Rape Vs. Infidelity

This week I watched the fantastic 1993 New Zealand film, The Piano. It was a great film about a woman, unable to speak, that is sold into a marriage. This woman, Ada, speaks through sign language and her gifted piano playing. However, the man she marries, Alisdair Stewart, doesn't have enough room in his small house and doesn't let Ada bring the piano and it remains on a beach. One of Stewart's friends, George Baines, takes her to the piano on the beach so she can play it. When Baines hears her play he beings to develop an attraction to her. He begins doing various acts to help her and she--eventually--begins to be attracted to him. In short, there's a bit of tug and pull between the two but they end up making in love, and are caught by Ada's husband Alisdair. 
Ada and Baines have an interesting relationship. But I had the question asked about there relationship and "is it rape?"
I will say that the film is a feminist film. But rape? I wouldn't go that far with it. At all. Just because she is unable to speak, that gives her a disability and one can make the argument that Baines takes advantage of that. And he does, to an extent. But there is an extent and the relationship never reaches a point of rape. When the film ends, which man is she with? For spoiler purposes we won't say but for those of you who know ask yourself that, then ask yourself if their relationship was rape.
When Ada discovers she can't keep the piano, Baines is the one that takes her to it. When she plays he begins to find her attractive. She, at first, isn't in to him. However, Ada eventually realizes she misses Baines and goes back to him, which leads to sex, which Stewart witnesses outside the house. Therefore, it is not rape, it is infidelity.

The 'Right' Thing to Do

This week I viewed the 1989 film Do The Right Thing. An intriguing film about an African American named Mookie and his relationship with his boss, an Italian American, and the rest of a Brooklyn neighborhood. The films main points center around the movement for racial equality and racial justice. The title, Do The Right Thing, refers to the choices the characters must make to obtain the racial justice they desire.
But what is "the right thing?" When the film ends two quotes appear. One from Martin Luther King Jr. and the other from Malcolm X. The two quotes make up the ongoing conflict in the film itself.

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral..." -Martin Luther King Jr. 

"...I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence." -Malcolm X

Dr. King believes that violence is wrong and that people should be passive in their attempts to receive equality. Malcolm X believes that violence can be used in self-defense. He says earlier in the quote that if someone in power has what you need and is acting oppressively than you must do what it takes to establish equality. These two quotes make up Mookie's story.

In the end, Mookie throws a trash can through Sal's window. He is using Malcolm X's quote and doing what he thinks is necessary to receive equality from his Italian American boss. I believe that Mookie did not do the right thing. However, I do think violence would eventually be the answer but Mookie's act is wrong. Mookie vandalized and ended up destroying Sal's property. Sal never really destroyed Mookie's property.
In my opinion, doing the right thing means doing what you need to do to achieve achieve this equal relationship with others. Smashing in a window isn't one of these things. Like I said, violence would probably be needed eventually because acting passively wasn't getting things done in Mookie's situation. An interesting point to think about however is this: were white American's doing the right thing as well? Depending on the perspective, white Americans weren't necessarily doing the right thing either. So how is Mookie supposed to do the right thing to those who aren't doing the right thing.

Shot Within a Shot Analysis

I'm definitely a fan of cult movies--when they're really good. I often feel that they are hit or miss for me.   And it's this way for a lot of people. It is known that cult classics can sometimes be relatively low budget films, making a cult film "so bad it's good," a term coined by critic Michael Medved. I'd say that's the case in the 1970 film El Topo.

The story this film attempts to tell isn't all that bad and it has certain cinematic qualities that all films desire. In particular, the above scene really caught me. There are a lot of close ups in this film that capture the intense emotions the characters are expressing. This shot, while it's not necessarily a true close up, does a fantastic job of capturing the emotions of the entire scene, of almost every character in this shot, the Colonel and one of his men. 

Throughout the movie so far (the first 22 minutes) there are, what some might call, cowboys, gallivanting through the desert, abusing and taking advantage of people and laughing at just how great they think they are. We discover that these men work for the Colonel. It is also hinted to us the the Colonel is an extremely powerful man and the most respected and important person in the film. 

This scene captures just how important he really is. The Colonel steps outside and the cowboys immediately stop laughing. A close up of the back of the Colonel slowly pans down to the shot you see above. The pan down shot reveals all the metals and weapons the Colonel has, revealing why he is so respected and powerful. While still staying with that same shot of the Colonel, we also see through that shot into another perfect shot, framed by the Colonel's legs. 

For starters, this shot does an incredible job of showing how great and mighty the Colonel is and how week and small the cowboys are compared to him. Then we get a great view of that face the cowboy has. Fear. That's immediately what one perceives. Altogether you get a shot within a shot, creating one cohesive shot that reveals a mighty ruler and his feeble servant who has been reverted to a small, desperate man on his knees in fear. 

Seconds and The Joker

Dystopias are common in a lot of movies. Many film plots involve a hero making the world a better place. Or a hero overcoming a villain creating a dystopia. This would be my idea of a modern dystopia film. However, this week I watched Frankenheimer's dystopian film Seconds and, while I do agree that it is a dystopian film, it was different from a dystopian film I would find today.
I am a massive Batman fan. As I mourn the news of Ben Affleck, I remain a fan of the Dark Knight and the Christopher Nolan film series. And my favorite film to watch is The Dark Knight. The Joker is one of, if not my favorite character of all time. My reason for this is because so much is packed into that character to make him the epitome of dystopia. He is a man with no emotions, carelessly burning the world down, he has no morals or values, and most of all is pure corruption. In The Dark Knight, The Joker takes the people of Gotham and uses them to corrupt the city. He pins the innocent and the guilty criminals against each other and in doing so creates a dystopia. Nolan uses characterization to enhance this dytopia. Unlike Frankenheimer's method.
In Seconds, a similar method is used in which a character, Arthur, is living in a normal world and becomes corrupted by wanting to continue living through surgery. When he is made a Second named Tony he feels trapped from the setting he is put in. Unlike in The Dark Knight where the dystopian world is created throughout the story, Tony is placed into a dystopia that already exists and through his characterization and experiences in this new world slowly realizes the dystopia he is living in and plots an escape. This method of creating a dystopian film is used as often in today's films but is still very effective.

Yes, Battle of the Sexes

Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity 

Last week I reviewed the film Noir Double Indemnity. I questioned whether the film gave off a battle of the sexes feel. Billy Wilder's portrayal of women was indeed a negative portrayal. Male directors of Film Noir generally portrayed women as destructive and dangerous people. Theywere careless with emotion and physically weak. That was a part of classic Film Noir. But what happens when a woman becomes the director of a Film Noir?

Ida Lupino, The Hitch Hiker 

Ida Lupino directed the 1953 Film Noir, The Hitch Hiker. As one might expect, it's the woman's turn to take a stab at men in society. In The Hitch Hiker, the three main characters are men, one of which is the murderer--unlike the female murderer in Double Indemnity. The two films contrast each other through the roles of men. Double Indemnity portrays men as capable, strong and confident. The Hitch Hiker portrays two clueless men who pick up a hitchhiker that turns out to be a psychotic and dangerous escape convict. Not to mention Lupino's husband plays a Mexican peasant in one scene. Score one for the feminists? 

After viewing the two films, both Film Noir but directed by opposite genders, I have come up with an interesting conclusion. Throughout the 1900s, there was an increasing push for gender equality and women's rights. Hollywood is one of the most influential places in America and feminists making movies was a big deal for feminists. These two films illuminate the constant battle of the sexes going on during the 1900s, all coming from the push for gender rights from feminists and the opposition from the dominant 20th century male. Not to say that this is the right answer, but gender in society could play a huge role in gender in Hollywood and in the cinema.   

'Double' Battle of the Sexes?

In general, the cinema is historic for portraying women in a negative manner. Whether it be women as the weaker sex, women as helpless and unfit for the real world, women as nothing but a sexual toy. Whatever it may be, women are usually negatively portrayed in films. In the film Double Indemnity, I have trouble deciding how the film is portraying the character of Phyllis Dietrichson.
Phyllis is originally seen as a typical housewife, when Neff comes into the house. When she begins asking Neff how she could get money from her husband's life insurance, we realize she is contemplating murder, thus the title. ("Double Indemnity" is a clause in most life insurance policies that doubles the payout, should the death be caused by certain accidental means.) Plotting murder certainly isn't the historic portrayal of a female character. She definitely isn't helpless. She does have an alluring personality. So that isn't a negative portrayal of women. But she is a murderer.
My big question that I have for this film is how they are trying to portray women. They're obviously not going for the "women are helpless" angle. Phyllis seems completely capable of plotting and carrying her plot out. If anything she seems very destructive, even increasingly destructive as the film progresses. So has Double Indemnity portrayed women negatively in a new way? That they are destructive, meddling creatures? Or is this a way of telling the viewer that women aren't helpless and very capable of doing the same things men can? Cause Neff doesn't want anything to do with it, making Phyllis the stronger sex, physically but maybe not morally. Is there a battle of the sexes in this film?
What are your thoughts? Negative portrayal, positive portrayal or, if possible, both?   

Melodrama Over Horror

This past week, I watched the classic 1931 film M. Fritz Lang had a knack for the melodramatics but many debate over whether M is a horror or a melodrama-- or a melodramatic horror. I'm here now to offer my opinion and shed some light on why I lean the way I do.


Both genres are strongly defined by emotion. A horror is characterized as a film that is designed to create fear in the viewer by frightening them or producing images or sounds that appear horrifying. A melodrama, which can be similar to a horror, will exaggerate characterization and put the characters into peril or dangerous situations. This danger is intended to stimulate the emotions, which can be but is not limited to fear. We see this immediately in M.

The film opens on a group of children standing in a circle. One child in the middle singing a song and pointing, similar to the game of "Duck, Duck, Goose." The child in the middle, while singing and pointing sings, "Just you wait a little while, the nasty man in black will come. With his little chopper, he will chop you up!" A woman from the balcony above yells to them to quit "singing that murder." From all of this we can tell that the children may be in some sort of danger. We aren't afraid and nothing happens to frighten us as the viewer. However, there is a feeling of suspense and worry. The film has stimulated our emotions of worry and anxiety, but the film did not come out and frighten us.

This same technique is used throughout the film to create suspense. The film hardly ever directly frightens the viewer though. This would characterize M as a melodrama.
For example, take two films today. The Saw films are horrors. Scenes from those movies are intended to inflict fear in the viewer and they show material that will directly frighten the viewer. However, Insidious and it's upcoming sequel Insidious Chapter 2 are melodramas or melodramatic horrors.


Look at the scene in this trailer for Insidious Chapter 2 starting at the 29 second mark. (0:29) The mother is put in a situation that puts her in danger and builds suspense and anxiety in the viewer's emotions. However, from what we see, nothing directly inflicts fear in the viewer. This happens in multiple scenes in this trailer. Occasionally something does scare you, so this film is more of a melodramatic horror, as opposed to one or the other.

Fritz Lang's M qualifies as a melodrama. That's my personal opinion though. I'd love to hear your opinion or your comments on mine. Though I think we can all agree that, compared to today's horror films, M is definitely not a horror.