Hitchcock is careful not to be too specific with certain elements of the plot. If actual political parties or movements had been mentioned specifically (i.e. The Nazi Party, fascism, etc.), the film would have created a much more realistic tone and might have hit a little too close to home with British audiences. However, by only referring to international conspiracies and spy stories, Hitchcock references real-life politics without directly mentioning the turmoil in Europe. Miller states that The 39 Steps “embodied prevailing issues of its day to do with class race, gender and national security. It made especially powerful arguments for the value of the Dominions to Britain in a hostile world…it pointed to the danger of mass frenzy” (Miller 319). Hitchcock also comments on this concept of “mass frenzy” and distrust of the public through staging and location. Whenever a scene in the film is set within a controlled public area, it quickly devolves into chaos and violence. In the beginning scene at the music hall, a brawl begins for no apparent reason, followed by the gunshot and further panic. Later in the film, Hannay’s rousing speech at the political rally causes a great surge of people onto the stage. At the end of the film, Mr. Memory is shot during his performance, causing people to rush from the theater in a panic. Miller states that “the crowd was a figure of great anxiety in early twentieth-century public policy…for behind every public tumult of mass energy lies one more group of agitators ready to displace existing rulers with their own power-mongering” (Miller 324). The paranoia concerning international conspiracies led to a general distrust of the public and Hitchcock emphasizes this distrust with specific staging and location.

The 39 Steps is a very entertaining film, and it works very effectively as a thriller and a screwball comedy. Hitchcock plays on the fears of the British public with a story about international conspiracies, but also allows audiences to escape from reality with comedy and romance. The looming shadow of Nazi Germany created paranoia concerning the safety of British citizens, and this paranoia led to a distrust of the public. Regarding this paranoia, Miller quotes novelist Wesley K. Wark in stating that “the enemy could be the Jew, the foreigner, the not-quite gentleman, the corrupted, the bomb-throwers, the women. Why the day needed to be saved was very much a product of national insecurities” (Miller 320). In the film, the assassins serve as the enemy that causes these insecurities, while Hannay serves as the falsely accused. The love story, while not a necessary catalyst for the conspiracy plot, diverts attention away from the gravity of world politics. Hitchcock used a spy story and a comical love affair to seamlessly blend the thriller and screwball comedy genres in The 39 Steps.

Miller, Toby. “39 Steps to the ‘Borders of the Possible’: Alfred Hitchcock,   Amateur Observer and the New Cultural History.” Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays.

Editor: Richard Allen. London: British Film Institute, 1999. 318-328. Sennwald, Andre. “The 39 Steps.” The New York Times Review. 1935. The New York Times. April 23, 2011. <http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review&gt;