Mulholland Drive

I must say visually this movie is extremely stimulating whether you have any sort of handle on the story or not. The deep colors and beautiful scenes catch your eye every time. I especially loved the scene at Club Silencio, it was so visually pleasing. This is Scopophilia, right? The pleasure of seeing.

I saw Mulholland Drive once when I was 18 and I had no idea what the hell I had just seen. It made almost no sense to me, and then when we watched in class again I was almost just as confused as ever, but I must say thank goodness for class discussion.

This film was obviously post modern to me, but I kept trying to reconstruct it in a way that put Betty in the center of it all and I just could not make sense of it. When we discussed the postmodern aspects of the film and that perhaps Betty didn’t belong in the middle of it all things started to come together for me.

I really liked the idea that this film is Hollywood torn to pieces and messily glued back together again. You can blatantly see the different conglomerate of films in this movie: film noir, slasher, love story, mob story, a little bit of western. Each scene of the movie seems to be tapping into a different genre and each character is a character we’ve all seen before.

You’ve got the dickhead director, the hopeless romantic, the girl with stars in her eyes, the temptress, the hit man, the mob boss, a cowboy, and the cooky landlord, to name a few. All of these characters have already been created in other movies and other roles and they seem to be stuck in this movie to add to the idea of Hollywood retelling stories to itself.

Postmodernism uses references and this movie certainly has enough of them. It also takes something and puts it back together in a new and strange way that isn’t like anything we’ve seen before and Mulholland Drive achieves that too. I think that our protagonist is Hollywood and if you watch the movie from that perspective it’s obvious that it all circles around Hollywood. It’s about the people who reside there, the way the industry works, and all of the different pieces that make it up.

I felt like this whole movie was very dream like, or nightmare like is more like it. The characters are lost in a dark, twisted world and we are right there with them lost in the mist.

Shaft!

They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother…

I loved Shaft, both the movie and the man. He is the epitome of what every lady wants in a man… smooth, smart, confident, and of course sexy. I love the way that he commands respect even with just the way he stands, nice and tall with his shoulders squared away, ready to take on anything. Although I don’t like the way he treats his lady at times, he’s almost irresistible and truly reeks of manliness.

Compared to the personification of men in today’s society Shaft is on a totally different page. Nowadays it’s all about the meatheads who use violence to show just how manly they are. Sure, Shaft did use violence, but I don’t think he really went out of his way to be overtly violent. He was smooth and sexy even when dealing with other men. He just seemed to have a handle on it all and was always so laid back.

It kind of disappointed me when I read Matthew Henry’s essay about how Shaft’s sexual side has been transformed into violence in the new Shaft with Samuel Jackson. I haven’t seen it so I don’t really know firsthand what it’s like, but I think by making Shaft into a character just like the modern heroes we have in movies today you take something big away from his character. I liked feeling like Shaft was fighting for a better cause, not just to fight.

On a totally different thread, I really enjoyed the injection of politics into this movie with the sort of twisted triangle between the black panthers, the government (police force), and the mafia/gangsters. It was really interesting to me that even though Ben and Shaft were on different sides of the political fence they teamed up together to save a big drug dealer’s daughter from the mafia. In the end the political lines get completely blurred, but they are still all fighting the same fight against the white mafia.

Past the point of no return

I must say I enjoyed the scenery in this movie. I’m heading West after graduation to work at Yellowstone and it was neat to see the wide open road spreading out in front of Kowalski. My eye was always drawn to what was around the next bend in the road. I especially loved the shots when the car would come zooming from one side of the screen to the next, then it would cut to the car a few miles down the road doing the same thing.

Kowalski was a huge mystery to me during Vanishing Point. It seemed like the one thing he wanted to do was drive, and drive fast. The random flashbacks to him with his lover, as a racecar driver, and then as a cop did little to ease my confusion about him. He wasn’t your normal protagonist at all. Yes, he did go on a journey, but he as a person didn’t really get anywhere because of it. There really was no character development and his interaction with people was always a little bit off.

When the chick on the naked bike offered him anything he wanted I was completely caught off guard when he didn’t go for it. I guess I expected him to act as any other male character normally would, but it seemed as if this movie was trying to mess with our heads a little bit when it came to expectations.

I guess as much as this movie was about being on the big open road it was also about being stuck in a sense. Beck mentions this in the reading as well, although I don’t really know what to make of how he goes about saying it. Kowalski knew that he was not going to get out of the clutches of the cops no matter how far he drove, so he decided to bite the bullet and die instead of ending up in captivity.

Throughout all of this rather depressing Kowalski business there was the shining beacon of Super Soul, but he also is down trodden by “the man” at one point. Unlike Kowalski he doesn’t give up hope. He goes back to his boarded up station and continues to send hope his way, although in the end it doesn’t work out. I guess “the man” wins this one and I think this is a testament to the political turmoil that America was in during the 60’s and 70’s.

This post feels awfully disjointed, ugh.

“You want to fuck with the eagles you have to learn how to fly”

“So you teach people how to spread their wings and fly?”
“Yes”
“You’re beautiful.”

The first time I saw Heathers I instantly loved it. I loved its dark sense of humor and the way it broke all expectations of every other 80’s John Hughes teen movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink just as much as everyone else, but this movie was just a head above the rest for me.

Right away it veers away from the Hollywood norm because there is no rationale for JD’s desire to kill. So his dad blows up buildings and his life is a little off kilter, but there really is no motive behind the slew of murders besides being annoyed with the popular kids. Most movies tell you what’s going on right off the bat, but this movie never really explains it to you.

I guess this is where the whole postmodern thing comes into play. This movie deconstructs the normal teen movie of its time and puts it back together in a twisted way. The extreme lack of emotion is the opposite of every other John Hughes movie. Usually a wacky teen stumbles their way into a higher place of knowing themselves or learns a valuable life lesson. All Veronica learns by the end is to not sleep with insane dudes. I think this is kind of poking fun at movie goers desire to find some deeper meaning within the fake lives of teenagers. The movie is trying to be shallow and succeeds time and time again with “the Heathers” and JD’s lack of motivation behind anything.

This is sort of mirrored in the strange staff at the high school who brood over the suicides of the students. They try to make the students into deep, wounded human beings who couldn’t deal with the harsh realities of the world; when really they were just jocks and popular girls who didn’t give a damn about anyone else.

As with a lot of other postmodern films I’m not sure there is a greater meaning behind the plot. Just like the students in this school don’t really learn any lessons or become better people by the end, I don’t think the viewer is supposed to reach any sort of conclusion by the end either. I think it’s simply a John Hughes film gone dark and it’s meant to play with the expectations that we’ve created for ourselves as viewers.

Kung Fu Hustle

I've seen a couple of Kung Fu movies in my day and I guess I didn't really know all that much about them until our class on Thursday. I like that these kung fu movies are built upon the Wu Xia stories about heroism or noble action. It's obvious that in most of the stories an underdog comes from the pack and saves the day through some heroic act. I like that this movie didn't stray too far from that, but it definitely had a different twist with the elements of post modernism in it.

I really enjoyed all of the different references throughout the film. The conglomerate of different genres, films, and actors definitely made this kung fu movie into something a little off the mark of what is normally expected. I loved the rush of blood in the insane asylum, straight out of The Shining. The Road Runner reference when the Land Lady was chasing the "Chosen One" was also great. There was also a little more Looney Tunes in there with the huge throbbing lips. The movie also references The Blues Brothers, Westside Story, Gangs of New York, The Matrix, and Roger Rabbit.

Post Modernism in film is all about creating something deliberately unoriginal that is made up entirely of references. This isn't meant to increase the depth of the movie, in fact Kung Fu Hustle didn't have much depth at all, it only increases the entertainment value of what you're watching. There isn't really a lesson to learn at the end of the movie, it's just a matter of if you've been entertained and understood all of the references of other references throughout the entire movie.

Despite all of the Post Modern moments in the film it did still stay true to certain elements of Kung Fu. My number one favorite Kung Fu movie is Drunken Master and that movie certainly has a man with a certain style of Kung Fu. Throughout Kung Fu Hustle we saw people with a certain style too. The Landlord's movements were like liquid, so fluid and laid back that he could've been sleeping while fighting. His wife had her trademark lion roar. The three original masters in the slum also had their own unique style. The tailor packed a mean punch, the young guy could kick like crazy, and the older man was really good with sticks. Then we get the ultimate Kung Fu master and he hops around like a toad. It was neat to see everyone using their own unique style.

I really enjoyed all of the martial art elements in this movie too. I think that style of fighting is so interesting to watch and extremely entertaining. Class on Thursday definitely cleared up a few things for me when it came to the origins of martial arts. I knew that developing breathing, or your Chi, was an important aspect of martial arts, but I wasn't so aware about the sense of inner strength that's necessary to be good at martial arts. Being centered, calm, and aware is extremely important. Buddhism being rooted in the art of compassion wasn't something I was aware of either. The idea of your opponent being a part of the same energy as you and using the energy around you to redirect their energy was pretty cool.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie, the Post Modern elements made it super entertaining, along with the cool martial arts moves. I think it was a good balance of different genres and the original Kung Fu. It kept my eyes glued to the screen and I really had fun watching it.

Deren and Brakhage shorts

Hmmm, where to start with this one. I guess I'll throw my opinion out first. I actually really enjoyed these shorts and their use of film as an artistic expression. I don't think I would've said that two months ago, I guess this class is really expanding my mind. I thought it was interesting when we discussed the films in class and it was realized that because we're all human we try to put a story behind each film that we see. It got me thinking even more about the shorts and trying to think of them without any plot behind them.

Of course when I think of Brakhage I can't help thinking about a baby's head slowly emerging from a bloody vagina first, but there is also a lot of beauty in that film. The build up to the actual birthing scene is gorgeous and even the birth is shot in such a cool way. The lighting is really soothing and the angles are interesting. My favorite part is when she's in the tub and the shadow of the window panes line up on her stomach, such a neat shot. I like the sort of glow that they have going on in the bathtub too, it was pretty sweet.

The conversation we got into during class was pretty intense and I still maintain that this short has changed the way I look at birth forever (that touches upon something I'll talk about later). The intimacy of what we were saying made it hard for me to watch, harder than those films they show you in biology and health class anyways. I felt like I was prying in on a moment that belonged to them, not me and that was tough for some reason. With the other birth scenes I've seen either in movies classes or hollywood movies make birth seem like a joke or something completely devoid of emotion and it was interesting to see Brakhage put the love, pain, and beauty into his short. I like that he shows you something in a way that you haven't seen it before. He also does this with the two other films we saw. He kind of deconstructs it and puts the pieces back together in a way that is different and beautiful.

The essay Brakhage wrote threw me for a loop at first, but after our class discussion I really loved what he was saying. I like that he's asking you to really look at the images he's creating and through his films he's trying to talk right to your eyes while breaking misconceptions. Brakhage's idea of using film to change both time and space is a concept that befuddled me at first, but now nothing could make more sense. He says that the magic of film is that you are given the power to change things. Someone in class said that it explodes and expands reality and I think that explains it perfectly. Like I said about the birth video, it completely changed my perception of birth and the feelings behind it. That film changed time and space for me forever when it comes to birth and I think that concept is pretty awesome. He uses lighting, camera angles, and ideas to shift the viewers thinking on a subject.

On to Deren.... I really liked her shorts too, but I definitely found myself trying to find a narrative behind them more than Brakhages. Maybe it was because there were actors moving through scenes and repetition was such a heavy focus, I don't know. At Land had me convinced that the chess piece represented something she was missing in life and that she was trying to get it in order to put the pieces of her life together. I really liked Ritual in Transfigured Time. The party scene was so beautiful and so much like a dance. The conversation in class revealed once again our desire to put a story behind it. For me it seemed like a commentary on social interaction between men and women. How men are constantly wanting attention, how people can't stay with one partner for long (easily distracted), how the interaction between men and women is all just a dance in a way. I love how her use of slow motion, stop and go shots, and her tight camera shot completely change the way we view the scene.

In her essay Deren touches upon film moving through time and space and manipulating film to change time and space. People know that the film has been manipulated, but they accept it as it is because they want to find the narrative behind the film, even if it doesn't exist. I also like Deren's commentary on photography and painting being such different realms of expression. A painting is really just anyone's perception of something, it isn't necessarily something real, but a photo is a visual representation of something that does indeed exist. Deren says that painting is removed from reality, while photos are real. She goes on to say a photo depends on the existence of an actual image and it represents something more than a thing, it represents an idea - A photo is an image and a metaphor than stands in for an idea. All of this plays into Deren's conception of what film is too.

Wow, this post is honestly kind of mind blowing.

La Dolce Vita

Normally a movie with no strategic plot drives me nuts, maybe this class is changing my ways, but La Dolce Vita captured my attention through out it's entirety. I loved all of the beautiful shots, beautiful people, and most importantly beautiful clothes. Marcello's white suit at the end of the movie was just perfection and his lady friend squirming around topless with a mink covering her was awesome too. I really began to see the value of post modernism through this film. I enjoyed that the focus was on style and not sustenance. The contrast between the perfection of these people's clothes and their actions was something I really noticed. They were always dressed so amazingly, but at the same time they were getting hammered, doing drugs, and being promiscuous.

I really enjoyed the shots in this movie as well. When everyone was at Steiner's there was a wide angle shot that included everyone in the living room and I thought that was pretty neat. I would've liked to snap a picture of everyone sitting there. I also really liked the constant bustle going on when Marcello was around his friends. Everyone was always moving, dancing, jumping in a car, or talking. So much of the movie was based on movement and large groups of people.

I kind of enjoyed that the protagonist didn't become a better person at the end, instead I think the reverse occurred for Marcello. He seemed to be searching for himself and love during the movie, but he could never quite grasp it. His girl friend was an addict and slightly insane, his other love interest was a big slut, and he just couldn't figure out whether to drop his journalist act to write a book. At the end he was alone, with a job that had nothing to do with his love for writing, and he seemed to be more of a rich asshole than ever. He was getting pretty abrasive with women and partying a little too hard. I think that all of this ties into the Neo-realism aspects of the movie. There isn't any pretending, this is completely a showcase of "real life" because of the lack of conversion in the main character and the rest of the characters are not innately good, they're just doing whatever they want to. I think it beautifully shows the lives of people with too much money and too much time on their hands.

I think the opening and closing shots are a commentary on the lack of morals in all of the character's lives in this film. Taking Jesus and flying him to the pope kind of said to me these people don't have strong values that they follow, especially when the guys flying Jesus stop to hit on girls in bikinis on a rooftop. I think the shot at the end ties into the same picture with the huge dead sea creature because it signifies the loss of a natural values system that these people obviously do not have. I could be way off base, but eh, I figured I'd take a stab at it.

The Last Year at Marienbad

Alright, right off the bat I'm going to be honest... I slept through about half of this movie. There was something about the warm room, repetitive language and fuzzy subtitles that just lulled me right to sleep. What I can say is that when I woke up and saw tid bits I felt like I had never even fallen asleep. It seemed like I had not missed a thing and I was just as confused as I had been when I was watching the film in the beginning of class completely awake.

One thing I did take away from my sporadic moments of viewing was the dream-like state of this film. The entire story seemed like something out of a dream. I felt like it was X dreaming up something he'd like to happen, but most people can't control their dreams, so A wasn't really going along with his dream and outside forces were interrupting as well. I really liked what Sarah said in class about X being at the hotel last year and seeing A, but never approaching her so he is sort of playing out the scenario he wished had happened before. For me it seemed like A was kind of a shot of reality in the crazy mixed up mind of X. Her constant refusal to his insistence about knowing her and his crazy back story about him brought forth the idea that what X was dreaming probably never happened. I also liked the idea about the garden's maze and the endless maze of hallways in the hotel being compared to X's mind and the endless gauntlet of story-telling he was leading A through. It was sort of like if A could make it through and not break and accept X's skewed vision of reality she would get to return to the "real world."

The repetition of dialogue really adds to that dream-like feel as well. The whole repetitiveness of the whole film makes it feel even more dream like. It gives you that feeling of being stuck in one place and being unable to move forward in any sense. This also makes it difficult for the audience to connect to any of the characters or the story. A and X are both pretty strange throughout the whole film and you can't really make any sort of connection to either of them. I liked an idea someone brought up in class about the characters being like ghosts who just repeat the same action over and over again, I felt like that really fit in this movie.

Another idea that I liked that came up in class had to do with the reading and the idea of solipsism, or the idea of thinking yourself is the only thing that is real. This also ties into Descarte's "I think therefore I am" idea, which means if I can form thoughts then I must be real. These ideas do make your own existence concrete, but it pretty much leaves everyone else out in the cold. Sure you're reassuring yourself in the fact that you must be real, but that doesn't speak for everyone else in your life. Does that mean that everyone around you is non-existent? I'm pretty sure if you're focusing so much on your own reality that you're going to have trouble relating to anyone else and I think this ties into X's obsession with A. He so badly wants to confirm A's existence, but no matter how much he slams the idea into his head and she won't simply tell him if she's real or not and she doesn't really give him any hints.

I really like the setting for this movie. The formality and grandeur of the hotel and grounds really makes a sharp contrast with the dream-like quality of it all. The formality kind of plays on the who idea of these people who are sort of insane. Especially when you're looking at the people who aren't the main characters. They are dressed so perfectly and doing all of these fancy things, but they're really quite odd in the way they speak and act. It goes the same for X and A. They are both really, really bizarre, but they look good doing it. They are also speaking in the formal form of French the entirety of the movie, but about super informal things, which adds another weird element to it all.

Orpheus

For me Orpheus was a little irritating as I was watching it because I kept trying to draw parallels between the myth and the movie, but our discussion on Thursday put my mind at ease, so to speak. Understanding that Cocteau wasn't concerned so much about the plot, but more so about the aestheticism, or arts and images, made things more bearable for me. Cocteau wanted to let go of the conventional plot centered idea of what a movie should be and delve into a dream world, in which the viewer is to look for images and messages that explain his purpose for making the movie. I like Freud's idea of dreams giving away your true self and how the parallel can be draw with Cocteau's images giving away deeper meaning in his film. It's clear that Cocteau was sort of pushing the boundaries of art at his time with his special effects and visually stimulating scenes. The special effects were dated, but they certainly added something to the film that made it even more intriguing.

I especially enjoyed our discussion in class about homosexuality at the time and how it was all about finding hidden meanings and signs in order to get together with a mate. The parallel drawn between a poet made sense to me, because a poet is constantly looking for signs and hidden meanings to pull into his work.

I like Cocteau's idea of poets being on the brink of death. To Cocteau to be a poet is to be on the verge of death and insanity, but to have the ability to bring yourself back from that sort of grey area and translate what you've seen into words. Not everyone has this ability and that's what makes a true poet. Obviously Orpheus is struggling with his poetry, but as he gets closer and closer to death he is more in tune with his creativity and is finding inspiration through Cegeste's poetic radio transmissions. Being under control of death makes Orpheus a better poet. As he embarks on his most intimate interaction with death at the end of the movie he crosses over the threshold into the world of death, but manages to come back and one can see that this experience is going to save his poetry.

This also ties into masochism and putting yourself through terrible pain, but at the same time experiencing great pleasure. Orpheus is seducing death, who is normally the seducer, but falls under his spell and death is pretty cruel to Orpheus at the beginning. Ultimately death has to pay through pain and punishment at the end of the movie, but she doesn't care because of the pleasure she felt while being in love with Orpheus. Through masochism you are some much in a sensory overload that you forget yourself and lose all sense of who you are and we can definitely see this in Orpheus and death in the movie. Death is supposed to be in control of herself and everyone else, but Orpheus has a hold on her that completely messes up her identity. The same goes for Orpheus, he forgets Eurydice and his former life as soon as he begins to fall for death and he doesn't care that he has to travel through the underworld or die, he just wants to feel the pleasure of being with her.

I have trouble understanding Freud, but as we discussed in class masochism is sort of like the next best thing to the Oedipus complex, or returning back to your mother. If you were able to return to your mother you would also be giving up your sense of self and accept that you were under her control. In the case of masochism, as I've said before, you're still throwing your identity to the wayside and accepting pain and pleasure as the thing that controls you.

Citizen Kane

I guess my biggest reaction to this movie is that it's seriously unconventional and makes me question the fact that humans so thoughtlessly follow a plot line and believe it while watching a movie (I guess that's where suspension of belief comes in). In every movie you try to identify with the main character and draw some sort of connection with your own life, but in this movie it's almost impossible. Like everything in life everyone has their own twist they add into their perception of reality, so how can you really trust everything they say? Maybe Welles was trying to get to this, I'm not sure. I think it's really ironic that the opening scene and the closing scene are the same. That really makes you realize that both you and the reporter have just been running in circles, like a dog chasing it's tale, the entire movie. You don't know Kane any better than you did at the beginning. Sure you get his life history, but you have no idea what is going through his mind at any giving point in time and almost all of the stories contradict the others or just don't make sense in some way (i.e. Kane's mom simply sending him away and him being an advocate of "average Americans"). It's funny though because like a good movie watcher I spent the entire film engrossed in what was going on, trying to thread some continuity into the plot, and just hoping that it would somehow come together, but it obviously never does. I even made connections that ended up not mattering in the long run, I was just hoping that they would.

The way it's shot does a number on your normal movie watching experience too. It's just obvious that a lot can't be real. The deep focus is almost trippy, especially when they're shooting Kane to make him look like a giant. The scene with the reporter in phonebooth is almost uncomfortable, you just want him to get out of there. Also, the scenes where the camera can float through walls, like when they're shooting over the roof and go in through a window, remind you that couldn't possibly be happening. I also like how Cardullo says that the shots are reminders of the fact that Kane is living only in memories, which are happening in a world that isn't real or concrete.

All in all I was dissatisfied with the plot, but I still liked the movie. It intrigued me and still does. It makes me hungry for a deeper meaning, even if you can't find it in Kane, I feel like it's somewhere in the movie, maybe in a "bigger picture" sort of way.