What is a "man"?

Although we are well past the days of cowboy westerns and 80’s muscle-bound thrillers, many of the age old male stereotypes and expected performances still exist. Both males and females are just getting used to accepting a character that does not conform to the image that typecast actors such as John Wayne or Jeanne-Claude Van Damme imprinted on American minds.

 Recently there has been an influx of well produced, smart comedies that feature more down to earth,  average looking, emotionally capable males. This new style has proven wildly successful, showing a public craving for a more realistic depiction of roles that is closer to everyday life.

A few of the movies that I have recently seen that fit into this category are Scott Pilgrim with Michael Cera as the awkward, slightly dorky but loveable video-game-obsessed star, Cyrus starring John C. Riley – a below average looking guy with no social life who ends up winning the heart of Marissa Tomei’s character, Forgetting Sarah Marshal with Jason Segal as an out of shape and average looking but talented guy, and lastly The Hangover; a movie with a pretty attractive cast except for the slightly overweight, scruffy, bearded character, played by Zach Galifianakis, who unexpectedly outshines everyone else because of his hilariously dry wit that is extremely popular with society right now.

Even though these types of movies have a huge following, I think that the requirement of extreme masculinity in all men is still in the back of American minds. While I was looking for some inspirations for this blog post, I ran across an article in an internet publication titled “The Sorry State of Masculinity in American Movies” that particularly targeted some of the movies and actors that I just mentioned and perfectly depicts the sentiment that I am referring to. Here are some of the comments: “Films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up and Superbad show that the young male box-office stars of today’s romantic comedies are goofy schlubs and nerds. As unlikely as it seems, actors such as Segel, Seth Rogen, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill (Superbad) now define the paradigm of a Hollywood romantic lead. Cary Grant they are not. They’re not even Hugh Grant. They may know the appeal of sex, but they have no sex appeal…Yet this is Hollywood, and these pathetic, if well-meaning, losers inevitably end up with the hottest chicks. They represent a kind of wish fulfillment for most men, who can’t imagine scoring so high…The triumph of the schlub wouldn’t be so significant if the young actors Hollywood is now pushing in dramas and action movies had anything like the masculine heft we have come to expect from our celluloid heroes. It’s hard to think of a male find under 40 who has the innate, old-fashioned ability to project “manliness” as a natural quality... Where are today’s equivalents of the actors Hollywood once offered as symbols of effortless masculinity - John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood?... So, what do modern Hollywood’s images of masculinity tell us about maleness today? Some suggest it is a belated response to feminism…But do we really want our modern day Hollywood movie stars to be like anyone we know?”(1)

         

While I have no problem with macho, testosterone filled action movies like the recently released Machete- a tribute to grindhouse films, or The Expendables- a movie that united a handful of muscle bound action stars from the 80’s, or even movies that feature lead characters who personify the epitome of male perfection, such as Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or Bruce Willis, I think that the new style of “everyday guy” is exactly what the masses are craving. After all, don’t the box office numbers reflect this? While it is fun to watch beautiful people on screen, is there really anything wrong with showing a scenario that more closely parallels a real life?

Sources:
(1) The Sunday Times, April 27^th 2008 http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3805205.ece

Concept: Masculinity, The Social Construction of Gender

Women in Film

      Female roles and positions in American film and filmmaking have improved considerably over the last few decades.  Instead of films where the “strong woman” role seems visibly forced, there have been quite a few openly accepted and thoroughly enjoyable movies with strikingly dominant female leads.

        

      I think that the film “Jackie Brown” is a prime example of an exceptional picture, done by an amazing director (Quentin Tarentino), which features a lead character who is both African-American and a woman. Jackie Brown was based on a novel called “Rum Punch” by Elmore Leonard and Tarantino actually changed the main character’s race from white to black for the film adaptation (1).  This movie plays a bit on the Blaxploitation films of the ‘70’s but without the racial stereotyping. Jackie (played by Pam Grier) is a well dressed, intelligent, and well spoken black woman who works as a flight attendant. Although Jackie does run into some trouble with the law and is helped out by a male accomplice, her character still manages to maintain a cool demeanor, classy sex appeal, and dominant composure throughout the film.

     

          Another one of my favorite films is “Bound”, starring Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly. This film incorporates situations where females are both better planners and critical thinkers than their male counterparts, and depicts a realistic portrayal of a lesbian relationship in a mainstream film. This movie has an intriguing storyline, was very popular nationwide, and was a huge forerunner for the social acceptance of gay and lesbian feature films. Corky (Gina Gershon), a lesbian ex con hired to work in an apartment as a plumber, meets neighbors Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), who launders money for the Mafia, and his girlfriend Violet (Jennifer Tilly). The two women have a love affair and decide to steal $2,000,000 that Caesar has in custody before he gives them back to Mafia boss Gino Marzone. Caesar is set up by the two scheming women as a scapegoat in their plan.(2)

         

     Although this film may not be the most intellectually stimulating of it’s genre, I think that it did a good job in portraying the equality of the two lead characters (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt) as married, dueling assassins for competing agencies. It is a comedy, so while both characters still have their “blonde” moments, the female is never depicted in the classic Hollywood style as a damsel in distress, or any less capable than her husband.

       

           

             Maybe my favorite movie of the year so far was a Swedish film called “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.  It is the first film from a Swedish trilogy that was widely released in the U.S. The actual title in Sweden translates to “Men Who Hate Women”, but as usual, America has strange issues with some wordings, so the name was changed for the U.S. release. The movie is pretty graphic and depicts scenes of a male character sexually assaulting the lead female, who also happens to be a lesbian named Lisbeth Salander. This movie is filled with mystery and action. Due to the graphic rape scenes it shows what this poor girl went through and why her hatred was so strongly fueled. At the same time as being exciting and horrifying, this film shows the tender side of Lisbeth when she is not enacting revenge; she is involved in a relationship and labeled a lesbian, but is struggling with feelings of attraction to another human being who happens to be a man. I was excited to find out that they are going to be remaking this film as a U.S version. Maybe our country is evolving into a more accepting society…  

           

            This last year, and for the first time ever, a woman filmmaker won the “Best Director” Oscar for “The Hurt Locker”. Yay for women! Katheryn Bigelow did a phenomenal job at recreating a totally realistic depiction of modern war that is so close to the hearts of  many Americans right now. It was interesting to see her victory over her famous ex husband’s picture, Avatar,  and I was glad that her movie was not a romantic comedy. I can’t say that I have not enjoyed my share of chic flicks, but come on! Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl, break out of that stereotypical mold! Try a new style or genre!

Sources:

(1)  Information on novel adaptation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Brown_(film)

(2)  Synopsys of "Bound" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115736/

Topics:  Sexual Orientation, Female Filmakers, The Women's Film

Surrealism

I am currently studying art history as well as cinema, and since our class readings only skimmed the surface of Surrealism in art, I thought that I would take this opportunity to delve a little deeper into a subject that I really enjoy.

The aggressive momentum of the Dada movement that emerged during WWI was very short lived. In 1924 The First Surrealist Manifesto was published in France; a text that was written in an absurdist style, and which showed different examples of Surrealism through art, poetry, and literature. Most of the artists who were previously associated with Dada joined the Surrealism movement and explored ways to express the world of dreams and the unconscious through art. Not surprisingly, the Surrealists found ways to incorporate many of the Dadaist’s improvisational techniques. They believed that these methods were imperative to engage the elements of fantasy and to activate the unconscious forces that reside deep within every human being. The Surrealist’s main desire was to explore the inner world of the psyche, where fantasy thrived. The Surrealists had a special interest in the nature of dreams, inspired in part by the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. They viewed dreams as providing the arena in which people could move beyond their environment’s constricting forces to reunite with the deeper selves that society had long suppressed. One of the leading Surrealist thinkers, Andre Breton, wrote “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought…. I believe in the future resolution of the states of dream and reality, in appearance so contradictory, in a sort of absolute realty, or surreality.” So basically the Surrealists ultimate motivation was to unite the aspects of outer and inner “reality” together into a single position.

   

  The projection in visible form of this new conception also required new techniques of pictorial construction. The Surrealists adapted some Dada devices and invented new methods such as automatic writing (this was just spontaneous writing using free association) not to reveal a world without meaning, but more to provoke reactions of a subconscious experience. At this point Surrealism began to develop along two different lines. In Naturalistic Surrealism, artists present recognizable scenes that seem to have metamorphosed into a dream or nightmare image. Artists like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte are examples of artists who embraced the naturalistic style. Other artists gravitated to the contrasting style of Biomorphic Surrealism. Biomorphic art is said to be the creation of art without conscious control. It focuses on the power of natural life and uses organic shapes, with shapeless and vaguely spherical hints of the forms of biology.

 There are a few really unique artists who are associated with Surrealist movement that our “Surrealism folder” did not highlight. One of these is a Swiss artist named Meret Oppenheim. Sculpture especially appealed Oppenheim because of its concrete tangibility, which in turn made his art all the more disquieting. Oppenheimer’s functional fur-covered teapot captures the Surrealist flair for transformation.

Giorgio De Chirico was an Italian painter who referred to his works as “metaphysical”. Chirico found hidden reality in the late autumn afternoons, when the long shadows of setting sun transformed open town squares into spaces where the buildings evoked a disquieting sense of foreboding.

Joan Miro was Spanish artist who was most famous for using the Biomorphic style of Surrealist art. Although Miro resisted association with both the Dada and Surrealist movements, Andre Breton called him “the most surrealist of all”. Miro devised a new painting method where he began by making a scattered collage composition with assembled fragments cut from a catalogue and freely reshaped to create black silhouettes with dramatic accents of white and vermillion.

"The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari" - A German Expressionist Masterpiece

 Before our cinema class even began to study expressionist or German expressionist films, I accidentally stumbled upon a movie called “The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari”. I was reading out of our week one text and I saw a phrase that I was unfamiliar with - “mise-en-scene”. So, I Googled it and a very informative wiki page came up, but at the bottom of the page, a little picture caught my eye. I thought it was just a distorted drawing; it looked a bit Dr. Suess-like, with the exaggerated angles and dramatic blocks of contrasting color. It was a very old picture and upon closer inspection I realized that the two human figures were actually real people in the midst of cardboard cut-outs and painted scenery. I was immediately fascinated and I did a little research, come to find out, this was a silent German expressionist film called The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari directed by Robert Wiene in 1920.  I’ve always enjoyed the odd side art and film and even though this was not an assigned film for our class to watch, it did fit all the criteria, so I decided to give it a shot.

“The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari” was one of the first films to gain international acclaim and when it was released in Britain in 1922 it was billed as Europe’s greatest contribution to modern picture art. It is one of the most influential German expressionist films, is considered one of the greatest horror movies of all time, and is cited as having introduced the twist ending in cinema. German Expressionist Cinema was a short lived but extremely influential movement in film history that is still portrayed in modern cinematic productions. German expressionist cinema created a theatrical look to its films by using dramatic, painted scenery and exaggerated make-up, as was used in theaters. This was an inexpensive way of making films that created very iconic results. The cabinet of Dr. Calgari absolutely embodies every bit of the term “German expressionism. The visual style of the film is distinctly expressionist- with the painted backcloths, dominated by curves and cubes, deliberately distorted perspectives, and unnaturally elongated furniture. The effect was to disorient the viewer and it was enhanced further by the overdramatic,

 expressionist style of acting.

    

 I don’t want to spoil the famous twist ending, but the shortened synopsis of the film is that Dr. Calgari is the title character, a sinister hypnotist who travels the carnival circuit displaying a somnambulist named Cesare. In a small German town, a series of murders coincides with Caligari's visit. When the best friend of hero Francis is killed, he, along with his betrothed Jane, investigate Caligari and Cesare, which eventually results in Cesare kidnapping Jane. Francis suspects Caligari, but he is ignored by the police. Investigating on his own, Francis seemingly discovers that Caligari has been ordering the somnambulist to commit the murders, but near the end the story eventually takes a more surprising turn.

        

The story plot was partially based on reality. One of the writers, Hans Janowitz, drew from an experience he had on a dark night during 1913, in Hamburg. On his way home from a fair, he had walked into a park and glimpsed a stranger as he disappeared into the shadows after having mysteriously emerged from the bushes. The next morning, a young woman's ravaged body was found. I thought that is was interesting that such a seemingly fantastic story line was put together from a few, scattered, real-life occurrences.

        

Calgari’s distinct German expressionist style paved the way for future expressionist movies like Metropolis, and Nosferatu, which in turn ultimately led to the dark shadows and sharp angles of the film noir and urban crime dramas of the 1940’s. 

     

Course Concept: Expressionism and German Expressionism