"A movie review is a reflection of your life." -Michael Phillips
What's my spin? I'm often looking at film from an ethical (not moralistic) stance. What does a film communicate about right and wrong especially in relationships?
This early Frank Capra film gives us what we see
often in later film: A group of rag-tag misfits who stick together although the
odds are against them. Some of them are
related, some are not, but the point is that they are family because each of
them have a unique vision of life and they are all encourage to pursue that
vision. Each have a skill that they practice and they are given that chance to
promote their own personal growth, despite the way they look.
We
are encouraged to find families, not necessarily connected through flesh and
blood, of people that will support us being who we are, and will find ways to
help us use our skills, even if they are rare.
Also Watch: Notting Hill, Delicatessen, Another Year, the Toy Story films Read more of this blog series, The Way Forward
Powell and Pressburger are at their best when they claim to
be giving you one genre, in this case a war film, but end up giving you
something much better and surprising. This film depicts the friendship between
a British General and a German officer through the wars of the first half of
the 20th century. Their
relationship began as a rivalry between enemies, and then grew to grudging
respect and then complete admiration, despite being on different sides and
having wildly different opinions.
Even
so, we must realize that our allies and supporters might not come from people
on “our” side. Sometimes people who
disagree strongly are still the human connection we need to keep going in life.
Also watch: How to Train Your Dragon, Catch Me If You Can, District 9, Joyeux
Noel, The Son
Many of us are living in anger right now. Anger at the “other side” who is trying to
take our world from us. Anger at
ourselves for not doing enough. Anger
at people who are stupid, just so stupid, because they can’t see what is
real. Many of us live with just a spark
of hope, or with despair because we don’t know what the future holds.
I’m here to tell you that movies can help.
Cast Away
Well, frankly, any complex text might be able to help us. There is truth in every section of the
library, in every art, and there is lie.
We need to seek it out, to find what is true for us. But I believe that movies, yes, even movies,
can guide us to hope in a world of anger and despair. They can give us a path forward.
Movies, for the most part, are stories. Sometimes stories with a moral, sometimes
just stories to entertain us. But within
all of these stories is a piece of our own humanity. And it is that humanity that gives us the way
forward. Over the next number of posts
today I will be presenting a set of movies that I believe give us a way forward
in an uncertain world.
Do you hear that sound? That is what nothing sounds like.
The funny thing about nothing is that, on this planet, it does not exist. Even
the deaf hear, through their fingertips.
I spent about ten years in the deaf world. I was
professionally an interpreter for the hearing impaired for that time. I
attended their churches, went to their parties, attended their classes, visited
deaf professors, went to their concerts (yes, they have concerts) and hung out
with students. And in all that time there is one word that I would never
describe the deaf world, which is silent. Every conversation is punctuated with
guttural and popping sounds. Their lives are filled with loud music, because
some hard of hearing folks can hear it, barely, and others can feel it. There
are hearing aids making loud pitched noises that the owner is unaware of. There
is always banging and loud pounding to get people's attention and because no
one is going to complain about the noise.
So the idea that The Tribe is mostly silent is the opposite
of what I expected. These deaf people are more like very active ghosts than
real deaf folks, more reminiscent of the shadows in Vampyr I just saw. And I
think it goes along with the point. At first, the decision to not translate the
sign language I thought was to make a film directed toward the deaf. But I know
ASL, and while the folks in the deaf school used a variant of ASL, it was
mostly unknown to me. Only the deaf from the region of Europe they are in could
make it all out. I got enough clues to know that most of the dialogue is
conversation about what is just about to happen, so no one is missing more than
nuances. And deaf folks couldn't get it anyway. Sometimes conversations are
filmed from their backs, so no one could read the signs. It's all artfully
done, but communication isn't the point.
In fact, it is the opposite of the point. What we have here
is a form of Meek's Cutoff, where the hearing audience can understand for a
couple hours what it is like to be deaf. There is a whole society around you
and you can only make out clues as to what is going on, because no one is
including you. And if you are not specifically thought of and spoken directly
to, then events and motivations and intents are mysterious, until they are done
and you had no idea what was happening. Even then, you might wonder, "why are
they doing this" and only have clues as to the answer.
The deaf person's most common question to a hearing person
is, "What did they say?", which is the very question the hearing
person asks again and again in this movie, but knowing that they aren't going to
get an answer, they just remain silent, mystified, and mostly bored until
something exciting, which one could never anticipate, happened. It is a full
turning of the tables.
But most hearing people wouldn't understand. They would just
say, "That film was just annoying." Right on. You got it.
Still, it is a slow gangster flick. I agree with the point,
and I get it. That doesn't mean I was entertained as much as I was enlightened.
Delayed until her servant’s due was paid in full, her death
was feared lest damnation be her fate.
“Doctor, please, grant me release from
this destiny!” fell on closed ears for his lust was for blood.
Shades, broken from the stranglehold of life, sought her
release,
For only those completely freed
May unencumbered seek the unchaining of another.
A cinematic feast, Dreyer does it again, having the eye and
the power to create genius scenes. The story as a whole might be weak and slow,
but there are individual sights and scenes to keep one enthralled. The biggest
weakness of the film are the long stretches of text... I didn't know I was
going to be reading a book! But there are more than enough visual joys to make
up for it.
This movie was made for activists, presenting the ideas of
an extreme activist. I'm a moderate activist, myself, but I've spoken to the
extreme folks and I get it. Here's the basic viewpoint: The United States is
falling into poverty because of leaders who are taking resources and using them
for nefarious purposes. They are paying off people who might whistleblow and so
keeping them quiet. Meanwhile, your average person is on the edge of being
homeless, pushed around by those in power, numbed by television and other forms
of mass media which convince us all to consume and obey the powers.
Of course, since They Live is a science fiction story, the
leaders are alien businessmen and you need a pair of special glasses to see
what's really going on.
In one sense, They Live is a spoof of this viewpoint, and a
comedy. Two guys spend almost ten minutes in a fistfight, trying to get one to
put on a pair of sunglasses, after which they are the best of friends, walking
around with bruises and puffy faces. I'm still laughing at the ridiculous of
that scene.
On the other hand, the insidiousness of the paranoid
scenario is scary, because it is partly true, and we know it. All I have to do
is mention Dick Cheney or Edward Snowden and we know that there's something to
it. That same fight scene touches something deep, because the man who won't put
on the glasses knows that this new knowledge of the world will change him,
place him and his family in danger, and so he desperately is resisting that
insight. He has too much at stake.
But the knowledge is there, in the real world, and sometimes
we can't avoid it. We will often stumble upon it, pursuing our own interests. I
am involved in homelessness and I know that there are blocks to certain kinds
of homeless folks ever succeeding to fit into society, even though they are
doing nothing wrong. I also know that others are being paid hundred thousands
of dollars a year to shuffle homeless people from one street corner to another,
and to make it look as if they are really accomplishing something. I personally
know pastors and churches who are professional level societies, who talk about
justice and peace, but won't do anything about the beggars around their corner.
But I also know that this is nothing new. The issues of
homelessness and of white trash are older than the discovery of America. I wish
that we could blame our callousness and ignorance on aliens or the Illuminati
coming to take our resources. But more often than not it is bureaucracy that
stands in the way of relief. I wish that we couldn't see the messages,
"Sex is success" or "conform" without a pair of glasses on
every magazine. But it is all human, all coming out of our everyday natures. It
is all easy to see, if we would but look. The ignorance is within ourselves,
because, like Frank, we'd rather be secure than know. Because if we admitted
that we really knew how evil our culture was, then we'd have to do something
about it.
As far as the film itself, it is really well done, balancing
the two sides of hinting at paranoid reality and laughing at the same point of
view. There is but one problem: the lead actor. Roddy Piper as the lens through
which we see this world is a very poor choice. He can't even rummage through a
box of glasses believably, let alone give us a believable line reading. Never
have I missed Kurt Russel more.
