Douglas Kellner has it all wrong – Spielberg is not celebrating some middle class ideal of possessions. We can't forget that underneath this "idealic" community, lies the bodies of those that the developers bulled over to increased their profits (the community is even named Cuesta Vista, as if commenting on the cost of the viewed afforded by the lifestyles by the middle class homeowners).
Once again Spielberg shows us a family in crisis, with the father’s actions (or job in this case) being the catalyst that threatens to destroy the family. Once could even argue that the “evil presence” that is described leading the lost souls in the next life is paralleled in this world by Steve's boss, who also leads the living souls in this life astray in pursuit of his own desires (both keep the people from what they should do and redirect their energies to their own end). The fact that the evil uses the TV to enter our world is also interesting (the image of the TV is strewn throughout the film and is paralleled in the lighting of out objects in the film with flashes of lightening and moonlight); the “possessions" that Kellner feels Spielberg is celebrating threaten us most in the media that also celebrates the middle class lifestyle while bombarding it with commercials to wet our consumer appetites even more. The family is constantly mesmerized by its screen, staring it at (or falling asleep in front of it) instead of looking and interacting with each other. It is also interesting to note that the spirits first reveal themselves to the mother by moving the (abandoned) kitchen table chairs around, as if pointing to the fact that they are missing. I think Kellner and many others miss the underlying critique of modernity which Spielberg has in many of his films. In some ways he is like the poet Robert Frost or the musician Bruce Springsteen – both popular performers commenting on American society but whose message is sometimes lost on people that apparently become overwhelmed by their mastery of their craft and their popular appeal (how the Republican’s missed the whole point of the song “Born in the USA’ still mystifies me to this day). Spielberg’s film constantly show a family in crisis, battling modernity and trying to remain intact as they struggle for their place within it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
Older post - reposted to contrast Spielberg's Space Odyssey
I had seen Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey a few times over the course of my life, but never felt I really understood what Kubrick was up to until I read Miller and Hanson’s takes on the film. My most recent viewing did seem to support Hanson’s argument that Kubrick was showing through the similarities (i.e. the repetition of behaviors, though granted transformed over time) between the apes and space age man, that “the human race has gone nowhere fast”. The future is shown as a technological marvel, but with the price of isolating man from his fellow creatures (they communicate without touching, families separated by vast space, whose only tool is a telephone to make some connections (the apes at least had each other to huddle against in the cold world that surrounded them. Also the repression of sex (w/ sex only alluded to via the Lolita reference to an abandoned cashmere sweater) also permeates the film, so much so that Hanson’s article regarding the repressed homosexual tendencies of not only the astronauts, but HAL, made the film take on a deeper meaning. Not only do the scenes showing the narcissistic crewmen (who watch themselves on monitors), the penetration back into the ship that mirrors an ejaculation, and the (un)screwing of HAL become obvious with this reading, but the malfunctioning “unit” that Hal thinks is about to fail and which turns out to be nothing wrong with (HAL's problems are only in his head), make HAL’s deadly actions make sense. If we grant that HAL has evolved into a being, with all the psychological baggage consciousness brings with it, then his castration by the astronauts he cares for no longer seeing him as perfect and his concern for the “malfunctioning unit” (I love how Kubrick has Poole cross his arms like an injured lover as he first discovers that HAL my be malfunctioning) make the following actions become clearer. As HAL discovers Dave and Poole are going to castrate him by terminating his memory, he, as can be expected of a conscious being, attempts to kill them first.
When Dave enters HAL and begins (un)screwing him, HAL sings him a love song as he says he is losing his mind. The video (HAL’s unconscious) that results in the termination of his memory shows that deep within HAL was the knowledge that not only was he not considered perfect by the astronauts any longer (due to his worrying over his malfunctioning unit) but they were on a mission to seek out an intelligence even greater than HAL’s. HAL knew consciously as well as unconsciously that his potency was waning. HAL could be seen as a lover that was being castrated and abandoned and given his was a relatively new conscious, his actions can be better understood. He was a consciousness that had yet to understand what consciousness and desire were (though I am not sure any of us really do). As for the final ending with the “starchild” hovering over earth - as the whole movie dealt with the separation of humanity by their technology, I don’t think the lone, isolated floating fetus was suppose to be a happy ending as some would claim it is. Given Kubrick’s genius and all that led up to that moment, I think the final scene is more a tongue-in-cheek finale that actually criticizes our belief that technology will somehow assist us in reaching a higher level of consciousness.
I had seen Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey a few times over the course of my life, but never felt I really understood what Kubrick was up to until I read Miller and Hanson’s takes on the film. My most recent viewing did seem to support Hanson’s argument that Kubrick was showing through the similarities (i.e. the repetition of behaviors, though granted transformed over time) between the apes and space age man, that “the human race has gone nowhere fast”. The future is shown as a technological marvel, but with the price of isolating man from his fellow creatures (they communicate without touching, families separated by vast space, whose only tool is a telephone to make some connections (the apes at least had each other to huddle against in the cold world that surrounded them. Also the repression of sex (w/ sex only alluded to via the Lolita reference to an abandoned cashmere sweater) also permeates the film, so much so that Hanson’s article regarding the repressed homosexual tendencies of not only the astronauts, but HAL, made the film take on a deeper meaning. Not only do the scenes showing the narcissistic crewmen (who watch themselves on monitors), the penetration back into the ship that mirrors an ejaculation, and the (un)screwing of HAL become obvious with this reading, but the malfunctioning “unit” that Hal thinks is about to fail and which turns out to be nothing wrong with (HAL's problems are only in his head), make HAL’s deadly actions make sense. If we grant that HAL has evolved into a being, with all the psychological baggage consciousness brings with it, then his castration by the astronauts he cares for no longer seeing him as perfect and his concern for the “malfunctioning unit” (I love how Kubrick has Poole cross his arms like an injured lover as he first discovers that HAL my be malfunctioning) make the following actions become clearer. As HAL discovers Dave and Poole are going to castrate him by terminating his memory, he, as can be expected of a conscious being, attempts to kill them first.
When Dave enters HAL and begins (un)screwing him, HAL sings him a love song as he says he is losing his mind. The video (HAL’s unconscious) that results in the termination of his memory shows that deep within HAL was the knowledge that not only was he not considered perfect by the astronauts any longer (due to his worrying over his malfunctioning unit) but they were on a mission to seek out an intelligence even greater than HAL’s. HAL knew consciously as well as unconsciously that his potency was waning. HAL could be seen as a lover that was being castrated and abandoned and given his was a relatively new conscious, his actions can be better understood. He was a consciousness that had yet to understand what consciousness and desire were (though I am not sure any of us really do). As for the final ending with the “starchild” hovering over earth - as the whole movie dealt with the separation of humanity by their technology, I don’t think the lone, isolated floating fetus was suppose to be a happy ending as some would claim it is. Given Kubrick’s genius and all that led up to that moment, I think the final scene is more a tongue-in-cheek finale that actually criticizes our belief that technology will somehow assist us in reaching a higher level of consciousness.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Close Encounters of the Turd Kind
This film was written by Spielberg so his treatment of a family in crisis (a common theme in his films) is perhaps all the more fascinating. Roy (as many of the men in Spielberg films) appears unsure how to fulfill his role as father. We are first introduced to him in his living room where his wife appears more of a mom scolding him on the mess his massive train set is causing to her home. He even attempts, reluctantly, to explain his son’s homework problem to him through the use of his toy trains. The early references to Pinocchio (who of course dreamed of becoming a boy) culminate with Roy proclaiming “I grew up on Pinocchio”. Later, after his close encounter with an alien ship, he begins being drawn to a shape (later revealed to be a mountain). It is interesting to note he first sees the shape in his shaving cream (a product exclusively for adults, facial hair denoting passage from childhood). He stops shaving and stares at the shape as if it is something he should remember (an uncanny object from his past?). His wife ends the scene by slapping the shaving cream onto his face, as if to remind him of its (and his) correct place. Later, a child’s recreation of the shape in dirt draws him even more intently. Here, he reaches out almost absent mindedly and touches the object, getting his hands dirty in the process. Unlike Kubrick’s monolith in 2001, A Space Odyssey (which has many obvious similarities to Spielberg’s space movie), the object produced by the child (and also touch by his mother) resembles a turd – fascinating to a child as it his first production that he willfully controls according to Freud; Kubrick’s characters sustain leaps in evolution due to his monolith, while Roy appears to be de-evolving into a fantasized childhood where his adult responsibilities no longer exist.
Roy’s wife, Ronnie, is later upset that he has lost his job and then in a fit of inspiration, she watches as Roy begins destroying her garden (and that of their neighbor) and throws dirty objects through her kitchen window. Ronnie leaves Roy, who proceeds to create what resembles a giant turd in the middle of the living room. Dirty and exhausted, Roy sees the same image on his TV and abandons his home (forever) in search of the object. When the aliens (or is it the Blue Fairy?) do land Roy deserts his family to ascend in the alien ship for some romanticized heaven. During his final ascent into the slip in the mountain, Roy literally struggles to crawl and stand up as he reaches to the outstretched hand of Gillian (a surrogate mother figure as he has left Ronnie and the kids for good earlier in the film) – Roy appears to have regressed back to a baby learning to crawl and stand on his own with his mother cheering him on. Gillian descends into the mountain with Roy, but she pulls back when Barry returns from the spaceship, accepting her role as an adult and parent. Roy then (fulfilling his oral fixation) kisses Gillian on the mouth and heads for the ship. Perhaps a little heavy handedly, Spielberg next has Roy and Barry mirror each other in a matched shot while a variation of “When You Wish Upon a Star” plays in the background – Roy has regressed back into the childhood he dreamed of. The first alien we see appears tall (perhaps the adult), but the aliens that pick Roy out of the crowd and surround him appear to be children (they have picked him as their playmate and let him join their circle). Roy has regressed back to a child with what appears to be no regret or sense of loss of the family and adult life he is deserting. Spielberg doesn’t even have Roy’s family there to look on and wish goodbye to their father (having long ago disappeared in the family station wagon half way through the film when Ronnie raced off in response to Roy’s messing up of her home); perhaps Spielberg sense that had they been there, Roy’s decision might have appeared too selfish for the film to offer what little bit of resolution it does at its conclusion.
Spielberg has created an anti-fairy tale, or a fairy tale in reverse. Whereas fairy tales are designed to help the child learn to cope with the challenges of becoming an adult and functioning in the world without being attached to mom and dad (such as Hansel & Gretel overcoming their oral fixation on the ginger bread and their too controlling parents to defeat the witch on their own), Spielberg has his main character regress from adulthood to infancy. There is no villain in the film, unless perhaps the human condition of having to grow up and become and adult. Many critics have a difficult time with this film, as they expect the narrative to fit into the normal paradigm of the main character progressing over the course of the film. Andrew Gordon skewered the film because the aliens act irrationally and he is unable to make sense of why Roy decides to flings the dirt and himself through the kitchen window when he could have use the sliding glass door. However, if we view the film as a fairy tale in reverse, these events make more sense. The aliens’ actions can be viewed as those of playful children more than having any rational explanation. Roy’s crawling through the kitchen window could be seen as his desire to crawl back into the womb.
In his films, Spielberg normally shows the aftermath of the missing father (Elliot in E.T., Jim in Empire of the Sun/son), but in this film he shows us a man abandoning his family for some higher ideal but without the consequences to those he leaves behind. The film reads to me as if he is exploring and almost justifying (though not quite) the father’s need to pursue his own desires over that of his family. As if the pain he felt from his father’s own abandonment still exists, but is perhaps tempered by an older Spielberg understanding that sometimes fathers make choices which abandons their role in the family not because they don't love their family or are bad people, but simply they sometimes have other callings which they are more drawn to.
Roy’s wife, Ronnie, is later upset that he has lost his job and then in a fit of inspiration, she watches as Roy begins destroying her garden (and that of their neighbor) and throws dirty objects through her kitchen window. Ronnie leaves Roy, who proceeds to create what resembles a giant turd in the middle of the living room. Dirty and exhausted, Roy sees the same image on his TV and abandons his home (forever) in search of the object. When the aliens (or is it the Blue Fairy?) do land Roy deserts his family to ascend in the alien ship for some romanticized heaven. During his final ascent into the slip in the mountain, Roy literally struggles to crawl and stand up as he reaches to the outstretched hand of Gillian (a surrogate mother figure as he has left Ronnie and the kids for good earlier in the film) – Roy appears to have regressed back to a baby learning to crawl and stand on his own with his mother cheering him on. Gillian descends into the mountain with Roy, but she pulls back when Barry returns from the spaceship, accepting her role as an adult and parent. Roy then (fulfilling his oral fixation) kisses Gillian on the mouth and heads for the ship. Perhaps a little heavy handedly, Spielberg next has Roy and Barry mirror each other in a matched shot while a variation of “When You Wish Upon a Star” plays in the background – Roy has regressed back into the childhood he dreamed of. The first alien we see appears tall (perhaps the adult), but the aliens that pick Roy out of the crowd and surround him appear to be children (they have picked him as their playmate and let him join their circle). Roy has regressed back to a child with what appears to be no regret or sense of loss of the family and adult life he is deserting. Spielberg doesn’t even have Roy’s family there to look on and wish goodbye to their father (having long ago disappeared in the family station wagon half way through the film when Ronnie raced off in response to Roy’s messing up of her home); perhaps Spielberg sense that had they been there, Roy’s decision might have appeared too selfish for the film to offer what little bit of resolution it does at its conclusion.
Spielberg has created an anti-fairy tale, or a fairy tale in reverse. Whereas fairy tales are designed to help the child learn to cope with the challenges of becoming an adult and functioning in the world without being attached to mom and dad (such as Hansel & Gretel overcoming their oral fixation on the ginger bread and their too controlling parents to defeat the witch on their own), Spielberg has his main character regress from adulthood to infancy. There is no villain in the film, unless perhaps the human condition of having to grow up and become and adult. Many critics have a difficult time with this film, as they expect the narrative to fit into the normal paradigm of the main character progressing over the course of the film. Andrew Gordon skewered the film because the aliens act irrationally and he is unable to make sense of why Roy decides to flings the dirt and himself through the kitchen window when he could have use the sliding glass door. However, if we view the film as a fairy tale in reverse, these events make more sense. The aliens’ actions can be viewed as those of playful children more than having any rational explanation. Roy’s crawling through the kitchen window could be seen as his desire to crawl back into the womb.
In his films, Spielberg normally shows the aftermath of the missing father (Elliot in E.T., Jim in Empire of the Sun/son), but in this film he shows us a man abandoning his family for some higher ideal but without the consequences to those he leaves behind. The film reads to me as if he is exploring and almost justifying (though not quite) the father’s need to pursue his own desires over that of his family. As if the pain he felt from his father’s own abandonment still exists, but is perhaps tempered by an older Spielberg understanding that sometimes fathers make choices which abandons their role in the family not because they don't love their family or are bad people, but simply they sometimes have other callings which they are more drawn to.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Jaws
When I was nine years old, my father took me to the movie that everyone was talking about – a thriller about a shark terrorizing a northeastern beach community. My father had seen the movie already and felt that I was old enough to view it (though to this day, like most people who saw the movie, I still am not completely at ease in the ocean). Over 30 years later, I still remember my father sitting on my right side. He told me later he would watch me out of the corner of his eye for my reaction to the two big “jump-out-of-your-seat” scenes (the head popping out of the hole in the bottom of the boat and the “we are going to need a bigger boat” scene). It is funny, but in my mind I see us sitting there, like we were strapped into a thrill ride at an amusement park – tense for the shocks we know are coming and yet excited and enthralled with the experience.
Upon viewing the film years later, I am still impressed with the direction and film editing which contribute to making such a thrilling and all around fun film. However, the thrills and fast pace of the film which lend it to being compared to an amusement park ride, come at a price. The original story had Chief Brody’s wife have an affair with Matt Hooper. Given the Freudian undercurrents of a monster lurking beneath the surface, this would have seemed a crucial element of the story that would have given it more depth – perhaps making it a thriller worthy of Hitchcock. Brody’s overcoming of his fear (regaining his manhood) and killing the shark could have provided another level to the film. Many criticize Spielberg for his films being more gloss and less substance and one could only wonder if Jaws would have been an even better film with this extra layer added to it. However the many ways Jaws can still be interpreted even without this key plot (nature vs. science as seen in the story of the Indianapolis being one of my favorites) temper some of these criticisms. Spielberg made a conscious choice to favor a faster pace for his story over a more academically appealing telling of the story and it is true that many of his films seem to value the visceral experience over the intellectual. Whether this is a conscious belief on his part that the intellectual is somehow not as authentic as the visceral, or as critics would argue, he is simply pandering to the popular culture, it is hard to say. I am reminded of the image of the young man in Amblin’ that hides in his guitar case not an instrument for art, but toilet paper, a tie, etc. (and seems ashamed to reveal it). As if even at that early an age, Spielberg was keenly aware of the conflict between art and commerce, and made his choice to never forget the necessities of real life over art – he desired to swim in the Pacific Ocean over the romanticized continued road trip of his travel companion. Spielberg is a hard man to peg. His masterful technique, inventiveness to overcome obstacles (the fog to hide the pond they were filming in, filming from water level and from beneath with the perspective of a shark) and seeming ability to read the pulse of public (a modern day P.T. Barnum) make him elusive. Is he simply pandering, or does he see the gut reaction as the true aim of great filmmaking? Viewing Jaws can be related to the experience you have in a good amusement park ride (it was of course made into a popular ride after the film's incredible success), but one must wonder, does this make it less artful or relevant? Does a work of art have to appeal as much or more to the intellect than the gut to have value? I think Spielberg would say no.
Upon viewing the film years later, I am still impressed with the direction and film editing which contribute to making such a thrilling and all around fun film. However, the thrills and fast pace of the film which lend it to being compared to an amusement park ride, come at a price. The original story had Chief Brody’s wife have an affair with Matt Hooper. Given the Freudian undercurrents of a monster lurking beneath the surface, this would have seemed a crucial element of the story that would have given it more depth – perhaps making it a thriller worthy of Hitchcock. Brody’s overcoming of his fear (regaining his manhood) and killing the shark could have provided another level to the film. Many criticize Spielberg for his films being more gloss and less substance and one could only wonder if Jaws would have been an even better film with this extra layer added to it. However the many ways Jaws can still be interpreted even without this key plot (nature vs. science as seen in the story of the Indianapolis being one of my favorites) temper some of these criticisms. Spielberg made a conscious choice to favor a faster pace for his story over a more academically appealing telling of the story and it is true that many of his films seem to value the visceral experience over the intellectual. Whether this is a conscious belief on his part that the intellectual is somehow not as authentic as the visceral, or as critics would argue, he is simply pandering to the popular culture, it is hard to say. I am reminded of the image of the young man in Amblin’ that hides in his guitar case not an instrument for art, but toilet paper, a tie, etc. (and seems ashamed to reveal it). As if even at that early an age, Spielberg was keenly aware of the conflict between art and commerce, and made his choice to never forget the necessities of real life over art – he desired to swim in the Pacific Ocean over the romanticized continued road trip of his travel companion. Spielberg is a hard man to peg. His masterful technique, inventiveness to overcome obstacles (the fog to hide the pond they were filming in, filming from water level and from beneath with the perspective of a shark) and seeming ability to read the pulse of public (a modern day P.T. Barnum) make him elusive. Is he simply pandering, or does he see the gut reaction as the true aim of great filmmaking? Viewing Jaws can be related to the experience you have in a good amusement park ride (it was of course made into a popular ride after the film's incredible success), but one must wonder, does this make it less artful or relevant? Does a work of art have to appeal as much or more to the intellect than the gut to have value? I think Spielberg would say no.
The Sugarland Express
For a first full length film, there is much to be appreciated. Spielberg's use of mis-en-scene to move the story forward and to mirror the growth and inner lives of the characters is miles ahead of where he was in Amblin' and Eyes. He places and moves the actors in many scenes in ways that heighten our understanding of the characters' relationship to each other. When Patrolman Slide removes Lou Jean from the car (from the private to the public) she pulls his gun (castrates him?) and throws the gun near Clovis. Clovis grabs the gun (thought doesn’t know apparently how to point it) and says he has never shot anyone before (which will mirror Captain Tanner’s statement in a later scene). Spielberg films the scene from the perspective of the Patrolman looking up at Clovis and (like a puppet master positioned above him) Lou Jean - having us identify with the Patrolman/society. If Lou Jean is meant to represent the private life of the individual (who like Antigone places family above the law) and if Patrolman Slide is to be viewed as the demands of society, Clovis is perfectly placed between the two opposing forces that are demanding of him to obey. The next scene we get a glimpse or foreshadowing of the fickleness and stupidity of the general public as the drunken passenger in the police car flees from them saying “God bless you”. It is hard to decide which of the two opposing forces Spielberg wants us to relate to the most (or perhaps we are simply to acknowledge their competing and irreconcilable forces) but it is clear he has no love of the general public (or the media for that matter). When he positions Clovis and Slide at opposite sides of the screen, with Lou Jean directly behind the gun that Clovis is holding, we see in Clovis’ face the uncertainty of what he should do next. It is when he accidentally fires the gun (with Lou Jean shuttering and yelling as the gun goes off) that he regains his manhood. The movie has faults including its straight narrative and lack of real depth to its characters), however, the story of a broken family trying to hold itself together against the rules and demands of society is a powerful and reoccurring theme for Spielberg. It is interesting to note that foster parents seem eerily un-parent like (the child seems to continual scream in panic when they are near) and that we are always aware from the beginning (which overdone foreshadowing such as the cartoon scene) that their quest to become a whole family again is doomed. Lou Jean’s character is interesting as she has, through the force of her will, not only given back Clovis his manhood, but managed to create during their journey a pseudo child in Slide (she feeds him, tucks, him in, and asks him if he need to use the potty) and a temporary American home in the mobile home they break into (with a stove and movie running in the bedroom). The darker side of course is that we are constantly aware that his private life cannot continue to exist for long. It is also interesting that the place they dream of going, where their child awaits, is called Sugarland. As if even this dream world (where only death is truely waiting) is too syrupy to exist in reality too. In the end there is no whole family that exists in a world that places rules and demands on its inhabitants.
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