Between Grief and Nothing

Auguste and Louis Lumière are two among the founding fathers of cinema and serve as the cornerstone of the French film industry. Their actualities spark a new fascination for moving pictures unlike any of their predecessors. Their cinématographe popularized film worldwide as they screened without regard to class or social status. This notion is important to highlight, as it sets the precedent of film as the art of the common man.

Four firms dominate the early industry; however, George Méliès stood out because he broke the Lumière mold with surrealist films like A Trip to the Moon (1902) and opened the medium to endless possibilities. The industry grew strong until a slump around WWI when funding for film making drops drastically and an import quota of 1:7 must be established to prevent total devastation. This lull in industry activity fosters an era of false myth which gives rise to André Bazin and his Cahiers du Cinéma after WWII. François Truffaut wrote in the Cahiers that these false myths were killing cinema. This threat of death birthed the New Wave and among its’ defenders were the Young Turks, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

The New Wave critics admired classic Hollywood films, but as directors they made films more like the Italian Neorealist with a dash of French experimentation. The New Wave directors had a serious lack of funding pouring in because as critics they were seen as uncompromising nay-sayers who seemed to be making films only to prove a point. This situation forced them into similar constraints of Italian Neorealism, while similarly freeing them from Hollywood conventions; i.e. locations over sets, simple set-up over complex action and camera movements, unknown actors, and spur of the moment shooting in public locations versus studio lots with extras. Agnès Varda’s La Pointe Courte (1955) illustrates all these points. Her film is all on location incorporating real footage of fishermen at work and play. On top of this backdrop are two actors who walk about discussing their relationship in a totally self-absorbed fashion. There isn’t too much experimentation, though the high concept conversations about love and life and the beautiful scenery is very French.

In some cases, like Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, that dash of experimentation was more like the main ingredient. Rivette began later than the other New Wavers and focused on long grandiose improvisational films, like his crazy thirteen hour long Out 1 (1971). Out 1 is full of improvised characters and pays no attention to the notions of efficient story telling. Godard also made grandiose films, but not in scale or complexity, his were high concept. Godard never stopped being a critic and used the film plot as a tool to continue critiquing the industry and society. One of the techniques Godard uses time and again to do this is breaking the fourth wall. He utilizes a number of different wall breaking techniques, such as having the actor look directly into the camera and address the audience, incorporating conversation about the film and film making in the dialogue, and through on screen text.

In Godard’s Breathless (1960), Jean-Paul Belmondo talks directly into the camera addressing the audience about his disregard for their preference in scenery, whether ocean, city, etc. Again, at the end of Breathless, Godard has Jean Seberg turn directly into the camera and blankly question the meaning of the translation of Belmondo’s dying words. This second turn to camera is very Felliniesque, see Nights of Cabiria (1957). François Truffaut more tastefully honors Fellini’s breaking of the fourth wall at the end of The 400 Blows (1959), when a 14 year old Jean-Pierre Léaud reaches the ocean and then hauntingly turns to the camera. Truffaut adds a dash of that French nuance when he decides to freeze the frame and zoom slowly to Léaud’s face. This announces the gaze much more directly. It is possible for one to miss the more subtle variations on the fourth wall break in Fellini or more recent films. The French New Wave directors, Godard in particular, do not want the audience to miss a thing. As Godard continues to make films his announcements become louder and more direct.

Another of Godard’s methods is to discuss the film or other films in the dialogue of a scene. Godard makes direct reference to the films of his New Wave contemporary, François Truffaut, in A Woman Is A Woman (1961). In these scenes Anna Karina comes across Maria Dubois who acts out the title of her film, Shoot the Piano Player (1960), and later Jeanne Moreau who tells Karina that filming on Jules and Jim (1961) has been going well. I’m not sure what the purpose of these scenes are except to plug projects and have fun. Godard continues to have fun throughout this film as it is his attempt to flip both the classic romantic comedy and the classical musical on its head. The subject matter involves a couple who aren’t married, another guy, and babies—no mixing allowed in classical rom-coms, not to mention the nudie dancing. I think the most experimental and strangest parts of this film involve the sound. The sound is all over the place, spliced between vocals is musical score and again awkwardly added as accent to action and dialogue in scenes. There is also a long sequence where characters sit around and listen to music which alters their emotional state.

In Godard’s later film Weekend (1967), the Husband and Wife discuss their frustration with the crummy film they’re in because everyone they meet on the road seems to be crazy and talks nonsense. In this same scene, Godard utilizes another of his methods, on screen text, to clarify and comment on what is happening. The bourgeoisie Husband and Wife become frustrated with a nonsensical Emily Bronte, author of the book Wuthering Heights, who will only answer their questions with logical proofs. So after their complaining on cigarette break, they light her on fire while screaming, “This isn’t a book, this is a film. Films are life!” The scene begins with a title card that reads something like “The Lewis Caroll Way”. Lewis Caroll was a champion of the use of logical word-play and nonsensical dialogue to convey an alternative meaning; I leave the individual to interpret the meaning of this scene.

These methods are clever, humorous, and groundbreaking at the time. However, they are constant in Godard films and become distracting. Truffaut utilizes similar methods in his films but, in my opinion, more tastefully. As opposed to openly and obviously calling out how “shit” the film and society is, he shows images and tells stories. Truffaut talks about his film to the audience subtly in Jules and Jim (1961). In this film, Truffaut uses a narrator to progress the action and make comments about the characters and action while giving us insider information and summations of goings-on. This method reminds the viewer that they’re watching a film in a subconscious way. The effectiveness of either method is debatable. I think both methods are legitimate tools, each with their own purpose. As a cinephile, however, I personally prefer the latter over the former as it is more so a tool of entertainment and less an educational device.

The disturbances go beyond disjunctive storytelling and jump cuts to become a visual and/or audial nuisance. Irritation was apparently Godard’s intention as he thought the film as entertainment was a bourgeoisie concept that served to oppress the viewer. His subject matter became more and more alienating and finally, when political times got rough, he used the cinema like a propagandist to push New Left anti-establishment ideals. He abandoned the New Wavers and circled the wagons with his new New friends. After personally attacked by Godard, Truffaut makes some great points about both Godard and film making as an art. First, he angrily wrote back to Godard telling him that he was being a “piece of shit” and was truly the phony, who merely needed to play a grand role, any one would do. He later discussed film making in comparison to painter Henri Matisse. Truffaut said in hard times, the artist becomes tempted to allow his art to become subservient to an idea. In film, when this happens he becomes a propagandist—obviously referring to Godard. He then went on to describe how Matisse lived through three wars untouched. He completed his art without political influence. He suggests that this is not merely art for arts’ sake but art for beauty, for others, art that consoles. This is the role I see for the cinema as it is the fine art of the common man.

Film being my religion, I wish Godard would have practiced separation of church and state. I think there is a more artful way to convey a message and if it is lost in translation, then so be it. Those people who miss it are the same people you couldn’t pay to see one of his political films. I found Cloud Atlas (2012) to be a very Godardian post-modern film where I think the Wachowskis perfect his techniques. They make reference to other films and concepts through imagery and dialogue while repeating the same narrative over and over without repeating the exact same clip over and over as Godard does in films like Weekend. Another movie I thought of was Atonement (2007) where Joe Wright challenges many things, the reliability of narrative among them. Rodrigo García’s Nine Lives (2005), Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012), all these films do clever things without becoming a nuisance. But hindsight is 20/20, and I suppose this is where I have to admit that none of these film makers would be where they are without the New Wave paving the way. As Colin MacCabe put it, “"From Hollywood to the Third World, from the mainstream, to the Avant-Garde, Godard's name is perhaps the only one that occurs wherever cinema is discussed or produced."

The influence of the New Wave has definitely been a lasting one, especially that of Godard. References are made to his movies and characters in many films beyond the farcical remakes of Breathless, Breathless (1983) and John Hughes’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). Ebert points out the influence on Hollywood’s 1967-1974 golden age, “You cannot even begin to count the characters played by Pacino, Beatty, Nicholson, Penn, who are directly descended from Jean-Paul Belmondo's insouciant killer Michel.” Breathless is directly quoted in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) when the lovers on the run seek refuge in a cinema from the police pursuing them. I think you’re right when you say that Godard’s characters in Breathless and Bande à part (1964) are authentically hip. I think Truffaut has similar characters in Jules and Jim and his films have something authentically hip about them as well, though sentimental, so we refer to it as timeless. The difference in my opinion is the honest outwardly expressed sentiments of Truffaut versus the rebellious vapid characters as fronts for philosophy and pop culture of Godard, which inspire emulation and sentimental feelings. Truffaut allows us to become intimate with his characters while Godard’s are prostituted to ideals and copied.

Though he thought he was necessarily progressing the medium and properly applying film making strengths, I believe Godard became little more than a clever propagandist and delivered a small blow to the New Wave. I think much of this opposing point of view dynamic of Truffaut and Godard comes from their different backgrounds. Truffaut from poverty, without love, comes from nothing and finds salvation in the world of cinema and takes his place amongst the greats. Godard from wealth, has everything he could want, comes to the cinema as a rebellion from the world he once knew, tries to revolutionize the medium and takes his place amongst the greats. I’m no psychiatrist but it seems like we’ve got two man-children externalizing and imposing their own experiences and world views onto the open ended medium of cinema. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing; it is just illuminated because of their dramatic rift. I believe their lasting impressions are an exact reflection of the medium’s true strength—to imprint consciousness and interpret it to the masses. I think it does go awry in the absolutes of Godard. He was a clever propagandist; there is an art to what he does. His plots were good and I think it’s a shame they will never see fruition but I also can’t turn away from his films. Truffaut is my favorite of the two as I appreciate the deeper and longer lasting connections I’m able to make with his characters and storylines. Godard may have wanted to change the world but we can only change ourselves.

The Grotesque Circus

If Neorealism had a mascot it would probably be that majestic mythic bird rising from the ashes, the phoenix. The techniques of Neorealism are not uniquely Italian, but rather could have developed anyplace under the same conditions, for instance, with Satyajit Ray in India or more recently with Asghar Farhadi in Iran. However, it was birthed in Italy and is known as Italian. I believe the social conditions of Italy at the time, economic depression and post-war decay, are the main contributing factor in the development of Neorealism. I suppose it is only right to give credit to the fathers of the baby as well. Martin Scorsese described Italian Neorealism like a seed which grew into a tree. The branches, Scorsese said, were made up of the Neorealist directors: Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Alessandro Blasetti, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Federico Fellini.

These fathers cradled an ideology of struggle, truth, poetry, and compassion through a post-war environment, beginning a new engagement with reality. These fathers saw their medium as central to reestablishing society. The desperate financial situation forced them to hone in on high-concept story without all the glamor of before. Through mirroring reality they show faith in human potential and teach us that our lessons are just beneath the surface of our everyday numbness. Their existentialist medium, which centered on lack, shows us how to find value in the very act of surviving, of living. A grotesque circus life may be, but if you stand up and direct your own movie, you become a magician who leads others through the procession of life.

Italian Neorealists saw value in remaining true to life. One could almost say their motto was “life as it is”—which happened to be the name of the documentary we watched in class, and I believe a quote from Vittorio de Sica. With this motto in mind, it should not surprise the viewer when a Neorealist film turns tragic, as in Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica in 1948. The family starts off in a bad way and when things are looking up, the father’s bike is stolen, leaving his job and family’s survival in danger. So the father tries to steal a bicycle, gets caught, and is admonished by the crowd. Societal oppression on all of us whittles away our sweet impressions, chipping away our humanity until we become machines, adults, moving slowly through the crowd, each the same as the next. His son saves him from the crowd, but he seems to be sinking into defeat. Then just when you think it’s the end, son and father lock eyes, both in tears, but at the same time seem to move again with a confidence returned now hand-in-hand. Father and son exchange lessons throughout the movie. In this last case, the son must take care of the father.

Neorealist directors tried to eliminate complex camera setups involving cranes and tracking shots. They would allow the camera to watch and hopefully disappear. They wanted the camera to engage with reality. Engagement with reality meant real things like locations as opposed to sets, ordinary people versus actors, and an ordinary modern story. This is all true in Bicycle Thieves. The movie moves slowly through the streets with little happening, though tension builds and we become invested in the story all the same. This desire to engage with reality lead to focusing on concept, as opposed to action and glamor. Central Neorealist themes are lower class people in crisis, poverty, oppression, and transcendence. As opposed to highly motivated action shots, Neorealists show a series of settings, images, and subtle actions without announcing directly their meaning. The action involved with the plot is rather simple and characters have little to say. Again, all of this is seen within Bicycle Thieves.

I think it was only natural for the Neorealists to overturn the star system. It is difficult to follow the canon of Neorealism with a giant personality on screen, sucking up the attention like some dim-witted black hole. But it is also difficult to get a good performance out of amateurs, so, they mix in real people doing real work and cast the star against type—like a homeless prostitute. Vittorio de Sica wanted his actors to be blank canvasses, molded at will. But Federico Fellini broke away from many of these techniques, like simple settings or camera movements, while maintaining the themes or theory behind what each film is “up to”.

If there was a theme tying all the films we watched in class together, I think it would be similar to Matthew 18:3: “And he said: I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In the films we watched there was often casual abuse of children. In Bicycle Thieves the man training Antonio nonchalantly kicks a beggar kid, people in the street ignore and bump into Bruno, a car almost hits him, and a creep is into him in the worst kind of way at the market. Children represent innocence. Children are born with nothing, continue to have nothing, but continue and happy nonetheless. They come into a world made by those before them and struggle to survive in the world where they don’t make the rules. But they still play music, sing songs, play games, smile—they keep trying. Children find beauty and awe around every corner. I think they’re right; become children.

In Nights of Cabiria, by Fellini in 1957, Cabiria is left destitute with no motivation to go on, wandering like Antonio in the end of Bicycle Thieves, when all of a sudden, a procession of children come out of the wilderness to join her on the road of life singing and celebrating. The children rejoice in the darkness of night. They call out joyfully, “Let’s get lost on our way home!” It’s not until we are in the throes of conflict with reality, when low and exploited, that we're given an opportunity to see. In Reflections on the Art of Living, Joseph Campbell wrote: "The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness . . .then comes the new life and all that is needed." This is the end of Nights of Cabiria. Slowly the children spread their spirit. Through the passing of the peace Cabiria smiles and seems renewed. She looks into the camera, into our eyes, and invites us to join her.

Fellini does this same thing AGAIN at the end of La Dolce Vita (1960). Marcello, who has given up on everything, kneels in the sand, when a child calls to him from across the water. He is so wasted that he doesn’t recognize her and can’t understand. He gives up and is carried off by the drunken procession of given-up adults who drown out reality and suffering. They are no longer willing or able to see the world through childlike eyes. In this film, even the guy who seems to have it all together, the “intellectual,” successful, REAL writer gives up and kills his children on his way out, probably because he can’t stand to leave them behind to grow up and run the risk of suffering the same trappings of Italian society that he can no longer live through. So he shoots them in the prime of their innocence, gently sleeping in their beds, before he blows his own brains out. So tall he was. . . but only this big. Fellini seems obsessed with “matching the sacred and profane and casting doubts on both,” to quote Ebert.

In La Strada (Fellini, 1954), Gelsomina is like a child whose innocence shields her from the harsh reality of life. But then she meets Zampano, who beats her with a switch, like an animal, to break her of this inconvenient disposition. Gelsomina’s innocence seems to be renewed through the magic and insight of the fool, only to again be stripped away by Zampano through his murder. Zampano, like parents and authority figures, consistently treats Gelsomina like an animal or possession. But there is substance to his character, if you’re looking. This way he lives, his attitude, is learned. He is thinking behind that thick skull as best as he is able. He suffers like the rest of us and escapes in drink, like Marcello. The problem is, these accepted coping mechanisms only compound his suffering and anger, further indoctrinating him into the system of suffering. He misplaces his aggression on Gelsomina, who could love him, but he fears her madness in the end and doesn’t realize what he has lost until he learns of her death. Again, to quote Ebert, “a defeated man turns to the sea, which has no answers.” This scene really connected with me because I’ve been there before. It is painful. This ending shows us that though we don’t know it all, if we look deeper, there are clues. He may have been stupid, but he was smart enough to fit in. He feels, somewhere deep inside. No amount of drink can ever kill that feeling.

Depression, cynicism, anger, stoicism—these things are learned. Things learned by Edumund in Germany Year Zero by Rossellini in 1948. In this story, a boy who has nothing and no future in the aftermath of world war kills his grandfather in an act of mercy. He tries to live on, innocent in a guilty world, only to jump to his death in the end. Scorsese suggests this film is pleading with the nations of the world to have sympathy, compassion for each other, even the enemy. No longer trying to portray their society as superior, they become free to promote equality for all. Some alarmed elites translate this as Marxist propaganda, promoting a redistribution of wealth. After seeing Umberto D. (1952, Vittorio de Sica), an Italian Minister openly opposed Neorealism for “washing dirty linens in public”.

Like the other Neorealists, Fellini is always placing the camera to draw us in deeper. However, he uses more complex set-ups, using POV and tracking master shots that follow action as characters pop in and out of frame. Dancers smile invitingly at the camera as partners enter frame. The camera follows a group of people ¾ shot, tracking, as they walk and eventually turn toward the camera. Earlier Neorealists were probably making the best of a poor financial situation through their simply shot methods. Scorsese points out that later in their careers, most of the Neorealists made slight changes in style that disappointed purists. Fellini never was a purist, though. He was more concerned with substance and often used his own life story as a means to communicate. His soundtracks are dubbed, which is typical across the board, but each director develops a noticeable style in the score. Fellini’s is like a sad carnival mixed with a profound march. In other films, sound is often used as an accenting device which directly clashes with the images. This is true with Fellini to some degree.

Different Neorealist directors utilize these methods in different ways, often boiling down to story selection. For example, Scorsese says that Rosellini directs facts while de Sica directs emotions. Rosellini’s war trilogy, composed of Paisan, Rome Open City, and Germany Year Zero, illustrate this directing of the facts. The first film is about two homeless boys who are thrown into a workhouse, the second about American troops helping Partisans in the middle of the war, and the third is mentioned in an earlier paragraph. De Sica, on the other hand, made movies like The Gold of Naples and Umberto D. where humor, suffering, and transcendence all go hand-in-hand. The first, having physical and situational humor intertwined with death and adultery, and the second includes scenes where an old man struggles to survive and finds joy in his dog, who eventually saves him from suicide.

I feel Italian Neorealism impacting my every thought since I’ve started researching it after our class. It has also influenced documentary and photojournalism. It has supplied the Hollywood machine with sufficient fuel for remakes, spoofs, and re-imaginings. Nine cherry-picks the sexiest parts of Fellini and Italian culture. This alone could serve to illustrate the nature of Hollywood in one comparison, Nine to 8 ½, but I’ll share several examples. In general Hollywood avoids reality entirely, the opposite of the Neorealists, who attempt to stare deeply at reality and suffering as perhaps one does the sun, holding the gaze until blind or revelation is found. They spoofed Bicycle Thieves with Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985). In this film, some impacts are still included, but are mocked or made light of at best. Sweet Charity (Bob Fosse, 1969) is a reimagining of Nights of Cabiria, but instead of Cabiria being a true working girl, she is a singing and dancing Broadway fool. I prefer the Cabiria who climbs into truck cabs, gets in fights, and hides in the bushes during police raids. And then there is Under the Tuscan Sun (2004), which seems to highlight our American fascination with these great films, but Hollywood’s inability to articulate anything more than bits and pieces of imagery. They even threw in a glass of milk at the end of the clip we watched, yuck.

We just can’t relate. Scorsese points out that our cultural heritage is young and probably best represented through the O.K. Corral, while theirs is thousands of years old and more like Gladiators in the Colosseum. Maybe the best illustration of our failure to communicate is The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) versus Ossessione (Visconti, 1942). Ossessione is often named as the first of the Neorealist films and is full of raw imagery and dialogue. A hairy man with rips in his clothes and holes in his shoes is having a for-real affair with this depressed-looking woman who wears the same dress. They’re both prostitutes, while in The Postman Always Rings Twice, the woman is the definition of Hollywood starlet and the man is clean and has classic, leading man features.

It seems that Fellini grows more and more towards escapism and grand metaphor, reaching through to the viewer’s subconscious, as opposed to the reasoning frontal lobe. I think 8 ½ (1963) illustrates this. It’s like a magic eye picture, where you have to unfocus your eyes to get the hidden picture. Besides Magical Realism, I think Felliniesque would be described through meaning or the film’s message. He also had many reoccurring characters and themes like the circus, processions, prostitution, voyeurism, exotic nightclubs, musical sequences, the seashore, scaffolding, dream sequences—things that seem to rest in a world of his imagination.

While some argue about Felliniesque or his Neorealist roots, I tend to lean more towards Felliniesque. It feels that he was following his conscious, telling the stories he felt within himself. The reasons for Neorealist connections are in his heritage, his moviemaking DNA. And many of the tools utilized, theoretical or practical, are just that—story telling tools—and quite effective whether pure or convoluted with Fellini mumbo-jumbo. They are sincere, sentimental, and touching, if you’re open to be touched. Fellini once said that Cabiria was the only one of his characters he was still worried about. . .I have to admit, I think about her a lot too. I hope she is okay.

Beyond the Black Rainbow

I liked this movie though I don't recommend it for the average movie goer. Only those that study cinema should even attempt it. It reminded me of Tarkovsky. The images seem to be spliced together to say that self improvement, at least that at the hands of "professionals", is self imprisonment at the hands of demented perverts. These same professionals have created two monsters, the more obvious in the vein of Patrick Bateman--he even looked like Christian Bale a bit. The other is an innocent girl with supernatural powers who ends up settling in the suburbs. The images are beautiful. Check it out if you're willing to commit the time and watch it all.

The Amazing Spider-Man

At first I thought I wasn't going to like this movie for a number of reasons but I was wrong. It was better. I dare you to go see it if you haven't already. Those who don't like it are clinging onto a shoddy past. The previous franchise doesn't need your devotion and they don't deserve it! REMEMBER: TOPHER GRACE WAS CAST AS VENOM! I liked the first two and I'll do my best to honor and rank them accordingly--but not until I see some sequels here. This could end up being George Clooney vs Christian Bale.. too soon to tell. I liked that he had cartridges and I liked The Lizard. I think this series will be better if they keep up the good drama. Sorry Tobey and Kirsten.. Mostly Kirsten ;) ==But I recommend it.

In the Last Minutes of Thursday, July 12, 2012

We wish for life to be like a film. I find this interesting since film itself tries so desperately, at times, to imitate life--at others theatre, and still others paintings--but all these things life. We try so desperately to make ourselves like these movies, these daydreams.. perhaps because they seem somewhat eternal--to us at least. They have existed throughout our existence and so we mimic them and feel something magical.

They appear this way after preservation through the hands of many master craftsmen. And all these things modeling life...

If only we could look in the mirror--NO, the mirror is inadequate--the eyes of another, or better yet, the eyes of the eternal. Perhaps, if we could see this way we would see things more beautiful than any painting. We are the models which torment these wannabe gods, these painters, these filmmakers. I strive to see all in this light. Those days where things, even just a single object, shines just right.. well, those are the best days.
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UPDATE:
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I watched a movie called Angel-A last night. It is interesting that I started it right after writing this. If you see it you might understand why. I'm referring to the scene later in the movie while she looks in the mirror with him.

To Rome with Love

I think I get it that most people just don't like Woody Allen. They don't like how his character's jump in and out of the reality of the film--it's jarring, confusing, and if you don't get it quick you're left several scenes back trying to catch up which makes you feel stupid.. and now you're quietly insulted BY A FILM! Besides, he repeats and rehashes same or similar subject matter with slight variations on jokes with pinches of new insight. But I guess I'm not most people because I get it, keep with the pace, and I very much enjoyed To Rome with Love. I don't know if it is possible to make an ugly movie in Rome. The setting alone makes viewing worthwhile. There are great commentaries on relationships, fame, family.. I recommend it. I love it when characters don't stay put and do what they're told all the time. Let me know what you think about Alec Baldwin in this one--he was my FAV!

Narrative POV & the Gaze

     While I tend to agree with the professor that Atonement is an unreliable narrative, it is only a partial agreement.  I believe that Atonement, as well as all movies, are only as reliable as you make them.  Films are merely collections of stories and bits of media thrown together to make a new product.  Though Atonement does go in and out of fact and fiction, there are clues in the beginning that let the careful watcher know it is fantasy.  Of course, I’m talking about the non-diegetic sound that kicks in at the very beginning, a typewriter.  The film tricks into believing it is merely an interesting film score.  As a first time viewer we do not realize its alternative function until the surprise interview with grown up Briony sometime later.  I also agree with the professor that there are clues later on, as it was something I noted as well, as Robbie’s story becomes more fantastic as it progresses, until it peaks on the beach—where I wrote, “this must be hell”.

In the end we realize that it is truly an unreliable narrative, in a sense of fact or fiction.  If you ask me, it has been honest as a story and film from the very beginning.  All films are contrived and in their final product an amalgamation of subjective points of view.  In this film we are mostly seeing Briony’s point of view, as well as those of her made up characters.  The film projected to us is made up of multiple points of view; that of the director, cinematographer, composer, and so on.  The final subjective point of view is our own and perhaps the most tricky.  We begin making up our own minds about where it is going from the get-go—we are trained as movie watchers to struggle to make sense of even the most illogical action.  However, each point of consciousness in the audience is its own set of subjective constructs imposing itself on the creative work of fiction before the senses.  Perhaps a movie like Richard Linklater’s Waking Life better illustrates this point.  If you asked the audience what it was about or what they thought a specific scene meant—each might deliver a completely unique response.  The same may be true for Atonement, but I think in this case, director Joe Wright strived to communicate a similar story to each observer individually.

There are several points of view throughout films that are utilized for different types of communication.  The first is the look of the camera, a sort of omnipresent third person narrator.  This look shows the viewer the action happening on set.  These are the sort of mise en scene shots encompassing the larger story in the frame.  Director Stanley Kubrick has many good examples of these types of shots, especially in his use of wide angle shots with long duration—a key part of his style as an auteur.  In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick uses this style technique to allow the story of the apes unfold on screen.  The camera patiently waits as the apes discover tools for survival, in this case a bone as a club used for killing, and suddenly a mysterious monolith appears.  This scene illustrates my point, as with Waking Life, the audience may not understand what is happening on screen as—there is no explanation given either through voice over or montage.  Kubrick has used his camera-pen to lay out a series of events left to our subjective point of view to interpret—and a perfect technique to depict primal urge predating language.

This leads to the second type of look, which I mentioned in the last, the look of the audience.  As I have discussed in three examples already the audience is the final subjective point of view and perhaps most important, as movies are created with an audience in mind.  We watch and impose our own perception on the action, making sense, or complete non-sense, of what unfolds.  This look is not utilized by the director or cinematographer, but it is in the forefront of his mind while making choices and attempting to guide them.  If it were left to these two looks alone, films would probably be totally misunderstood and boring.  Even nature documentaries, where action follows this model, have voice over narration to help lead and draw viewers in.  However, there is a third look film makers utilize, the subjective look of the character.  In between the look of the camera they splice in looks of the character and various other subjective shots to lead the observer and help tell the story.  These shots are the dialogue in books, the stuff that progresses action and keeps the reader reading.  A movie has not successfully pulled off a shot list made up entirely of these “POV” shots—as illustrated by Lady of the Lake.  But I believe we are getting closer with films like Enter the Void, where a large portion of the film is done in the floating POV of a deceased spirit.  Perhaps if virtual reality is ever progressed to a more realistic consumer product we will begin seeing more POV films.
                Now we know who is looking, but not why we are looking and where.  We have discussed in depth during class that the typical gaze of the camera is that of a heterosexual male.  This gaze often objectifies women, displaying them in unrealistic poses and sickly proportions, presents them as helpless impediments to the male hero’s action, and perpetuates idealized role—in a man’s world—of servitude to man.  It is easy to explain the reasons, on the surface at least.  The era in which the film industry developed was dominated by man for generations, both in industry and society; so it was only natural for film to mirror that society and its slow but subsequent progression towards equality.  Upon researching the matter further I found some interesting relations to language itself which strike deeper to the root of this inequality.  Letters, words, and sentences are merely symbols used to point to familiar objects and strung together to represent more complex expressions.  There is a desire to encompass all things in symbols and, therefore, all desires themselves must be represented by a symbol.  This is an inferior process of identification—much like that of Lacan’s mirror stage where a child identifies the false projection of himself in the mirror as proper, but is always a false, inferior projection of the self—and being inferior, sets up an unequal structure in the mind.  It is therefore only natural for that structure to be projected into our physical world as we project so many other psychological scars outward; that is unless we diligently realize and work through them.  I think it is only natural that we have imprinted these same projections on film.  Lacan says that a healthy person thrives on a system of symbols and desires and actually needs the imaginary to stay in touch with the real.  This understanding—though it is mine, subjective, and probably false—spoke to me because my happiness has always had a direct correlation to frequenting the movies.

The gaze began very male, but does it explain the continuation of that same or similar gaze today—even in the work of female artist?  Studies have shown that the one looking most intently is actually the female.  It is more than likely the fault of this male gaze which has trained girls early on to self-analyze.  In some overly demented form of the mirror stage, girls not only identify with the false representation in the mirror, but they project that idealized form into the mirror as presented to them through the gaze found plastered all around them.  Mulvey says, "The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure," and through transitive properties into the minds of little girls.  It comes in many forms, magazines, movies, Disney; but whatever we have done, it has now been perfected.  Statistics show that women spend the money and literally hold the purse strings—so now advertising is directed 90% at women.  A man rarely spends, but when he does it is usually under the influence of a woman.  It is said that the mirror stage is merely a stage for boys to reflect on his path to becoming a man.  He must go out and become a man of action or be left behind, as in a wallflower at the middle school dance.  A woman however can perform her idealized function from that stage and often remains there.  Mulvey talks about how film must challenge and destroy this function.

It is easy to blame and more difficult to take responsibility.  I understand that the system is rigged for most and I speak from a privileged white male perspective, but all the tools to help lift yourself out of these narrow corridors are there if you desire them.  Some films have become more responsible while others seem to get worse as they embrace the consumer culture and try to indoctrinate both male and female children into states of eternal infancy.  Corporations would probably love for us to remain thoughtless sheep continually searching for our next shepherd.  We are like an Arbus photo of teenagers in love, posing as a couple—thrusting ourselves into adult scenarios we are unprepared for where we end up looking like little kids in our parent’s oversized clothing.  In the end I do not think that it is film’s responsibility or fault if we end up this way—it is parents, it is ours.  If we cannot raise our children and guide our society into a more mature, sanely self-aware, and self-sufficient one, than we deserve the bed in which we lay.  At least film will be there as an escape for us all.  I do not think the solution is avoiding those mirror stages but learning to transcend them.  We all need to do a little growing up.