Conversations with Ben V

On today's agenda: The Early Films of Krystof Kieslowski

Ben sed:

Turning to The Scar, I have to brag this time. Half-way though the film I said to Monica, "This is like some sort of socialist, Solidarity's coming 'Nashville.'" She asked me if I had read the CD cover and I told her I had not, which was true. You may recall that the cover speaks of the film as Altmanesque. Damn, maybe I should be submitting a blog to your film site! Seriously though, it might be just as valid to say that Altman is somewhat Kieslowski-like insofar as K. is coming out of a full-on documentarian orientation whereas A. has adopted certain features of pseudo-documentary style. In any case, both films are 1976, Scar for sure, Nashville I think. I wonder if A. and K. were aware of each other at the time.

Comparison aside, the left-over documentary feeling of Scar made it for me simultaneously fascinating and boring. Fascinating for the critique of the system and the functionaries in it. Boring because of a lack of character depth and dramatic tension in the dialogue. It just sort of unfolds in a rather dull way, yet it addresses profound social issues and displays serious political engagement, albeit in an indirect manner. It's not that there is no dramatic conflict. Yikes, there's a ton. It's that, more like a book, so much of the drama is implied in the interior consciousness and conscience of the main character. (The actor playing him gives an excellent performance I feel. By the way, I have been impressed by the acting work in all the K. films you have lent me and I suspect that he is not a leave-the-cattle-in-the-dark director.) But perhaps I am being too Western and even Hollywood in my reception. Perhaps much of the power of the film comes precisely from a kind of Kafka zone (except with some redemption thrown in) in which the style of the presentation is necessarily bloodless in order to deliver a message of alienation in the nth degree. As for the look of the thing, he must have built his story around an actual industrial project happening at the time because he gets some striking reality shots. The quick editing of the trees coming down is very powerful, as is the distant shot of the glowing cemetery.



Dan replies:

I didn't make the connection between Altman and Kieslowski until I read the sleeve, but it certainly makes sense. I have no idea if they knew of each other at the time (I'm assuming they certainly did afterwards.) While I appreciated what Kieslowski was up to in The Scar, the film felt a little thin; it is certainly the most transparent of the four films I gave you, as Kieslowski is still operating like a documentarian, hoping that the actors and the landscape (rather than the storyline or dialogue) will convey all the meaning and emotion. This is often a very good thing, if you are in the hands of a master craftsman like Tarkovsky or even a lesser talent like Kim ki-duk, but if you're a fella who is still feeling his way around a film set, it's a bit of a risk. He certainly gets it better (and better) in the subsequent films. And yes, he is a great director of actors. I cannot think of a mediocre performance by any of his leads. If the three actresses who starred in the Three Colours are to be believed, he was very demanding, but also quite open to actor's suggestions. He seems to choose smart actors (and beautiful, sharp women) for key roles because he knows they'll bring something to the set. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that the factory he uses was an actual complex whose construction was halted because of financial difficulties (they had a few of those in 70s/80s Poland).

With Camera Buff you may recognize the lead actor, who also makes an appearance in other Kieslowski films. He's in the final film in The Decalogue, the one about the stamp collectors, plus I believe he was also the brother/hairdresser in White. He's a fine comic actor.

Then Ben:

I gather we are in agreement about The Scar, although the more I dwell on it, the more I find it portrays a sort of alienation which I associate especially with Eastern Europe and Russia; i.e., in relation to a state that never passed through a bourgeois-liberal stage of development. But I will not dwell on it any more because I'm too pumped about Camera Buff.

This film should be required viewing at any reputable school of cinema. Just as Shakespeare, through metaphor, raises profound epistemological and ethical questions about the line between the stage and reality, this film - not as profoundly but very meaningfully - addresses the subjective/objective problem in film. The fact that the story is essentially autobiographical is, of course, hardly a trivial aspect of what it's all about. And it seems to me that biography is probably the perfect transition from documentaries to fictions. It stands between the false notion of objectively discovering others and the equally false notion of subjectively inventing the self. All this through-a-glass-darkly stuff aside, however, the moral fibre of the film is front and centre. Unlike the postmodern wack-off all around us today that would have us believe inside is out and outside is in, so just go shopping baby! - K. is an old-school humanist (new-school socialist?); still committed to honesty between friends, hard ethical choices in the real world, and an idea of truth that's more than my opinion about fashion. Clearly, this is the film in which he graduated from the guilt of "exploiting" real people to the freedom of telling their stories for them by making them imaginary. Like Picasso said, "art is the lie that tells us the truth about ourselves." And yet, I haven't even touched on the great achievement of the film. It's funny! All this, and it's fucking funny man! You know, until it isn't. Like Chaplin. Like you said, the lead actor is top notch. Had me laughing out loud, broke my heart too. What kills me about the movie is how early on in his non-documentary-making career he made it. I suppose this partly impresses me because I am ignorant of how long his documentary career was, (plus I am ignorant of his documentary style too, although I did watch Talking Heads.) Even so, Camera Buff strikes me as the sort of self-awareness and self-honestly available only to the wise senior citizen. Not a middle-aged guy. But that's the point I was attempting to express earlier, he needed to make this biographical film at that time in order to facilitate his own transition from documentaries to fictions. It's quite remarkable what a fine film he managed to create from this essentially personal evolutionary exercise.

Blind Chance disappointed me, quite a bit actually. Clearly, the idea is worthwhile. I noticed in the closing credits, a tip of the hat to Kurosawa. I pointed this out to Monica and she said that BC is certainly an homage to Rashomon, which she remembers seeing but I have never seen. Then she went on to make a few jokes about a relatively recent Gwyneth Paltrow movie, Sliding Doors. No doubt, there are a good number of these sorts of It's A Wonderful Life films, you know, that mess with time in order to explore alternative existential trajectories. I read on the box, that BC was suppressed for seven years in Poland and I certainly grasp how it would have infuriated the authoritarians at the time. But for me watching it today, the metaphysic is too accidental, shit happens, you know, blind chance. Again, I recognize that this was opening up a liberating space in the society then; against a dogmatic, mechanically deterministic interpretation of history, the official state ideology. But in the context of our present society, with it's doctrine of individualism and the free (consumer!) choice of the self-made man, the film comes down as a middle-class, liberal take on ''forces beyond our control''. I do not mean to reduce the complexity of the film to this, for there is a lot of detailed interweaving of forces beyond our control and forces in our control, or at least potentially in our control and for which we are ethically responsible. K is too moral to relinquish the latter. But who are "we" anyway? The socio-political problematic is stipped away in BC and we are left with the apolitical individual comfortable in his private sense of right and wrong. The upwardly mobile professional man, rewarded for his domestic goodness by a great sex life, refuses to take action either for or against either side in the political struggle. Indeed, he is an innocent bystander, a victim of the violence, almost a martyr to "staying out of it." This doesn't work for me. One of my father's friends used to joke, "You say you're neutral. Fine. Who are you neutral against?"

Turning from the content to the form of the film, this too was not entirely successful in my view. Initially the pace of the presentation is almost painfully slow. Later on, the contrary occurs, things move very fast. I am fine with the accelerated tempo because the narrative remains coherent but at the same time, some of the editing gets skittish. The cutting gets jumpy, the ride gets bumpy and I don't feel this was intended. I get the feeling that the film was twice as long - after all, he is telling three stories - and it was a tough process to get it down to a manageable length. I can't help speculating that having completely departed from making documentaries, K. is almost overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities of imagined fiction. Hence, BC is about this open-ended potential, both in actually lived human lives and for the artist reflecting on them. Hence, instead of making a choice, selecting one story to tell, committing to it, K. felt compelled to go for some cinematic cubism, so to speak. Eventually, as the coincidences and alternatives pile up and criss-cross, the film achieves quite a lot of momentum. But he doesn't quite pull it off. For me it started to become contrived in a weak way. The proof of this is that I started to predict what was going to happen. Considering that the film is supposed to be portraying blind chance, predictability is a sign of failure on some level. I mean, to give Tarantino his due, in Pulp Fiction, when they end up in the S&M basement of the gun shop - fuck a duck Batman, I sure didn't see that coming! But when the plane blew up at the end of BC - brilliantly filmed though - I did. And a number of other outcomes as well.

Dan:


Interesting...Blind Chance is easily my least favourite of K's films, mostly because of the forced-ness of the concept. Regardless of its politics, which I didn't really bother parsing much past the notion that life is a balancing act where individual freedom is found somewhere between those things we can control and those we cannot, I just didn't find the film cinematically appealing, as K tries way to hard to make the 3 stories fit into a narrative straightjacket, from which there is so little room to move. I just found it damned frustrating--it was like a hermetically sealed bag; there was no air to breath, no life in it.

Rashomon is only superficially similar. The ideas Kurosawa explores are much more elemental and far more interesting (what the hell is truth, and can any of us ever hope to find it, for example). I will lend you some Kurosawa when you are done with Kieslowski (yes, I have Rashomon) so you can check it out for yourself. I predict you will find Ikiru the most moving and accomplished of all Kurosawa's work, though I'm partial to The Seven Samurai. But I'm a sucker for action epics with a political message.

I think you will find No End a much more rewarding experience.

Ben:

This is not working out. How are we ever gonna get our version of Siskel and Ebert off the ground if we keep agreeing with each other? About Blind Chance, you refer to the forced-ness of the concept and I believe I said that I found it contrived. I ventured to suggest that there is a unity of form and content, so the film fails cinematically not regardless of its politics, but rather because of them. To quote my dad, "The middle class is the class that's in the middle and doesn't know what it's in the middle of." A bit more generously, Kieslowski's muddled political thinking is not legitimated by his artistic treatment of it. On the contrary, the result is art equally muddled.

Is there no end to me spouting off at the mouth? I wouldn't blame you for cutting off my supply of films after my last lecture. And I quoted your own words to you, that's low. Forgive me. I hope you know that I am not attacking you, or even Cronenberg for that matter. I have a disease. I talk political theory. I have no defense except to offer that these four Kieslowski films in a row would make anyone talk political theory.

Wow, talk about disillusionment! You will be relieved to hear that I don't have too much to say in response. No End knocked all the air out of my lungs... (almost). I didn't like it at all but not because it didn't work. It worked too well. Turns out I'm just a loud-mouth with no balls for the ugly truth. The complete despair of the film is just too much for me. But I would be a hypocrite (re: my previous lecture) if I didn't grasp that he is capturing the negative spirit - hell, the total lack of spirit - in Poland at the time. And the way he represents this microcosmically at the level of personal loss and grief, yet giving this personal story just enough of the larger social context to make it charged with political meaning - it's pretty heavy. The god that failed, the dream is over, abandon hope all ye who enter here... no end. Powerful film.

The only point I have to make is that I don't think it is any more openly political than the other three. It seems to me that it has the reputation for being so because whenever an ex-communist addresses how he became ex, the ideologues of capitalism jump all over it with big klieg lights. With no subtlety at all, K. makes it known to his audience that No End is his Orwellian statement. Hell, he even puts the guy in the film. (Didn't catch the book title but, hey, it's either 1984 or Animal Farm.) But before he became completely disillusioned, K. was just as politically engaged. In The Scar and Camera Buff, he is still working within the system, trying to carve out some emancipatory space to be sure, but still resigned to the maintenance of the society; working for reform, not abolition. So Camera Buff was well received in the Soviet Union but considered too parochial in Paris, not yet internationally valid film-making. Untrue. As for Blind Chance, as I have said, I think this film is something of a cop-out on K's part politically (and a mess artistically). Even so, it's not as if he tries to be apolitical in the film.

Good news, Monica has to use the computer. I am done.
Thank you Dan Jardine for taking me to the Kieslowski Festival.

Dan:

Yer welcome. The aspect of No End that really sticks with me is the overt spirituality. Usually Kieslowski is more subtle about it, but here you have the dead husband hovering over the piece like Marley's ghost. It had the potential to be a terribly hokey device, but Kieslowski is careful not to overplay that card, deploying it sparingly and as a result very effectively. As for the disillusioned communist angle, well, it surely ain't a sign of a latent embrace of capitalism, is it? I mean, it seems clear that Kieslowski is a commited humanist, and while he finds the Soviet system a dead end, he isn't necessarily turning his back on left wing politics. The noble characters in his film remain devoted to humane causes and no amount of Soviet bashing will change that.

Conversations with Ben IV

On today’s agenda: Zhang Yimou’s Hero

Ben sed:

I was all set to dive into the three hours that is Red Beard but the others pushed for something shorter and lighter, hence Hero. Turned out Monica and Jacob had seen it already at the theatre. They didn't remember the title. They've also seen House of Flying Daggers. Anyway, is this the same director who did Raise The Red Lantern and another one (?) set in an handicraft dye factory? At the time, I remember really liking these, especially the latter, what with all the rich color. Anyway again, as to Hero, well, after studying Kurosawa, it was, well again, shorter and a lot lighter... a lot lighter.

I was really impressed by the flying-by-computers when I first saw it in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and it was still purdy cool dude when they were zipping around in The Matrix. As of now, however, it strikes me as not only tired but a poor excuse. It's not just that such special effects are considered the main feature of the film. It's that there is a phony visual texture to them that cannot substitute for actual things actually photographed. It's the same problem that we encounter all the time today with music that is produced digitally out of real time. So much of it fails to deliver the soul that we hear in analogue recording. The visuals in Hero are flat, two-dimensional somehow. I suspect it has to do with the fact that they are not created in real light. They look great but they do not feel like anything. (Have I mentioned recently that I think The Seven Samurai is a really fine movie?)

As for the meat and potatoes of Hero, it's false profundity of the first rank. At one point I thought that it was going to be a footnote to Rashomon, with respect to the problem of truth from different points of view. But that failed to pan out. The political ramifications are not entirely clear but they are definitely reactionary in the current world situation, Hong Kong/Mainland reunification parable notwithstanding. Last and certainly least, the Oriental style and motifs of the movie are for me quite bogus. This is pretty sad considering that the actors are indeed speaking Chinese. Correct me if I am wrong Dan but you are a sucker for Oriental cultures. I can dig the real thing but not this Epcot Center stuff. Honestly, don't you find it homogenized and commodified to the point of being McChinese? (By the way, The Seven Samurai is superb cinema. Check it out.)

But I am such a snob. Truth be told, it was fun to watch and I wanted to have sex with either one of both of the female leads whenever they were on the screen. So thanks for that. (Have you ever heard of a movie called The Seven Samurai? I like it a lot.)


Dan replied:

Yes, you are a terrible snob. But I forgive you your snobbery. There are so many greater sins in the world of cinephilia. Like being a fan of Michael Bay movies, for instance.

Yes, the director of Hero and Flying Daggers is also the same director of Raise the Red Lantern and Ju Dou (the one set in the dye factory), both mighty fine films. He (Yimou) considered Hero a dry run for Flying Daggers, though I consider Hero the superior film (despite its flaws) because Daggers descends into the kind of romantic melodrama that only a fella like Shakespeare can get away with (she's dead. No, she's not really dead. Wait a minute, I think she's dead now. Nope...)

I like Hero quite a bit more than you, but I'm not so worried about where the film finally falls politically (because I think it is somewhat ambiguous), and much more interested in the journey that the film takes us on. I like the way it plays around with an unreliable narrator and the way that the future emperor/villain is charismatic, intelligent and completely ruthless. I LOVED every second that Maggie Cheung was on screen (you may remember Maggie and Tony Leung, who is her partner in the calligraphy school, starring in In the Mood for Love, another film I liked considerably more than you), and was captivated by the way her story kept getting revised according to the bits and pieces of new information that trickled into the discourse between assassin and emperor. It's also one helluva beautifully photographed film. The fight sequences are awesome, but more importantly, also deeply moving. When the two warriors battle it out, dipping their swords into the serene waters of the lake, while the beautiful Maggie Cheung lies on her deathbed, well, it just took my breath away. And there were several scenes of similar visual poetry in this film--you really could turn off the subtitles and enjoy it for the visuals alone and have a mighty fine time, regardless of the story, characters, themes etcetera ad nauseum. I also enjoy a good Bollywood film, generally for similar reasons--the gorgeous use of colour and skilful compositions, and the beautiful people doing dopy things. Then, all you have to do is toss in some dancing (which becomes martial arts in a Chinese film) and a whole lotta singing and a-waaay we go!

As for the film's politics, since pretty much all of Yimou's earlier films are clearly anti-authoritarian and were poorly received by the Chinese government, I'm less inclined to see Hero as an unequivocal embrace of authoritarianism. I'm pretty sure that the elevation of the calligraphy school into an icon of artistic integrity in the face of authoritarianism is central to the film's message, and that while the emperor certainly has his way at film's end, and the assassin willingly sacrifices himself to the emperor's vision, that does not speak to me in the same way as the extended passages in the calligraphy school. It seems more denouement than climax--the film's central values being expressed in the earlier brutal and crushing assault on the calligraphers, with admission of the historical reality (this man was ruthless, and he DID become the first emperor of China, after all) the main impetus behind the film's finale. But, there's no escaping that the film appears to promote the really questionable assertion that this war lord's drive to unify China was borne out of a desire to end all conflict and bring peace to the nation, considering that history does not support such an interpretation of his reign, which was apparently pretty damned bloody, despite his character's assertions otherwise.

[sidebar one: There's an interesting difference in the final captions in the two versions of the film I've seen. In the Miramax-produced version of Hero that you watched, the emperor's move to unify China is dubbed "One World" or something like that (can't remember) whereas in the imported DVD, the slogan is translated as "All Under Heaven" which strikes me as carrying slightly different connotations.


[sidebar two: Here's the thing about the flying trope in Asian martial arts films. There's a school of martial arts film called wuxia films wherein the participants, zen-like masters of these arts, are actually able to perform the gravity-defying feats of wonder that you witness on screen. So, these are not merely gimmicks, but a reasonable recreation of the wonders that these highly trained individuals are supposedly able to achieve.]

Ben:

Ibelieve I said in my review of Hero that the politics are not entirely clear and given this I have no problem with the way you juxtapose the meaning of the calligraphy school with the movie's conclusion. Of course, this begs substantiation for your interpretation of the school as representative of anti-authoritarian goodness, questionable in itself considering that the school was a sort of conditioning factory under a code of craft paternalism. More slippery, even if your take on the school is granted, the relationship of the assassins to the school is vague, to say the least. Only Broken Sword explicitly unifies the two disciplines of calligraphy and martial art - and look, he embraces pacifism in order to accept the imperial program of the state. So it really does run in circles as far as I can see. Honestly though, can the film withstand this level of political interpretation? I think not. It's mostly a bunch of quasi-philosophic fluff.

This brings me to your sidebar on a certain school of kung-fu movies. And now we really are at a crossroads, in which you will end up with the likes of the Quentin Tarantino chop-socky appreciation club that I simply refuse to condone. You explain that the special effects are valid because they are artificial reproductions of actual gravity-defying acts of martial arts achieved by certain, real masters, who have been captured "live" on film in the past. Bullshit. Have you seen these reality shows of which you speak? I am calling your bluff. Because I am skeptical to the nth degree. Believe it or not, another life ago, I attended Shotokan karate classes for two years (green belt). The second of these two years I was living in New York. Our dojo went to New Jersey one weekend to watch an international free-style sparring competition between Fifth Dan (no not you, [and higher]) black belts. Fucking amazing. But I didn't see one of these brilliant and often artistic pugilists take flight. Even if I took your point too literally, even if I am supposed to grant that the special effects are intentionally exaggerated, hyper-real, or what have you - bullshit I say. And please know that my beef now is not that these sorts of movies are not realistic, (not this minute anyway). I am not currently demanding realism. My objection has to do with the bogus Orientalism at the heart of these angelic combatants. If it was a good ol' cowboy movie, with guns, a Western with Western technology, no one would buy this crap. But because it is bathed in exotic Eastern cultural trappings, with lots of dime-store "rub my head for luck Grasshopper" mysticism, and the fighting is with ancient weaponry - everyone is happy to suspend disbelief, to put it mildly. (Incidentally, I think I could make a critical case for regarding The Matrix - all of its futuristic, high-tech setting notwithstanding - in terms of this same sort of jive Eastern-ish mode of physical transcendence. Yes, ultimately I AM on a rampage for realism. On this ticket, I don't care if there are a few Zen-masters in the world who can fly around in the air with swords. I agree with the ex-biker turned underground cartoonist, Spain Rodriguez: "Ten guys can kick the shit out of anybody.")

One more thing. You do not respond to my feeling about the computer-look of these special effects. Considering that they are, according to you, meant to "mimic" or stylistically allude to actual moves documented elsewhere on film, my sensation of them as visually unreal, as "flat," seems to me to constitute a critique on a visceral level.

Dan:

No, no, you mistake my comment. I'm not saying that the wuxia films are meant to be realistic interpretaions of actual events. What I'm saying is that there is a long line of filmmaking that uses such techniques--I remember seeing them first in the 1980s series of Chinese Ghost Story films--and that Hero's tradition stretches much farther back than Crouching Tiger and The Matrix, which you suggested as a starting point for such films. So, I was merely trying to offer up a larger cinematic context for the character's superhuman feats in Hero.

As for the computer-generated look of the effects, I am not sure I get you because I'm pretty sure that the majority of the film's fx were accomplished through wires (which are later erased by computers) rather than through CGI. So, these characters really are moving through the space you see them inhabiting on the screen and in the manner that you see them moving on the screen. They're just being propped up, a la Peter Pan, by a sophisticated series of wires and/or bungy chords.
I'm wondering if there's a cultural divide here, and that your interpretation of the cow-towing to authority of the calligraphy school is a distinctly western view of said events. Are you saying that, rather than passively accepting the brutal oppression of the emperor's men, the students and teachers in the school should have, in the fashion of a Byronic hero, physically rebeled against this authority? Wouldn't hat have been equally as futile? I believe the point of the scene was to suggest that while this particular calligraphy school might have been doomed to extinction, the art itself would transcend this moment in time, in the manner of the sculpture in Ozymandias, or Sonnet 18("So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see/So long live this, and this gives life to thee). Not that I'm putting Hero on that level of brilliance--as you say, it is pretty fluffy stuff--but simply that it stands at the end of that long line of thought.

Ben:

I'm glad you straightened me out, ('cause I really was bent out of shape wasn't I?)

About the CGI - look at me using abbreviations I never even heard of before! what next, emoticons? - I find your observation instructive. I think I was conflating the CGI of the massive armies and their arrows and vast landscapes and so forth on to the hand-to-hand combat scenes. It was really the former that bugged me with respect to the no-genuine-visual-depth issue. Clearly, I have problems with the dueling swords in their own right (more on this next paragraph). But it may be correct that I was blaming these somewhat on the CGI. Having conceded this, I do want to clarify that originally I was not bugged by the flying as such. I got grumpy about this only after I misunderstood your sidebar on wuxia. No, it was the flying in relation to the physical environment that pissed me off. And if you think about this, I think you will concede that this goes far beyond the Peter Pan stage-strings you are trying to sell to me. Come on, the rain of leaves when the two ladies go at it, the bouncing off the surface of the water when the two gentlemen duke it out - this is fantastic CGI... rubbish. Perhaps for you it is poetry in motion and I will admit that it does look neat, but I am a boring dogmatist insisting that it is little more than style... and you don't need to listen to me shout this critique yet again. (Besides paragraph two is near commencement.) So, yes, it may be the case that the unrealistic relationship between the fighting and the material world was really the thorn in my side and not the visual vibe of the CGI.

Look, I am wholly ignorant of wuxia. But frankly I don't care because I am an intellectually arrogant loud mouth. No doubt wuxia is a "genre" with its "conventions." Make it stop. Seriously, it's all so much Marvel Comics. By now you must have picked up that I have very little interest in stories - film, literature, whatever - about demi-gods. It doesn't matter if they are cosmically created (Superman), technologically created (Spiderman), mystically created (Dr. Strange), or what-have-you. Yes, even Greek mythology and the metaphysics in Shakespeare engage me only to the extent that they speak to basic human psychology and sociology. I am especially bothered by Marvel Comics that pose as sophisticated cultural paintings and sensitive philosophy. Hero for example. Again I say, doesn't it strike you as so much McChinese?

Almost done. I mentioned the biker motto that ten guys can kick the shit out of anyone. This is not just realism. It is socialist realism, or at least collectivist or communitarian realism. The "duel", understood as a ruling class motif, is the ideology of the aristocrat. The honor between combatants from the same social strata, the refinement of violence to a single pure act, the containment of the contest to a rule-regulated arena cordoned off from larger social struggle - I could unpack a nice short essay; this is the mystique of the lord. I take umbrage with this ideology. It is not just bogus. It is actively anti-democratic, anti-proletarian (yes, I still find it necessary to use the word), and generally a reactionary bulwark against radical political aspiration. (By the way, this holds for most traditional mythology in most "civilized cultures. Indeed, the concept of the "hero" is ripe for overly-individualistic values on behalf of the legitimacy of a ruling minority rather than power-to-the-people majoritarian principles.) But enough political theory. The point now is that the number one convention of all these genre action movies is the duel. The hero always gets to take on the gang of faceless hoods, one stylistically sexy move at a time. The gang never gangs up. They each step forward in a choreography of successive mini-duels. The aristocratic artist of fighting, the Zen-master of Kung Fu, duels and duels and duels. And wins and wins and wins. No thank you, not enough political theory. Ten guys can kick the shit out of anyone.

Hummnn... I'm still pretty bent, aren't I?


Dan:

Yes, you remain bent.

So the only fictional field of endeavour that has legitimacy is the realist school? What about magical realism? To hell with Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Screw Robertson Davies? Isn't there room in serious cinema for the fantastical?

As for the failure of super hero flicks, I'm no Ayn Rand, but jeez, don't the proles need inspirations too? I understand the appeal of the collective action of working class heroes, but without guidance, isn't there the danger that mobs will behave like mobs? Without a cohering agent, the collective will threatens to dissipate. We will always need the ideas and deeds of a few wise folk. Would the proletariat have tossed off their chains without the spirited leadership of Vladimir and Leon? Where would the Marxist be without Karl, or the Maoists with the Chairman? Whither Gandhi? Martin Luther King Jr.? Nelson Mandela?

Ben:

I am not taking the bait. Far from being a talent scout for Stalin, I am quite confident that if we consulted one of the major rants on behalf of realism that I sent you this summer, we will see that I made room for fantasy. As much as I would like to take up this topic, it is not the one at hand. In my critique of Hero I confessed to my realist dogmatism but this does not mean that I was attacking the fantastic flavor of the film as such. What I was picking on precisely was the relationship between the fighting and the physical environment. Now, for you, this may be nit-picking but for me it is the difference between the portrayal of reasonably credible heroes and fantastic superheroes. This is what I was after when I spoke of Marvel Comics and demi-gods. Perhaps I did not express myself well because this critical point was braided into my political assessment of heroes in general and their aristocratic form in particular as contained in dueling.

As for your promotion of certain individuals in history who have truly made a difference, as a fellow history teacher I do have to say that the so-called Great Man theory of history is only so compelling and really does require qualification by genuinely substantive social history. Nevertheless, I certainly agree that there are special individuals who are... what exactly? To answer this we need to depart from historical methods and, sorry, return to political theory. These individuals you highlight, I insist on understanding them as not "heroes" but rather "leaders." These are two very different categories. For leaders really emerge from the people in the first place and represent them. This emergence is riddled with contradictions and all too often leaders evolve into rulers. But this is a separate matter. Heroes, quite differently, are ideological entities who have at best a legendary reality but more often are purely mythical. They are literary cultural creations that inform the people about who they are as a people. Unlike a leader who is human all too human, to quote Neitzsche, a hero is, well let's let Friedrich say it again, an ubermensch, an over-man, a superman. And it's the darnedest thing. As leaders turn into rulers, the law of the land and the codes of the culture evolve away from the celebration of leadership and towards the worship of heroes. Next thing you know, the king has the mandate from heaven and all the rest of that hierarchical class mystification. Ironically - ironic because he became a poster boy for exactly what he condemned - Stalin had the best catch-phrase for political hero-worship: "The cult of the personality."

Were you meaning to keep me bitching about Hero? I think I blew my wad already but if you want I'm sure I can piss you off some more, by sheer repetition if nothing else. When I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I gave it the following review: "The thinking man's Jackie Chan." Following up on this, I have to say that Hero is the feeling man's Jackie Chan. Or to put it politically incorrectly, the gay guy's Jackie Chan. It's very pretty and very sensitive and a load of bullocks. It initially hints of being a footnote to Rashomon but does not deliver. It's political ambiguity may allow for some sort of emancipatory interpretation but the ultimate statement is one of submission to imperial domination. And the aristocratic dueling is an ideological model that mystifies both the reality of violence and the nature of ruling class power and privilege. I am hardly a fan of gore, but the bloodlessness of Hero is a dirty lie, a clean lie actually. In a way, I am more offended by this sanitary elite militarism - it's always martial "arts" - than I am by lumpen proletarian gratuitous blood-letting, lowest-common-denominator slasher action.

I attempted to get at this when I spoke of the relation between the fighting and the physical environment. At the heart of the aristocratic mystification is an anti-materialism, an idealist take on mind over matter. I won't go down this road any further except to say - on behalf of fantasy, go figure - it is not necessary to trash matter and embrace stupid spiritualism in order to explore unrealistic fictions. So I ask you. When they bounce off the surface of the lake? What's up with that Dan? I have confessed that I see the beauty of it. But what does it mean? Are they little gods or what?

Dan:

Okay, after all your five dollar word association games, I will blushingly confess that I was tryin gto bait you. But, I think you're over-reaching and over-reading it. Hero is ballet with swords. I know squat about ballet, but I'm pretty sure there's no blood in Swan Lake either. And the grand swashes of movement and colour are pretty damned cinematic, and don't really need much excuse as such, but I'm pretty sure that much of this aspect of the film is a direct lifting of Bollywood conventions, particularly in the tortured romance of the two assassins (three, I guess, if you count Zhang Ziyi's character, who assists Tony Leung's). Bollywood films are renowned for their operatic excess of emotion, particularly when it comes to tales of unrequited love, and bathe their films in a stomache-swirling orgy of colour and movement in order to reflect the character's emotional states. It is corny as hell, but it sure looks spectacular.

What all this has to do with China's first emperor I have no idea, and might be yet more proof that Zhang Yimou is not the most rigorous of thinkers, preferring to revel in the material rather than work his way through it intelligently. I'm not terribly bothered by that, in that I'm not sure he's expecting us to take the film all that seriously from an intellectual or philosophical standpoint. However, given the appropriation of actual real historical context, he must certainly take some responsibility for the political interpretations that are going to emerge as a result of folks looking for contemporary relevance (why else make such a film if there is no connection to today's world?), and I will grant that Hero is pretty confused about its politics. And I can see why, on the heels of seeing Rashomon, this film would look like so much tripe by comparison. Fortunately for my enjoyment, I saw Hero many, many years after I'd seen Rashomon, and wasn't terribly bothered by its inability to stand up to the comparison. Rather, I saw it in the midst of a string of typical Oscar bait films, which made it come out looking pretty damned decent by comparison.

Oh, and Jackie Chan? Love him. LOVE him. A modern day Buster Keaton. Too bad he decided that he had to make a string of shitty Hollywood pictures in order to become known here.

Ben:

You must know that I am a failed academic. I was in grad school for five years reading those five dollar words, a dollar per year it appears, and I still can't stop myself from trying to spend them from time to time. So often when I do, I find that my currency is not accepted, but at least you let me down with such sweet legal tender. But come on man, I usually warn you when a lecture is coming and I just about always apologize afterwards, sorta like Woody Allen after sex.

I know I am a snob. I know. You watch all sorts of movies, anything and everything, from what I gather from your various postings. You are right that it is not fair to judge Hero a week after watching Rashomon and all the rest of that Kurosawa to boot. At the same time, I make no bones about thinking most movies are junk and I do not watch them. Call me a poseur, a pretentious bore, yup, a snob. But I am also sincere. I can't help it. All I can offer in my defense is that I do have a sense of humor. Hell man, you'll grant me that, eh? So, for example, when you speak fondly of Bollywood product, I can only go there for about ten minutes, ironically with tongue planted firmly in cheek. It's just camp crap, a laugh in technicolor. And I have seen quite a bit of it, I'll have you know. Remember, I lived in Malaysia for a year and a half. But enough about me. I hear you, really I do.

Listen, though, I was not dissing Jackie. When I spoke of "thinking man's Jackie Chan," this was demeaning but not an insult, so to speak. You compare him to Buster Keaton. OK. And who would be the thinking man's Buster Keaton? Charlie Chaplin of course. But now the analogous argumentation breaks down. Because Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ain't no Chaplin. Verily, Chaplin is beyond compare.
Dan:

Ben, you can't be a failed academic. I mean, shit, what would that make ME? A toady's flunky?

Plus, you have skills that cannot be undervalued. You can cry on demand, which is clearly the sign of the sort of heightened sensitivity gifted only to the greatest thespians like Tom Cruise, and after reading every one of your lectures, I feel just a smidgen smarter.

Just remember, as Frank Capra once said, no man is a failure who has friends.

Conversations with Ben III

On the agenda: Rashomon

Ben sez:

What are ya gonna do? Sometimes the critics are right. Sometimes the director and cinematographer remember correctly as well. Fifty-five years later all that's left for me to do is confirm that it continues to stand the test of time, job one for great art. The film, plus the Special Feature interviews, plus the little booklet with the original two stories, the excerpt of K's autobio and the historical discussion by Stephen Prince - the whole package was an exceptionally educational experience.

Altman I found especially on the money, his awareness of being a foreigner to all sorts of cultural codes readily comprehensible to the Japanese and even more, his treatment of the ol' "seeing is believing" cognitive rule of thumb. What his treatment implicitly explained is that as an investigation into the subjectivity of truth - this particular investigation could only have been conducted in the medium of film. An approximation might be conducted as live theatre, but this could never be as powerful because nothing can fool the eye like the camera and it is precisely this fooling of the eye which constitutes the technical basis for the philosophic problematic.

And this gives me a chance to beat yet again one of my favorite dead horses. For K the "tricks" of technique, the "play" in form, the matters of style are not considered the stuff of content, the substance of the film. Quite the contrary, they serve the epistemological ambiguity and moral anguish being communicated. Prince comments, "Style for K is not an empty flourish." Damn straight. Hence, Rashomon - much much more indirectly and ultimately with far greater artistic power - delivers the moral mandate for film-making itself that is front and centre in Camera Buff. If you are going to "fool the eye" - you better be doing it to say something worth saying.

One of the things given only cursory mention by Prince that I couldn't stop remembering was that this film was released only half a decade after the atomic bombings. That K could not go over to total despair, that he had to provide an act of redemption to the woodcutter in the final scene, this says a lot about his personal emotional healthiness. After all, nothing of the sort happens in either of the two original stories. Or is it just the 1950's Japanese version of the Hollywood happy ending for commercial considerations? I think not.

I won't go on and on. But I do want to give myself credit - once again - for noticing the technical brilliance of the woodcutter's initial walk into the forest. While watching it I didn't understand it, I didn't know yet that the forest was a metaphor for intellectual confusion (as distinct from the standard metaphor of the forest as amoral non-civilization). The scene seemed so long and pointless. This lapse in my interpretive ability created a space in my technical sensitivity. I began to wonder how in hell they filmed the scene. It was amazing. So I was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes explanation that was provided. Brilliant! It's just fucking stupid how good it is. The whole film. You know the feeling you sometimes get that it is somehow rude that a craftsman crafted something so... perfectly. The guy was definitely visited by The Muse.

Dan respondz:

The element of the exotic is always an interesting one with Kurosawa, because he got in such hot water with his native land for being so in love with the cinema and techniques of the west. Yet, to you and I (and, I suspect, most filmgoers who first came across his work in the 40s and 50s) a film like Rashomon seems like it comes to us from another world. Imagine how exotic he would have seemed had he not been a big fan of John Ford! We westerners probably never would have heard of him.

Rashomon adheres because it is both alien and accessible. The story's setting might as well be a fairy tale for most of us in the west, the characters are so foreign to our experience. And the acting is so far from anything we are familiar and/or comfortable with, particularly the apparent screechy excess of the female victim, that it pushes our sense of other-ness to the seeming breaking point.

BUT, this multi-foliate flower of a tale has much that we recognize as well. The character's flaws are as familiar to us as any in western literature from the time of Chaucer onward, and Kurosawa's many narratives remain clear and distinct despite their contradictions because he edits them together (and keeps them apart) so beautifully that it makes the journey through this confusion nearly effortless for the viewer.

So, yes, style contributes impressively to the thematic substance of the film, as the moral ambiguity and existential crisis that the narratives elicit from the characters and audience are captured in some striking imagery (the sunlight speckling through the woods being K's money shot in that regard). I'm not so sure as you that the happy ending works; it feels kind of forced given the despair we've been witnessing throughout. Then again, at this point in its history, did Japan really need another knee to the gonads? I think not.

Then Ben:

think your treatment is quite dialectical. You are explaining a dynamic interpenetration of opposites. What is more, we are getting beyond film criticism as such and jumping full bore into cultural studies because the issue really is one of the relation between an artistic work and a non-domestic audience reception of it. I didn't want to say a "foreign" audience because it seems to me that much of what you are explaining is the non-foreign reception of what is, dialectally, plainly alien stuff. To simply suggest that the artistic work is therefore "universal" is not incorrect but is analytically crude and ultimately empty. The dialectics you foster deal with the relation between concrete (Japanese) forms and universal (humanist) themes. I like this in and of itself but I also like it as an all-purpose methodology; indeed, I am imposing this methodological paradigm of mine on your treatment. I won't bore you further with my personal intellectual religion. Suffice to finish by suggesting that this dialectic is at the heart of a good relation between form and content as distinct from a one-sided, bad relation. For style is always a concrete thing. Content may or may not be universal but we deem it more worthwhile when it is, we judge the work superior when it is. So the whole problem of style and content - that I refuse to stop talking about - is derivative of a deeper, more abstract matter concerning the dialectics of the concrete and the universal.

And Dan:

All this agreement between us does mess with the dialectic, doesn't it?

Ben [fin]:

Yes it does. We have to earn synthesis.

Conversations With Ben II

On the agenda: David Cronenberg's ouevre

Dan:

I saw two films that could not possibly be more unalike this weekend: Wallace and Gromit and David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. The former was charming as hell (no surprise to a committed W & G fan), and a real film lover's delight (Nick Parks just loves dropping references to other films in his work). The latter is almost certainly going to be one of the more controversial and divisive films of the year. On the surface, a pretty straight ahead thriller, with a coupla wild and raunchy sex scenes and copious incidents of gruesome violence. But hidden beneath it all, a rather unflinching study of America's apparently primal need to cheer violence. It's a 21st century Taxi Driver, with a hero who at least appears to be a little kindler and gentler than Travis Bickle. Which is exactly how Cronenberg sucks us in, and ends up implicating us in all the violence--who doesn't wanna root for Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen plays the protagonist--he starred in the three Hobbit films that you haven't seen, which is me trying to explain my "Aragorn" reference). At least, that's the way I see it. William Hurt and Ed Harris get some meaty/pulpy roles, and they chew them into tiny little pieces. I suspect Hurt in particular is going to receive his fair share of awards next spring. Viggo is also pretty impressive as the all-American Dirty Harry as well. Definitely a film worth seeing, though not if you are at all squeamish.


Ben:

I too think the world of W&G and I'm glad to be informed that their feature length debut is up to the standard of their three shorts; Wrong Trousers is the best, followed by Close Shave and finally Grand Day Out. As for Cronenberg, I avoid him like the plague. For me he is yet another decadent director. Just because everyone likes this new one more than Atom Egoyan's latest, I'm still not interested. I almost took a look at the one he did years ago with Jeremy Irons because Irons is so excellent and it sounded bloody interesting. But I still passed. I will let you tell me otherwise, but I am prejudiced. No matter how much critical or ironic or inside-looking-out spin on the thing, for me it is middle-class slumming. But hey, what do I know? I think Tarantino is a bum too.

Dan:

All's I have to say about that is this: There's a difference between chronicling decadence and being decadent. Dead Ringers (the Irons film) is a pretty potent film, but if you ain't into Cronenberg, I doubt that I'll be able to talk you into seeing it.

Oh, and given your stated squeamishness, I doubt that Dead Ringers is the film for you. It curled my toes, and I'm pretty much desensitized thanks to years of watching Japanese horror, Sam Peckinpah and Quentin Tarantino flicks. You migth find Spider more up your alley, but alas I do not possess Spider any longer--I passed it along to another "Cronenberger."

I will say that the grisliness of Cronenberg's ouevre is pretty much essential to his purpose, which in A History of Violence is to get us to try to understand what makes us so drawn to brutality. Much like Scorsese did in Taxi Driver (and that film's bloody climax is pretty fucking horrific), where he forces the audience to confront it's fetishism of guns, while also satirizing society's willingness to worship the most depraved acts of violence (it's all about context), Cronenberg is getting at some pretty interesting ideas about tribalism and audience (or societal) culpability in our vengeful rituals of bloodletting. The "hero" in A History of Violence is presented as not just a decent man, but as "the best man I've ever known" according to his beautiful and successful wife (she's a lawyer). So we're intended to not just like this guy, but to follow him to the ends of the earth (like those damned hobbits, which is why this is such great casting by Cronenberg.) Then, after giving us this wonderful hero, Cronenberg takes him away from us, one scene at a time, until the man we see at the end of the film couldn't be more opposite. Yet, we continue to pull for him, despite his clear depravity. It's a remarkable bit of trickery--akin to casting Jimmy Stewart as Travis Bickle--that really challenges us to think about just why we are cheering this deranged figure on his bloody way.And I'm not sure Cronenberg could have pulled it off if he hadn't forced us to look at all the violence dead in the eye.



Ben:

You compare A History of Violence to Taxi Driver. I haven't seen the former of course, but I notice in your comparison you don't mention what really explains and justifies Taxi Driver for me; namely, the context of the Vietnam War. Taxi Driver is not just a harsh condemnation of the violence prevalent in American society. It is much deeper than this because it connects the then-contemporary expression of this violence to be a manifestation of U.S. militarism generally speaking. Incidentally - since I'm raving - I do feel that for some time after Taxi Drive and Raging Bull and perhaps a few others, Scorcese was - not merely repeating himself - but going over to and becoming the very object he had previously criticized. So, in my estimation, Good Fellas is no better than a Brian DePalma picture, say, Scarface.

As for Cronenberg, once again I apologize for being so opinionated about something with which I have no experiential knowledge. But damn, it just sounds like titillation to me. I hope by now I have irritated you enough to compel you to compel me to watch some of his work.
[PAUSE TO TALK WITH MONICA] Turns out I have seen a few Cronenberg films. I have seen The Fly with Jeff Goldblum which I remember as sorta gross but not too bad, but quite funny, in a sort of a dark, Beetlejuice way. I have also seen Naked Lunch with Peter Coyote (?), no that's not right, which I remember as not exactly working but trying hard and besides, this was one of those occasions when I really had read the book, so it's not a fair fight. So what I need to catch up on is the stuff where people fuck the wounds of car crash victims and sinister gynecology with foreign instruments.

Dan:

Naked Lunch is with Peter Weller and Judy Davis, an interesting actress whose fragility and neuroses never fail to make me feel extremely nervous. The point-of-view experimentation he does here is what he also tries with Spider.

As for the context argument with Cronenberg, well, do we really need a specific war to blame for American's penchant for bloody resolutions for all conflicts? A History of Violence sets one tribe against another in a standard us vs. them dynamic--the cop in the innocuous midwestern town of the film's setting says at one point that "we take care of our own" while the Philly mobsters who later come looking for the protagonist are likewise folks who "take care of their own." Anybody who is not one of "us" is a suspect, and such folk can be violently dispatched without causing undue harm to one's position in society. And while I compare AHOV to Taxi Driver, I don't claim it is that film's equal. Viggo is no deNiro, Cronenberg no (young) Scorsese. It's just that the film asks similar questions about American's love affair with guns and violence, and packs a bit of a punch.

Ben:

Peter Weller, right! Robo Cop. Whatever happened to him? Judy Davis I remember from a number of shows, including work with Woody Allen. Yup, the roles I remember her in are definitely commercials for some pharmaceuticals or another or possibly every color of pill you can get your hands on all at once.

Listen, I am not so over the top as to continue riding my puritanical high horse about Cronenberg. Still, I do want to respond to your (rhetorical) question about context. I want to discuss historical context as it pertains to realism in general and political realism in particular.

If it were mandatory to draw on actual history in order to establish realism in art, well, this realistic art would pretty much cease to be art and would instead become the study of history itself. Same goes for current events and the example of Kieslowski's departure from documentaries to fiction is a case in point. Journalism. Making up stories. Not the same task. Fine. Having conceded this, however, I think we need also to acknowledge that the realism most meaningfully realistic is the realism that makes some use of socially experienced facts. Historically speaking, this is not simply a matter of setting, authentic period costumes, non-anachronistic technologies and such, although these details can sometimes pack a hell of a realistic punch. No, the facts I have in mind can be at a much more general level, having to do more abstractly with the ideas of the society as a whole, providing a context that some German labeled zeitgeist; except not necessarily with the happy unity this implies, possibly instead focusing on prominent tears in the social fabric. In short, realism requires that the story be historically located. Furthermore, I argue that the more overtly and intentionally political the work of realism, the more historically located it must be. It must be so because being political is all about entering into the conflict. Not necessarily taking a side, although usually, but not pretending to stand above the conflict with some bogus scientific or philosophic neutrality either. Of course, none of what I have just said has any bearing on work that is obviously and purposefully unrealistic. The criteria for this, indeed the degree to which truly fantastic tales are conceivable, is a related but different problem.

Now, I have just allowed for art that makes no claims on realism and therefore also on historically contextualized politics. Fine. This escape hatch is now open for any work that might get criticized for being inadequate in this regard. But work that does present itself in cultural categories and situations in order to make ostensibly realistic statements about violence, man's inhumanity to man, what have you - so often I find that this work claims to be apolitical but in fact is jam-packed with ideological assumptions and premises. These are not explicitly identified because the work would have us believe that it is apolitical. Yet, at the same time, it would have us believe that it is realistic. What is the essentially tricky step in this fancy footwork? The absence of historical context. The work is not historically located and this allows it to come across as "above politics" while simultaneously pouring out politics buried inside so much high theory about human nature or the existential predicament or whatever you will.

You ask, "do we really need a specific war to blame for American's penchant for bloody resolutions for all conflicts?" My response is: No we don't need a specific war, but on the other hand, wouldn't it take more than one movie to talk about every war started by the United States? Because if we are traveling in the realm of realism, we have to have some goddamn war when it comes to the United States. Because that is the history of the United States. (I won't attempt to paraphrase all of Howard Zinn here.) And with all due respect, if we do not draw on this history to provide context, we get your rationale for a film, i.e., that it "sets one tribe against another in a standard us vs. them dynamic." Dan, I am not convinced there ever was a standard tribal us vs. them dynamic but even if there ever was, it surely must have ceased to exist at least 5000 years ago. Once more, with all due respect, this kind of supposedly anthropological thinking tends to comes out of and feed back into the ruling class mobilization of populations for imperialist projects.

Again, I know nothing about and should therefore stop addressing Cronenberg in all of this. Seriously though, the title, "A History of Violence" - it should be A History of US Foreign Policy. I'm only partly joking. Taxi Driver touched on - just touch on history, that's all I'm asking for, just touch it man - the Vietnam War. Today we are desperate for a film-maker to touch on Iraq. Kieslowski's personal artistic evolution demonstrates in spades that Michael Moore is not enough. Documentaries are not enough. We need art. Historically located, politically engaged, morally committed art. Otherwise our art really is so much "entertainment," bread and circuses. For the educated, this takes the form of exercises in form itself, style for the sake of style... but I already subjected you to that speech this summer. Suffice to shut up now by adding that would-be deconstructions of violence-as-such fall into this camp. You get to go to the circus and feel morally superior to it at the same time,

Dan:

You must know that we are largely in agreement on these things, right? I can hardly wait to see an intelligent filmmaker take on the Iraqi war (David O. Russell made a tangential effort to deal with the 1st Gulf War in Three Kings, but he's a bit of a loose cannon intellectually speaking, and the film ended up being kinda incoherent, politically speaking.) I must take up one point, however. The "standard us v. them" dynamic I'm referring is not some global tribal animus, but rather the standard "yer either with us or agin' us" or "America, love it or leave it" false dichotomies that are run straight on through the U.S. cultural and political fabric. I don't think humans are naturally or instinctively so; far from it. I believe we are social creatures meant to live in communal cooperation (which is not to say we are meant to live harmoniously--discord is also necessary to prevent lapse into a comfortable reliance on stability and raising the status quo to some sorta godlike status, the way the fundies do with religion and the US Constitution.) I am, after all, nearly as big a Red as you are (few of us can claim to be as big as you, after all. /rimshot.) What's interesting (in a Confucian sense) is how many people, including many and, by and large, the most powerful, Americans have taken that natural instinct to huddle together and used it as a rationale for striking out at everything that is not them. And I think this is what Cronenberg is trying to get at in AHOV. Granted, he's no deep thinker, so his film is more visceral than philosophical, but I still think it has a place at the table where such issues are discussed. Even if it is at the kiddie table.


Ben:
For what it's worth, I have a bad case of devil's advocate. Hearing you agree with me makes me want to disagree with myself. Now that you have made it plain that the right-wing take on civilization is not being advertised by either of us, I must reveal that I have been very influenced by Sartre's existential interpretation of Marxism, i.e., "other-ness" in and of itself is a problem in the human condition and a genuine challenge to the formation of political solidarities in any circumstances. This is as close as I get to saying that there is a standard us vs. them dynamic. Now tell me that the moon is made of green cheese so we have something to debate.

Conversations with Ben

Ben Livant is a jazz lover and good friend of mine who I have been lending movies to for awhile now. His appreciation knows no bounds. Well, actually, his willingness to talk talk talk, usually about himself, knows no bounds. But he's a bright fellow and an all around good chap, so I asked him if he'd mind if I published some of our email conversations about film. I present to you now the first of many such chats.

Ikiru (Japan, 1951, Kurosawa) AKA Live and Let Die

Ben:

I am a wreck. I couldn't sleep last night after Ikiru, literally could not sleep. It didn't help that I had had a nap the afternoon beforehand, always a stupid move on my part. And it didn't help that it was 1:30 in the morning when the film finished. But none of this addresses what Chairman Mao refers to as "the principle aspect." The film messed me up. Messed me up good.

I have yet to hear from the Special Features. I am hoping that the historical and analytical discussions therein will provide me with some sort of intellectual sanctuary from the overwhelming emotional damage I am experiencing. Simply put, I am depressed. The film depressed me. It is only because of a weakness in my personality, my particular mode of insecurity, that I need to talk as if I am not devastated inside. This time, I tender my review in order to initiate my own therapy.

It hurt me too much for me place it above Rashomon, although part of me suspects it is somehow the superior artwork. I guess it all depends on what poison you pick more often than the other, total head case (Rashomon) or spike to the heart (Ikiru)? Certainly this is a vulgar oversimplification. Even so, RA resonates morality secondarily, strongly, very strongly, but ultimately as an epiphenomenon of the epistemological study at the center of it all. And it is very much a study, an intellectual exercise, almost a scholarly investigation - but still socially situated, (which is why it is genuinely ethical too). IK, on the other hand, is a shotgun blast of existential desperation. It is also very moral and actually more overtly political than RA. But we are deep into Camus territory. The singular person isolated in the universe, confronted by the sheer fact of personal death. Thus, the point of departure is itself the destination, let's just call it, shivering naked unto darkness. This is gut level man; to be or not to be, and by the way, whatever. And yet, IK is really two films at once, isn't it? But that deserves another paragraph. (Another chapter of a book is more like it). What I am attempting to glimpse in this paragraph is a defense mechanism in my own taste. I "like" RA more than IK for the same "reasons" I like Stalker more than Rublev. Stalker is a mind-fuck. Rublev is bleeding all over the place. Turns out I really am squeamish, in the deepest sense of the term. But in my heart, I know Rublev is the gold-medal masterpiece, just that inch above Stalker. And I am feeling that the same must be true of IK over RA too. (Or will the Seven Samuria wipe the floor with everything? I know Ran will not.)

Another reason why I cleave to RA was addressed by Altman; the literally foreign cultural style involved. Ironically, because Japanese medieval history, cultural norms, acting techniques and so on are alien to me, at a certain level I am not emotionally challenged by them. I can allow myself to be impressed by them because they are relatively non-threatening psychologically. I don't want to exaggerate this line of thought. It's not as if I regarded RA as an exotic curiosity from my condescending point of view. Hell no. It's just that I was conscious of being an outsider.

Nothing of the sort occurred for me watching IK. Of course, the depiction of Japanese society in the early 1950s was far removed from my own experience. The government office, the nightlife, the wake, yadda yadda, all of it. But at the same time, the film was intensely familiar as a film. It reminded me of a Frank Capra movie, except, you know, way way way deep, without the bullshit candy coating, turned inside out and on its ass. It also reminded me of Citizen Kane. (With respect to technique, I am not educated enough to put my finger on why, although thematically there are some rather striking parallels.) The upshot of this is that I did not feel like an outsider looking at IK and this speaks to how it managed to affect me so thoroughly. I guess this is what critics mean when they talk about such-and-such art having "universal" meaning.

I don't feel competent to discuss the two-films-in-one that is IK. All I want to report is that it works, it fucking works, and it's a monster artistic achievement. As well, there is all sorts of wonderful shots and staggering editing and powerful acting and... I can't comment coherently without additional viewing. All I do want to mention, in general about Kurosawa because this is equally true of RA and IK, his use of silence is beyond compare. He employs degrees of silence - no music, no sound effects, no ambient sound, no dialogue, and sometimes no sound track at all. I swear, sometimes he films with the audio turned off. It's as if he returns to the silent era. And of course, he is entirely intentional about this. Everyone pays lip service to the degradation of cinema with the advent of the talkies. But Kurosawa truly walks the walk and doesn't talk the talk.

Second last paragraph. Content. I have already acknowledged the centrality of lonely mortality in the picture. And I think that some version of existentialism is underneath this. Whether or not this should be interpreted as a manifesto of despair is, well, a matter of interpretation. At the end of RA when the woodcutter adopts the abandoned baby, the monk thanks him for restoring his faith in mankind. Clearly, KI doesn't even come close to handing us this ice cream cone. Nevertheless, the man does build the park. He does! And we do get to see children playing in it. When he has the epiphany that he can do something, the other people in the restaurant sing Happy Birthday in an incidental scene but it is clear, Watanabe is born again. Kurosawa alludes to the tune in the background music later on as well. The man ends his life on a swing, a happy child. He dies with the Zen wisdom of one who "doesn't know any better", doesn't know that "it can't be done". Hence, it got done.

Last paragraph. While there is much about existentialism that I respect, ultimately it cannot provide the philosophic or political grounds for a socialist bearing on life. (Relax, I am merely asserting this here. I won't argue it.) Now, I won't suggest that IK is a socialist film but I do want to point out that Wantanabe's activism does not take place in a social vacuum. That the film presents a scathing critique of civil service and public institutions in the supposedly "new" Japan of the post-war period is impossible to miss. That this reconstruction of Japan is under the thumb of US imperial design is not as plain but still evident. When the women finally complain after being given the bureaucratic run-around that this is bogus "democracy," they are turning American ideological warfare against itself. And speaking of these women, they are not trivial in this film. In fact, the role of womanhood is serious business throughout the film. Nevermind a socialist reading, a feminist reading is leaping off the screen. The dead wife, the girl who quits the office, even the dancehall whores - but I confine myself to the community mothers in relation to Wantanabe's existential turning point. They are a unified collective. They have social consciousness. They bring a practical problem forward and in doing so, they give Wantanabe the opportunity to actually do something with his life, they give him a second chance. And what is more, they acknowledge him. They are the benefactors of his life's work and to this they are his witnesses. And as I write this I realize that I have managed to cheer myself up a bit. Because these women really did come to know Wantanabe. They genuinely mourn his death at the wake. He is not an unknown soldier. They will tell their children who built their park.

Dan:

Plenty to chew on here, Ben. Unfortunately, I'm battling an intestinal bug, which makes me unwilling to swallow.

Really, though, I think you'll find the commentary quite interesting (I've only heard part of it) as it does indeed touch a bit upon the social context of the film, which is clearly vital to any reading of it. Given it's rather savage critique of conditions in post-war Japan, the film could not have been made even six months earlier, when all films needed governmental (and American) approval. And I think you are definitely onto something regarding the housefrau's, who are a vital humanizing influence on this faceless bureaucracy, as well as the conscience of this community. And I do think there are small moments of hope. While it is tempting to get all cynical and remember that all the bureaucrats backtrack on their promises to become more involved and constructive in honour of Watanabe's memory, one of them DOES stop to look at the playground. One does remember him. And yes, certainly, the women will carry on his memory through their children.

Still and all, the film's iconic image--of Watanabe on the swing--is just so awesome and beautiful that, years later when you think back on the film, you will almost forget that this is one of the saddest movies ever made.

Ben:

Yes, one of the (minor) bureaucrats does stop on the bridge to look at the playground. It is the same guy who most sincerely spoke of Wantanabe's achievement at the wake and who later attempted to do something on the job, momentarily challenging the authority of the new supervisor. But this outburst comes to nothing. And it is AFTER this incident that he is shown on the bridge with the sunset Wantanabe discovered again behind him, watching the children in the park. Of course, it's ambiguous. But for me, this individual does not represent hope. All I've got is the mothers (no Frank Zappa) and their kids, especially the kids. They are the future, after all.

Dan:

Yeah, but how long have we been saying THAT? And to what end? No, no, no, I take that back. I love kids. They're so much better than people.

And don't give up on that bureaucrat! At least he has a conscience, which distinguishes him from most around him.

Ben:

About children being given a moral priority, or not, you're just pissed 'cause you daughter gave you a bug. Truthfully though, I know where you're coming from. (Hello, we are high school teachers.) I hate those little yield signs people hang in their cars: "Baby On Board." Like I give a shit. Makes me want to kill the kid and let the driver live just to spite the driver.

As for that bureaucrat, yes, he has a conscience. And he once tried to take action. Will he try again?

A swing is a hell of thing isn't it? When was the last time you rode one? My kids have outgrown playgrounds. It's all about sports fields now. But every now and then, when we used to go, after they learned to pump for themselves, I would take a swing. I was never one to go very high, made me feel as though I was coming down with an intestinal bug... sorry; but you know, that feeling in the belly. But a swing ride... what more is there really? A swing ride - oh man, the problem with me is I just don't know when to take a drink.

I have always been gravitationally challenged. Acceleration challenged too. Never enjoyed rides at the fair and the like. I'm even centrifugally challenged. The merry-go-round? Only for a brief, mid-tempo moment. So a swing ride for me was always poignant. Even as a kid, I rode it like a middle-aged person, reflecting on the experience instead of just having it. Still, even though I could not stand a thrill, there was enough motion through the air for me to feel free... for a brief, mid-tempo moment.