I got to sit and listen to David Bordwell speak for a whole hour and a half about film.
And you know what was great? Even though he was part of a symposium on metaphor in the art film at the University of Copenhagen, he didn't sound like an academic. Instead of using convoluted, rambling sentences that wind their way to a point, he distills his thoughts into pure film theory gold. It was so refreshing to hear him talk so simply, and make so much sense, which is all too rare in a theorist. And because it's useless to rhapsodize about him in my own words, I'll give you a few of his:
"Narrational modes
become a conceptual frame that prompt us to make figurative meaning, so read the signs according to what the film itself sets up."
Yes, I am ridiculous. I watch The Bachelor. I carve out a ghastly two hours a week when this show airs, even when exams and a thesis loom.
If you're unfamiliar with it, this reality television show features a hunky, toned-like-a-Ken-doll suitor going through the motions of dating 25 girls in hopes of finding a wife. NB: use the term "wife" loosely. Over 8 weeks (!) he is expected to propose to a fiancée by going on "group dates" and "one-on-one" dates all over the world in clichéd romantic destinations, and at the end of each episode he eliminates one whimpering girl at a "rose ceremony." The premise promises just as many cat fights as woozy romantic hyperboles, and the finale televises the ultimate choice between the two girls left standing. Can the man uphold his end of the bargain and choose one woman to be his (neverlasting) one and only? Which woman will convince herself she loves a man so much after two months that she'll say yes? Their engagement usually lasts just about as long as their 15 minutes of fame. Oh, and there's also The Bachelorette, the same idea but with 25 men and one woman.
Yet, although the show is steeped in inventive/insane delusions and producer-driven artifice--who can say "I love you" first? who has a boyfriend back home?--I watch the show because I am fascinated by the heteronormative gender roles it pronounces. Man: muscled, provider, family man, tough with a heart of gold. Woman: dolled up, husband hungry, destined for motherhood, emotional. Only recently (after about 10 years and over 20 seasons) have we begun to see any semblance of non-traditional paths, like--gasp!--unmarried single moms. In an era of groundbreaking television shows like Girls, The Mindy Project, and New Girl,which explore how varied (and also difficult) current young women's lives are,The Bachelor is stuck in a reality-tv deadzone that keeps gender in a box.
I don't know what it is that creates this changelessness on The Bachelor, but I've ventured some guesses:
The producers actively cast naive women in their mid-twenties who were weaned on romantic comedies
Alcohol, cameras, and the promise of fame combine to lead the women to invent dramatic personalities that are an act
The producers peg the women against each other while making it seem like the Bachelor is perfect
Tricky editing makes us believe things happened as they didn't
Getting wined and dined on the world's most expensive dates will bring anyone to domestic dreamland just for a second
Maybe I'm the one being naive for searching for some lingering truth in this "reality" show, but I do think there is something toxic but also telling about combining love and competition. It's a basic power struggle magnified twenty-five fold. The bachelor/ette holds the power over the 25 contestants, who jump through hoops to win affections. The girls bond/backstab, the men wrestle/worship, and it all plays out like mating or courtship behavior. You could call the gender performance here instinct or socialization (I prefer the latter), but there is definitely a ritualization of traditional gender roles that all the parties involved repeat.
Finally, the show magnifies the great fears a lot of single people face: that we'll never fall in love, and that we'll be rejected. In this case, that can happen instantaneously, in a very public way. So, as a result, it's desperation mode. People go on this show searching for attention and hopeless love. I think the contestants who choose to air their dirty laundry on TV (both men and women) have an especially strong exhibitionist side, but then again, we're all on Facebook.
So, mock me all you want, but the feminist in me isn't ashamed to admit that I am fascinated by this show.
Take This Waltz, Sarah Polley's 2011 film, is not an easy film to write about. In general, but especially because it hits me so terribly close.
In the beginning of the film, Margot (Michelle Williams) watches a reenactment of an adulterer being brought to the gallows. She is asked to participate in the charade by whipping the adulterous pilgrim, which she shamefully performs. There, a man laughs at her and eggs her on. That man turns out to be her neighbor on the plane home and her new real neighbor, Daniel. She instantly likes him. This is problematic, because Margot is married to Lou. She's also, at 28, scared. When Daniel asks her why she was pushed through the airport in a wheelchair despite her ability to walk, she admits, "I'm afraid of connections. In airports. The running, the stress, the not knowing, the trying to figure it out, wondering if I'm going to make it. I don't like being in between things."
Even more than scared, Margot is restless. While the film emits a quietness that's not stifling but subtly beautiful, Margot is figuratively unable to sit still. She giggles with Lou like a child, picking at his face and biting his shoulder in a marriage that's friendly and non-sexual. She wants to write but can't seem to do it. At the same time, she's melancholy. All of this pulls her towards Daniel, who is new, persistent, and infatuated. But he notices her restlessness too upon their second meeting: "You seem restless. Not just now, but in a kind of permanent way."
I, too, have this permanent restlessness. It's so strong that a film professor recently suggested, out of the blue, that I try yoga to calm my nerves. This restlessness has helped me move to Paris, Brittany, Boston, and Copenhagen all within the last five years, never more than a year in each place. I desire the new and shiny opportunities that await overseas, in foreign languages. Even film fuels this consumption of newness--I can throw myself into a new world even several times a day if am bored with my own. New experiences are my form of adultery; I cheat on the old ones when they become ordinary.
But as one of the women in Take This Waltz so simply says, "new things get old." What Margot and I are actually scared of is this change from new to old in our lives. As a result, we avoid having a deep intimacy with the everyday. We want to spin so fast, like she does at one point with Daniel on a fairground ride, but we end up turning in circles. I think this is partly a product of our age, where the desire for adventure has a certain immediacy. We can travel the globe at will if we have the means, or connect to it from our computers. But it's also just me. I end up speeding through life with a sense of urgency because I don't know how to actually hunker down and live it.
A Danish friend once told me that a year, now, feels like the same amount of time to him as when he was five. This gave me pause. It amazed me that he wasn't counting down the days and years until some distant future became his Life, where that projection of how he imagined things would go finally, magically came true. I could blame my '90s optimism or the economic cushion when I came of age that told the world that kids like me could have their dream job. I could accuse my tiny liberal arts college of demanding its students to be exceptional in a niche, not just laudable enough with a clear conscience. But instead of blaming, I want to fix. I want to learn to sit still, to stop climbing, to see what's there, to rely on myself for happiness.
At the moment outside my window, bundles of snow weigh on the trees in a post-snowfall stillness that muffles all sound. Tonight I'll wrap myself in the snow's weight, to hold in its quiet. Perhaps that will make it last.
Flying has become commonplace. It’s a cramped experience, with our legs stuck under the seat in front of us, and our ears and eyes stuck to consoles.
Whoever described airplane passengers as cattle had it right – we are
corralled, spoon-fed, plugged in and complacent. No one complains about the
food, while everyone looks motionless and unmoved. Only during moments of turbulence
do we feel alive again, alerted to our mortality when the plane jolts back and
forth in the sky. Everything on a plane feeds fluid, like liquid, like we’re
moving in slow motion. I feel like I’m non-existent above the clouds,
straddling countries and identities (travelling across the Atlantic always
makes me feel like I’m negotiating my American-ness).
I miss soaring. I am too seldom weightless. Sometimes, on my
bike in the evenings in Copenhagen, riding back from work, I peddle hard to see if I can
break the complacency barrier. I remember moments of soaring as a kid, like my
stomach dropping when Emma and I egged our dad on to drive a little too fast on
“the bumpy road,” or when I pumped as high as I could on a swing just to get to
that split second right as I began to fall again. A plane is now the closest I
get to physically soaring (I’m not the rollercoaster type), or maybe dancing to
a really good song.
But thanks to the movies, I do get to soar, as often as I
like. Some people say that movies are manipulation; I say they help us fly.
This is why it gave me much great pleasure to watch Hugo today, as I was on a plane, flying home for the holidays. The
air turbulence was jolting only for a few minutes, but the film helped me feel alive long afterwards. Hugo is a movie
lover’s movie – under the guise of telling the story of a children’s adventure,
Martin Scorsese is really paying homage to the magician who gave the world its
first moving pictures, Georges Meliès. Hugo, the boy who helps Meliès restore
his own faith in the magic of the movies, is like the uninitiated cinephile,
and I am a bit envious that he gets to experience Meliès’ wonders for the first
time. On the other hand, I also feel as though I’m taking a fresh look at his
magic by seeing it through Hugo’s eyes.
It’s quite funny, but also perfect, that Hugo was made using the most advanced
digital equipment and tools out there, when Meliès only had analog film to work
with. It’s a testament to Meliès that his cinematic spectacles are still
awe-inspiring, and that his sleight of hand still works today. I’m sure
Scorsese has his own sleight of hand in Hugo,
but in an age of digital effects, we as audiences are immune to how they
work. We are all believing and complacent with our effects these days,
consuming them without notice on those small screens on the back of our
airplane seats. So I’m super glad to see Scorsese put Meliès back on his
pedestal, because when we soar during a movie, we have Meliès to thank.
Yesterday I read this article by Christian Keathley called "The Cinephiliac Moment," in which he writes about the distinct ability of cinematic moments to take hold on our emotions and never let go. We all have moments from movies that have particularly ensnared our hearts. One example from my own cinephilia is the instant Jesse catches Céline's eye in a Paris bookshop in Before Sunset, where flashbacks of their fortuitous one-night romance nine years earlier in Before Sunrise wrap the moment in a decade of history, instantaneously.
If I had to think of one film that has recently afforded me a cinephiliac moment, it's 2011's The Intouchables, the French comedy that's reminded the world why France is so good at uplifting, truthful cinema.
Philippe, a millionaire who has become quadriplegic after a paragliding accident, employs Driss, a charismatic black man from the banlieue, as his caretaker. Philippe wants no pity from him, and Driss instead offers a pragmatic and lighthearted approach to life. Throughout their exchange, Philippe helps Driss see the finer things in life, while Driss gives Philippe some vestiges of adventure. The film watches them become unlikely but hilarious friends, and the appropriate life lessons are spooned out for us as they learn from each other.
Already the entire premise is cinephiliac - that people can come from difference to help each other - so our emotional heartstrings are already taut at the beginning of the film. And with a tasteful script, an expressive soundtrack and elegant cinematography, the film is visually and aurally easy to love.
But there is one sequence in particular in which I felt that my vast love of the cinema funneled into a sharp and emotional cinephiliac moment. Philippe needs relief from his claustrophobic body, so he and Driss drive to the Swiss Alps for some fresh air, which they get in the form of tandem-paragliding.
The beauty of cinema is almost overwhelming in this paragliding scene. Colorful parachutes outlined against snow-topped mountains, sweeping birds-eye views, perspective shots in the open air, monumental music - we feel weightless ourselves, overcome by the joy that Philippe and Driss also feel.
Moments like these in cinema close the gap between viewer and film, so that our bodies feel transported into the diegesis and we intensely identify with the characters' experiences. Vivian Sobchack describes this relationship as a "carnal" one, where what's on screen is reproduced in our own skin. I think this is possible because of the sensory complexity of film; the magnitudes of sight and sound make us feel them physically, through touch and memory. The result is a momentary bliss, where we escape our own bodily presence and replace it with the feelings that come directly from the screen.
The escapism only ever lasts a moment, but that's another thing I love about it. If you try to hold on to it, it loses its power. So, I head back to the cinema as often as I can, seeking my next emotional and sensory thrill. If you do too, try The Intouchables, and embrace the moment when it surely comes.
This question seemed to take up space like a big pink elephant in the room as I watched Magic Mike (Soderbergh, 2012) this weekend. For a film about oversexed male bodies, where are the gay men?
The film features Channing "no neck" Tatum as stripper/entrepreneur extraordinaire named Mike who has a love/hate relationship with his profession. He's 30, wants equity in the Xquisite Dance Revue where he's legendary, is saving up to start his own furniture business, and tries not to be seen as his "lifestyle" (all the while booty-calling a girl who will only see him as such). But when down-and-out Adam comes along looking for a job, Magic Mike works his magic and finds him a place in the house as a dancer. And a bromance is born. Mike portrays himself as benevolent older brother figure, but his benevolence, he worries, may be letting him slide through life with money, girls, and a good time, instead of helping him make something of himself (offstage).
With the narrative told simply, the movie leaves plenty of room for the spectacle of the male body in motion. Tatum's dance moves are mind boggling, as are Matthew McConaughey's abs. But these bodies are all straight--there are no gay characters in the film. Furthermore, who in the movie are the recipients of this spectacle? The Xquisite Dance Revue's patrons are all female. I do not think I even spotted one man in the venue on screen that wasn't working there. Now, I'm sure the film's gay audiences appreciate the strippers as much as the women on screen do, but why can't they be represented there? Instead, it's women who get hoisted onstage and receive the lap dances. This points to the film's heteronormativity, as would a film about a female strip club with its male clientele.
What may tip Magic Mike to the homophobic scale, however, is that it shies away from acknowledging its own hints at homosexuality and homoeroticism. In one scene, Adam's sister finds his go-go outfits and wants to have a serious talk with him about his "preferences"--while Adam is shaving his legs. Funny, yes, because Adam panics, but his panic as he repeats "it's for work, it's for work" also reveals that he wants to avoid coming across as gay.
Similarly, in a particular dance rehearsal scene, McConaughey's Dallas teaches Adam how to seduce the mirror like it's a woman. He says, "you're not just stripping. You are fulfilling every woman's wildest fantasies. Who's got the cock? You do, they don't." Wait, so women are the only ones admiring the phallus in this situation? It looks more like the two of you are gyrating for each other.
Isn't everyone allowed to celebrate chiseled male bodies?
Now, the scene is actually quite funny, because 1) Adam really can't dance and 2) Dallas is just completely over the top. But we may also laugh because neither the characters nor the filmmaker seem to realize how homoerotic the scene is. In fact, certain audiences may find the entire film funny precisely because it's more homoerotic than it wants to let on (there are penis enlargers, comments like "let's be best friends," and bear hugs). But I also think Soderbergh & co could have benefited from a bit of self-reflection. Ultimately, the film is not a satire of an over-the-top industry but a character portrait of a man being a man in an over-the-top industry...and a straight man, at that.
...Or perhaps, Soderbergh is actually really progressive and just didn't want to reinforce gay stereotypes so he consciously removed them by making everyone straight? Hmmm, not sure I can give him that much credit.
Finally, the only other film I've seen or heard about that centers on male strippers is The Full Monty (Cattaneo, 1997), which only peeked at homosexuality and turned men's bodies into comedy. So, where are the gay Chippendales? Is this purely a matter of mainstream vs. niche? I thought gay was trendy!
Léos Carax's new film is virtually unexplainable, bordering on the divine and the absurd, but I'll do my best. Here's the trailer, which gives us little other than an eerie tone:
The film opens with a shot of a sold-out dark movie theater. The spectators are in their seats, but while we watch them, they don't watch us -- they're sleeping. Then, we watch a middle-aged man (Carax himself) rise out of bed, break a hole in his wall, and emerge onto a balcony overlooking this theater, in which a huge black dog slinks down the aisle. Fade to black, and with this prologue we know that we are in the realm of the surreal.
But quickly we latch onto a narrative. Oscar (Denis Lavant) goes off to work in a limo one morning (with echoes of his kids' words "travaille bien, papa!" trailing him). We assume that the meetings detailed in the folder next to him are the kinds typical of businessmen in suits and ties, but they're not. When Oscar emerges from the limo for his first "meeting" on a Paris bridge, he has transformed into a hunchbacked beggar shaking a can for cash. A joke? We think. A social commentary? But no. His next meeting finds him in a black motion-capture suit, dotted with white pins. Ahhh, we get it. He's a film stunt man.
But in the nine "meetings" that make up the film, this stuntman performs for no cameras, at least no cameras the audience can see. We watch Oscar contort his body and physique with makeup, costume, and sheer talent, but throughout the nine "scenes" in the film, each is autonomous. We feel we know less and less about our protagonist, and the question "who is Oscar, really?" is never answered. The only continuity in the film is the limo where Oscar returns after each impersonation (or should we say identity? Each feels as authentic as the last), and its driver, Céline. Furthermore, as Oscar absorbs completely into each role, the scenes feel incredibly rich in themselves, albeit frustrating as we know they'll be gone soon. Among others, he is (or performs as?) an abrasive father to a teenage daughter, a madman in a cemetery who kidnaps Eva Mendes and brings her into Paris's underground tunnels, Kylie Minogue's lost lover, a violent assassin, and a dying uncle. But are the others in his "scenes" also actors? Sometimes we get hints that they are, sometimes we think he may have been living these lives simultaneously. Most importantly, though, it doesn't matter. This is a hard feeling to shake for mainstream filmgoers like me. I crave narrative continuity, perhaps because Hollywood has conditioned me.
What Holy Motors strives to propose, rather, is that a film is for watching -- that it's all a spectacle. We must be reminded of the movie-theater opening in order to remember this, otherwise we will spend too much time trying to figure out who Oscar is (like I did, until I gave up and was much happier as a result). But the beauty of the film is that itself: its beauty.
There were two points during Holy Motors where I was enveloped by giddy amazement. As a movie lover, moments like these are the reason for my addiction. First, Oscar on the black motion-capture stage as a mirage of white dots was mesmerizing. Here, a slight slow-motion effect made the difference between an ordinary body performing martial arts and a dazzling, almost inhuman array of agility, grace and speed. Images like this are achieved only in cinema; even when you see them, you almost don't believe them.
Second, as a literal "entracte," Oscar steps into a candlelit church with accordion in hand. He starts playing, and suddenly he is flanked by dozens of accordion, guitar, and percussion players. With perfect acoustics in both the church and the theater in Copenhagen where I sat, I felt actually pretty close to crying. Cinema, for me, provides that sensory blend of overwhelming sound and visual beauty. I was grinning uncontrollably, with powerful goosebumps and a near weightlessness. While it hardly does the theater experience justice, here's the scene:
So, please see Holy Motors. You may be frustrated, confused, and melancholy when watching, but I guarantee you will also be exhilarated and in awe.
