*tap tap tap* This thing on?
So, it's been a while. Okay. Maybe more than a while. Real Life got in the way of important things like blogging for a few months, but I never intended to abandon this thing entirely. That said, the reason I'm back to post one more review is because of a movie that's quite a bit like my Real Life: No Footing.
Rowan alum Michael Licisyn screened his film for current students and faculty last night in an event hosted by the Cinema Workshop. No Footing tells the story of Madison (Jensen Bucher), a 23-year-old art school graduate trying to get her life on track. Despite her Bachelor's degree, she finds herself working in a copy shop for an unbearably absurd boss (a perfectly over-the-top performance by Derek Lindeman). She can barely pay the bills and is far too drained at the end of the day to paint for herself, let alone pursue the dream of making a living with her art.
She feels stuck and alone when she finds herself continually bumping into Christopher (Jake Matthews), a kindred spirit of sorts who gave up the theater in order to get a steady job as a high school guidance counselor. Their relationship is refreshingly complex; this is not a love story, despite one very suggestive dream sequence. Instead they are not quite even friends. Their dynamic is one of a mentor and protegee. Madison latches onto him in the hopes that he can teach her how to cope with what she perceives as failure. In turn, he teaches her to take responsibility for her own happiness.
In a Q&A session after the film, Licisyn stated that Madison's journey was based largely on his own, when he was struggling to establish himself after graduation. This may be why the film rings so true. Madison's world is the same one that I'm living in, as are many of my peers, and Licisyn explores the myriad of ways in which we all cope with it. Like Madison's best friend Kylie, I chose to extend my undergraduate education by an extra year (although I didn't fail any classes in order to do it). Like Madison herself, most of my friends who have already graduated are working low-wage jobs unrelated to their majors. Madison's parents are my parents, down to the mother pushing for a career in teaching as a back-up plan. And of course everyone has a Cory (Michael Bower, better known as "Donkeylips" to those of us who were kids in the '90s), that eccentric success story we can't help but look at with envy. This film captures all the uncertainty of entering adulthood at a time when degrees are plentiful but jobs are few, and it does so with a subtlety that is absent from most coming-of-age stories.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Boudu Sauvé des Eaux
Suicide seems to have been a common theme in French comedies, or at least the ones showcased in Cannes Classics this year. Jean Renoir's Boudu Sauvé des Eaux is about a homeless man, Boudu, saved from drowning himself by the middle-class bookseller Monsieur Lestingois. Hailed as a hero by the community, Lestingois takes Boudu in and tries to give him a respectable life. However, Boudu isn't interested in the so-called good life. He takes everything Lestingois is willing to give him, up to and including the bookseller's own mistress; after marrying her, he realizes that he was happier as a bum than a bourgeois, and jumps back into the river to reclaim his old life.
Much of the film's humor comes from the disparities between the Lestingois family's genteel lifestyle and Boudu's crude existence. Although Lestingois holds a higher place in society, Boudu continually bests him, running the man and his family ragged simply because they won't stand up to him -- it would be poor manners, after all, to refuse their guest. The lowly Boudu, therefore, comes off as smarter and wittier than his well-educated hosts, ironic because they run and live in a bookstore, which theoretically should be a fountain of wisdom.
However, this film is more than just another story of a poor man outsmarting a richer one. The characters are all complex and engaging; Lestingois does the right thing by taking in Boudu, but he does so at least partially because it makes him look good -- he's more concerned with society's opinion than with his family's. Boudu takes advantage of his hosts, but he too is shown to have at least something resembling a heart. This lighthearted film bypasses the preachy route by poking fun at both classes simultaneously, with the natural interactions between characters.
Much of the film's humor comes from the disparities between the Lestingois family's genteel lifestyle and Boudu's crude existence. Although Lestingois holds a higher place in society, Boudu continually bests him, running the man and his family ragged simply because they won't stand up to him -- it would be poor manners, after all, to refuse their guest. The lowly Boudu, therefore, comes off as smarter and wittier than his well-educated hosts, ironic because they run and live in a bookstore, which theoretically should be a fountain of wisdom.
However, this film is more than just another story of a poor man outsmarting a richer one. The characters are all complex and engaging; Lestingois does the right thing by taking in Boudu, but he does so at least partially because it makes him look good -- he's more concerned with society's opinion than with his family's. Boudu takes advantage of his hosts, but he too is shown to have at least something resembling a heart. This lighthearted film bypasses the preachy route by poking fun at both classes simultaneously, with the natural interactions between characters.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Au Petit Bonheur (1946)
Cannes Classics brought a restored print of Au Petit Bonheur back to the big screen last week. This absolutely hysterical French comedy from 1946 features Danielle Darrieux as Martine, the crazy and jealous wife in a marriage of convenience who sets out to make her husband fall in love with her, collateral damage be damned.
Said collateral damage consists of playwright Alain Plessis, whose car she first shoots and then repeatedly comandeers. Plessis is on his way to a remote inn, a wonderfully creepy place that serves to isolate the main cast, which is where he fell in love with an actress who later left him. He plans to relive their first happy moments, then kill himself; his plan is postponed when he comes across the innkeeper, Brigitte, who is rehearsing her own suicide. Together, they happen upon Martine's husband, Denis, who had broken in to get away from her. When Martine discovers him and he leaves her, she too decides to take her own life. Yes, kids, this is a comedy.
The rest of the film involves Martine and Denis scheming with other people to get each other back. Martine, who started out as mentally unstable, gains the upper hand by overhearing a conversation between Denis and Plessis. However, she is thwarted by an accidental dose of sleeping pills. All three characters are literally on the precipice before Plessins realizes he doesn't want to die, and Martine and Denis realize that neither of them wants a divorce. Along the way, there are more than enough misunderstandings and plays on words to keep this comedy from becoming too dark, and everything is tied up neatly in the end -- literally, with the rope that Brigitte would have used to hang herself.
Said collateral damage consists of playwright Alain Plessis, whose car she first shoots and then repeatedly comandeers. Plessis is on his way to a remote inn, a wonderfully creepy place that serves to isolate the main cast, which is where he fell in love with an actress who later left him. He plans to relive their first happy moments, then kill himself; his plan is postponed when he comes across the innkeeper, Brigitte, who is rehearsing her own suicide. Together, they happen upon Martine's husband, Denis, who had broken in to get away from her. When Martine discovers him and he leaves her, she too decides to take her own life. Yes, kids, this is a comedy.
The rest of the film involves Martine and Denis scheming with other people to get each other back. Martine, who started out as mentally unstable, gains the upper hand by overhearing a conversation between Denis and Plessis. However, she is thwarted by an accidental dose of sleeping pills. All three characters are literally on the precipice before Plessins realizes he doesn't want to die, and Martine and Denis realize that neither of them wants a divorce. Along the way, there are more than enough misunderstandings and plays on words to keep this comedy from becoming too dark, and everything is tied up neatly in the end -- literally, with the rope that Brigitte would have used to hang herself.
Monday, May 17, 2010
You ain't supposed to enjoy yourself 'til sundown...
Well, kids, I made it. I’m writing to you live from the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Don’t expect regular updates for a while (does anyone still expect regular updates from me?) because I’m working my derrière off, to use the local vernacular. But, I’ll do what I can.
Early in the festival I had the amazing opportunity to see a newly-restored print of From Here to Eternity projected onto a giant screen on the beach. This was my first time seeing the film, believe it or not, so obviously I jumped at the chance.
The movie itself definitely lived up to the hype. I thought it was interesting to see a film from 1953 set around Pearl Harbor, because it presented a critical view of the military that certainly would not have gotten past the censors had the war still been going on. For example, Warden routinely manipulates and makes a fool of his superior, Holmes; officers would never have been looked down upon like that in a wartime flick. I also thought that the film had a mood of inevitability in the scenes leading up to the attack that might possibly have mirrored the general mood of the public in the 1950s -- that is, the idea that war would break out at any moment. I saw this parallel particularly strongly when Warden and Karen were in the car discussing their future, and he told her, "We're sure to be into a war by then."
The role of the two women in this film is also very interesting. It definitely showcases post-war attitudes about a woman's place being in the home; Karen defines waste as "a house without a child," and her back story revolves around being unable to have children, as though that's what determines her sense of self-worth. Alma, who goes by Lorene, has a job of her own, but it's not considered respectable; she dreams of marrying rich. The goals of both women are completely dependent on men. For this reason, I thought it was fascinating that the film closes on them rather than on the soldiers.
Unfortunately, the screening wasn't as picture-perfect as it sounded in theory. There was another beach-side event on a pier close by, and the music from that drowned out much of the beautifully restored soundtrack for parts of the movie, including the iconic scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling in the surf. Fireworks in the ocean, though pretty, were also a distraction. Still, seeing the film at all was a wonderful way to start the festival; I just wish the exhibition had done it justice.
Early in the festival I had the amazing opportunity to see a newly-restored print of From Here to Eternity projected onto a giant screen on the beach. This was my first time seeing the film, believe it or not, so obviously I jumped at the chance.
The movie itself definitely lived up to the hype. I thought it was interesting to see a film from 1953 set around Pearl Harbor, because it presented a critical view of the military that certainly would not have gotten past the censors had the war still been going on. For example, Warden routinely manipulates and makes a fool of his superior, Holmes; officers would never have been looked down upon like that in a wartime flick. I also thought that the film had a mood of inevitability in the scenes leading up to the attack that might possibly have mirrored the general mood of the public in the 1950s -- that is, the idea that war would break out at any moment. I saw this parallel particularly strongly when Warden and Karen were in the car discussing their future, and he told her, "We're sure to be into a war by then."
The role of the two women in this film is also very interesting. It definitely showcases post-war attitudes about a woman's place being in the home; Karen defines waste as "a house without a child," and her back story revolves around being unable to have children, as though that's what determines her sense of self-worth. Alma, who goes by Lorene, has a job of her own, but it's not considered respectable; she dreams of marrying rich. The goals of both women are completely dependent on men. For this reason, I thought it was fascinating that the film closes on them rather than on the soldiers.
Unfortunately, the screening wasn't as picture-perfect as it sounded in theory. There was another beach-side event on a pier close by, and the music from that drowned out much of the beautifully restored soundtrack for parts of the movie, including the iconic scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling in the surf. Fireworks in the ocean, though pretty, were also a distraction. Still, seeing the film at all was a wonderful way to start the festival; I just wish the exhibition had done it justice.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Maybe she was alright, and maybe Christmas comes in July...
World War II brought about a lot of disruptions and restrictions to which Hollywood had to adapt. The end of the war, however, brought about its own set of challenges. With the troops overseas, filmmakers had grown used to targeting a fragmented audience -- the men on the front lines, and the women on the home front. As soldiers returned home, Hollywood led the way in helping America adjust to a reunified peacetime society. Films became more violent to attract the male audiences who were fresh from combat, and female characters exemplified the American woman's return from the workplace back into the home. 1947's Dead Reckoning is a prime illustration of how Hollywood transitioned into the postwar period.
Dead Reckoning is clearly aimed at soldiers returning from war. The main male character, Captain Warren "Rip" Murdock (Humphrey Bogart), is a former soldier. Fitting with noir conventions, he refuses aid from his superiors in Washington, acting more as a lone detective as he tries to clear the name of his fellow soldier, Johnny, who had enlisted under an alias after having been accused of murdering the husband of his lover, Coral "Dusty" Chandler (played by Lauren Bacall look-alike Lizabeth Scott). In keeping with censorship rules regarding the portrayal of the military, it is immediately revealed that Johnny is innocent -- we can't have the audience doubting the virtue of a man in uniform, after all. The film then unfolds as a whodunnit as Rip tries to determine who framed Johnny.
There are several elements throughout the film that point to a marked change in censorship compared to earlier noirs. For example, Martinelli, the owner of the club where Dusty works, is portrayed as a gangster. This marks the return of a genre and character that had been banned during the war as "unAmerican." Here, the mobsters are German, with Nazi weapons; American audiences at this time were seeing newsreels of the liberated concentration camps, leaving a lasting and powerful impression of the atrocities committed by the defeated enemy. In particular, Martinelli's right-hand man Krause is portrayed as positively sadistic, doling out brutal beatings set to music. The excessive violence was a means of reaching audiences who had been desensitized, either by combat or by footage of its aftermath.
One of the most radical differences between wartime and postwar films noir is the portrayal of gender roles. Earlier films featured independent working females holding down the fort while the men were away. At the end of the war, Hollywood needed to convince women to give up their independence so that men could regain their jobs in the face of massive unemployment. From a modern perspective, this film is not at all subtle in its pursuit of that goal. Rip and Dusty have a recurring conversation about a woman's place -- which, according to Rip, is in a man's pocket until he's ready to pull her out again, and then only to look pretty. After resisting, double-crossing, and even trying to kill Rip, Dusty dies wishing that he could pick her up and put her in his pocket. Taken in its historical context, this could be seen as a warning to the women in the audience who balked at surrendering their independence: repent or die.
Dead Reckoning is clearly aimed at soldiers returning from war. The main male character, Captain Warren "Rip" Murdock (Humphrey Bogart), is a former soldier. Fitting with noir conventions, he refuses aid from his superiors in Washington, acting more as a lone detective as he tries to clear the name of his fellow soldier, Johnny, who had enlisted under an alias after having been accused of murdering the husband of his lover, Coral "Dusty" Chandler (played by Lauren Bacall look-alike Lizabeth Scott). In keeping with censorship rules regarding the portrayal of the military, it is immediately revealed that Johnny is innocent -- we can't have the audience doubting the virtue of a man in uniform, after all. The film then unfolds as a whodunnit as Rip tries to determine who framed Johnny.
There are several elements throughout the film that point to a marked change in censorship compared to earlier noirs. For example, Martinelli, the owner of the club where Dusty works, is portrayed as a gangster. This marks the return of a genre and character that had been banned during the war as "unAmerican." Here, the mobsters are German, with Nazi weapons; American audiences at this time were seeing newsreels of the liberated concentration camps, leaving a lasting and powerful impression of the atrocities committed by the defeated enemy. In particular, Martinelli's right-hand man Krause is portrayed as positively sadistic, doling out brutal beatings set to music. The excessive violence was a means of reaching audiences who had been desensitized, either by combat or by footage of its aftermath.
One of the most radical differences between wartime and postwar films noir is the portrayal of gender roles. Earlier films featured independent working females holding down the fort while the men were away. At the end of the war, Hollywood needed to convince women to give up their independence so that men could regain their jobs in the face of massive unemployment. From a modern perspective, this film is not at all subtle in its pursuit of that goal. Rip and Dusty have a recurring conversation about a woman's place -- which, according to Rip, is in a man's pocket until he's ready to pull her out again, and then only to look pretty. After resisting, double-crossing, and even trying to kill Rip, Dusty dies wishing that he could pick her up and put her in his pocket. Taken in its historical context, this could be seen as a warning to the women in the audience who balked at surrendering their independence: repent or die.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially as he's walking out of your bedroom...
The impact of politics on the film industry is a subject I find fascinating, particularly during and immediately after WWII into the Cold War. The more I learn, the more I want to know, and the more I want to watch films from that era so that I can try to pick apart what was going on behind the scenes in terms of censorship and government regulation. I've talked before about movies that were made at the beginning or during the height of the war, but once the end of the conflict was in sight, Hollywood faced a new set of challenges in the transition to the postwar era. In my Film Noir class, we've been discussing these challenges and how they are exemplified by films such as The Big Sleep.
As the war drew to a close, Hollywood had to appeal not only to the largely female homefront audience, but now to the men returning from overseas as well. Heroes gave way to anti-heroes, including Humphrey Bogart's hardboiled detective Phillip Marlowe. Marlowe is hired by an ailing but wealthy veteran to figure out who is blackmailing his wild young daughter, Carmen. The case is over with rather quickly, as Geiger, the blackmailer, is killed right under Marlowe's nose. But the detective is unsatisfied with this resolution and digs deeper, much to the chagrin of General Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian (Lauren Bacall), who does everything in her power to throw Marlowe off-track as he finds himself investigating not only Geiger's case, but the disappearance of Sternwood's employee Sean Regan, who was alleged to have run off with the wife of Geiger's landlord, Eddie Mars.
Though Marlowe was hired to extract Carmen from a potentially dangerous situation, he soon switches his focus to Vivian; this is the result of early screenings of the film for troops overseas, who wanted to see Lauren Bacall's role expanded after the success of her pairing with Bogart in To Have And Have Not. I haven't seen the earlier version, but I thought that Vivian was the more interesting sister and I was glad when the narrative shifted towards her shady dealings instead of Carmen's drunken mix-ups. Still, both sisters' troubles are a lot to pack into one movie.
The violence in this film is very overt and hands-on, targeted at the many men who were readjusting to life after combat. Marlowe gives Carmen a couple of hard slaps to get her to come to when he discovers her in Geiger's house with his newly-dead body, and he himself is beaten bloody more than once, not to mention multiple murders that occur as Marlowe attempts to solve the riddle of Geiger's slaying. Additionally, Marlowe is presented as someone that other men would want to be; women throw themselves at him throughout the film, with the exception of Vivian, who eventually admits her attraction to him. It seems there is no woman that Marlowe couldn't have, but Vivian still holds her own as a classic femme fatale. Courting both male and female audiences was a daunting task at this time, but by cultivating strong women and men of action in his characters, Howard Hawks walked the tightrope well.
As the war drew to a close, Hollywood had to appeal not only to the largely female homefront audience, but now to the men returning from overseas as well. Heroes gave way to anti-heroes, including Humphrey Bogart's hardboiled detective Phillip Marlowe. Marlowe is hired by an ailing but wealthy veteran to figure out who is blackmailing his wild young daughter, Carmen. The case is over with rather quickly, as Geiger, the blackmailer, is killed right under Marlowe's nose. But the detective is unsatisfied with this resolution and digs deeper, much to the chagrin of General Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian (Lauren Bacall), who does everything in her power to throw Marlowe off-track as he finds himself investigating not only Geiger's case, but the disappearance of Sternwood's employee Sean Regan, who was alleged to have run off with the wife of Geiger's landlord, Eddie Mars.
Though Marlowe was hired to extract Carmen from a potentially dangerous situation, he soon switches his focus to Vivian; this is the result of early screenings of the film for troops overseas, who wanted to see Lauren Bacall's role expanded after the success of her pairing with Bogart in To Have And Have Not. I haven't seen the earlier version, but I thought that Vivian was the more interesting sister and I was glad when the narrative shifted towards her shady dealings instead of Carmen's drunken mix-ups. Still, both sisters' troubles are a lot to pack into one movie.
The violence in this film is very overt and hands-on, targeted at the many men who were readjusting to life after combat. Marlowe gives Carmen a couple of hard slaps to get her to come to when he discovers her in Geiger's house with his newly-dead body, and he himself is beaten bloody more than once, not to mention multiple murders that occur as Marlowe attempts to solve the riddle of Geiger's slaying. Additionally, Marlowe is presented as someone that other men would want to be; women throw themselves at him throughout the film, with the exception of Vivian, who eventually admits her attraction to him. It seems there is no woman that Marlowe couldn't have, but Vivian still holds her own as a classic femme fatale. Courting both male and female audiences was a daunting task at this time, but by cultivating strong women and men of action in his characters, Howard Hawks walked the tightrope well.
Monday, February 8, 2010
I was the steam when hot meets cold...
Tom Kalin is not a director who shies away from controversial subjects. What I like about his films, in fact, is his ability to pull social taboos out into the light and examine them without deliberately trying to be provocative. Perhaps the best example of this is his 2007 feature, Savage Grace.
Savage Grace is, like Swoon, based on a real-life murder case. This one involves the Baekeland family, hiers to the Bakelite plastics fortune. The film chronicles the relationships between Brooks Baekeland, his wife Barbara Daly Baekeland, and their only child, Antony Baekeland, from Tony's infancy through Barbara's death at the hands of her son. A major theme of the film is the rumored incestuous relationship between Barbara and Tony, alleged to be the catalyst that led Tony to kill his mother.
One of the many remarkable things about this film is the way it was shot. As he proved in Swoon, Kalin does period films very thoroughly, shooting each segment as it would have been shot in the time period in which it was set. The progression from a stable camera and classical Hollywood-style invisible editing in the 1940s and 50s to the handheld camera and more adventurous style in the 60s subtly helps to orient the viewer each time the narrative jumps ahead, while making the transition feel seamless by immediately calling to mind the decade that is now being portrayed.
Of course, what many would consider the most remarkable thing about this film is its subject matter. Incest is among the gravest taboos in modern society, foremost on the unwritten list of "Thou Shalt Nots" that governs what topics are addressed in the mainstream media. It's easy to assume that anyone who would make a movie about it is purely looking to capitalize on shock value, but after viewing Savage Grace I can say that this doesn't seem to be the case here. In fact, Kalin seems to take great pains in order to avoid shocking the audience -- anymore than absolutely necessary, that is, because the Baekeland case is shocking in and of itself. Rather than exploiting his characters, Kalin explores them as human beings, flaws and all, and presents a respectful picture of what can go wrong in the human mind that would lead to such tragic events.
Savage Grace is, like Swoon, based on a real-life murder case. This one involves the Baekeland family, hiers to the Bakelite plastics fortune. The film chronicles the relationships between Brooks Baekeland, his wife Barbara Daly Baekeland, and their only child, Antony Baekeland, from Tony's infancy through Barbara's death at the hands of her son. A major theme of the film is the rumored incestuous relationship between Barbara and Tony, alleged to be the catalyst that led Tony to kill his mother.
One of the many remarkable things about this film is the way it was shot. As he proved in Swoon, Kalin does period films very thoroughly, shooting each segment as it would have been shot in the time period in which it was set. The progression from a stable camera and classical Hollywood-style invisible editing in the 1940s and 50s to the handheld camera and more adventurous style in the 60s subtly helps to orient the viewer each time the narrative jumps ahead, while making the transition feel seamless by immediately calling to mind the decade that is now being portrayed.
Of course, what many would consider the most remarkable thing about this film is its subject matter. Incest is among the gravest taboos in modern society, foremost on the unwritten list of "Thou Shalt Nots" that governs what topics are addressed in the mainstream media. It's easy to assume that anyone who would make a movie about it is purely looking to capitalize on shock value, but after viewing Savage Grace I can say that this doesn't seem to be the case here. In fact, Kalin seems to take great pains in order to avoid shocking the audience -- anymore than absolutely necessary, that is, because the Baekeland case is shocking in and of itself. Rather than exploiting his characters, Kalin explores them as human beings, flaws and all, and presents a respectful picture of what can go wrong in the human mind that would lead to such tragic events.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I'm king of the world...
You can really tell it's awards season, can't you? Grammys, Oscars, Razzies, blog awards... Yes, that's right, there's another one of those going around already, and this one was graciously presented to me by Sally. It's the Over The Top award, and the rules are as follows:
Link back to the person who tagged you, answer the following questions with one word only (I may have fudged this one a bit), and then link to a few other blogs that are also Over the Top.
1. Where is your phone? desk
2. Your hair? blonde
3. Your Mother? lovely
4. Your Father? witty
5. Your favorite food? chocolate
6. Your dream last night? hazy
7. Your favorite drink? white Russian
8. Your dream/goal? professional student
9. What room are you in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blogging
11. Your fear? needles
(12. is missing)
13. Where were you last night? Grammy-watching party
14. Something that you’re not? musical
15. Muffins? delicious
16. Wish list item? iTouch
17. Where did you grow up? Jersey
18. Last thing you did? shower
19. What are you wearing? PJs
20. Your TV? fuzzy
21. Your pets? dog
22. Friends? wonderful
23. Your life? excellent
24. Your mood? sleepy
25. Missing someone? old friends
26. Vehicle? ancient
27. Something you’re not wearing? socks
28. Your favorite store? Kohl's
29. Your Favorite color? blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? 10:58
31. The last time you cried? unimportant
32. Your best friend? hilarious
33. One place that I go to over and over? Philly
34. Facebook? Twitter
35. Favorite place to eat? Subway
Here are some other Over The Top blogs I think you'll all enjoy:
Bygone Brilliance
Hollywood Dreamland
Movie Viewing Girl
Skeins Of Thought
Some Parade
Link back to the person who tagged you, answer the following questions with one word only (I may have fudged this one a bit), and then link to a few other blogs that are also Over the Top.
1. Where is your phone? desk
2. Your hair? blonde
3. Your Mother? lovely
4. Your Father? witty
5. Your favorite food? chocolate
6. Your dream last night? hazy
7. Your favorite drink? white Russian
8. Your dream/goal? professional student
9. What room are you in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blogging
11. Your fear? needles
(12. is missing)
13. Where were you last night? Grammy-watching party
14. Something that you’re not? musical
15. Muffins? delicious
16. Wish list item? iTouch
17. Where did you grow up? Jersey
18. Last thing you did? shower
19. What are you wearing? PJs
20. Your TV? fuzzy
21. Your pets? dog
22. Friends? wonderful
23. Your life? excellent
24. Your mood? sleepy
25. Missing someone? old friends
26. Vehicle? ancient
27. Something you’re not wearing? socks
28. Your favorite store? Kohl's
29. Your Favorite color? blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? 10:58
31. The last time you cried? unimportant
32. Your best friend? hilarious
33. One place that I go to over and over? Philly
34. Facebook? Twitter
35. Favorite place to eat? Subway
Here are some other Over The Top blogs I think you'll all enjoy:
Bygone Brilliance
Hollywood Dreamland
Movie Viewing Girl
Skeins Of Thought
Some Parade
Sunday, January 31, 2010
I wanted to pass the boundaries of intelligence for something more pure...
Like Alfred Hitchcock and many others before him, Tom Kalin chose to explore the Leopold and Loeb case through film. The result, Swoon, takes a unique look at the crime by focusing on the intimate relationship between the two men rather than on the adversarial relationship between them and the rest of society, as we saw in Rope.
Through both the cinematography and the mise-en-scène, Kalin puts the audience into the time period of the film while simultaneously taking them out of it. The grainy black-and-white film stock is reminiscent of that which was used in films shot during the 1920s, while occasional extreme angles or use of a handheld camera give the film a more modern feel. Likewise, anachronisms such as a black female stenographer (at the time of the court case, the position was held only by white males) and technology that was unavailable in the 20s, such as touch-tone phones, were used very deliberately and effectively. Taken together, these choices give the audience the dichotomous feelings of watching events unfold as they happen and seeing them with the perspective granted by hindsight.
One of the most interesting scenes in the film comes in the aftermath of the crime. After they are arrested thanks to evidence left at the scene by the perpetually anxious Nathan, the killers are questioned separately and turn on each other. Once they are reunited, each tries to convince the investigators that he had been driving the car while his partner committed the murder in the backseat. They both stick to their stories so firmly that it's impossible to discern which of them is lying; in a tense moment, however, Dickie slips up and "forgets" that he had supposedly been driving. He uses his natural charms to cover his tracks, and both he and Nathan are charged with murder, but the film conclusively indicates that he was the more guilty party.
According to Tom Kalin, who spoke with our class a few weeks after we screened this film, that scene was taken directly from the court transcripts. The film's story grew out of the moment when Richard Loeb inadvertently identified Nathan Leopold as the driver of their car, implying that he himself had been in the backseat with the victim. After reading that part of the transcript, Kalin was convinced that Loeb had been the one to actually take the boy's life, and wrote the movie from that perspective. As a writing student as well as a film student, I found it very interesting to think about the entire film having spiraled out of this one defining moment of truth. The next time I see the movie, I will definitely be thinking about how it leads up to and away from that revelation.
Through both the cinematography and the mise-en-scène, Kalin puts the audience into the time period of the film while simultaneously taking them out of it. The grainy black-and-white film stock is reminiscent of that which was used in films shot during the 1920s, while occasional extreme angles or use of a handheld camera give the film a more modern feel. Likewise, anachronisms such as a black female stenographer (at the time of the court case, the position was held only by white males) and technology that was unavailable in the 20s, such as touch-tone phones, were used very deliberately and effectively. Taken together, these choices give the audience the dichotomous feelings of watching events unfold as they happen and seeing them with the perspective granted by hindsight.
One of the most interesting scenes in the film comes in the aftermath of the crime. After they are arrested thanks to evidence left at the scene by the perpetually anxious Nathan, the killers are questioned separately and turn on each other. Once they are reunited, each tries to convince the investigators that he had been driving the car while his partner committed the murder in the backseat. They both stick to their stories so firmly that it's impossible to discern which of them is lying; in a tense moment, however, Dickie slips up and "forgets" that he had supposedly been driving. He uses his natural charms to cover his tracks, and both he and Nathan are charged with murder, but the film conclusively indicates that he was the more guilty party.
According to Tom Kalin, who spoke with our class a few weeks after we screened this film, that scene was taken directly from the court transcripts. The film's story grew out of the moment when Richard Loeb inadvertently identified Nathan Leopold as the driver of their car, implying that he himself had been in the backseat with the victim. After reading that part of the transcript, Kalin was convinced that Loeb had been the one to actually take the boy's life, and wrote the movie from that perspective. As a writing student as well as a film student, I found it very interesting to think about the entire film having spiraled out of this one defining moment of truth. The next time I see the movie, I will definitely be thinking about how it leads up to and away from that revelation.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Made it, Ma! Top of the world...
A little over a week ago, the esteemed Moira Finnie was kind enough to tag me in the Kreativ Blogger Award. It came the day I moved into a new apartment at the beginning of a new semester, so hopefully she can forgive the delay in my response, but I was (and am) very flattered and very grateful.
The rules of engagement are as follows:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
Many, many thanks, Moira!
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
You mean this logo here?
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
Right this way, please.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
Oh, dear. This might take me another week-and-a-half.
~I'm going to be interning with the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival this May. This means I'll have access to not only the festival, which is obviously an incredible opportunity in and of itself, but panels and roundtable discussions specifically aimed at film students. To say I'm excited would be a major understatement.
~Last weekend, I baked someting from scratch for the first time ever. I had the help of my roommate and a friend of ours, and a few other friends helped with the eating part. Our cupcakes turned out quite well, considering who made them.
~I kept a running tally of every film I watched in 2009. Surprisingly, the only one I saw more than twice was Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, which I saw in its entirety four times. It's hardly my favorite Kevin Smith movie (oh hi there, Mallrats), but it was on the CW all the time and I only have a handful of cable channels in my room at home.
~My top five most-played songs on iTunes are "Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?" by The Gaslight Anthem (120), "Straw Dog" by Something Corporate" (104), "Engines" by Snow Patrol (95), "Old White Lincoln" by The Gaslight Anthem (93), and "Etreintes Fatales" by Johnny Hallyday (86). One of these things is not like the others...
~Today I found two Carole Lombard movies on one DVD for $2.99 in ShopRite, of all places (it's a grocery store, for those not in the northeast US). The movies are Made For Each Other and Nothing Sacred. Score!
~I'm becoming very interested in the effects of sociopolitical issues on the film industry. It started with the blacklist panel, and now I'd really love to study it more in-depth someday.
~I'm really not that interesting. Or I just can't count to seven.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers and post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
A Noodle In A Haystack
Cinema Splendor
Discovering Dirk Bogarde
Flying Down To Hollywood
Lolita's Classics
Out Of The Past
She Blogged By Night
All of these blogs are well-written, informative, and a delight to read!
6. There's no number 6. Somebody should make one up.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.
The rules of engagement are as follows:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
Many, many thanks, Moira!
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
You mean this logo here?
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
Right this way, please.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
Oh, dear. This might take me another week-and-a-half.
~I'm going to be interning with the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival this May. This means I'll have access to not only the festival, which is obviously an incredible opportunity in and of itself, but panels and roundtable discussions specifically aimed at film students. To say I'm excited would be a major understatement.
~Last weekend, I baked someting from scratch for the first time ever. I had the help of my roommate and a friend of ours, and a few other friends helped with the eating part. Our cupcakes turned out quite well, considering who made them.
~I kept a running tally of every film I watched in 2009. Surprisingly, the only one I saw more than twice was Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, which I saw in its entirety four times. It's hardly my favorite Kevin Smith movie (oh hi there, Mallrats), but it was on the CW all the time and I only have a handful of cable channels in my room at home.
~My top five most-played songs on iTunes are "Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?" by The Gaslight Anthem (120), "Straw Dog" by Something Corporate" (104), "Engines" by Snow Patrol (95), "Old White Lincoln" by The Gaslight Anthem (93), and "Etreintes Fatales" by Johnny Hallyday (86). One of these things is not like the others...
~Today I found two Carole Lombard movies on one DVD for $2.99 in ShopRite, of all places (it's a grocery store, for those not in the northeast US). The movies are Made For Each Other and Nothing Sacred. Score!
~I'm becoming very interested in the effects of sociopolitical issues on the film industry. It started with the blacklist panel, and now I'd really love to study it more in-depth someday.
~I'm really not that interesting. Or I just can't count to seven.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers and post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
A Noodle In A Haystack
Cinema Splendor
Discovering Dirk Bogarde
Flying Down To Hollywood
Lolita's Classics
Out Of The Past
She Blogged By Night
All of these blogs are well-written, informative, and a delight to read!
6. There's no number 6. Somebody should make one up.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.
Friday, January 22, 2010
What people oughta do is get outside their own house and look in for once...
I seem to have taken another unintentional hiatus. Winter break involved a lot less "break" than I thought it would, but I'm back at school now and taking two more film classes this semester. Well, one is actually a French class in which we study French films. In French. This will go swimmingly, I'm sure. Anyway, I still have a whole bunch of notes and blog posts in various stages of construction from last semester, so hopefully the backlog will keep me from going off-air again for a while. For now, I'm going to pick up where I left off.
By pure convenient coincidence, I saw Hitchcock's Rear Window in my Film History class last semester on the same day that I saw his earlier film, Rope, in The Movie Industry. It was my first time watching both movies, and seeing them just a few hours apart I couldn't help comparing the two and drawing some conclusions about Hitchcock as an auteur.
To some extent, Rear Window seems to be Hitchcock's second attempt at the continuous-take effect that he first tried out in Rope. At least, he seems to have learned from his previous mistakes; Rear Window is shot with a lot of long takes and a fluidly moving camera, but there are cuts where necessary to keep the audience interested visually as well as psychologically. Additionally, there is often a lot more going on within the frame than there was in Rope. Although both films take place entirely within the confines of one apartment, Rope kept the camera confined indoors, with the large windows serving only as a backdrop and to indicate the passage of time. In Rear Window, the titular pane offers the camera -- along with protagonist L.B. Jeffries -- an escape. Through his own camera lens, Jeff can view the entire apartment building (which, by the way, was the largest set ever built at the time the film was made) or zoom in on any one residence. Likewise, there are many different areas of the screen on which the audience can concentrate during those long takes, because the frame is filled with the activities of many different interesting and eccentric minor characters.
In addition to being a great technical improvement over Rope, Rear Window is a quintessential psychological thriller. The decision to trap the camera inside with Jeff gives viewers a keen sense of his growing fear and desperation, even when they may find themselves siding with other characters who think he's off his rocker. At any given time, the audience only has as much information as Jeff does, and as a result shares his feeling of helplessness. This emotional connection, formed from the beginning of the film onward, increases the suspense felt at the film's climax, when finally Jeff begins to hear ominous footsteps outside his own door.
By pure convenient coincidence, I saw Hitchcock's Rear Window in my Film History class last semester on the same day that I saw his earlier film, Rope, in The Movie Industry. It was my first time watching both movies, and seeing them just a few hours apart I couldn't help comparing the two and drawing some conclusions about Hitchcock as an auteur.
To some extent, Rear Window seems to be Hitchcock's second attempt at the continuous-take effect that he first tried out in Rope. At least, he seems to have learned from his previous mistakes; Rear Window is shot with a lot of long takes and a fluidly moving camera, but there are cuts where necessary to keep the audience interested visually as well as psychologically. Additionally, there is often a lot more going on within the frame than there was in Rope. Although both films take place entirely within the confines of one apartment, Rope kept the camera confined indoors, with the large windows serving only as a backdrop and to indicate the passage of time. In Rear Window, the titular pane offers the camera -- along with protagonist L.B. Jeffries -- an escape. Through his own camera lens, Jeff can view the entire apartment building (which, by the way, was the largest set ever built at the time the film was made) or zoom in on any one residence. Likewise, there are many different areas of the screen on which the audience can concentrate during those long takes, because the frame is filled with the activities of many different interesting and eccentric minor characters.
In addition to being a great technical improvement over Rope, Rear Window is a quintessential psychological thriller. The decision to trap the camera inside with Jeff gives viewers a keen sense of his growing fear and desperation, even when they may find themselves siding with other characters who think he's off his rocker. At any given time, the audience only has as much information as Jeff does, and as a result shares his feeling of helplessness. This emotional connection, formed from the beginning of the film onward, increases the suspense felt at the film's climax, when finally Jeff begins to hear ominous footsteps outside his own door.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Think of the problems it would solve -- unemployment, poverty, standing in line for theater tickets...
Many films, stories, and urban legends have been based on the 1920s Leopold and Loeb case, in which two young men decided to murder someone just to see what it would be like. Alfred Hitchcock's take on the tale, Rope, is notable for two reasons: One, it's Alfred Hitchcock, and that alone is enough to warrant a significant amount of attention. Two, he shot the entire film as one continuous take, an experiment that, while not entirely successful, is a very interesting attempt.
In actuality, the film is a series of takes about six minutes long, because at the time the film was shot that was the longest take possible. Hitchcock gets around this by using a handheld camera that follows the characters around; every six minutes or so, it just happens to come up against the back of someone's jacket or a chair or something else that's solid, giving him the time to change reels while still making the cuts completely invisible.
One very interesting shot that results from this method is that an important conversation takes place entirely offscreen. Brandon and Phillip have killed a classmate of theirs, David, and hidden his body in a large trunk in their living room, which they cover in a tablecloth and use to serve dinner at a party to which they've invited David's parents, his girlfriend, and their old schoolteacher.
Naturally, everyone is concerned when David doesn't make an appearance, but the party goes on without him (at least, as far as the other guests are aware). After they have effectively eaten off of the young man's makeshift coffin, everyone moves over to a large seating area, but the camera remains on the trunk. We hear the party guests discuss once again David's possible whereabouts, while watching the maid, Mrs. Wilson, clear dishes off of the trunk in which we know David's body is hidden; among the guests, only Jimmy Stewart, as the schoolteacher who gave his young students the (purely theoretical) idea to kill in the first place, is visible at the edge of the frame. This juxtaposition of audio and visual information creates the very tension that gave the Master Of Suspense his nickname.
The philosophical arguments presented in the film are compelling enough to make up for the lack of variation in camera work. The teacher, Rupert, postulates that a select group of superior human beings should have the right to kill those who are inferior. His reasoning is cold and academic; it is Brandon and Phillip who decide, arrogantly, that they fall into that "superior" category, and moreover, that Phillip is decidedly inferior. Once he sees how his rationale would be applied out in the real world, Rupert is appropriately horrified -- and yet, still coldly logical enough to deduce that his former students were the ones behind their classmate's disappearance.
In actuality, the film is a series of takes about six minutes long, because at the time the film was shot that was the longest take possible. Hitchcock gets around this by using a handheld camera that follows the characters around; every six minutes or so, it just happens to come up against the back of someone's jacket or a chair or something else that's solid, giving him the time to change reels while still making the cuts completely invisible.
One very interesting shot that results from this method is that an important conversation takes place entirely offscreen. Brandon and Phillip have killed a classmate of theirs, David, and hidden his body in a large trunk in their living room, which they cover in a tablecloth and use to serve dinner at a party to which they've invited David's parents, his girlfriend, and their old schoolteacher.
Naturally, everyone is concerned when David doesn't make an appearance, but the party goes on without him (at least, as far as the other guests are aware). After they have effectively eaten off of the young man's makeshift coffin, everyone moves over to a large seating area, but the camera remains on the trunk. We hear the party guests discuss once again David's possible whereabouts, while watching the maid, Mrs. Wilson, clear dishes off of the trunk in which we know David's body is hidden; among the guests, only Jimmy Stewart, as the schoolteacher who gave his young students the (purely theoretical) idea to kill in the first place, is visible at the edge of the frame. This juxtaposition of audio and visual information creates the very tension that gave the Master Of Suspense his nickname.
The philosophical arguments presented in the film are compelling enough to make up for the lack of variation in camera work. The teacher, Rupert, postulates that a select group of superior human beings should have the right to kill those who are inferior. His reasoning is cold and academic; it is Brandon and Phillip who decide, arrogantly, that they fall into that "superior" category, and moreover, that Phillip is decidedly inferior. Once he sees how his rationale would be applied out in the real world, Rupert is appropriately horrified -- and yet, still coldly logical enough to deduce that his former students were the ones behind their classmate's disappearance.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
I freak out in your dream, I freak out in my dream...
There is one subject that filmmakers seem to love making films about. That subject is making films. Tom DiCillo's 1995 indie flick Living In Oblivion portrays the trials and tribulations of Nick Reve, the over-stressed director of an indie flick. Self-referential in a way that reminds me of Frederico Fellini's 8½ (more on that one later), Living In Oblivion takes the movie-about-a-movie genre in an interesting direction.
The story is told almost entirely through dream sequences, as various members of the cast and crew have nightmares about what can go very wrong in the making of a no-budget movie. I thought this was a very effective way of examining the hardships faced by independent filmmakers; it wouldn't be believable for everything possible to go wrong during the filming of a single movie, but it's absolutely believable that the people with the most to lose would worry to that extent. Thus, in 90 minutes DiCillo manages to demonstrate how many things can plague a set without beating the audience over the head with Murphy's Law.
One thing I really liked was that in the first dream sequence, the film opens up in black and white, then switches to color whenever we are shown a scene that's being filmed. Normally, I see movies or TV shows shot in color for the "real life" sequences and then switch to black and white to represent the camera's point of view. I found this reversal extremely interesting, as it seems to suggest that what's on camera is more important (more vibrant, and thus more colorful) than what's happening behind the scenes. Or I could be reading too much into it, and it could simply be a way to clue the audience in at the beginning to the fact that it's a dream sequence. Either way, I wish that this had been carried out throughout the film.
Interesting, the only part of the movie that's not a dream sequence is when the characters a filming a scene from their movie that is. Wildly over the top and exactly the kind of dream sequence produced in most stereotypical low-budget films, I kept waiting for the reveal that what we were watching took place only in someone's subconcious. However, just when I thought the movie had gotten predictable it threw a curveball at me, and ended with the most obviously unrealistic scenes as the ones that actually took place. Well played.
The story is told almost entirely through dream sequences, as various members of the cast and crew have nightmares about what can go very wrong in the making of a no-budget movie. I thought this was a very effective way of examining the hardships faced by independent filmmakers; it wouldn't be believable for everything possible to go wrong during the filming of a single movie, but it's absolutely believable that the people with the most to lose would worry to that extent. Thus, in 90 minutes DiCillo manages to demonstrate how many things can plague a set without beating the audience over the head with Murphy's Law.
One thing I really liked was that in the first dream sequence, the film opens up in black and white, then switches to color whenever we are shown a scene that's being filmed. Normally, I see movies or TV shows shot in color for the "real life" sequences and then switch to black and white to represent the camera's point of view. I found this reversal extremely interesting, as it seems to suggest that what's on camera is more important (more vibrant, and thus more colorful) than what's happening behind the scenes. Or I could be reading too much into it, and it could simply be a way to clue the audience in at the beginning to the fact that it's a dream sequence. Either way, I wish that this had been carried out throughout the film.
Interesting, the only part of the movie that's not a dream sequence is when the characters a filming a scene from their movie that is. Wildly over the top and exactly the kind of dream sequence produced in most stereotypical low-budget films, I kept waiting for the reveal that what we were watching took place only in someone's subconcious. However, just when I thought the movie had gotten predictable it threw a curveball at me, and ended with the most obviously unrealistic scenes as the ones that actually took place. Well played.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Some people are bullfighters, some people are politicians...
The 1960s were a time of change, and the film industry was no exception. The conventions of classic Hollywood began to lose their appeal as movies found a younger audience that was more interested in experimentation. The first film schools were springing up, giving rise to a new generation of filmmakers and critics who knew not just what the rules were, but why and how to break them. Additionally, more and more films were internationally produced. Blow-Up was one of the first such pictures.
The basic plot, such as it is, sounds like a conventional mystery: A photographer discovers something odd in one of his pictures, and repeatedly blows up the negative until he uncovers a corpse in the photo and realizes that he has witnessed a murder. However, auteur Michaelangelo Antonioni -- who inspired the phenomenon known as "Antoniennui" for his supposed ability to bore audiences to death -- turns this concept into an open-ended question about the nature of reality.
The film follows Thomas, a photographer who works with models, a group he clearly disdains, in order to fund his more artistic pursuits. He is involved with one woman, although in what capacity remains deliberately unclear ("She isn't my wife, really, we just have some kids... no, no kids, not even kids."), but flirts with and seduces others, including the woman he later comes to believe attempted to have her husband killed. The narrative, until he discovers the body in the photo, seems to drift a bit aimlessly; this is perhaps what the term "Antoniennui" is referring to, although I thought the beautifully-shot film was anything but boring, including several sequences that didn't seem to go anywhere. This apparent lack of direction is very purposefully in keeping with modernist themes; not every loose end needs to be tied, or rather, most don't.
Of course, I can't end this post without talking about the mimes that bookend the film. In the opening sequence they are a loud and active contrast to the quiet, passive world the film presents us with; at the end, their game of tennis, and particularly the sound of tennis as Thomas throws the imaginary ball, suggests that truth is subjective; if you believe in something, then it's true even if it isn't necessarily factual. This could be seen as a representation of the hallucinogenics that were popular among the counter-culture at that time, stating that what you see is your reality.
The basic plot, such as it is, sounds like a conventional mystery: A photographer discovers something odd in one of his pictures, and repeatedly blows up the negative until he uncovers a corpse in the photo and realizes that he has witnessed a murder. However, auteur Michaelangelo Antonioni -- who inspired the phenomenon known as "Antoniennui" for his supposed ability to bore audiences to death -- turns this concept into an open-ended question about the nature of reality.
The film follows Thomas, a photographer who works with models, a group he clearly disdains, in order to fund his more artistic pursuits. He is involved with one woman, although in what capacity remains deliberately unclear ("She isn't my wife, really, we just have some kids... no, no kids, not even kids."), but flirts with and seduces others, including the woman he later comes to believe attempted to have her husband killed. The narrative, until he discovers the body in the photo, seems to drift a bit aimlessly; this is perhaps what the term "Antoniennui" is referring to, although I thought the beautifully-shot film was anything but boring, including several sequences that didn't seem to go anywhere. This apparent lack of direction is very purposefully in keeping with modernist themes; not every loose end needs to be tied, or rather, most don't.
Of course, I can't end this post without talking about the mimes that bookend the film. In the opening sequence they are a loud and active contrast to the quiet, passive world the film presents us with; at the end, their game of tennis, and particularly the sound of tennis as Thomas throws the imaginary ball, suggests that truth is subjective; if you believe in something, then it's true even if it isn't necessarily factual. This could be seen as a representation of the hallucinogenics that were popular among the counter-culture at that time, stating that what you see is your reality.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
I watched it get dark outside, and didn't even turn on the light...
1944's Double Indemnity is considered one of the first true films noir, if not the very first. It was certainly a turning point in many ways -- as the first James M. Cain novel to be approved by the Hays Office for adaptation, it set a precedent for darker, racier material than anything that had been seen since the pre-Code era.* Like Casablanca before it, Double Indemnity is largely a product of World War II.
The darkness and shadows that help define the film are largely the result of wartime restrictions, but the absence of available lighting was artfully turned into an opportunity to further explore the bleak tone of the narrative. The famous effect of venetian blinds casting shadows across the characters' faces suggests entrapment as they find themselves living in fear of having their crime discovered. The frosted glass in the office doors makes each character's shadow often the first and last part of them that the audience sees. It's even worked into the dialogue, as in the quote I used for the title of this post. The sense of darkness that pervades the film is more than just aesthetic; it's psychological, exposing the audience to the sense of hopelessness and claustrophobia that Phyllis and Walter feel in the aftermath of murdering Phyllis' husband.
The war had other effects on Double Indemnity's production as well. To avoid government censorship from the Office of War Information, the screenplay was set in July 1938, so it was not portraying the home front in a time of war. However, this created its own problems, as many props needed to make the set look realistically pre-war were unavailable at the time of filming due to rationing. This issue was most pressing in the scenes when Walter and Phyllis meet at the grocery store. To prevent cast and crew from making off with the canned goods, undercover federal agents patrolled the set, heightening the sense of paranoia already inherent in the movie's script.
Gender and sexuality are particularly strong themes throughout the film. Phyllis Dietrichson, ever the femme fatale, is introduced from a low angle, visually giving her power over Walter Neff right from their first meeting. The dialogue involving her anklet was created specifically to get their sexual tension past the censors; the result is a conversation laced with metaphor and innuendo, the first of several throughout the film. However, Phyllis' ownership of her sexuality does not come without a price. Although both main characters have dark sides, the woman is portrayed as more evil than the man, a common theme in hard-boiled stories such as this. In the end, both characters paid for their crimes with their lives as required by the Code, but Phyllis is the first to die, and Walter's shooting her can be seen as the first step in his redemption.
*Further information on Double Indemnity and its long struggle to gain approval from the Hays Office can be found in my professor's textbook, Blackout: World War II And The Origins Of Film Noir by Sheri Chinen Biesen
The darkness and shadows that help define the film are largely the result of wartime restrictions, but the absence of available lighting was artfully turned into an opportunity to further explore the bleak tone of the narrative. The famous effect of venetian blinds casting shadows across the characters' faces suggests entrapment as they find themselves living in fear of having their crime discovered. The frosted glass in the office doors makes each character's shadow often the first and last part of them that the audience sees. It's even worked into the dialogue, as in the quote I used for the title of this post. The sense of darkness that pervades the film is more than just aesthetic; it's psychological, exposing the audience to the sense of hopelessness and claustrophobia that Phyllis and Walter feel in the aftermath of murdering Phyllis' husband.
The war had other effects on Double Indemnity's production as well. To avoid government censorship from the Office of War Information, the screenplay was set in July 1938, so it was not portraying the home front in a time of war. However, this created its own problems, as many props needed to make the set look realistically pre-war were unavailable at the time of filming due to rationing. This issue was most pressing in the scenes when Walter and Phyllis meet at the grocery store. To prevent cast and crew from making off with the canned goods, undercover federal agents patrolled the set, heightening the sense of paranoia already inherent in the movie's script.
Gender and sexuality are particularly strong themes throughout the film. Phyllis Dietrichson, ever the femme fatale, is introduced from a low angle, visually giving her power over Walter Neff right from their first meeting. The dialogue involving her anklet was created specifically to get their sexual tension past the censors; the result is a conversation laced with metaphor and innuendo, the first of several throughout the film. However, Phyllis' ownership of her sexuality does not come without a price. Although both main characters have dark sides, the woman is portrayed as more evil than the man, a common theme in hard-boiled stories such as this. In the end, both characters paid for their crimes with their lives as required by the Code, but Phyllis is the first to die, and Walter's shooting her can be seen as the first step in his redemption.
*Further information on Double Indemnity and its long struggle to gain approval from the Hays Office can be found in my professor's textbook, Blackout: World War II And The Origins Of Film Noir by Sheri Chinen Biesen
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Survivors Of The Blacklist, part 2
I know I said I'd have this up yesterday, but I was sidelined by a fever and all the usual pleasantness that comes with it. If you missed the first half of this post, it's over this way.
There was also a portion of the discussion set aside for questions from the audience. Before you ask, no, I didn't contribute anything -- for one thing, I was in the back of a dark corner to the side of the main theater seating with no chance of being seen, and for another, I would have been much too nervous anyway! However, I did learn a lot from the questions that were asked.
One person asked about blacklisting in the TV industry. Joe Gilford pointed out that his parents were both blacklisted from television, as were a great many others, and that TV blacklisting went on longer and was possibly even nastier than its counterpart in the film industry. Victor Navasky theorized that because television was in its infancy at this time, the effects of the blacklist and the paranoia about what could and could not be said might even be at the root of current standards of decency with regards to what can't be said or shown on TV.
Someone else asked about the aftereffects of the blacklist and whether it still, in a sense, exists today, pointing out that Elia Kazan had been given an honorary Oscar for his body of work, while John Garfield has received no such recognition. In response, Lee Grant read a moving statement from John Garfield's daughter Julie, who had originally intended to be included in the panel but was unable to make it. Julie Garfield wrote about how her father's blacklisting tore apart their lives -- CBS cancelled a deal he'd had with them, ending his career; their home phone lines were tapped; and finally, the FBI tried to make him sign an affidavit accusing his own wife of Communist ties. The harassment ended only when Garfield died of a heart attack at age 39.
The next question took the evening in an unexpected direction. The widow of Budd Schulberg was in the audience, and stood up to defend her late husband's decision to voluntarily name names before HUAC. She asked the panel to consider his rationale, as he had explained it to her, which was that he had been kicked out of the Communist party for wanting to be a writer first and a political activist second; he had also become extremely distressed at the treatment of writers in Stalin's Russia, and, she said, supported the blacklist as a means of fighting what he called the "death list" in the Soviet Union. She was obviously very emotional and seemed to have a hard time making her point, understandably as she only lost her husband a few months ago, but I have to admit that at first I thought her remarks were inappropriate, given that they were directed towards people who had to live with the consequences of the decision that her husband and so many others made to cooperate with HUAC. However, this turned out to be one of the most thought-provoking moments in a night that was riddled with them.
It wasn't the panel's answers to her question that intrigued me; they seemed to be unanimous in their disagreement, as would be expected. However, Lee Grant stopped to commend the woman for having the courage to speak her piece in a room full of people who likely held the opposite point of view, and I found that very insightful. It's so tempting, when looking at any event in history, to treat it like a classical Hollywood film; there's black and there's white, there are good guys and bad guys, and everything's wrapped up neatly at the end. Obviously nothing in real life happens this way. Yes, perhaps it's possible to look back and say who did the right thing and who did not, but isn't investigating why people made the choices they did just as important as recalling what they were? There are no heroes and villains; there are only human people reacting to the circumstances in which they find themselves, and I think those of us who have only textbooks to teach us about these pieces of history can very quickly lose sight of that fact.
I'm finishing this post about two days after I started it, and it's not officially Thanksgiving anymore. However, I'd still like to end on a note of gratitude, because as a student I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to attend this event. The opportunity to hear such a momentous event, not only in film history but in American history, discussed openly by people who lived it is a rare and very valuable one. I learned a great deal, and I sincerely appreciate the efforts put in by everyone responsible for making this event happen.
There was also a portion of the discussion set aside for questions from the audience. Before you ask, no, I didn't contribute anything -- for one thing, I was in the back of a dark corner to the side of the main theater seating with no chance of being seen, and for another, I would have been much too nervous anyway! However, I did learn a lot from the questions that were asked.
One person asked about blacklisting in the TV industry. Joe Gilford pointed out that his parents were both blacklisted from television, as were a great many others, and that TV blacklisting went on longer and was possibly even nastier than its counterpart in the film industry. Victor Navasky theorized that because television was in its infancy at this time, the effects of the blacklist and the paranoia about what could and could not be said might even be at the root of current standards of decency with regards to what can't be said or shown on TV.
Someone else asked about the aftereffects of the blacklist and whether it still, in a sense, exists today, pointing out that Elia Kazan had been given an honorary Oscar for his body of work, while John Garfield has received no such recognition. In response, Lee Grant read a moving statement from John Garfield's daughter Julie, who had originally intended to be included in the panel but was unable to make it. Julie Garfield wrote about how her father's blacklisting tore apart their lives -- CBS cancelled a deal he'd had with them, ending his career; their home phone lines were tapped; and finally, the FBI tried to make him sign an affidavit accusing his own wife of Communist ties. The harassment ended only when Garfield died of a heart attack at age 39.
The next question took the evening in an unexpected direction. The widow of Budd Schulberg was in the audience, and stood up to defend her late husband's decision to voluntarily name names before HUAC. She asked the panel to consider his rationale, as he had explained it to her, which was that he had been kicked out of the Communist party for wanting to be a writer first and a political activist second; he had also become extremely distressed at the treatment of writers in Stalin's Russia, and, she said, supported the blacklist as a means of fighting what he called the "death list" in the Soviet Union. She was obviously very emotional and seemed to have a hard time making her point, understandably as she only lost her husband a few months ago, but I have to admit that at first I thought her remarks were inappropriate, given that they were directed towards people who had to live with the consequences of the decision that her husband and so many others made to cooperate with HUAC. However, this turned out to be one of the most thought-provoking moments in a night that was riddled with them.
It wasn't the panel's answers to her question that intrigued me; they seemed to be unanimous in their disagreement, as would be expected. However, Lee Grant stopped to commend the woman for having the courage to speak her piece in a room full of people who likely held the opposite point of view, and I found that very insightful. It's so tempting, when looking at any event in history, to treat it like a classical Hollywood film; there's black and there's white, there are good guys and bad guys, and everything's wrapped up neatly at the end. Obviously nothing in real life happens this way. Yes, perhaps it's possible to look back and say who did the right thing and who did not, but isn't investigating why people made the choices they did just as important as recalling what they were? There are no heroes and villains; there are only human people reacting to the circumstances in which they find themselves, and I think those of us who have only textbooks to teach us about these pieces of history can very quickly lose sight of that fact.
I'm finishing this post about two days after I started it, and it's not officially Thanksgiving anymore. However, I'd still like to end on a note of gratitude, because as a student I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to attend this event. The opportunity to hear such a momentous event, not only in film history but in American history, discussed openly by people who lived it is a rare and very valuable one. I learned a great deal, and I sincerely appreciate the efforts put in by everyone responsible for making this event happen.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Survivors Of The Blacklist, part 1
Note: I had to cut this post into two parts, due to the sheer size of it. I think this subject warrants the length; I'll have the second half up tomorrow.
I find it appropriate that I'm writing this post an hour into Thanksgiving. Of all the things I'm grateful for this year, the most recent is the opportunity I had Tuesday night to attend Survivors Of The Blacklist: A Panel Discussion at the Theater at St. Clement's. Thanks to Kate Gabrielle, without whom I would never have known about this event, and to my Wednesday professors, who either cancelled class or were understanding about the high absence rates typical of Turkey Day Eve, I was able to make the trek to New York City and take advantage of this rare (and free!) opportunity.
The panel was presented by Kurt Peterson and Edmund Gaynes along with the Peccadillo Theater Company, as a tie-in to their current production, Zero Hour, a play about Zero Mostel's struggles with the blacklist and the House Un-American Activities Committee. After opening remarks by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, we were treated to a preview of this play, with TCM's Robert Osborne playing the voice-over role of the HUAC interrogator as playwright and actor Jim Brochu took the stage alone as Zero in a flashback scene in which Zero recalls his testimony, his refusal to name names, and the lives of friends that were destroyed by the blacklist. It was a very powerful scene, nonetheless infused with Zero's sense of comedic wit, and I would enthusiastically recommend anyone in the New York area to see the play if you can.
That led into the main event, which of course was the discussion. Robert Osborne was the moderator, and the panel consisted of Cliff Carpenter, actor; Jean Rouverol, actor and author of a book about the blacklist years; Victor Navasky, publisher, journalist, and author of a book about the blacklist; Lee Grant, actor and director; Jules Feiffer, playwright and cartoonist; Christopher Trumbo, writer and son of Dalton Trumbo; Kate Lardner, author and daughter of Ring Lardner, Jr.; and Joe Gilford, playwright and son of Jack Gilford and Madeline Lee.
One of the first questions posed by Robert Osborne was why the men who ran the studios weren't blacklisted; it was only the "talent," the actors, directors, and writers who were targeted, rather than the moguls who employed them. The simplest response that the panel gave was that those men weren't members of the Communist party. Jack Warner and others were apparently called to testify, but were quickly cleared of any possible connections. Later, when 19 people including the group who came to be known as the Unfriendly 10, or Hollywood 10, were subpoenaed, the studio higher-ups met at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and announced a new policy wherein no one who had ever been connected with the Communist party would be employed by the studios. Thus, the blacklist was born. The reason that Hollywood was specifically targeted by HUAC was because movies were such a large part of American culture, and therefore a means of swaying the American public opinion.
Robert Osborne also asked how the blacklist affected the children of the writers and actors who were suddenly ostracized. Joe Gilford brought up how proud he was of his parents for fighting what they saw as an unconstitutional act by the government; he also said that he'd envied kids who had "normal" lives, but also never really knew an alternative to a childhood under the blacklist. Because Ring Lardner and Dalton Trumbo went to jail, Kate Lardner and Christopher Trumbo's lives were more disrupted by the blacklist; both mentioned moving around as a result. Finances were often a struggle for all of them, as their parents were obviously unable to work.
Cliff Carpenter was asked specifically how the blacklist affected him, and he responded with a deadpan "Not pleasantly." This drew laughter from the audience, but the rest of his answer was a very emotional recounting of his experiences. He said that at the time, CBS had two lawyers who were in charge of blacklisting employees who had been accused of having connections to Communism. He went to them in an effort to stand up for the Bill of Rights, insisting that he had never knowingly belonged to any organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government but that the probes being conducted by the government were unconstitutional; he was told that this was not the answer they had wanted to hear, and sent home to give the matter some thought. Later, he was told that the only way he could have his own name removed from the blacklist would be to provide the names of other people to go on it. His refusal to do so cost him his career, yet even in hindsight Carpenter remained adamant that it was the only choice he could make, and that he would do it all over again if he had to.
Jean Rouveral said that she, too, would make the same choices over again. Her husband, Hugo Butler, was more targeted by HUAC than she was, and the couple left the country for about 15 years, which the spent primarily in Mexico. They were in good company; Dalton Trumbo and his family also spent time south of the border, as did other victims of the blacklist and their families. She emphasized the sense of community among the blacklistees in Mexico, a sentiment that was echoed by much of the panel, although Kate Lardner warned against casting the time in too idealistic a light. Although those who were blacklisted tried to make the best of their situations, it was still a very dark time as people struggled to support their families while being prevented from doing the work that they loved.
I find it appropriate that I'm writing this post an hour into Thanksgiving. Of all the things I'm grateful for this year, the most recent is the opportunity I had Tuesday night to attend Survivors Of The Blacklist: A Panel Discussion at the Theater at St. Clement's. Thanks to Kate Gabrielle, without whom I would never have known about this event, and to my Wednesday professors, who either cancelled class or were understanding about the high absence rates typical of Turkey Day Eve, I was able to make the trek to New York City and take advantage of this rare (and free!) opportunity.
The panel was presented by Kurt Peterson and Edmund Gaynes along with the Peccadillo Theater Company, as a tie-in to their current production, Zero Hour, a play about Zero Mostel's struggles with the blacklist and the House Un-American Activities Committee. After opening remarks by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, we were treated to a preview of this play, with TCM's Robert Osborne playing the voice-over role of the HUAC interrogator as playwright and actor Jim Brochu took the stage alone as Zero in a flashback scene in which Zero recalls his testimony, his refusal to name names, and the lives of friends that were destroyed by the blacklist. It was a very powerful scene, nonetheless infused with Zero's sense of comedic wit, and I would enthusiastically recommend anyone in the New York area to see the play if you can.
That led into the main event, which of course was the discussion. Robert Osborne was the moderator, and the panel consisted of Cliff Carpenter, actor; Jean Rouverol, actor and author of a book about the blacklist years; Victor Navasky, publisher, journalist, and author of a book about the blacklist; Lee Grant, actor and director; Jules Feiffer, playwright and cartoonist; Christopher Trumbo, writer and son of Dalton Trumbo; Kate Lardner, author and daughter of Ring Lardner, Jr.; and Joe Gilford, playwright and son of Jack Gilford and Madeline Lee.
One of the first questions posed by Robert Osborne was why the men who ran the studios weren't blacklisted; it was only the "talent," the actors, directors, and writers who were targeted, rather than the moguls who employed them. The simplest response that the panel gave was that those men weren't members of the Communist party. Jack Warner and others were apparently called to testify, but were quickly cleared of any possible connections. Later, when 19 people including the group who came to be known as the Unfriendly 10, or Hollywood 10, were subpoenaed, the studio higher-ups met at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and announced a new policy wherein no one who had ever been connected with the Communist party would be employed by the studios. Thus, the blacklist was born. The reason that Hollywood was specifically targeted by HUAC was because movies were such a large part of American culture, and therefore a means of swaying the American public opinion.
Robert Osborne also asked how the blacklist affected the children of the writers and actors who were suddenly ostracized. Joe Gilford brought up how proud he was of his parents for fighting what they saw as an unconstitutional act by the government; he also said that he'd envied kids who had "normal" lives, but also never really knew an alternative to a childhood under the blacklist. Because Ring Lardner and Dalton Trumbo went to jail, Kate Lardner and Christopher Trumbo's lives were more disrupted by the blacklist; both mentioned moving around as a result. Finances were often a struggle for all of them, as their parents were obviously unable to work.
Cliff Carpenter was asked specifically how the blacklist affected him, and he responded with a deadpan "Not pleasantly." This drew laughter from the audience, but the rest of his answer was a very emotional recounting of his experiences. He said that at the time, CBS had two lawyers who were in charge of blacklisting employees who had been accused of having connections to Communism. He went to them in an effort to stand up for the Bill of Rights, insisting that he had never knowingly belonged to any organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government but that the probes being conducted by the government were unconstitutional; he was told that this was not the answer they had wanted to hear, and sent home to give the matter some thought. Later, he was told that the only way he could have his own name removed from the blacklist would be to provide the names of other people to go on it. His refusal to do so cost him his career, yet even in hindsight Carpenter remained adamant that it was the only choice he could make, and that he would do it all over again if he had to.
Jean Rouveral said that she, too, would make the same choices over again. Her husband, Hugo Butler, was more targeted by HUAC than she was, and the couple left the country for about 15 years, which the spent primarily in Mexico. They were in good company; Dalton Trumbo and his family also spent time south of the border, as did other victims of the blacklist and their families. She emphasized the sense of community among the blacklistees in Mexico, a sentiment that was echoed by much of the panel, although Kate Lardner warned against casting the time in too idealistic a light. Although those who were blacklisted tried to make the best of their situations, it was still a very dark time as people struggled to support their families while being prevented from doing the work that they loved.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Poem 8
Emlen Etting was an artist and experimental filmmaker who explored film as a medium for moving art, rather than narrative structure. Born into Philadelphia's high society, he grew up between the United States and Europe, and as a young man studied in Paris under the painter André Lhote. According to a biography written by my professor, With The Rich And Mighty by Dr. Kenneth Kaleta, Etting's education and social circle allowed him access to a variety of artists in Philadelphia and elsewhere; this background strongly influenced his films, particularly his earliest film, Poem 8.
As its title suggests, Poem 8 is an attempt to visually render the language of poetry. It accomplishes this partly by emphasizing motion. The film opens with a young woman dancing in a field, who represents poetic grace and rhythm. It then travels via train tracks to the bustling city. This is the first of several times that a method of transportation comes into play; other sequences feature travel by ship or by foot.
Once the camera leaves the woman in the field, it becomes another character with hands and feet visible inside the frame. The man through whose eyes the audience looks encounters women who are more cultured than the dancer, and whose routines more closely resemble those of the women in Etting's social class. They are not ungraceful, but the lack the fluid motion of the dancer in the field. In a more abstract sequence, Etting's hands are seen crushing a globe; I took this as representing the destruction of the world at the hands of those who have financial power but not artistic vision.
At the end of the film, we return to the woman in the field. She is dancing again, but this time she appears naked under a thin sheet that clings to her as she moves. This is the part of the film that I found most interesting, because it is reminiscent of the "wet drapery" effect seen in classical Greek and Roman sculpture. The sheet billowing around the dancer as she moves cinematically captures the fluidity of poetry, while at the same time the allusion to classical art brings to mind Etting's education as an artist. The use of four different mediums (film, dance, poetry, sculpture) in one image is very telling of Etting's long and dynamic career.
As its title suggests, Poem 8 is an attempt to visually render the language of poetry. It accomplishes this partly by emphasizing motion. The film opens with a young woman dancing in a field, who represents poetic grace and rhythm. It then travels via train tracks to the bustling city. This is the first of several times that a method of transportation comes into play; other sequences feature travel by ship or by foot.
Once the camera leaves the woman in the field, it becomes another character with hands and feet visible inside the frame. The man through whose eyes the audience looks encounters women who are more cultured than the dancer, and whose routines more closely resemble those of the women in Etting's social class. They are not ungraceful, but the lack the fluid motion of the dancer in the field. In a more abstract sequence, Etting's hands are seen crushing a globe; I took this as representing the destruction of the world at the hands of those who have financial power but not artistic vision.
At the end of the film, we return to the woman in the field. She is dancing again, but this time she appears naked under a thin sheet that clings to her as she moves. This is the part of the film that I found most interesting, because it is reminiscent of the "wet drapery" effect seen in classical Greek and Roman sculpture. The sheet billowing around the dancer as she moves cinematically captures the fluidity of poetry, while at the same time the allusion to classical art brings to mind Etting's education as an artist. The use of four different mediums (film, dance, poetry, sculpture) in one image is very telling of Etting's long and dynamic career.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Don't you be the one to burst the bubble...
It must be true that history repeats itself, or else time-travel exists outside the realm of science fiction. How else could I see a movie from half a century ago and mistake it for a biting social commentary on today's culture?
Picture this: Ditzy blonde is determined to get her name out there, not because she's done anything to make her worth knowing about, but simply because she craves fame for fame's sake. Pretty soon her name and face are everywhere, from TV shows to product endorsements. I could easily be talking about Paris Hilton, but in fact I'm thinking about Gladys Glover, the main character in George Cukor's It Should Happen To You.
Like a lot of today's reality stars, Gladys starts from scratch to promote herself. It isn't quite as easy for her, however. In a time before YouTube and MTV, Gladys has to be a bit more resourceful, spending her life savings to get a billboard in New York City's Columbus Circle painted with her name on it. Her new boyfriend, independent filmmaker Pete Shepherd, looks on with much disdain for the whole project; for the record, I'm on his side, but the film does a good job of presenting both characters' points of view.
The billboard creates buzz around Gladys' name, resulting in appearances on television. "Man and Wife," one of the first shows Gladys scores a spot on, is what initially led me to make the comparison to reality TV, though I think the similarities extend to all of them. The shows Gladys appears on are shown to be obviously staged, but audiences were just as gullible back then as they are now, apparently.
Gladys follows the typical path of more successful flash-in-the-pan celebrities. Fresh from making the rounds on TV, she begins endorsing products left and right. Advertisers spin her as the "average American girl," although she is clearly anything but. She becomes famous for being famous, in a cycle that perpetuates itself until finally she comes to realize the emptiness of it all and concludes that it's better to be known for something on one block than to be known for nothing throughout the world. One can only hope modern society will eventually come to the same realization.
Picture this: Ditzy blonde is determined to get her name out there, not because she's done anything to make her worth knowing about, but simply because she craves fame for fame's sake. Pretty soon her name and face are everywhere, from TV shows to product endorsements. I could easily be talking about Paris Hilton, but in fact I'm thinking about Gladys Glover, the main character in George Cukor's It Should Happen To You.
Like a lot of today's reality stars, Gladys starts from scratch to promote herself. It isn't quite as easy for her, however. In a time before YouTube and MTV, Gladys has to be a bit more resourceful, spending her life savings to get a billboard in New York City's Columbus Circle painted with her name on it. Her new boyfriend, independent filmmaker Pete Shepherd, looks on with much disdain for the whole project; for the record, I'm on his side, but the film does a good job of presenting both characters' points of view.
The billboard creates buzz around Gladys' name, resulting in appearances on television. "Man and Wife," one of the first shows Gladys scores a spot on, is what initially led me to make the comparison to reality TV, though I think the similarities extend to all of them. The shows Gladys appears on are shown to be obviously staged, but audiences were just as gullible back then as they are now, apparently.
Gladys follows the typical path of more successful flash-in-the-pan celebrities. Fresh from making the rounds on TV, she begins endorsing products left and right. Advertisers spin her as the "average American girl," although she is clearly anything but. She becomes famous for being famous, in a cycle that perpetuates itself until finally she comes to realize the emptiness of it all and concludes that it's better to be known for something on one block than to be known for nothing throughout the world. One can only hope modern society will eventually come to the same realization.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
I'm the only cause I'm interested in...
I feel a little bit redundant, writing out a blog entry on Casablanca. Of all the gin joints movies in all the towns in all the world, I feel like nearly everyone, even non-classic film fans, has seen this one. What can there possibly be left to say about it?
As it turns out, quite a lot. Watching it in class this semester was far from my first time seeing the film, but it was my first time thinking about it in the context of wartime Hollywood. This movie, in many ways, is a product of World War II.
In 1942, when Casablanca was made, Hollywood was feeling the effects of wartime rationing just as acutely as the rest of the country. Electricity was in particularly short supply. As blackouts and brownouts rolled throughout the region, directors had to be exceptionally creative. The tight restrictions on lighting resulted in the innovative use of darkness and shadows seen throughout the film. An example from early in the movie is when Rick takes money from the safe; he is off screen, and all the audience sees is his shadow on the wall reflecting the action. What light they did have available is used very carefully; for instance, it is often reflected in Ingrid Bergman's eyes, making them shine to play up her character as the vivacious beauty for whom both Rick and Victor Lazlo would sacrifice their freedom.
For all the material restrictions that came during the second World War, many existing creative restrictions began to ease. This was in large part due to the creation of the Office Of War Information, which strictly regulated any films that depicted either the homefront or the warfront. In conflicts between the Hays Office and the OWI, the OWI always won. Many previously censorable details -- Renaud accepts sexual favors in exchange for visas, there is rampant corruption among officials, Rick and Sam have an interracial friendship, and Rick and Ilsa admit to an affair, to name a few -- got by the Production Code because they served the war effort, which was seen as the greater good. The character of Rick himself can even be seen as allegorical to the U.S. involvement in the war, going from isolationism to interventionism once the stakes are high enough.
Although Casablanca is best remembered as a simple but well-crafted love story between three people, I find it even more compelling when looked at through the lens of history. The story of how the picture we all know and love came into existence is almost as interesting as the movie itself.
As it turns out, quite a lot. Watching it in class this semester was far from my first time seeing the film, but it was my first time thinking about it in the context of wartime Hollywood. This movie, in many ways, is a product of World War II.
In 1942, when Casablanca was made, Hollywood was feeling the effects of wartime rationing just as acutely as the rest of the country. Electricity was in particularly short supply. As blackouts and brownouts rolled throughout the region, directors had to be exceptionally creative. The tight restrictions on lighting resulted in the innovative use of darkness and shadows seen throughout the film. An example from early in the movie is when Rick takes money from the safe; he is off screen, and all the audience sees is his shadow on the wall reflecting the action. What light they did have available is used very carefully; for instance, it is often reflected in Ingrid Bergman's eyes, making them shine to play up her character as the vivacious beauty for whom both Rick and Victor Lazlo would sacrifice their freedom.
For all the material restrictions that came during the second World War, many existing creative restrictions began to ease. This was in large part due to the creation of the Office Of War Information, which strictly regulated any films that depicted either the homefront or the warfront. In conflicts between the Hays Office and the OWI, the OWI always won. Many previously censorable details -- Renaud accepts sexual favors in exchange for visas, there is rampant corruption among officials, Rick and Sam have an interracial friendship, and Rick and Ilsa admit to an affair, to name a few -- got by the Production Code because they served the war effort, which was seen as the greater good. The character of Rick himself can even be seen as allegorical to the U.S. involvement in the war, going from isolationism to interventionism once the stakes are high enough.
Although Casablanca is best remembered as a simple but well-crafted love story between three people, I find it even more compelling when looked at through the lens of history. The story of how the picture we all know and love came into existence is almost as interesting as the movie itself.
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