116. I Can't Get No Satisfaction

Lyrics

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm drivin' in my car
And that man comes on the radio
He's tellin' me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm watchin' my tv
And that man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarrettes as me
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no girl reaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm ridin' round the world
And i'm doin' this and i'm signing that
And i'm tryin' to make some girl
Who tells me baby better come back later next week
'cause you see i'm on losing streak
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no, i can't get no
I can't get no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction

I have been listening a bit more to The Rolling Stones recently, and while they may have never reached the heights of some other great groups, I am now convinced that they have basically never made a bad song. Satisfaction is, I think, not one of their greatest. It did allow me to discuss a film I never expected to like so much. 

The Movie: Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)

Near the end of this film, Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is riding the subway, when his train suddenly stops. Someone has committed suicide by jumping in front of it. Leaving the underground, Brandon hurriedly, anxiously goes home, where he finds his sister (Carey Mulligan) covered in blood. She has tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists. It is an incredibly tacky sequence, and its tackiness only stands out more because the rest of this film is so ridiculously good. In fact, if it wasn't for the aforementioned sequence I might have claimed that this is the best film of the decade. This is challenging, radical, and extremely confident film making that does not provide easy answers.

I was hooked from the opening sequence. McQueen presents a period, I'd say about a week, but it doesn't really matter, in the life of Brandon by crosscutting between scenes at his home, and his commute on the metro. We see that his morning routine consists of waking up miserable, after a night of sex with some prostitute or a random woman. He ignores her, as well as his sisters' messages on his answering machine. On the metro he sits silently, while he is cautiously flirting with a girl who sits across him every day. Every day, the flirting seems to become more serious, but it's not certain whether this is what's really happening, or whether McQueen is showing us Brandon's distorted point of view. All of this happens without any dialogue. For the most part, all we hear on the soundtrack is a constantly, relentlessly ticking clock. The sequence eventually ends when the girl on the metro gets off without seeming to pay much attention to Brandon, leaving him confused and kinda desperate.

The key sequence of the film though comes, when Brandon goes on a date with his colleague Marianne (Nicole Beharie). McQueen shoots their dinner date at a high class restaurant in an exceptional long take. In much of the scene we see Brandon and Marianne in a wide shot, together with the other restaurant guests. We hear their conversation, but are constantly aware of the other conversations around them. McQueen lets us hear snippets of them, or people coughing, while at the the same time we see their animated/amused hand gestures and faces. These are real people having real conversations about all kinds of different things. That is obviously what happens in a restaurant, but I have rarely seen a film so aware of it as Shame. While this is happening, Brandon and Marianne are constantly disturbed in their conversation, by the waiter, who seems to be relatively inexperienced, and constantly makes sure that his guests have the best possible experience at the restaurant.

Fassbender and Beharie act wonderfully throughout the film, but they are never better than in this scene. They are perfect in showcasing their amused irritation with the waiter's intrusions. They are annoyed by him, but understand that it's his job. They have to control their behavior in such a way to brush off the waiter as soon as possible, while at the same time not making their annoyance visible to him, to not offend him. The scene has a very weird effect because of this. It plays at moments like the slowed down version of a slapstick scene, and this seems like a very conscious decision of McQueen. Despite Shame's dark subject matter, McQueen finds certain moments like this in which he can showcase a sly, dry sense of humor.

This scene serves two other functions as well. It shows that Brandon and Marianne have a click. They both react with amusement to the waiter, and to each other's behavior in response to him. Furthermore it shows that Brendan is perfectly capable of controlling his emotions and his behavior. He is in all respects a completely normally functioning member of society, except in matters of love and sex. Brandon is an intelligent man who is perfectly aware of this. For him the tragedy is not so much that his sexual behavior is (self-)destructive, but that he fails to understand why this is the case. He sees himself, as a non-mentally ill person, who in certain situations acts like a person he'd consider ill.

In any case, Marianne and Brandon have a pleasant, fun conversation in the restaurant, which they continue on their way to the metro station. While Marianne finds it strange Brandon has never had a serious relationship (and tells him so), she still likes him a lot and is attracted to him. The next day she happily joins him to a luxurious hotel in order to have some romantic adventures. Unfortunately at the moment suprême Brandon cannot get it up. When Marianne leaves, he calls a prostitute and fucks her.

I do not know much about (sex) addiction, but to me one of the great aspects of the film is that McQueen does not present Brandon as man with a particular diagnosable problem that he can solve if he does certain things. It seems to simple to call him a sex addict. McQueen hints that Brandon that it may actually be power that Brandon is addicted to, and sex is merely a vessel to exhibit that power. That scene with Marianne may exemplify that. Perhaps he does not perform with her, because he genuinely likes her. He does not want, or need, to exert his power over her. This reading seems to be supported by the ensuing scene with the prostitute. He takes her from behind right in front of the large luxurious window of his room. He does not mind being seen, and knows he will be. A couple of scenes before, we saw him watch such a spectacle happening at that place.

I did not expect to like Shame this much. I am not much of a fan of miserable addiction narratives. Besides, I was a bit disappointed by 12 Years A Slave, a film that actually does deal with a subject I am interested in. After the first 30 minutes, it becomes a very conventional, Hollywoodized film. It sometimes feels like a film made 20 years before Django Unchained, not one year after it. Especially the Brad Pitt as a white savior plot device is awful, also because of the terrible dialogue Pitt is given. In any case, thanks to Shame I will very much look forward to the next McQueen film. This is a film that seems to be combine the style/sensibility of the great European art films of the 1960's like Repulsion and L'Avventura, with that of Kubrick, while never copying either.

    

Mad Max: Fury Road

I was writing a PhD-proposal, and it turned out to be an interesting piece on Mad Max: Fury Road and aesthetics. 

A day before the 2016 Academy Awards, writer Brian Phillips took to Twitter to discuss Best Picture nominee Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015). Phillips argued that in the film there is a 'weird tension between its critique of, and its reveling in, patriarchal violence. Its moral theme is basically a sustained attack on its visceral entertainment value'. I think Phillips here gets at the heart of what makes Mad Max: Fury Road so interesting. Throughout the film director George Miller complicates his audience' enjoyment of it. His aesthetic choices, to a very large extent, reflect the ideology of the film's antagonists.

The apocalyptic society in Fury Road, with its uninhibited violence, its aggressive displays of masculinity, and its objectification of women, is clearly presented as an extension/result of the norms and values of the film's villains. Moreover it is profitable to them, while hurtful to the heroes, who are looking for peace and quiet. The film itself hardly allows for peace and quiet. There is a minimum amount of dialogue, and except for one scene in the middle, the film basically amounts to one long chase sequence through an apocalyptic wasteland.  The action is ramped up from the beginning, and Miller never lets go. He presents pumped up monster cars, flamethrower guitarists, gruesome deaths, scantily clad women, madmen crying for war, and brilliantly staged extended battle scenes full of bloodshed. The action is further intensified by the relentlessly loud, bombastic soundtrack.

In other words, the patriarchal society criticized in Fury Road manifests itself in the style of the film, forcing the audience to directly engage with it.  Instead of merely showing the audience the problematic aspects and dangers of patriarchal societies, Miller lets the audience, to some extent, experience them. While watching the film the viewers realize that their enjoyment of it is tied to the fact that the film revels in the patriarchal values of its apocalyptic society. This could contribute to personal self-reflection. Viewers could reflect on how the society they live in has shaped them to enjoy the patriarchal aesthetic of Fury Road. They could ask themselves to what extent their society is patriarchal, and whether they have to share some of its values to enjoy the film. They could also reflect on how attractive many patriarchal values are on the surface, and how easily they can be accepted.

Style is not merely about how something is communicated, but also about what is being communicated. As communication professor Barry Brummett puts it 'When we put on jeans, we are not just clothing our nakedness, we are speaking a language formed in cloth. Style is a complex system of actions, objects and behaviors that is used to form messages that announce who we are, who we want to be, and who we want to be considered akin to. It is therefore also a system of communication with rhetorical influence on others. And, as such, style is a means by which power and advantage are negotiated, distributed and struggled over in society" (Brummett 11). By wearing certain jeans we make a statement about ourselves. It may not be a conscious statement, or a relevant statement worth exploring, but it does mean that there are certain aspects of these jeans that we like. Our jeans communicate something to the world about who we are.

A similar argument can be made about our consumption of (popular) culture. In an analysis of television show The Tudors, media scholar Kevin Williams discusses the casting of Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the leading role. That casting is consistent with the slick, cool, and sexy, style of the show. Through this style The Tudors connotes to its audience that Henry VIII was something like the historic equivalent of a modern rock star. Yet this is not the only way to tell this story. The producers of The Tudors could have easily chosen a more restrained, 'serious' aesthetic in which case they could have cast 'some fat 250 pounds red-haired guy with a beard" (Williams 139). Then the show's connotation could have been that, despite his many wives, Henry VII was a serious, devoted king. That show would also have attracted a different audience. Some people certainly watch the The Tudors primarily because they are interested in learning something about the Tudor dynasty. Yet there are many other cultural objects they can consume in order to do this. They choose to watch this show specifically, because of the style it is presented in. They watch it because they like slick representations of Henry VIII and the historical period in which he lives, and because they like seeing Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the role of the notorious king. They share these 'values' with the rest of The Tudors' audience.

It is important to note that the audience of The Tudors would not exist without the show. Their shared values are created by the show. In other words, style is not merely used to communicate meaning, but also to create it. This is explained very well by the British sociologist Simon Frith who attributes the success of folk music in the 1960's the musicians' ability to create a fictitious, imagined, folk community. According to Firth, these communities were not formed because a group of people with the same values decided to make music. Rather, these values were created through the music. As he puts it: "My point is not that a social group has beliefs which it then articulates in its music, but that music, an aesthetic practice, articulates in itself an understanding of both group relations and individuality, on the basis of which ethical codes and social ideologies are understood. What I want to suggest, in other words, is not that social groups agree on values which are then expressed in their cultural activities, but that they only get to know themselves as groups through cultural activity, through aesthetic judgement"(Frith 1996). Furthermore Firth states 'it is the aesthetic rather than organizational/contextual aspects of performance that betray a continuity between the social, the group, and the individual. It is in deciding - playing and hearing what sounds right that we both express ourselves, our own sense of rightness, and suborn ourselves, lose ourselves, in an act of participation" (Firth 1996).

These ideas can be connected to Marshall McLuhan's famous notion that 'the medium is the message'. McLuhan argued that a medium affects society not through its content, but through its characteristics (McLuhan 108). For McLuhan, it does not matter much what is being broadcast on television. What matters is that the introduction of television affected people's behavior. For example, it allowed families to gather together around a television set, thereby creating a new social environment. These changes in behavior are the true message of television. McLuhan himself offers the light bulb as an explanation of his ideas. The light bulb itself has no content, yet it is a medium with a social effect. In the nighttime it enables people to lit spaces that would otherwise remain dark. In doing so 'a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence' (McLuhan 112).

Now, let us return to Mad Max: Fury Road. Director George Miller could have addressed his concerns about patriarchal societies through a straightforward dramatic film that criticizes the patriarchy, perhaps even in a more coherent way than Fury Road does. The plot of that film could show the audience exactly why the heroes had to overcome the patriarchal values, how they did it, and what these values exactly are. In the process it could offer its audience plenty of room for thought. I would argue that approach would be less effective than Miller's approach in Fury Road. The message of Miller's hypothetical film would be that people like watching dramatic films that criticize the patriarchy, and make them think about it. The message of Fury Road is that people like watching a patriarchal aesthetic. As Firth would put it, Fury Road 'allows' the viewers to express themselves as people who like the patriarchal aesthetic. Miller's hypothetical film allows the viewers to think about how patriarchal values may be part of their lives. Fury Road allows the viewers to directly experience how patriarchal values may be part of their lives. In doing so Fury Road gives its audience more reason for (self-)reflection