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.

    

  

94. Morning Has Broken &....

Lyrics

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

I am feeling mostly indifferent towards Cat Stevens, but if any song of his should be this high, it should be Father and Son. I linked this song in a rather obvious manner to a movie that's full of Cat Stevens songs (though it features neither Morning Has Broken nor Father and Son), and that's, like this song, ostensibly about hope after bad times. 

The Movie: Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)

I'll give Harold and Maude this: it has the courage of its convictions, and it clings to its ideas all the way to the end. It's just that I think that its convictions/ideas are deeply idiotic. They are also not expressed in a very interesting/fun way. I had not seen this movie before. If I had I probably wouldn't have discussed it now. As that would imply that I would have seen it for the second time. I have no such desire. This is an awful film. 

I love films about mavericks who break the rules, but they usually break these rules because of a greater good, or because they want to achieve something great, or for some other interesting reason Harold and Maude just break the rules because they are a bunch of egoistical assholes who are bored with normal life. They really don't do anything interesting. The movie is full of empty platitudes about how you should embrace life and live it. It literally has an on-the-nose quote such as this: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. Reachout. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an "L". Give me an "I". Give me a "V". Give me an "E". L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room. Much of the dialogue is basically a variation of this. And the movie's idea of 'living the life man' is the same as that of a 10-year old boy. They steal a car and pass through a pay toll without paying! Yipiee! They look at flowers and come to the conclusion that they are all secretly very different! So people should be too! 

This is all pretty boring, but it wouldn't be that problematic if the movie didn't so desperately try to make us care for Harold and Maude, or represent them as good people. And even worse is the fact that it wants to present their behavior as a genuine necessity in an oppressive society. The movie really wants us to believe that they are fighting for freedom and human rights. It doesn't care how low it has to stoop to achieve this. It, for example, makes Maude a holocaust survivor and connects Harold and Maude's current 'fight' to World War 2. And funerals mostly serve here for Harold and Maude's entertainment. There have been many great radical 70's movies that criticized American (western) society for very good reasons. What the movie doesn't get at all is that Harold and Maude can only do what they do here, because they are privileged members of that society they apparently fight. They use this privilege only for their own good and the movie wants to congratulate them for it, and pretend that they are doing revolutionary stuff. The film could have been maybe better if it at least had the guts to make Harold black, or poor. 

Harold is an enormously rich kid, who lives alone with his mother in a huge mansion. He has his own car and can do whatever he wants. He can lead a truly interesting life, but chooses mostly to moan, stage suicides to annoy his mother, and visit funerals. There is no real reason given for his disenchantment, beyond a short scene wherein it is implicated that his mother doesn't love him. It's just that his mother does love him. Harold is just an arrogant kid who ignores this. In every single scene Harold's mum is in, we see her trying to give him a better life to activate him. She tries to find him a girl, get him out of the house in some way. A better movie would absolutely have the right to criticize the mother for this and present her as an over bearing woman, who tries to control her son too much, instead of letting him make his own decisions. But in this case the mother is absolutely right. Harold doesn't do anything but moan around the house. Never has the term deadwood been a more right description of a person. I am deeply uncomfortable with the army, and I think that the abolishment of conscription is one of the most important changes to occur in the 20th century. Yet I completely agreed with Harold's mother and Harold's uncle that enlistment in the army would be good for Harold. He'll do something at least.

Harold and Maude made me appreciate Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite movies even more.  If Gus Van Sant had made Good Will Hunting like Harold and Maude he would have made caricatures out of the characters of Robin Williams, Minnie Driver and Stellan Skarsgard. And he would have posited that Will should not change; that his behavior at the beginning of the movie is right, and that his fucking around with his buddies was some sort of valuable resistance against mainstream society. I love Good Will Hunting much more than most film critics these days. I certainly get why people may dislike that film, but it is honest and fair in how it sees Will Hunting, what it wants for him, and how it wants him to achieve it. That cannot be said for Ashby's treatment of Harold in this movie. And it certainly cannot be said for Ashby's treatment of Maude. She is not a real person, just a collection of stereotypes whose sole function in the movie is to help Harold. Old Hollywood movies have been criticized for using African-Americans like this, in relationship to white people. These stereotypical characters are now called Magical Negroes. You could call Maude a Magical Granny here.    
   

Because of the pretty horrendous screenplay, Harold and Maude would have never been a great film. But it could have quite easily be better than it is. It's quite possible to make a movie about characters exactly like Harold and Maude, and even make the audience care about them. Ashby should have simply let the audience make up its own mind about these characters, He should not have tried at all costs to turn these characters into some sort of redemptive, misunderstood heroes, which they clearly aren't. I would have probably enjoyed the movie much more if Ashby simply had gotten rid of the Cat Stevens soundtrack, All these songs do here is spell out that Harold is a very dear misunderstood boy for whom we should feel deeply. We would feel more for him probably, if the songs didn't tell us this. I think that audiences will feel more sympathy for characters if the movie doesn't force them to.

The movie would have been even better if Ashby simply embraced Harold's vileness, and explored it. I think Bud Cort, who plays Harold, actually gets this. He seems to understand at his core Harold is a deeply troubled young man. Anytime he gets the opportunity to show us the psychopathic traits of Harold, he does this, only to be undercut by the screenplay or Ashby's direction. A good example of this is the scene when, after another staged suicide attempt, Cort breaks the fourth wall and winks to the audience. Or the scene where he flips his mother. The best example of this comes in what was for me the only truly honest scene of the movie. To avoid the army Harold gives a speech, supported by a very theatrical performance in which he talks about how much he enjoys killing in all kinds of different ways, and how much he enjoys seeing blood. The movie presents this ironically. Harold only makes these claims to scare off the officer, so he doesn't have to join the army. But I thought Harold, as written in the movie, is actually the kind of character that genuinely believes these things, and because of Cort's great performance in that scene this is the only scene in the movie that feels genuinely provocative and irreverent.          

I don't even think that the movie should be excused for being made during a time when counter cultural ideas were popular, because I don't think that this movie understood the counter cultural ideas it ostensibly believed in. The politics of this movie are far-right. In fact, I have never seen a movie probably that embodies so much Margaret Thatcher's famous saying "There is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women and families" For Harold and Maude, there aren't even families, let alone society. The movie has no regard whatsoever for the good of society. I think this is the worst movie I've yet discussed on this blog, even worse than Sweet November. It's full of shit, yet pedantic and arrogant about it. It's just no fun at all.  

       

93. Niet of Nooit Geweest &...

Lyrics

Ik zie twee mensen op het strand 

(I see two people on the beach)
Vlak bij het water, hand in hand

(Near the water, holding hands) 
De zon zakt, ze zwijgen van geluk

(The sun sets, they are silent out of happiness) 
Ik ken haar net, want dat ben jij 

(I just know her, because that's you)
Ze lacht naar hem, hij lijkt op mij 

(She smiles at him, he looks like me)
Maar dat kan niet, want ik maak alles stuk

(But that cannot be, because I ruin everything) 
Ik kan die jongen toch nooit zijn 

(I cannot actually be that boy)
Die rust, die liefde, niets voor mij

(That calmness, that love, it's just not me) 
Maar waarom lijkt het dan toch zo vertrouwd?

(But why then, does it seem so familiar) 
Ik heb je lief, zoals je ziet 

(I love you, as you see)
Maar ergens klopt er hier iets niet

(But something isn't right here) 
Ik draag een ring maar 'k heb jou nooit getrouwd 

(I wear a ring, but I've never married you)

Ik ben mezelf niet 

(I am not myself)
Of al die jaren nooit geweest

(Or haven't been it in all those years) 
Ik ben de gangmaker op het verkeerde feest

(I am the moodsetter at the wrong party) 
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest 

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

Ik zie twee mensen, ze gaan staan 

(I see two people, they are standing)
Ze draait zich om, we moeten gaan 

(She turns around, we must go)
Kijk in me ogen en zie dezelfde pijn

(Looks in to my eyes, and I see the same pain) 
Twee mensen eerder al verbonden 

(Two people connected once before)
Al die verliefdheid, wat een zonde 

(Al that infatuation, what a waste)
We zijn het allebei maar willen het niet zijn 
(We are both it, but we don't wanna be it)
Ik ben mezelf niet 

(I am not myself)
Of al die jaren nooit geweest

(Or haven't been it in all those years) 
Ik ben de schoenmaker bij de verkeerde leest

(I am doing the wrong profession) 
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it) 
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest
(I am not myself or have never been it)

Oh, laat het de zon zijn (laat het de zon zijn)

(Oh let it be the sun)
Oh, laat het het strand zijn

(Oh, let it be the beach) 
Laat het de zee zijn 

(Let it be the sea)
Laat mij iets doen nu

(Let me do something now) 
Waardoor je mij nooit meer wilt zien

(So you wouldn't want to see me ever again) 
O, laat het het zout zijn (laat het het zout zijn)

(O let it be the salt)
Laat het mijn allerdomste fout zijn

(Let it be my stupides mistake) 
Maar laat me dit nooit meer vergeten 

(But don't let me ever forget this)

Nooit meer vergeten 
(Never forget this)

laat me dit nooit meer vergeten, bovendien 

(Let me never forget this, above all)

Ik ben mezelf niet of al die jaren nooit geweest 

(I am not myself, or haven't been it in all these years)
Ik ben mezelf niet of al die jaren nooit geweest 

(I am not myself, or haven't been it in all these years)
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)
Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest)

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

Ik ben mezelf niet of nooit geweest

(I am not myself, or have never been it)

This is basically Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in song form. This is just a coincidence, as this song is written in 1998, six years before the movie, and Jim Carrey and co. most probably never heard this song. You never know though. Maybe Charlie Kaufman is an Acda & De Munnik fanboy. I am just kidding of course, but it may be quite silly to dismiss Acda & De Munnik as just another decent Dutch group. I feel that this is one of those times, when the conceit of this blog has been genuinely insightful. Acda and de Munnik may be more interesting, than I (and others) think they are. This is the second song of theirs I discuss on this blog; the first one I linked to Seconds.  My links are obviously not perfect, but all of them do make some sense. Any band whose songs can be linked to Seconds and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not to be dismissed. Their songs contrast rather interestingly between form and content. Their music is jolly and poppy, while their lyrics are quite a bit unsettling. Both this song and the previous one deal rather interestingly with (loss of) identity and memory. 

The Movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

This is in some ways a typical Charlie Kaufman move. It has a wonderful original screenplay full of interesting twists. It deals with the 'behavior' of our minds, and how our identities and memories are shaped, both by ourselves and by others. Yet in many other ways this is a very atypical Kaufman movie. I have not seen Human Nature and Synecdoche, New York, but based on what I know of them they appear to be share the same outlook on life as movies like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. This are all grim, dark movies that are very cynical about human nature. Most of their characters are very unpleasant, and sometimes downright vile people. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not such a movie. (This is by the way neither a compliment nor a criticism. It's just an observation. I think Being John Malkovich is a better movie than this one, but this is a better film than Adaptation, and a far better one than George Clooney's directing debut). This movie works partly because Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) are genuinely nice people we care about. They also feel like very real people. Carrey and Winslet seem to have gotten the freedom to make their characters very specific and to add to them whatever they want to. As a result both Joel and Clementine come of as characters who are not held back by movie conventions. Carrey and Winslet are allowed to play their characters if they are real people, who just happen to be in this movie. The joy they have in doing this is palpable, and it transfers to the audience. Apparentlythis is Kate Winslet's favorite role of hers, and that's not a surprise. It's also her (and Carrey's) best. It's quite a shame she has never really gotten a similar role, and I can only imagine how bored she is by the fact that she is now asked to play dull teachers in dull young adult sci-fi such as Divergent, or depressed mums in Labor Day. 

The movie would have been a lot of fun, even if was just these two characters in a rather straightforward rom-com. But that's where Charlie Kaufman comes in. Anyone could probably think of the basic concept of this movie. The idea that you might lose some of your most important memories that have very much, for better or worse, shaped the way you are today is such an obviously disquieting and dramatic one that it is quite strange that there haven't been more movies like this. That when in pain some people might really want to, is a slightly more interesting insight, but also one that's very obvious. What Kaufman, and Gondry do well is to present this all in a very matter of fact, and funny way. Lancuma, the memory erasing corporation, functions very much like an ordinary, rather dull, corporation. What the employees are doing is quite spectacular, but the way in which they are doing it is kind of dull and monotonous. The Tramp from Modern Times would basically be just as bored doing mind erasing as working on a conveyor belt. The contrast between the real world and the world of Carrey's memories is pretty enormous. His memories are very imaginatively presented. A good example for this are the two brilliant, and quite moving, scenes where we see the adult Jim Carrey remembering his youth. Even better is the reason for why he is doing this. 

Beyond the fact that this screenplay is so original, it is also brilliantly constructed. The circularity of the movie is greatly important here. Often a movie that begins with its final scenes, or in media res, does this, because it's a lazy and effective way to build drama and intrigue. I usually fall for it, and quite like such movies, but that's not the point here. Here the circularity is a necessity, because if it would begin in a chronological order we would care much less about the characters. The movie only works so well, because we get to know Joel and Clementine, and care about their relationship, before Joel starts the procedure to erase Clementine from his mind. Because when Joel starts erasing Clementine from his memory, we first see his last memories of her, just before they broke up. In these scenes both of them are just very unpleasant, and we see nothing of their love. If one would start with these scenes, it would in fact be quite unbelievable that these characters could ever possibly love each other, especially considering they are being played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, at first sight, a very unfitting romantic couple. Thus we would care much less about it all when Carrey changes his mind about the whole erasing thing, and he tries to change/hide his memories in order to defeat the erasers. Scenes, like the previously mentioned ones, in which Carrey memorizes his youth would play much more like zany scenes from a not very successful Jim Carrey sci-fi comedy. 

I also simply love that by opening with the final scenes Kaufman makes us care about the saving of a relationship that hasn't factually happened yet. It's quite genius viewer manipulation. Also genius is the subplot involving Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson. That helps us understand without the use of dumb exposition why Joel and Clementine get back together. It shows after all that Lacuna's procedure may erase the memories of a love, but not the feelings. If the ex-lovers meet again they might develop feelings for one another again. Which means that while that plot point is resolved tragically, within the larger frame of the story this is a hopeful plot point. This is again ingeniously manipulative.