97. The Unforgettable Fire &...

Ice, your only rivers run cold
These city lights, they shine as silver and gold
Dug from the night, your eyes as black as coal

Walk on by, walk on through
Walk 'til you run
And don't look back
For here I am

Carnival
The wheels fly and the colors spin through alcohol
Red wine that punctures the skin face to face
In a dry and waterless place

Walk on by, walk on through
So sad to besiege your love so head on
Stay in this time, stay tonight in a lie
I'm only asking but I, I think you know

Come on take me away
Come on take me away
Come on take me home
Home again

And if the mountain should crumble
Or I disappear into the sea
Not a tear, no not I

Stay in this time, stay tonight in a lie
Ever after this love in time
And if you save your love, save it all
Save it all

Don't push me too far
Don't push me too far
Tonight, tonight, tonight

A rather forgettable song, this one. I choose to interpret it as an epic romance (involving ice and alcohol), mostly because otherwise I couldn't think of a movie to link it to. 

The Movie: Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)

Apparently this film doesn't have a great reputation. I don't think that's entirely fair, as I liked it quite a bit. I think that especially the first half, up until the intermission, is really good. Having said that, I am not really the best person to write about this film. I had not seen a David Lean movie before this, and I haven't read Boris Pasternak classic book either. I also appreciated it, because it's so unlike any movie made today. It's an epic that trusts fully the patience of its audience. That's clear from the beginning. Before the opening credits, before we even see the MGM logo, there is an Overture. For more than three minutes we hear classical music, while on the screen we see nothing but the word Overture set against the background of a still painting of a forest. 

Lean also takes his time before setting the plot in motion. During the first hour, the best of the film, we get to slowly know all the four/five main characters. He makes us slowly understand how they all relate to one another. Thus we get really interested in their lives and how they all start to excitingly intertwine with each other. This is all set against the backdrop of the rise of communism in tsarist Russia. I also found some of the stylistic choices of Lean interesting. Especially during the first hour he makes extensive use of mirrors. The characters are often placed in such a way that we both see what's happening directly, and through their reflections in the mirror. Furthermore, many interior scenes are filmed with the camera sitting outside. The camera films in other words through windows, and through walls. This means that we often do not hear the dialogue in a scene, but we understand what happens in it, because it's set up really well. It's as if these characters are filmed secretly, as if the camera is an intrusion of their lives. This fits, what I assume is one of the main points in the book. Strelkov's quote: "The personal life is dead in Russia. History killed it". 

Strelkov (played by Tom Courtenay, who got an Oscar nomination for it) is besides Zhivago the most interesting character in the film. He begins as an earnest, idealistic but decent, revolutionary, called Pasha, who truly believes that communism will be positive for all in Russia. He ends up being a ruthless general who wipes out whole villages, because they disagree with him. (In a case of life imitating art, it is disquieting to consider that the separatist who shot the MH 17 airplane this summer named himself after this character). But the film works for me, because Doctor Zhivago is a very interesting character, played brilliantly by Omar Sharif. Not knowing the Doctor Zhivago of the book, I think that this is a really great performance. If Sharif sometimes seems confused and out of place, it is because Doctor Zhivago here is confused and out of place. He is not a hero, or is so only accidentally. His poems about love and the personal life, are shunned by communists, who think art should be about the common good, and the nation. Therefore they are acts of subversion, but it is important to realize that Zhivago doesn't intend them as acts of subversion. He just writes poetry because he enjoys writing poetry. What doctor Zhivago wants is to have a normal life with his family (and with his mistress), do his duty as a doctor, and write poetry. He is incapable of influencing the political situation in Russia, nor does he want to. The movie makes very well clear that for Zhivago it doesn't really matter who is in power, as long as he can live as normally as possible. The movie shows it is impossible to lead such an apolitical life under an authoritarian regime, but that doesn't stop Zhivago from trying. 

Now, the last (half) hour of the movie doesn't really work for me either. That is for quite a simple reason. I liked Tonya more than Lara. I thought Geraldine Chaplin was prettier than Julie Christie, and that she gave a better performance than her. I found her much more sympathetic, and I thought the chemistry between Sharif and Chaplin was better than that between Sharif and Christie. 

  

   

96. Forever Young &...

Lyrics

Let's start in style, let's dance for awhile
Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power, but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music's for the sad men

Can you imagine when this race is won?
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders, we're getting in tune
The music's played by the, the madmen

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever ever?
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever? Forever young

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
Why don't they stay young?

It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a fleeing horse
Youth's like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever

So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
We let them come true

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever?
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever?

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?

Well, this an 80's song in every fiber of its being. I like it quite a lot, and it's by far Alphaville's best. I linked it quite obviously to a movie about someone who wants to stay forever young.

The Movie: The Tin Drum (Die Blechttrommel) (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979)

The Tin Drum follows Oskar, a German boy, who when he is three years old is so revolted by the decadence, immorality and debauchery of his elders that he decides to stop growing. Thus, he throws himself of the stairs and lives through the rise of fascism and the Second World War, as a toddler, who protests by beating his tin drum and screaming very loudly. Once the war is over he decides he wants to start to grow again. So yeah, Oskar is a rather simplistic and way too obvious metaphor for the state of Germany during the first half of the 20th century.  As a parable for Germany the movie is indeed rather stupid. And it doesn't really have anything interesting to say about the rise of fascism or about the Second World War. To be fair though, the point that seemingly nice, ordinary people became Nazi's too, may be a rather obvious one, but the film does make it in an interesting way; The ideology of Oscar family only comes to light in a couple of scenes. For the most part we see them going on with their daily lives. It's just too bad that the movie doesn't care to really explore the reasons for why these seemingly nice, ordinary people would be inclined to Nazism. 

The Tin Drum won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Some would probably say that this is unnecessary information; it could be deduced from the previous paragraph, which indeed does make this movie sound as some sort of horrible combination of Forrest Gump and La Vita e Bella. Now, while this movie may not work on a metaphor for German history, it is actually very interesting in another way. In some ways this movie is closer to David Cronenberg than to Roberto Benigni, and it is actually quite surprising that it won an Oscar. Now I must say that I love Forrest Gump and La Vita e Bella, and think that they express their ideas about respectively post-war America, and The World War Two in a far better, and more interesting way than The Tin Drum.

The Tin Drum can also be seen as a series of vignettes about people struggling with their physical and mental limitations. It's fascinated by bodily (dis)functions, by sexual desire and sexual deviations, and by physical and mental illnesses. There are here many genuinely odd, and disquieting scenes, which you definitely won't see in an ordinary historical Oscar-winning movie. This is in fact the first movie I've seen that presents the birth of a child from the point of view of the child being born. We see the baby sitting in the womb, waiting to get out. We see the vagina opening from the baby's view point, and we see the baby's first images of the real world. The following shots of the born baby are even weirder. It seems to be fully formed. It seemed to me as if the same actor playing the three-year old Oskar is playing the baby, only he is now naked, wet, bold, and shot in close-up so he doesn't seem so large. This just makes it weirder, because the proportions of the baby seem to be completely off. 

It is very much possible to look at Oskar's fate, not as a metaphor for Germany, but as a character study of a mentally and physically retarded person, who understands his limitations, and is aware that he cannot do anything about it, and is aware that because of his limitations he will never be able to fully function in the real world, and understand it. We can then see his screaming  as screams of genuine frustration, rather than as screams of protest. (Which is why the movie would have been a lot better if it got rid of the Second World War altogether). It's certainly the only way Oskar makes a genuine contribution to the world. Oskar's screams are so high they break glass. When he screams in a doctor's office he breaks all the doctor's jars full of dead animals in distilled water, of which we naturally get a very leering shot. The doctor is so fascinated by this he conducts further research and Oskar winds up being an interesting scientific object, as he turns out to have rather unique vocal chords. All of this makes the scenes later in the movie when Oskar is sexually experimenting (in some rather weird ways) with his babysitter all the more fascinating and disturbing. Especially so, because while the character of Oscar may be 18 years old (or rather he was born 18 years ago), he still refuses to grow, and thus is still played by the same actor David Bennent, who was barely 13 when he filmed the movie.  

The story of Agnes, Oskar's mother is interesting in this regard too. She is conceived in the opening scene of the movie, when a Polish arsonist is running away from the police and hides under the skirt of Oskar's grandma, working on her potato field. While under the skirt, he basically rapes her, and so Agnes is conceived. When Agnes grows up, she falls in love with two men, and all three of them go on to live together in the same house. Thus, it's not actually clear who Oskar's father is. Later on, the most disturbing scene of the movie refers back to this problem, when a baby is born and it's father may either be Oskar, or Alfred. Alfred is legally considered Oskar's father, because the other guy, Jan, is Agnes' cousin. She can only fall in love with him because of his physical limitations. Because of these he was rejected by the army and he couldn't fight in the First World War. At the half of the movie Agnes dies. She sees one day how eels are caught: The head of a dead horse is thrown into the water and the eels find their way in its various cavities. These repulses her so much, that at dinner that day she is physically disgusted by the idea of eating the eels. And of course we get a close-up of the chopped up head of an eel that's not entirely dead yet and continues to move. In any case, when Alfred forces her to eat the eels Agnes goes completely mad. After that dinner she cannot eat anything but fish. Any fish, cooked or not. One day she eats one fish too many and dies in her own vomit. There are more scenes dealing with these themes of mental and physical shortcomings. There is a whole subplot involving midgets doing circus tricks, and there is one scene whose only purpose seems to be to hint that a certain neighbor may be a gay pedophile. All of this means that despite its rather dull, simplistic ideas about the war and fascism, ostensibly the main themes of the movie, I still consider this to be a very good movie. 

I am not very familiar with Volker Schlöndorff's work, but I recently saw his latest movie Diplomacy, based on a play of the same name. It's basically a chamber play taking place during a single night, and it's about Swedish consul Raoul Nordling trying to dissuade Nazi General von Cholditz from destroying Paris (a meeting that never really took place). I think that movie has some of the same virtues and problems as The Tin Drum. Diplomatie is a deeply Eurocentric movie, that makes some really idiotic and rather simplistic points about The Second World War, and the idea of Paris. But as straightforward drama with complicated characters, it is really interesting.

      

95. In The Air Tonight &...

Lyrics

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord?
Oh Lord

Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I've seen your face before my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am

Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies

And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord, oh Lord

Well, I remember, I remember, don't worry
How could I ever forget?
It's the first time, the last time
We ever met

But I know the reason why you keep your silence
No, you don't fool me
Well, the hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you and me

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord, oh Lord

I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord

I used to now Phil Collins as the singer of pleasant sugar-sweet, slightly schmaltzy love songs. So I was enormously surprised, when I learned he made songs like In The Air Tonight and Mama. I was also quite happy, as these two songs are amazing. I thinks it's not unreasonable to call Mama the best pop/rock song ever made. In The Air Tonight has also a pretty great video, that consists substantially of a large floating head against a blank background talking about revenge. A similar scene is very pivotal in one of my favorite movies ever made. 

The Movie: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

A long time ago I posted on this blog my college essay on the Volkertafel. In that essay I quoted Dutch scholar Joep Leerssen as follows: "We have come to think of nation-states as an ideal systematic taxonomy of Europe where the French live in France and speak the French language, and the Germans live in Germany and speak the German language and each country has its own French or German cuisine,fashions, national anthem and lifestyle. But this simplistic ideal-type of the nation-state is ultimately the inheritance of the encyclopedic and Enlightenment-anthropological systematization of stereotypes, hearsay and cross-cultural caricatures".  In College this was without a doubt my favorite topic, and if possible one I very much would like to pursue in my professional life. How are nations represented in modern (popular) culture, both by other nations, and by itself. How are narratives used to create and sustain nations?  And, quite simply, what is a nation? 

I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino for many of the usually cited reasons. But what makes him truly great to me is the fact that he is one of the only popular directors who seems to be truly concerned with these questions, and who often tackles them head on in his films. He finds the differences between nations fascinating and the problems, and absurdities, that arise from them. This is visible for example in one of his most famous scenes, the Royale with Cheese discussion in Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction is also interesting in this regard, because it shows very well that Tarantino is interested in the ideas of space and place in general, in how people want to give meaning to the places that surround them, and how they form an identity in relationship with them. The brilliantly designed Jackrabbit Slim's bar is a really great example of this. I may discuss this further in a later post, or not because it may be too academic for this blog. But if you are in a really academic mood you could also connect the aliases of the characters in Reservoir Dogs to these ideas. 

Tarantino also seems to understand that nations are cultural, social, constructs, that are often treated as natural phenomena whose, norms, values and traditions are, and must be, set in stone. He has fun with, and criticizes these ideas, especially in his last two movies, but also in Kill Bill. His interest in nations is also the main reason why I like Django Unchained quite a lot, and also why it's not one of his best movies. He is so interested in these ideas in Django Unchained that he sometimes presents them in a very disjointed way, while at the same time letting the plot escape a bit from him, and turning the characters a bit too much in personified concepts. He does not fall into any of these traps in Inglourious Basterds. This is pretty much a perfect film. And Tarantino is absolutely right about it. It is his masterpiece. 

First off all, Inglouirous Basterds is an exceptionally well made film. Tarantino has never shown as much patience and control as here. It's quite amazing of how few actual scenes the movie exists. Before the final chapter, the movie is basically centered around three long scenes in which Tarantino slowly builds and releases tension. The opening scene has been celebrated by even those who hated the movie, and justly so. It's perfectly paced and acted. Tarantino knows exactly when and where to move the camera, when and where to cut  (obviously his deceased editor Sally Menke deserves much credit for that too), and all the dialogue is perfect. He shows there that he really can write dialogue that has his trademark absurdity, but at the same time is serious and intelligent. Waltz' lines about the animal characteristics of the Jews and the Germans can only be written by someone who is not only aware of the ideas expressed in the above mentioned quote by Leerssen, but also very much aware of the implications of it. These lines should not be forgotten in the next chapter, when Brad Pitt gives the speech to his Basterds about how the 'Nazi's ain't got no humanity'. They are animals in other words. That's when the movies subversive genius comes to light for the first time. We see, as we will see constantly trough the movie, that the Americans (and the British and the French) use much of the same narratives to present themselves and the enemy, as the Nazi's do. 

The most subversive example of this may come in the tavern scene, which I love even more than the opening scene, when trough the thinking of the German soldier, Tarantino shows that the American negro and King Kong have not been portrayed all that differently in American culture, and that in fact Americans have sometimes treated blacks very similarly to how Germans treated Jews during the World War. All of this does not mean that Tarantino is not on the side of the allies. He absolutely is, and rightfully so of course. Tarantino is absolutely overjoyed that he gets to kill Hitler, and that the audience gets to delight in it. He understands why that is so cathartic. But at the same time he wants us to think about the implications of this. Are Germans laughing at the deaths of Americans and Jews, and Americans laughing at the death of Germans, because of the same nationalistic tendencies? And what are the moral implications of this? All of these ideas come together in the final chapter, especially when Eli Roth is killing all the people in the theater. The way he is positioned (up high, shooting at the people down below) he very much resembles the way Daniel Bruhl is positioned in Nation's Pride, the German propaganda movie, Hitler and Goebbels enjoy so much. 

It's also quite wonderful how much Tarantino goads the audience into having much the same reaction his movie as Hitler and Goebbels have to their Nazi-propaganda movie.  First of all, based on the trailer, I thought this movie would suck. In the trailer we are basically only shown most of the Nazi's deaths that happen in Inglourious Basterds. The movie is explicitly marketed as a movie that you should if you only want to see dead Nazi's. This is absolutely not the kind of movie. Nation's Pride is that kind of movie, only it is a Nazi killing people, and it are the Nazi's enjoying it, and laughing their asses of. And we really can't help laughing when Hitler is killed. Much of the fifth chapter is basically a slapstick comedy, especially the parts involving Eli Roth and his partner in crime. In this regard the final line of the movie is a sick joke. Tarantino, by way of Brad Pitt, proclaims this to be his masterpiece, just like Hitler mentioned to a gushing Goebbels that Nation's Pride was his masterpiece.

What makes this movie truly great though is its use of Shosanna, and her lover. She is first of all a great character, acted wonderfully by Melanie Laurent. She deserved an Oscar just as much as Waltz. I once saw her performance described as 'she acts as if she is not aware that she is in a Tarantino movie' and that's absolutely true. She is also the true hero of the story; without her the Basterds would not nearly have as much success. The Basterds are really a bunch of bumbling idiots, who only succeed because of some dumb luck and Hans Landa's opportunism. Without them, the film would have had much the same outcome. In that regard they are pretty irrelevant to the plot. But they are at the right place at the right time, and in the end the history books will say that they and Landa were the heroes who ended the war. Shosanna will be merely a footnote at best. She will have died in the fire, no one knowing her part of the story. Throughout the film Tarantino wants to remind us that we have to be cautious of the narratives we are being told, or shown. They do not align with the world as it was/is, yet are extremely powerful. At times Tarantino literalizes this a bit too much, such as when Shosanna shoots the real, vile Zoller, only to look at Nation's Pride and see him suffering. She sympathizes, lets her guard down, and is then shot by Zoller. But he also shows this in more subtle ways. It's quite funny how nobody in the movie really lives up to his/her reputation/narrative.

I can say much, much more about this movie, such as how nobody seems to be able to pass for a nationality they are not, and the role national language plays in it. Or about how Tarantino subverts the male gaze here. (I've written an essay about that). I may address all this in a later post. Let me conclude by saying that I think this is one of the most important historic movies I've seen. It doesn't give a factual representation of World War 2 of course, but it does something more extraordinary. It wants us to think about how history is presented to us, and how we should look at it. It shows how stories/narratives shape our view of it, and that we therefore should look critically at them.