21. The River &...

Lyrics

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of this valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride


When I wrote about U2 I mentioned that Bono is the biggest modern rock icon. In writing that I forgot about Bruce Springsteen, who at 62 is still making new albums that are both critically and commercially successful. And as he always did he still tries to insert political and social messages in his songs. He is especially concerned with poverty in small-town America, and in many of his songs he manages to really evoke a poverty-stricken desperate place. This song is a good example of that. I am a fan of him, though his music can sometimes be a bit too folksy, like the beginning of this song, when he plays the harmonica. The movie I chose is about a poverty stricken family living in a farm in small-town America. They are having quite some problems, because they live next to a river that has tends to overflow and ruin their crop. I didn't know anything else about this movie, but after watching it I don't think I could have chosen a better link to this song.

The Movie: The River (Mark Rydell, 1984)

Joe Wade (Scott Glenn) is a business man who wants to flood a valley and build a dam, in order to create jobs, houses and better living conditions in general for a great many people. This is necessary in a region where there is huge unemployment, where people live in tents and where even those that have a job and a home struggle for survival. Obviously there are people living in the valley, but Wade will make sure that they will get a new house and they will receive a substantial financial compensation for their troubles. Besides life for the people in the valley is hard. They live next to a river, which overflows when there is too much rain. And when there is too little rain their crops will fail. They too have too struggle to live a normal life. Somehow Joe Wade is the villain in this picture. The hero is Tom Garvey (Mel Gibson) who doesn't want to move with his family, because his ancestors are buried in the valley. This despite the fact that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong for the Garveys. The movie takes place over about two months at most. And during this time the river overflows twice and the Garveys can't sell anything for a reasonable price. Furthermore Tom has to leave the farm and his family to get a job working construction. He can't go back during this time, so his wife Mae (Sissy Spacek) has to do all the work on the farm and breaks her arm. The only reason he can get the job is because there is a strike in the factory and when the strike is over he has to leave the job. He can't get another one (on account of the economy!) so life on the farm only gets harder. These are only the major things that go wrong for the Garveys. I didn't mention things like dying cows, because they can't pay the vet. Considering all this you' d say they would love Joe's plans, but no.

This is all bad enough, but Joe Wade is a pretty annoyingly written villain. There are scenes that come completely out of the blue and only mean to show that Wade is really a bad guy. In the middle of the movie, when Tom is gone, Joe suddenly starts hitting on Mae and promises to leave his wife if she would leave Tom. And in the final scene near the end the river overflows and Tom and his fellow farmers try to stop the river by building a small dam with mud, sand and huge bags. They succeed and Joe pays a bunch of unemployed people to ruin this dam. While that is a villainous act that it is completely out of character I could by that he would do this. What I didn't buy is that he would make sure that the farmers know that he did this. That is simply stupid. If the farmers know that he ordered to ruin their work, they would oppose his dam even more.

Despite all this I actually liked the movie for the most part. The first 15 minutes are even quite great. Without any dialogue the movie shows us the power and the danger of the river. It starts with an idyllic shot of the Garvey's son fishing in the river, while the sun shines on him. Rain seems far away, but in a few seconds the clouds darken and it starts raining like hell. The river overflows ruining everything in it's path and we see the farmers working hard trying to stop it, but being unable to do much about it, even with serious machines. The movie also manages to evoke incredibly well how it is to be in nature just after an enormous storm in summer. The sun is shining a bit, you want to go outside, but it's all wet and muddy and your shoes get dirty. It's neither hot and cold and there is this unusual smell we can only smell after a storm. Lastly the portrait of the Garveys is a really realistic and beautiful portrait of an ordinary family. We really care for them and we really hope they will have a good life. Which makes their stubbornness so unfortunate and idiotic.

20. Angie &...

Lyrics
Angie, Angie, when will those clouds all disappear?
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, Angie, you can't say we never tried
Angie, you're beautiful, but ain't it time we said good-bye?
Angie, I still love you, remember all those nights we cried?
All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke
Let me whisper in your ear:
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?

Oh, Angie, don't you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet
I hate that sadness in your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it time we said good-bye?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, I still love you, baby
Everywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain't a woman that comes close to you
Come on Baby, dry your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it good to be alive?
Angie, Angie, they can't say we never tried


There is not much I can say about the Rolling Stones that hasn't been said countless other times in much better ways. They are a really great band, though I prefer their slower songs like this one or As Tears Go By over their 'harder' stuff like Satisfaction and Sympathy for the Devil. To me their best song though is You Can't Always Get What You Want. The lyrics of this song are fairly generic. There are countless movies about unsuccessful relationships. So I chose a movie about a failed relationship involving an Angie, even though this relationship isn't the sole or even main focus of this movie.

The Movie: Jungle Fever (Spike Lee, 1991)

For an unfortunately short while in the 1990's the duo of Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes was seen as a formula for success in Hollywood. This produced the wonderful White Men Can't Jump in which Harrelson and Snipes play a bunch of goodhearted hustling street basketball players. After that they made the enjoyable Money Train, which flopped and subsequently both men went their own way. For Harrelson everything turned out more than okay. Unfortunately Snipes is now pretty much forgotten, playing in movies that go straight to DVD. And when he is in the news it is because he's being charged for tax evasion. And that's pretty unfortunate. In the early 90's he was a very pleasant actor who played intelligent fast-talking characters in some pretty good and sometimes underrated movies. His performance in Jungle Fever, one of the most underrated and best movies of the 1990's, is his best though. And he is not the only one. The movie is filled with now-famous actors who were then just at the start of their career, giving wonderful energetic performances. It is a joy to see Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro, Spike Lee, Halle Berry and many others be so energized. And it's not only a joy to see them. It's also fantastic to listen to them speaking their wonderful dialogues. Furthermore the film is filled with a lot of humor, and almost every scene is enriched by some wonderful song.

Wesley Snipes is Flipper, a happily married man who one day cheats on his wife with Angie, an Italian American woman who is a temp at his office. He does intend to stay with his wife, but she finds out and is enraged. Not only did Flipper cheat on her, but he cheated on her with a white woman. After he leaves his wife he and Angie try to have a working relationship. Whether this relationship will work depends on whether they truly care for each other or just have a case of 'jungle fever', which means that they are only fascinated by each other because of their different skin color and want to explore the myths about white and black sexuality. Unfortunately they never get the chance to truly explore their relationship. They spend too much time defending their relationship to their friends and family who seem absolutely certain that Flipper and Angie are only together because of their differing skin color. Considering that Flipper and Angie aren't really sure of their feelings for each other they are easily persuaded by the arguments of the people around them and their relationship fails. If they would seriously start a relationship they would burn many bridges in their communities. They will never again be a true part of their community. And while life in their community may not always be great, they at least know what to expect from it. Entering a relationship would be stepping into uncharted, potentially dangerous, waters.

Spike Lee uses this relationship to make a larger point about how hard it is to break through the stereotypes of our own subculture. It's problematic enough that we all have a stereotypical view of the subcultures we don't belong to. But What Lee argues here, and what is even more problematic, is that on top of this each subculture has a stereotypical view of itself. The individual members of each subculture thus face social pressure from within their own community to adhere to the norms, values and social conventions of the subculture they belong to. This is obviously problematic, but it's not illogical. People try to create homogenous communities, among other things, in order to bring order in their lives and to feel safer. This matters to everybody, but especially to those (communities) that have less power in society. It is not surprising then that the black women feel threatened by Flipper and Angie. If it's now suddenly possible and acceptable for a black man to start a relationship with a white woman, it might be harder for them to find love. It doesn't only mean that that there are now suddenly more options for black men, but also better options. After all a relationship with a white woman is also an entrance to the 'white world', with more possibilities. To the Italian American community Flipper is a threat, because they fear that if it is suddenly acceptable for Italian American women to sleep with black men, more and more Italian American women will do this, because of the myth that black men are very good in bed. And obviously both communities feel threatened by the relationship because it means that they might have to deal more and more with people they don't know with different norms and values that could forever change their familiar, traditional culture.

As the most prominent black American director Spike Lee is sometimes criticized for racism. These critics argue that he likes black people more then white people, and that he blames white people for every bad thing that happens to black people, while absolving black people of all blame. I have now seen four films of Spike Lee and can say that these arguments are complete nonsense. In Jungle Fever for example there is an incredibly harsh scene where the black women criticize both themselves and the black men very honestly for everything that is wrong in their lives. It is also interesting to note that while Samuel L. Jackson plays a crackhead in this film, Spike Lee has made it utterly impossible for anyone to argue that his character is using drugs because of a lack of opportunity for black people. After all Jackson plays Snipes' brother, so they were raised with the same opportunities and under the same conditions. Snipes became an architect.
As for the second argument, what makes Jungle Fever a really good film is the fact that Lee has enormous and understanding for every single character in his film. In fact I think that there isn't any other filmmaker now who has more sympathy for (all) his characters. This is perhaps most obvious in 25th Hour which I will discuss in some later post. I find that one of the best films I've ever seen and it is about a white protagonist.



I didn't discuss Samuel L. Jackson's character of Gator much, but this is the best scene of the film.

19. Shine on You Crazy Diamond &...

Lyrics

Remember when you were young,
You shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
Like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
Of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!


Earlier I wrote that I found Pink Floyd's approach to rock very admirable, but that I just don't really enjoy their music. That statement may have been a bit premature. Before starting this blog I hadn't listened to Pink Floyd in a long time. I didn't like their music much the first couple of times I heard it and stopped bothering with them a bit. But when I listened to Wish You Were Here I liked it a lot more than I remembered or expected. And now I've listened to this song again. It will never be my favorite song, but it has some incredibly great parts, especially when the lyrics begin. Just like Wish You Were Here this song is about, or rather an homage to, Syd Barrett. Unfortunately Barrett is not the only artist whose career finished too early. The most famous one is probably James Dean. This song could not only be applied to him, but also to his character in his most famous movie.

The Movie: Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)

I used to hold Rebel Without a Cause in high esteem, without ever seeing it. Even before I took much interest in movies I had heard about James Dean and his tragic fate. And that millions of people mourned his death because of Rebel Without a Cause. Even people in my family referenced the movie relatively often Later on in history lessons in high school and during my first year in university we learned about the cultural importance of this movie. It was taught as an example of the youth's rejection of old values after the Second World War, which started a new youth culture that would forever change western society. Some teachers even went further claiming that the movie wasn't only an example of this, but also played a major role in creating this new youth culture. Now I've finally seen it I can't hold it in such a high esteem any more. It's certainly an interesting film, but it doesn't really stand the test of time and has some other problems too.

But let's start with what's good. I really liked the opening scene, where all the three main protagonists, Jim (James Dean), Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo) are introduced in a police station. The focus in this scene isn't on portraying the protagonists, but on portraying an ordinary workday in the police station. The protagonists are only related to each other, because they are coincidentally in the same police station. We only go from one character to another because we the focus of the police shifts from one character to another. I found this an interesting and original way to establish characters. The famous 'chickie game' scene is great too. A chicken game is a game in which two people drive their car towards a cliff and the first one to jump out of the car is a 'chicken.' The scene is quite suspenseful, but it's the aftermath that I found even more interesting. Jim's opponent dies in the chicken game. What I didn't expect was that Jim would go home and tell his parents right away what had occurred. This leads to a interesting discussion on what is the right thing to do now, and interesting questions on honesty are raised. Lastly, the movie is never boring and we are always interested in what will happen next. And each scene is quite interesting. But the movie has some distracting problems that unfortunately can't be ignored.

The portrayal of youths, gender and sexuality in this movie is sometimes outdated and sometimes just plain weird. The problems of the youths are portrayed in a weird melodramatic fashion with heightened emotions and suitable music. But the movie takes each problem with with almost the same huge amount of seriousness. Thus the death of Jim's friend in the chicken game is portrayed to affect Jim emotionally as much as being called a chicken (By the way, now I've seen this movie, I appreciate Back to the Future even more). The movie is even more problematic in the portrayal of the fathers. All the three protagonists have problems, partly because they have trouble communicating with their fathers. This, the movie seems to say, is because the men have been feminized. And how does this feminization show? The men actually help clean the house! This is most obvious in a fairly laughable scene where Jim's father is wearing a skirt. While cleaning up a mess he himself made Jim chides him that he has become afraid of his wife. The fear of women also shows in the fact that Judy's father seems afraid to have a close relationship with his daughter. In fact I've probably never seen a movie which believes so sincerely in the writings of Freud. Related to this Plato is subtly written as a homosexual character. At least it was supposed to be subtle in 1955. In 2012 it's quite obvious.

Besides all this there are other smaller problems. James Dean very eagerly wants to show that he is a new and different actor, who doesn't follow old acting rules. He acts significantly different than anyone else in the movie. This could have been a good idea if all the young actors acted like James Dean. That would effectively show the differences between the youths and the elders. Now that only Dean is doing it, it is often laughable. He also gives a less realistic and more theatrical portrayal of a rebellious youth than he probably thought.
Another minor problem I had with the movie is that after the first scene everything that happens is supposed to happen during one day and night. Too many developments are unbelievable to happen during one single night. The best example of this is the love that develops between Judy and Jim
Lastly all three main protagonists are supposed to be the same age, but look like they are completely different in age. On top of this their level of maturity is inconsistent. Sometimes they act like adults, sometimes like little children.