2 Instances of Cows as Expressions of Humanity in Cinema

Cattle. We've all seen them, pottering aimlessly in fields, making stupid noises, chewing grass. But do we take them for granted? Filing them in our heads next to green fields, barns, mooing and slightly intimidating farmers.

The opening shot to Bela Tarr's Satantango (1994) has to be one of the greatest in the history of film. It lasts nearly eight minutes, and its movements are dictated by cattle. A whole herd of cattle to be exact, who slowly exit from a dilapidated barn, in what looks like a large farm. The ground is a sea of mud, there are no leaves on the trees and an alien drone plays over the black and white images. For eight minutes we follow the cows as they migrate through the yard and out into a field, the camera slowly and patiently tracking along as they stumble and shunt each other forward in a grim tangle of hooves, drool and mud encrusted fur . Some attempt to copulate as they move, mooing and shoving. It's an utterly arresting shot, the farm yard seems changed into a primordial wasteland, home to this depraved huddle of beasts, wandering and confused, like a moment from a Cormac McCarthy novel. 

Satantango (1994)

The absolute lack of any humans push these cows to the forefront of the scene as characters; at one point a stray bovine trots in from camera right, braying after it's co-dwellers, trying to catch them up. The overriding feeling of the scene seems to be that of the human condition. Perhaps the very lack of people in this shot causes our minds to address them. It is such an overpoweringly hypnotic, grim tableau, that it takes on an aspect of something I can't quite find the right word for; Epic? Mythic? Monumental? None of these seem to fit such a dirty, miserable scene, but there is something sizeable happening which impresses itself upon me. The cattle themselves are such large beasts, and yet so common. We think of them as stupid, loud creatures, perhaps this is why they fit so well into this primeval setting, but their filthiness is also an attribute we, as humans, share with them. Bela Tarr's tour-de-force opening seems to be a short meditation on existence as a whole, a starkly honest portrait of life on this rock. Indeed the human characters of Satantango who enter soon after this broken down image of earth, are much of the time dishonest and cruel, not entirely unsympathetic (in fact Tarr shows a deep affection for his characters) but certainly world weary, selfish and physically mired in this harsh agrarian landscape.

In Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), cows again take on this role as a sort of visual mouthpiece for what the characters fail to see in themselves or the world around them. In one short montage of Kit (Martin Sheen) working at the cattle ranch, which is over-layed with Holly's (Sissy Spacek) almost sociopathically naive voiceover, something intangible is expressed. We see cows heads poking out from between bars, looking down into their food troughs as Kit bounds along filling them up with hay. The cows eat, mulching the feed and staring forward, dead eyes and drool, while Holly tells us of the love Kit feels for her:

'He said I was grand though, that he wasn't interested in me for sex. He'd never met a fifteen year old girl who'd behaved more like a grown up and wasn't giggly. He didn't care what anybody else thought, I looked good to him and whatever I did was okay, and if I didn't have a lot to say, well, that was okay too'.

Badlands (1973)

At one point during this, Malick cuts to a cow on it's side in the mud, rolling around, eyes lolling, tongue hanging out it's mouth. It almost looks as if it's having fun. This utterly naive dialogue contrasted with these simple beasts, works contrapuntally, elevating the cows to become ciphers; their baseness seems to speak volumes about humanity, particularly the cow squirming around on the ground; Kit and Holly's delusions about love and life are ridiculous in the face of much more real afflictions such as hunger and madness. The cows become creatures of truth.

Terrence Malick always mangages to inject something 'of life' into his films; from the meditative stream of images that makes up his recent The Tree of Life (2011) right back to the much smaller scale Badlands. There is something in this moment with the cattle, something of life, of our existence, like in Satantango, that transmits something bleak and awful to us. So next time you're sallying past a field on a sunny day and looking down on those large stupid Freisians munching grass next to you...think again.

The Artist- a silent success in modern times

There is no doubt that The Artist is a huge success. The film has delighted audiences and critics alike and has gained a number of awards, including Golden Globes and 10 Oscar nominations. How has a silent, black and white film released in 2011 managed to garner such high levels of success?

The film contains a traditional love story and many layers of subtext including a knowing nod to a by-gone era, a comment on modernity within cinema and a movie about the movies. French director Michel Hazanavicius has made a truly knowing film that, more than most, is entirely devoted to the manipulation of its audience.

The Artist’s narrative is diverting without being thrilling or inordinately interesting and its characters are pleasant and at times charming without ever being truly memorable. The point is, and Hazanavicius knows this better than anyone, they do not have to be. As the film is a hugely developed homage to the silent era, the characters and the story itself do not exist to be new or even original; they exist to be symbolic and to make modern audiences, unfamiliar with the silent era except for only a very vague knowledge, feel as though they are gaining an authentic insight into silent cinema.

Both central characters possess the look of classic silent movie stars and the audience believe in them utterly. The fact that when they finally speak, they turn out to be French, is proof of Hazanavicius’s skill utilising silent film. The audience believe in what they are seeing as the actors (left), through facial expressions and their physical performance, are able to convince as American characters. It should also be noted that the moment at the end of the film when the seemingly all-American central characters speak aloud in French is proof of the director's agenda to indicate the immersive and persuasive nature of silent cinema. It says that silent film is universal and crosses boundaries irrespective of language and that audiences should be watching and enjoying far more silent cinema as it is clearly a powerful and effective form of the cinematic medium.

It is challenging to actually criticise a film that has been made so knowingly and self-consciously. Criticising aspects of technique, narrative elements or performance always run the risk of appearing to miss the point, that the very things that are being criticised are, in fact, totally intentional and exist to make a variety of points about audiences and the film industry. With this in mind, it is tempting to argue that Hazanavicius has truly pulled off a directorial coup. He has made a film that is arguably immune from criticism due to its introspective nature. This, however, is not why the film has proved to be a success. The elements of charm found in both the film’s narrative and it’s actors and their performances, ensure that unlike the similarly post-modern efforts of directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Spike Jonze, there is nothing overtly cool or angry and, therefore divisive and potentially unlikable. The fact remains, however, that The Artist, like films such as Adaptation or Pulp Fiction, is a film that is playing with and, at times, mocking audiences and their expectations and preconceived notions.

Spike Jonze’s brilliant Adaptation, for instance, follows a screenwriter played by Nicolas Cage who is disdainful and totally at odds with what he perceives to be the stifling nature of traditional Hollywood film scripts that adhere to the rigidity of the three-act structure and character arcs. Cage, of course, ends up being involved in a three-act and atypically Hollywood-esque narrative. Adaptation then seems to mock audiences for agreeing with Cage’s initial agenda but then becoming totally swept up and emotionally involved in the chain of events that happen to him and which actually follow the very narrative devices he is so against.

What separates The Artist from the aforementioned films is its ability to be overtly post-modern in a way that does not patronise or display any misery, anger or a self-satisfied swagger. This results in audiences feeling as though they have seen a film that knowingly references other films and the very nature of cinema itself but does not do so in a way that can leave itself open to accusations of arrogance or cynicism. The film, in just about every sense, personifies charm. It contains a handsome and funny male lead, a beautiful and vivacious heroine and a cute and loveable dog (above) that performs tricks. Combined with a love story and a musical scores that encapsulates a wide range of emotions, it is, in fact, not so surprising that the film has proved to be a success. However, The Artist is also a film with a post-modern agenda and has what some might perceive as an intellectual axe to grind yet it has proved to be a huge success and has not turned off audiences. For this, Michel Hazanvicius should be applauded.

The Transcendant Popular Song (Watching A Woodchipper Chip)

The other day I happened to find myself in front of a wood chipper in Sussex.  It was one of the most hypnotic processess I've ever laid my eyes on.  I stood there transfixed, heedless of the rain being spat into my face by the merciless wind.  Great tree trunks were picked up by a mechanised claw hand on the back of a truck and fed into the spinning woodchipper and within seconds they were being spewed out at the other end as wood chip, into a massive trailer that was gradually filling up.  It was hypnotic.  It was repetitive; I felt as if I could stand there until darkness of night prevented me from seeing anymore.  It went round and round: logs in, chips out; in a way it was beautiful.

This constant reiteration of a method provides a snug refuge, the world falls away, you stop thinking and somehow become involved in the methodology.  It can happen with all sorts of processes, watching twigs burn up on a fire and then replacing them with more twigs becomes something I find hard to tear myself away from as I stare into the fire, watching it's flames lick and shimmy around the wood.  I can understand why arsonists get such a kick from setting things alight.  Derrick May's 'Strings of Life' is a track that's minor variations on it's overriding and simple theme allows it to continue eternally, if it wanted to.  It follows the basic Techno structure of a four to the floor beat, interlaced with a stunningly warm piano melody and various synth and drum machine interjections which, throughout the course of the song, drop out, come back in, change, but always fall back on that winning piano sound.  Of course millions of songs do this, it's a basic tenet of music, particularly dance music: establish a theme and variate around it, but few songs really achieve the perpetual sensation of 'Strings of Life'; it seems to have no beginning or end, just a few elements which it constantly plays around with like a child playing with building blocks.  For that reason, and the power and sound of it's main melody, the song (which is around six minutes long) could go on for twenty minutes or twenty-four hours, either would be perfectly appropriate.

There are more such pieces of music: Tricky's 'Black Steel' is a song which continually threatens to finish but never does (obviously actually it does), always finding another way of returning to it's crashingly funky rock re-fix of Public Enemy's 'Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos'.  The driving rhythm of the song is so strong that whenever it kicks back up, it motors the song along again to full speed, entering with a splash of drum roll that never fails to ignite excitement.  This allows the song to reach a sort of plateau of bliss, where the listener can sit back and bathe in its never-ending qualities.

It's when pop songs reach these moments of complete nirvana that things get really exciting. There's all sorts of more 'long form' music out there which uses repetition as an established technique, but to achieve this in a much shorter space of time is a thrill.  Koto's Italo classic 'Visitors' is another example, a winning tune with synth and drum machine trills playing out over the top of it, that relies so much on it's irresistible, almost jocular melody, that I can sit back and forget about whereabouts in the song I am, whether it has been playing for two or five minutes.  


Aphex Twin (because, let's face it, at heart he is a pop musician) has created euphoric, mind-bending music for his whole career that does away with notions of beginnings and ends, intros and outros; the hyper-complex, high speed 'drill n' bass' tracks on Drukqs ricochet along with no end in sight, perpetuating an arresting arbitrariness, an eternal strip of pings, whizzes and distortion that I could listen to all day.  Take 'Cock/Ver.10': it starts with a sound that makes me think of a machine powering down, like we've just come in as something reaches it's end.  Then when the frantic beats enter, it feels as if they are returning from a break, we have a sense that the track parameters are just a window onto something much larger, longer and expansive.

I suppose this all about getting lost, just as I am slightly lost now and don't know how to finish this piece of writing.  Whether watching a tree trunk being made into wood chipping, listening to an Aphex Twin track or watching your handiwork as a local municipal building burns to the ground, it's nice to be overcome by complete distraction sometimes, taken away on a ride where traditional starts and stops don't matter, where things can run their course without worry, where five minute pop songs are a doorway to transcendance.

A review of 'Shame'

Steve McQueen’s second cinematic offering is best described as a character-study of Brandon (Michael Fassbender) a handsome and successful thirty-something who lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment. Although we are not told of the nature of its business, it is evident the company he works for in New York City is flourishing. Away from work though, Brandon is a sex addict who seeks sexual encounters at every opportunity. The less intimate or emotionally meaningful these encounters are, the more Brandon likes it. We discover he has a disdain for long term or meaningful relationships (his longest is four months) and that he collects and watches porn obsessively.

Suddenly, Brandon’s younger sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), arrives back into his life. Sissy is a drifter with no money or job and stays at her brother’s apartment to his obvious displeasure. The film then charts Brandon’s relationship with Sissy and the way in which his destructive personality affects those around him.

From a technical standpoint there is much to be admired in Shame. Sean Bobbit’s cinematography is, at times, beautiful. Cold greys and dark muted shades provide a haunting backdrop to the turmoil that is evident within Brandon. On the occasions when it compliments the cinematography, McQueen’s direction can be stunning. Although McQueen often overuses long takes in this film, he pulls off a stunning long take taken either from a car or an enormous piece of tracking as we follow Brandon as he jogs across several blocks of Manhattan.

There are, however, aspects of the film’s technique that do not work so effectively. McQueen is often guilty of providing the age-old error of style over substance. While that sounds like a film critic’s cliché, Shame really is guilty of this film making sin on numerous occasions. Many of cinema’s great directors possess hugely pronounced and often flamboyant visual styles and flourishes. However, the works of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Mann, for example, are notable for their employment of visual style to act as a storytelling device; something that can generate and aid understanding of the story and its characters and our overall reading of the film. Steve McQueen’s use of visual style, in the case of Shame, fails for the most part in achieving the goal achieved by the above directors. At times his key visual stylistic devices feel like empty gestures to showcase his technical skills. Incredibly long static shots begin with us, the audience, thinking about what we are seeing in a reflective and cerebral way but after the shot lingers for too long, we begin to think less about the film we are watching and more about the technique itself. Put simply, McQueen’s over emphasis on style takes the attention away from the film we are seeing and draws it back to McQueen himself as we question how and why certain techniques were used and achieved.


Michael Fassbender’s (below) performance as Brandon is very good yet his excellent performance still does not prevent his character from being emotionally unengaging. The lack of emotional investment we afford to the film’s central character actually spreads to other key members of the cast and the three characters of Brandon, Dave and Sissy are all rather unlikeable.

The lack of audience sympathy is key to this film’s shortcomings. While having unlikable characters does not always mean a film should be a failure, the lack of any kind of humour and the self-importance that radiates from every frame of Shame, means the audience can feel alienated rather than engaged. There is one moment of humour in Shame when Brandon’s boss, Dave, lists some of the types of porn that have clogged up Brandon’s office hard drive: ‘anal, double anal, cream pies….I don’t even know what that is.’ This comes as a blessed relief as the rest of film is so devoid of humour or any kind of light moment.

Mary Harron’s flawed film version of American Psycho constantly sprang to mind while watching Brandon’s antics in this film. In many ways, Brandon and Patrick Bateman are very similar characters. Both work in high-powered jobs in New York City, both are sex addicts who sometimes pay for this addiction and both indulge readily in drugs and porn. On the surface, Patrick Bateman is actually far more unlikable than Shame’s Brandon. However, American Psycho succeeds where Shame fails because of its lacing of black humour throughout. Patrick Bateman, while a monster, is a very funny character. He is far more evil than Brandon; he is a murderer after all but there is no doubt which character people will remember in the future and whose lines will be quoted.

McQueen’s (below) direction can often feel somewhat heavy-handed and themes and motifs are unnecessarily and continuously hammered home. It is established fairly early into the film that Brandon is a compulsive person with an addictive personality whose preoccupation with sexual encounters leaves him unhappy, unfulfilled and points towards an unstable and disturbed personality. With these powerful traits established, McQueen and writer Abi Morgan would surely have been better suited to then chart Brandon’s journey and try and discover how this behaviour affects those around him. While McQueen does attempt this to a point, such as when Brandon goes on a date and then engages in a disastrous sexual encounter with co-worker, Marianne, there is a general feeling of indifference and of things being unresolved.

Expressing this point is not easy. Films that merely take audiences on a character’s typical journey of discovery where they learn new things and resolve their particular dramatic issues can often be boring. There are many examples of characters not learning, of things being unresolved and of the typical character arcs and journeys not being so rigidly followed. However, for these kind of unorthodox narratives to work, audiences have to have, at the very least, an emotional investment in the central characters or as is the case in Shame, the audience will struggle to care about the fate of Brandon and those around him.

Shame constantly tells the audience via Brandon’s different sexual encounters with a variety of women (and in one case, a man) everything we already know about him. So, as each explicit sex scene follows another, we become increasingly desensitized and less interested. There is, of course, the argument that says that these repeated and increasingly numbing sex scenes can take us into the mind of Brandon so that we may know how unfulfilled and depressed he is. Doing this, though, ultimately fails and shows that McQueen has underestimated his audience. The point is made early on and to repeat it throughout the film does not add anything new but adds to a feeling of gratuity and neither increases understanding or sympathy of the characters.

Shame is by no means a bad film and at times it can be captivating. In the opinion of this reviewer, however, its flaws outweigh its strengths.

The Anguish of Life via 'Sideways', 'Fargo' and fried chicken shops

I kicked an old woman the other day.  On a busy street.  I clipped her heel as I strode past to the tube station.  As young arseholes are apt to do.  That's what she was probably thinking, 'Young yob who hasn't the sense to slow down when he walks past a mature woman like me'.  That's my patronising view of how old ladies think.  'Ooooh!' she exclaimed as I swung round, apologetic and, above everything else, terribly embarrassed.  'This is awful,' I was thinking, 'I've just kicked a pensioner in broad daylight'.  I felt bad for her, utterly guilty, as I understood how frail she was.  How a quick clip in the heel could really smart.  She rubbed her heel and glared at me and I apologised some more.  Clearly in shock, she didn't want some young buffoon apologising to her.  Like a cat, dragging it's wounded body home and hiding in a bush by the back door, the woman wished to suffer in solitary.  I asked her if she was alright and she brusquely nodded, trying to shoo me away.  Again I asked her and she repeated her action.  She didn't want to have to exchange pleasantries because I was trying to be nice to her; she wanted to be angry with me, wanted to have a figure to level her hatred at.  She wanted me to F-off so she could start swearing until she was blue in the face.  She wanted me out of her sight.  She was full of pain and rage and the abrupt shock it caused.  Like the time I banged my head on the corner of the mantle piece and screamed 'FUCK OFF!!' at my little sister when she asked if I was alright.  I was too angry for sympathy then and so was this old lady now.

I turned around and continued my walk to the tube station.  I'd done something that made me look careless, stupid and pathetic all at the same time, without any malicious intent whatsoever.  It was a cruel joke on both me, and the old lady, although arguable her experience was slightly more unfortunate.  Marginally.  The nature of her reaction allowed me no avenue of apology, no Get Out Of Jail Free card; she clearly nursed ill feeling toward me, and she was completely defenceless.  I had no leg to stand on.  I had to let it lie; an embarrassing flaw in the days events, yet another incident in a long line that clarified for me the absolute indifference of the world.  Now obviously there are far greater global tragedies which prove this, don't get me wrong, I'm not equating this with a cataclysmic nuclear fallout or tsunami; but as well as wreaking havoc and stealing away loved ones, life frustrates and disturbs like a mild rash.

Being a blog dealing in film and music I'd better crowbar in something to do with film or music.  Well, two, or should I say three, film writer/directors who have a splendid knack for capturing this tragic-comic cruelty are Alexander Payne and Joel and Ethan Coen.  Mentioned in a previous post by my co-blogger CharlieGD, Alexander Payne's Sideways has some fantastic examples of characters on their knees (metaphorically speaking) getting their faces rubbed in it, most of the time by television.  When middle-aged melancholy loser Miles (Paul Giamatti) and his sleazy, idiotic friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) sit in Mile's sweet, gawky mothers living room, a documentary about the Third Reich plays on the TV.  What is it about this that exemplifies the tragic everyday cruelty I'm talking about?  It's a number of elements: that neither Miles nor Jack could control or predict what would be playing on the television and therefore anticipate that a subject so dark could be implemented at such a plain moment, simultaneously the dreadfulness of the subject matter is relegated to a much more mundane setting, robbing Hitler and his crimes of their true atrociousness, because we are watching two middle-aged men sitting in a messy, kitsch living room.  There is already a melancholy feel to the situation because Miles seems to be pit-stopping at his mothers (Mary-Louise Burke) for her birthday out of convenience: we see him quickly writing her birthday card as he and Jack walk to her door, brandishing a bouquet of flowers with the barcode still on it, and yet she is overjoyed to see them; an eccentric old lady who lives alone and is still in her dressing gown when she answers the door.  For the horrific magnitude of Hitler and his crimes against humanity to rudely intrude upon this sad mother and son situation is farcical, but entirely plausible.  It is also a beautifully simple device: Payne merely inserts that one shot of the TV and the joke is concrete, the image of Hitler speaks for itself.  He is history's greatest monster, the face of evil, and he's there, in Mile's mum's living room, amongst the kitsch trinkets on the mantel piece, dopey looking photos of a younger Miles, and a mother's son who hates himself for his inability to be honest with her.

This is what society has been building for the last 10,000 years; a television, a channel, a documentary telling a piece of history, a living room, a helplessness to prevent any of these elements from converging in mundane tragedy.  One of those moments in life that everybody notices but ignores, trying not to make eye contact with anyone else, not even a close friend.  It's far too embarrassing.  The ability of television and it's capacity to throw the pathetic awfulness of a situation into bleak relief features throughout Payne's film.  Later, as Miles curls up into a ball in the motel bedroom, cowering at the hilariously chaotic and painful events unfolding around him as Sideways collapses towards its finish, we see a garish fitness video play on the TV.  Gross blonde men in spandex thrust their bodies to rude, pumping music; working wonders cinematically.  At another point Henry Fonda delivers his affirming speech ('Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.  Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there...') from The Grapes of Wrath while Miles sits in front of the same motel TV, watching it despondently.  What is otherwise a powerful and emotional moment from John Ford's classic, is reduced to boorish nothingness, another moment when the world thrusts upon us something unwanted, at the wrong time.

The intrusion of the mundane world, whether it be a framed photo of Vladimir Putin (Burn After Reading) or a servile shop attendant (Fargo) is something Joel and Ethan Coen factor into most of their films.  In Fargo, after Jerry Lundegaard (William H Macy) has had surely the worst meeting of his life with his domineering father-in-law (Harve Presnell) and his father-in-law's accountant (Larry Brandenburg), discussing the arrangements of paying off the kidnappers who have snatched away Jerry's wife, Jerry having hired them to do it, they go to pay at the diner cash till and an obsequious cashier asks Jerry 'And how is everything today?' in a pink voice that would make a cat scream.  This innocent till attendant couldn't ever fathom what conversation Jerry has just been having, and the cringe factor is heightened by her ignorance.  After weeks of her managers drilling into her the importance of smiling at customers and asking them how they are, today this trivial attitude comes sliding up against someone who's pathetic life is falling apart.  Again the contrast between  the absolutely vapid sentiment of her question and the spiralling turmoil of Jerry's existence makes my blood squirm and weep.  Her question also seems to somehow implicate Jerry in the tragedy that is unfolding (and will reach a gruesome end) and rightfully so.  It's a sly and hilarious technique, and completely believable and true to life.  How many times does this sort of thing happen?  Is there a world of McDonald's employees, charity street workers and door-to-door salesmen unwittingly colliding with tragic, debt-ridden fathers, rape victims and grieving spouses?  Newly orphaned children, call centre employees, recently made redundant men and phone shop assistants, all in a big, messy tumble dryer of grief and 20% discounts?  Yes there is, it's our world.  We live in a crazy mixed up world, someone once said, probably.  There's no allowances.

I don't want to keep you any longer, but I must mention one of the saddest things I ever bore witness to.  About six years ago I traipsed up to the local chicken joint on a Wednesday evening to buy some chips for dinner.  The take-away sits almost opposite where, years later, I would kick an old lady in the heel.  As I waited for my food, looking out at the busy street in front of me, the tube station opposite and the waning sunlight, another old lady trembled into the chicken shop.  When she got to the counter and ordered her box of hot wings I could tell she was a regular, her and the man behind the counter nodded at each other and said hi.  He asked how she was.  'Okay', she replied, and I could already hear the quiver in the back of her throat.  I turned my head slightly to listen.  'I just got back to from the hospital', she continued, 'Oh yeah?' the chicken employee replied, disinterested but being polite.  'My husband,' the old lady said, 'he's just died, I just got the bus back from the hospital'.  The employee didn't know what to say.  I felt a wash of heaviness drag through my body.  The old lady was crying now, 'Forty years we were married'.  'And where's your family?' I thought.  But that's it isn't it?  That's just it.  There's no explanation for this, it just is.  She's just said goodbye to her soul mate, then she got the bus back and picked up some chicken on the way home, from a cheap little dump like this.  And then it's back to the house by herself with her dinner.  He was there last night and now he's not, but the chicken shop continues, a rude reminder that nothing matters.  And I watched her dodder out, and I felt strange, shocked and slightly upset.  And then I took my chips and went home.

Carrie, horror and religion

Revisiting Carrie, Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel, for the first time in a long while, it is striking just how effective, unsettling and, at times, genuinely disturbing it is. It was also intriguing how prominent religion was in the overall narrative and how, as in other classic horror films of the period, its supposed power for good could be distorted into a power of evil.

Like Rosemary’s Baby, Carrie is unsettling from the outset with the use of music and camerawork in its opening titles. As the camera pans into a high school girls changing room, the music is reminiscent of melodramas and soap operas rather than horror. It is this juxtaposition, however, of such seemingly disparate worlds that lends a feeling of subdued dread at a very early stage. The audience’s expectations are of horror and shocking moments to come. In the case of those having already seen the film, they would know what to expect which makes this opening all the more effective.
The music and the soft focus cinematography provide a feeling of nostalgia and despair. As melodramas and soap’s are set in the home, school and places frequented by people every day and therefore provide a supposed insight into normal people’s lives, there is also that ever-present sense of bleakness and despair that can be found in the monotony of life. This scene combines these emotions to great effect. Within the school- such a mundane and everyday environment, great suffering and horror will take place.

The film’s opening is key in setting the tone of the film and laying down the foundations for the themes and motifs that encompass it. In the 7-8 minute scene, the issues of high school, personal insecurities, sex, religion and pain are all covered either directly or indirectly and go to the heart of what is important in the film.
The scene in question follows Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) as she undergoes a full-scale panic attack at the discovery of her first period. Rather than go to her aid, her cackling and almost animalistic female classmates goad her, laugh at her and throw tampons on her prone body in a mixture of mockery and disgust. As Carrie lies on the shower floor we are shown shots of bloody water slipping down the drain. At this point we don’t know why such cruelty could take place and why Carrie would be so frightened and confused at the sight of her first period. It is when we meet her psychotic fundamentalist Christian mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie) that we begin to understand the cause of Carrie’s problems.

After the pain and humiliation of the changing room incident, Carrie is sent home. Carrie’s house, which becomes almost a character in its own right, is first revealed to us. Occupied by the marginalised, hated and misunderstood, the White’s house is a place of torture and darkness. Carrie’s mother is a fundamentalist Christian who has clearly lost her grasp on sanity if, indeed, she ever had it. She tears and scratches at Carrie when she is told of her daughter’s period. Margaret White calls her daughter a whore and a slut ravaged with impurities who must have, through a deal with the devil or promiscuity, brought this filthy shame upon herself due to her own amoral behaviour.
It is during these harrowing scenes between Carrie and her mother that the issue of religion is bought into being a central theme of the film. Like some of the most effective and frightening horror films of the 1960’s and 70’s such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and The Wicker Man, Carrie’s uses religion to demonstrate good and evil but also as a driving factor and motivation for Margaret, arguably the film’s most evil character, to distort to her own sick end.

The White house, pardon the pun, is littered with unsettling religious iconography. Margaret attempts to create a place of sanctity and purity that can act as a church. The multitude of candles she places around the house on it’s window sills, on stairs and on the floor, all serve to provide an allusion that what we are seeing are not the candles of a church but of the many fires of hell.

Perhaps the most disturbing religious object in the house is something that goes to the very heart of the fine line that exists in this film between heaven and hell, God and Satan, good and evil. When Margaret wishes to punish Carrie she is forced to stand within a small, almost cell-like cavity or inlet within the lower floor of the house. Amongst other things in the room there is a small statue or figure of Jesus on the cross. When Carrie is believed to have sinned or carried out impure acts such as having her first period, Margaret shoves her in the alcove where the statue of Jesus awaits her almost acting as the auditor of her confession. However, as is the so often the case in this film and the other horror films I have mentioned, religion is not always a cause for good. In the case of this room and this statue of Jesus, it is a gateway to hell and the menacingly illuminated orange eyes of the Christ figure show the figure of ultimate religious evil is ready to lead Carrie into the underworld.

Paying writers

Like veteran screenwriter, Harlan Ellison, in the video below, I believe all writers should be paid. I am not going to launch into any kind of diatribe into why I believe this as Harlan does a far better job than I could ever do in his brilliant rant.
In co-writing a blog containing amongst other things, writing, I realise I am being a tad hypocritical as my writing into the nothingness of the internet will never generate money. I think most writers want to be paid but actually getting to the point where one's writing earns them any kind of a living seems a dream rather than an expectation.

Busey Bites #4

Here we have the Busey as Angelo Pappas, the maniacal veteran cop in Katherine Bigelow's 'Point Break'. Many people enjoy this scene for Busey's request of two meatball sandwiches. However, I find the real talking point to be Busey's blood curdling off-screen chuckle and his statement that 'This Calvin and Hobbes is funny!'

I love Calvin and Hobbes and I am also strangely drawn to chronicling the car crash that is the Busey. However, AT NO TIME should the worlds of Calvin and Hobbes and Gary Busey ever collide. I just find this one of the most peculiar and unnatural lines ever uttered in film.

Film Haiku #4: Ode to Mike Schank from American Movie

shaggy, tie-dye

innocent eyes,

makes me forget you're a real person

Buddy Repperton

Following on from my previous post, I felt I had to post a classic scene of the bully, Buddy Repperton from 'Christine'. Here, Repperton is at his evil and tormenting best. As I have mentioned already, Repperton looks and is far too old to be a high school bully but he carries his job out with gusto.



In the DVD featurette, 'Christine' producer Richard Kobritz said that Columbia Pictures actually wanted Kobritz and John Carpenter to lace the film with profanity in order to secure what Kobritz called a 'hard R' rating. Why they wanted this, I don't know, nonetheless, this scene does an admirable job at achieving that goal.

One of the best but least necessary uses of the word 'fuck' occurs here as Repperton tells auto-shop teacher Mr. Casey: 'Yeah- try it you little bald fuck and I'll knock YOU through the wall. FUCK!'

Repperton's second use of the word almost seems to indicate he may have stubbed his toe or dropped his keys down a drain. Here's the scene in question:

Too old to be a high school bully #1

Watching Stephen King's 'Christine' (1983) last night for the trillionth time, it occurred to me how often films set in American high schools contain vile bullies who are clearly not of school age....unless, of course, high school in America ends in your 20's and I am just being very stupid.

Either way, below is a selection of some of my favourites so far:

Buddy Repperton in John Carpenter's 'Christine'. Repperton is great but looks about 35. He was 22 years old during shooting.

Trevor Snarr as Don in 'Napoleon Dynamite' (2004). If Trevor looks too old to be in high school it's because he is. He was 26 at the time of shooting.

Though not strictly a bully, William Katt's Tommy Ross in 'Carrie' (1976) still takes Carrie White to the prom under false pretense and we all know what happened to her there. Regardless, Katt was 25 when the film was shot and in possession of a fine curly mane.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and collaborative filmmaking

(I realise ilovetotravelbytrain has posted a piece on this film already but I recently saw the film and given the fact I had my own strong views on it, I have posted my own article).

Before seeing David Fincher’s film version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I confess to having not read Stieg Larsson’s original novel or Neils Arden Oplev’s first film adaptation of the novel.

My interest in the film and novel were, in fact, virtually non-existent. The truth is, my new year’s celebrations were overly indulgent and I needed the always-enjoyable activity of a cinema visit to cheer myself up and return myself to the world of the living. These factors, combined with a friend working in a cinema that was only showing this film and his provision of a free ticket, meant that I reluctantly decided to see it.

The main reasons for a lack of interest in the film were the fact that I had seen people reading Larsson’s novel on public transport and was always struck by how irritating the title and the book's cover picture was. It made me think it focused on an annoyingly sassy, super streetwise, buffalo platform-boot wearing cyber-punk filled with meaningless and desensitizing action scenes, showcasing silly tribal tattoos and providing little or no depth or unsettling moments. I was wrong. The film does contain many unsettling and sexually violent moments that made for uncomfortable viewing within a public cinema. The anal rape scene, for instance, felt particularly awkward given the clientele of the cinema that day was made up mainly of old couples.

The one thing that gave me any hope prior to seeing the film was the fact that David Fincher was directing and, like in his brilliant earlier effort, The Social Network, Trent Reznor was providing the film’s score.

Dragon Tattoo’s central plot concerning the secrets, murders and disappearances within the Vanger family along with the corruption investigation of businessman Hans-Eric Wennerstrom, did not interest me greatly. However, it was not these narrative elements that provided the most intriguing aspects of the film. What generated the most emotional investment for me was the character of Lisbeth and her journey throughout the film.
The film seemed to be divided into two ‘parts’ with the first part focusing on Lisbeth (Rooney Mara) and the construction of her character via Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian’s subtly placed exposition of her back-story and previous life. This is best exemplified in the first scene between Lisbeth and her new legal guardian in which the audience discover key information about Lisbeth’s character and the anguish and pain existing within her psyche from her years of abuse and isolation.
Included in this first part is Mikael’s (Daniel Craig) story and his involvement with the Vanger family. While it was interesting, this aspect of the film did not provide the same excitement and intrigue of Lisbeth’s narrative strand. Perhaps this factor could be seen as a negative in an overall view of the film.

The second ‘part’ of the film's two parts then focuses on Lisbeth and Mikael once they have met, how their relationship forms and how they tackle the Vanger family.

It is those scenes focusing on Lisbeth (below) that are the most captivating of the film. Lisbeth could quite easily have come across as a clichéd and corny character- the archetypal counter culture computer hacker with a distrust of authority and a predictable counter culture worldview. While Lisbeth does possess many of these traits, the character is believable, utterly sympathetic and never annoying.

Through Rooney Mara’s performance we see a girl filled with confusion, grief and anger. Lisbeth’s ghostly pale skin, compulsive and erratic eating habits and, at times, emaciated frame, serve to showcase a person whose inner demons are in a constant battle to spill over into the outside world. It is Lisbeth’s anger and Mara’s performance and demonstration of this anger that make Fincher’s Lisbeth the totally raw and thrilling character she is.

Technically and visually, Dragon Tattoo is both well executed and arresting. Fincher’s direction and cinematographer Jeff Croneweth’s photography create a Stockholm and a Sweden that feel perfectly appropriate and suited to the bleak and noir-ish nature of Stieg Larsson’s story. Stockholm is presented as wet, cold and grey and the stark brightness of the some of the film's office interiors serve only to heighten the sense of damp foreboding that is visible through the windows and into the outside world. In their visual collaboration and their use of such effective darkness, rain and shades of grey, Croneweth and Fincher evoke that other recent Scandanavian tale of mystery and murder, The Killing.

Trent Reznor’s (below) score provides another high point within the film. Those familiar with The Social Network will remember Reznor’s score from that film. What made that score so effective was that it felt so different. Unlike Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network contained no physical threat and no actual violence yet Reznor’s pulsating electronic score filled with deep bass and almost techno-like beats, lent that film a sense of menace and elevated an already powerful legal thriller into something that felt unique and more important.

In the case of The Social Network, Reznor’s efforts showed the importance of the score and just how vital it is as one of the elements contributing toward the overall film. In the case of Dragon Tattoo, Reznor’s score indicates that he could well join the list of auteur film composer’s such as Bernhard Herrmann, John Williams and Thomas Newman, whose styles are instantly recognisable when heard. Though the scores of The Social Network and Dragon Tattoo are different, there is certainly a clear link between them in terms of style. Dragon Tattoo’s score is toned down. Gone are the pulsing beats but included are the long, drawn out synth-bass keys at moments of emotional significance or tension. Though electronic Dragon Tattoo’s score is notable for it’s attempt to sound more melancholic and orchestral than The Social Network and containing musical styles more befitting to it’s subject matter.

As mentioned earlier in this piece, my interest in both Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network’s central plots are fairly minimal but it is simply through exceptional filmmaking that both films are so effective and have been amongst my favourite to be released at the cinema in the last 2-3 years. To me this shows that, more than any other medium, film’s strength and its ability to be successful rests in the power of the collaborative process. David Fincher’s direction, Trent Reznor’s music, the cast’s uniformly excellent acting and the cinematography of both films means that what could be potentially boring narrative premises and plots, are elevated to a captivating level by the skill of their collaborative execution. That alone is a triumph.