“You'll never get a boyfriend if you look like you wandered out of Auschwitz.”
Feminism itself began in the nineteenth- early twentieth century when women were ridiculously unequal to men but this movement focused on the political aspect in particular, where women strove for the right to vote, a right to an education and the right for females to have access to all professions. As Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the suffragettes, states in her autobiography- “it was made clear that men considered themselves superior to women and that women apparently acquiesced in that belief” (Pankhurst, 2015, p. 14). This became known as first-wave feminism. Second- wave feminism prominently in the U.S. in the mid-60s to early 80s. This wave fought for equal pay, liberation from male oppression, equal access to jobs and the right to birth control. It ended due to women of colour and lesbians believing it was “privileged, white, heterosexual women” that determined the wave’s goals (Laughlin, 2011, p. 2). As a result of this, third-wave feminism (late 80s- early 90s) came to light and this focused on more marginalised groups.
The term Post-feminism means that all or most of the goals of feminism have been achieved and therefore, the need to expand or work on the movement are obsolete. As the word “post” suggests, post-feminism means to move on from or go beyond feminism itself. The fact this may have happened is unknown as there are multiple contradicting definitions of it but from what can be understood, post-feminism started because it was believed that both genders, male and female, had achieved equality. Since the 1980s the term has been theorised as “a historical shift within”, “a backlash against”, “an epistemological shift in” feminism (Thouaille, 2019, p.496). Post feminists endorse consumerism and the powerful female figure who believes they have achieved equality to men and can express themselves in any way they desire. Women are aware that femininity is just a social construct but play on this, as men do, to be placed into a position of power, using stereotypical feminine items such as handbags, high heels and make-up. “Writers do not even agree whether post-feminism is an anti-feminist stance, a critical stance within feminism, or some combination of the two—an unsurprising result, given how many post-feminists simultaneously applaud some of the social changes achieved by second-wave feminists, criticize other changes, and dismiss the need for further activism.” (Weitz, 2016, p. 219). “Post-feminism posits that individuals are free to make their own choices unburdened by structural constraints based on gender, race, class, or other factors.” (Weitz, 2016, p. 220). Post-feminism also gave women sexual liberation and the freedom to have casual sex without stigma and also allowed women to feel like they could be an individual. “postfeminist culture emphasizes educational and professional opportunities for women and girls; freedom of choice with respect to work, domesticity, and parenting; and physical and particularly sexual empowerment.” (Tasker & Negra, 2008, p. 2). In Rosalind Gill’s post feminism article, she states that “post-feminism is best understood as a distinctive sensibility, made up of a number of interrelated themes. These include the notion that femininity is a bodily property; the shift from objectification to subjectification; an emphasis upon self-surveillance, monitoring and self-discipline; a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a makeover paradigm; and a resurgence of ideas about natural sexual difference.” (Gill, 2007, p. 147). Regarding the topic of post-feminism, the aim of this essay is to discuss to what extent Bridget Jones’s Diary (Maguire, 2001) can be seen as a paradigmatic post-feminist text. The film is based on Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel of the same name and follows single Bridget who writes a diary, fantasising on the things she wishes would happen to her and then her life suddenly changes when two men fight for her affection. “Bridget Jones’s Diary is exemplary as a women’s genre film, reinvented to bring back romance in a specifically post-feminist context”. (McRobbie, 2007, p. 37)
The film’s equilibrium starts with the narration of Bridget Jones, Renee Zellweger, saying “it all began New Year’s Day in my 32nd year of being single.” While this is being narrated, we see Bridget walking to her mother’s house for a buffet alone. This immediately sets the text up as being post-feminist as Bridget is an individual and she is independent although her mother tries to set Bridget up with a “bushy haired middle-aged bore” presenting the fact it is common for a woman to find a man. When she enters the house, Bridget removes her coat revealing turtleneck and altogether ill-fitting clothes. Her mother then says, “you’re not going to get a boyfriend if you look like you’ve just walked out of Auschwitz” and then orders her upstairs to change. This is an example of post-feminism as this movement is about looking good and using consumer culture- “post=feminism also perpetuates women as pinup, the enduring linchpin of commercial beauty culture.” (Thouaille, 2019, p.3). We are also introduced to Mark Darcy, Colin Firth, who Bridget’s mother is trying to set her up with. He is the perfect example of a “metrosexual” (p.3) male who fits into post-feminism also, due to the fact he is well groomed and takes pride in his appearance which wasn’t something that appeared really before this movement. Another character we are introduced to in this scene is Bridget’s uncle Jeffrey who gropes her in this scene and throughout the film. Although this is highly inappropriate, Bridget just accepts this instead of fighting back which shows how the “feminist gains of the 1970s and 1980s are actively and relentlessly undermined” as feminism has apparently been achieved so fighting back isn’t necessary. (McRobbie, 2007, p.27).
After this scene the title sequence begins with the redundant music of All by Myself- Jamie O’ Neal plays. In this sequence she says that if nothing changes soon, the only relationship she will have is with a bottle of wine and she will die fat and alone. She also clicks her answer machine and it says “you have no messages” and she mouths the part of the song where it says “I don’t want to be by myself anymore” linking to the fact that Bridget believes she needs to find a partner in life and get married before it’s too late. This is paradigmatically post-feminist due to her feeling that she must conform to what society expects of her. “Bridget wants to pursue dreams of romance, find a suitable husband, get married and have children. What she fears most is ending up as a ‘spinster’.” (McRobbie, 2007, p. 28). This previous quote from post-feminist theorist McRobbie shows that the fact Bridget’s biggest fear is ending up as a spinster, presents that she is moving away from feminism and is post-feminist due to the fact she wants to find her male partner. Bridget’s goals then start to come true when her boss Daniel Cleaver, Hugh Grant, starts to pursue her. This begins when Bridget walks past Daniel’s glass office wearing a short skirt which quickly follows with a flirty email to Bridget from Daniel saying, “you appear to have forgotten your skirt.” A flirtatious montage then follows with back and forth emails from the two depending on what Bridget is wearing. An example being a see-through top, revealing her bra. Daniel further pursues Bridget, touching her bottom. Bridget emails him saying “how dare you sexually harass me” in a sarcastic manner. The fact Bridget accepts his harassing behaviour shows that this is a post-feminist text as she believes this is normal. This could link to Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory as Bridget is “to be looked at” by Daniel for his sexual gratification. (Loreck, 2016). He also insists he goes back to her flat for “full sex” which then commences. After the act, Bridget answers the phone calling herself a “sex goddess.” Here she is so open about her sex life and is sexually liberated. This shows it is a post-feminist text as women were “allowed greater access to certain freedoms (sexual)” (Litosseliti, Gill & Garcia Favaro, 2019, p.6).
Just before Bridget sleeps with Daniel, she attends a book launch and asks her friends for advice on how to look. Jude says, “look gorgeous” and a montage begins of Bridget deciding what to wear. She shaves her legs, buffs skin and waxes. She also decides with spanks over a thong as she desperately wants her body to look good and she wears an elegant black dress over it. Here we see Bridget diving into consumer culture as she wants to appear to look “gorgeous” to attract the attention of her boss, presenting “the dominance of the makeover paradigm” (Thouaille, 2019, 496). Women “'already see themselves as equal to men: they can work, they can vote, they can bonk on the first date... if a thong makes you feel fabulous, wear it. For one thing, men in the office waste whole afternoons staring at your bottom, placing bets on whether you're wearing underwear. Let them. Use that time to take over the company. But even if you wear lingerie for you, for no other reason than it makes you feel good, that is reason enough to keep it on.'” (Taylor, 2006). This quote from journalist Kate Taylor was used in post- feminist theorist, Rosalind Gill’s article and it is a perfect example of Bridget Jones. She uses the consumer culture to attract men and while in the old waves of feminist, women would coil in horror at men sexualising them, in post-feminism it is celebrated.
Bridget’s mother is a very important part of the film as she presents the old forms of feminism and how she is unhappy with it. In one scene we see her advertising an egg machine in a store which shows how she is a housewife, as it is a cooking product. She then expresses to Bridget how she is unhappy in her marriage with Bridget’s father saying “I have no power, no real career, no sex life, I have no life at all” which completely contrasts the new aspects of post-feminism as women were said to have the same power as men, a career and a liberated sex life. Due to her unhappiness, Bridget’s mother leaves Bridget’s father for a television salesman, Julian. Later in the film she becomes unhappy with this new, liberated life she has and returns to Bridget’s father, perhaps suggesting that she prefers a life not being post-feminist. Although when she returns, she asks for more attention, showing that she has a little more power than she did previously. In scenes later on we see Bridget gets a new job at a television company and she then makes a fool out of herself sliding down a fireman’s pole. Bridget’s new boss says he wants her wearing a short skirt, lots of makeup and sliding down a pole. This over-sexualises Bridget and it almost shows how post-feminism isn’t particularly correct here as both of her bosses in the film have been male and tell her what to do. Also, Bridget is asked to do an interview with a man who might be deported. She is supposed to wait for him outside the courthouse but just misses him to go get a drink and some cigarettes from a corner shop. Then Mark Darcy comes into the corner shop and he just so happens to be the man’s lawyer so grants Bridget with an interview, saving her job. This shows how she is having to rely on a man in order to succeed. In conclusion, from post-feminist theorist McRobbie’s definition- “Post-feminism in this context seems to mean gently chiding the feminist past, while also retrieving and reinstating some palatable elements, in this case sexual freedom, the right to drink, smoke, have fun in the city, and be economically independent (McRobbie, 2019, p.28) it is clear to see that Bridget Jones’s Diary (Maguire, 2001) can be seen as a paradigmatic post-feminist text due to the fact Bridget follows these things. She has fun in the city, is sexually liberated. We see her drunkenly falling out of taxis, smoking and embraces consumer culture to try and attract a male as that is what society expects of her.
Bibliography-
Gill, Rosalind (2007) Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility. European journal of cultural studies, 10 (2). pp. 147-166. Laughlin, K. A. and Castledine, J. L. (2011) Breaking the wave. Women, their organizations, and feminism, 1945-1985. London: Routledge. Litosseliti, L., Gill, R. and Garcia Favaro, L. (2019) ‘Postfeminism as a critical tool for gender and language study’, Gender & Language, 13(1), pp. 1–22. Loreck, J. (2016, January 5). Explainer: what does the ‘male gaze’ mean, and what about a female gaze?. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486 Maguire, S. (Director). (2001). Bridget Jones’s Diary. [Motion Picture]. London: Miramax. McRobbie, A. (2007). Post Feminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the New Gender Regime. In: Diane Negra and Yvonne Tasker, eds. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Duke University Press, pp. 27-39. Pankhurst, E. (2015) Suffragette: My Own Story. London: Hesperus Press. Tasker, Y. and Negra, D. (2008) Interrogating postfeminism. Gender and the politics of popular culture. United States: Duke University Press. Taylor, K. (2006, March 23). Today's ultimate feminists are the chicks in crop tops. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/23/comment.gender Thouaille, M.-A. (2019) ‘Post-feminism at an impasse? The woman author heroine in postrecessionary American film’, Feminist Media Studies, 19(4), pp. 495–509. Weitz, R. (2016) ‘Feminism, Post-feminism, and Young Women’s Reactions to Lena Dunham’s Girls’, Gender Issues, 33(3), pp. 218–234.
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"You must close your eyes otherwise you won't see anything."
The term ‘surrealist’ first appeared in 1917 when a burlesque play, Les Mamelles de Tirésias, was produced by Guillaume Apollinaire and it was described as a “surrealist drama” (Waldberg, 1965, p.11). Surrealism was born in Paris with young poets, André Breton being the most known, directing the review Littérature between 1919 and 1924. In this, they summarised the work of avant-garde artists such as Apollinaire and Picasso. In these reviews, it came to light that these poets believed in nonconformity and distrusted rationalism and formal conventions which prompted these poets to explore the “realm of the unconscious and the dream” and they were seeking to find “ the language of the soul” (Waldberg, 1965, p.13). From this, automatic writing began, and this led to the first surrealist work that was authenticated called The Magnetic Fields (1922) by André Breton and Philippe Soupault. Automatic writing meant that the text was written when the poets were unconscious and in the “dream period” (Waldberg, 1965, p.14). In 1924 Breton’s Manifeste du Surréalisme was published. In this, they defined surrealism as a “pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of the dream, and in the disinterested play of thought. It leads to the permanent destruction of all other psychic mechanisms and to its substitution for them in the solution of the principal problems of life. (Waldberg, 1965, p.11). Surrealism also had a “disturbing power, which engages us with a peculiar aesthetic effect, strange and frightening yet mysteriously compelling and vital” (Rabinovitch, 2004, p.3).
In Briony Fer’s chapter in Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism (1993) she gives a vast overview of her conception of surrealist art practices dividing the chapter into many different sections. She states that the desired effect of surrealism was to reveal the unconscious and to “undo prevalent conceptions of order and reality” (Fer, 1993, p.172). She quotes Breton’s work heavily and his idea of fragments of something becoming a whole image and how “surrealism as a complete state of distraction”, linking again to a dream-like state. Fer separates her chapter into many sections, one of which focuses on the conflict of images meaning two or more images that “contradict” each other, linking to Levi Strauss’s binary opposition theory where two or more things conflict each other and a person aims to overcome this (Dundes, 1997, p.40). An example she uses is Meret Oppenheim’s Déjjeuner en fourrure (translating to fur breakfast) in 1936 where she covered everyday items such as a cup and saucer in the fur of a gazelle making the ensemble deliberately absurd, linking to the subconscious. This also connects to another subject she discusses which is the idea of found objects which are then “assembled” to be “deliberately absurd” (Fer, 1993, p.174). Another main section of her chapter is the refusal to be dictated by the given meaning how surrealists didn’t want their work or themselves to be swayed by “social forces” and wanted to have full control over their mind to access its full potential (Fer, 1993, p.180). She also heavily discusses the representation of the conscious while being unconscious linking to the binary opposition of dreams vs reality and how you can document your dreams linking to automatic writing which is discussed above. She also writes about Freud and the unconscious and the Uncanny/ Unheimlich. “The surrealist image arrests the viewer with a pervasive sense of the uncanny” (Rabinovitch, 2004, p. 3). The unheimlich was “framed it as a psychological state, one stemming from the unconscious mind and largely beyond our own control – the unknown, unremembered self is beyond our waking mind – where our feeling of personal security is gone, and even the known becomes unfamiliar.” (Bacon, 2018, p. 2). The Unheimlich is what “arouses dread and horror” and the Heimlich means “domesticity and security”. (Smith, 2007, p.13). Finally, one of the main points she discusses is that women are used frequently in surrealist texts as women were seen to be close to “that place of madness” in comparison to men (Fer, 1993, p.176).
Fer states that the movement began with “writers, painters, poets and photographers” and then towards the end of the twenties it moved on to film which is what the aim of the essay is about. The aim is to use Fer’s conception of Surrealist art practices within a film. I have chosen to use Jan Švankmajer’s adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll, 1865) Alice (Švankmajer, 1988). This is a surrealist telling in comparison to the other adaptations of Carroll’s iconic book. “Švankmajer is a long-standing member of the Czech Surrealists and explicitly takes inspiration from Dali and Luis Bunuel; […] unsurprisingly, his Alice, recalls the psychoanalytic readings of Carroll's books.” (Brooker, 2004, p.216). Švankmajer is also known for his use of found objects which Roger Cardinal comments that this links to “to the fantastical procedures of dream-work, codified by Freud” (Brooker, 2004, p. 216).
The film’s equilibrium begins with Alice throwing stones into a river presented with a two-shot of her and her teacher. The audience has a full view of Alice, but the teacher’s head isn’t in the frame. This film has no adult characters, and this immediately opens the film to be from the mind of a child. In Breton’s work, one of the founders of surrealism, he implies that “unconscious and the dream and [...] the search for a state of grace which belongs to childhood (Waldberg, 1965, p.17). The fact surrealists, themselves, wanted to achieve a state of that of a child and here we have a child protagonist fits this surrealist trope perfectly because as the audience we are seeing the film and the surrealist wonderland through the eyes of a child. The intercuts of Alice’s narration which is constant throughout the film then commences. These are all extreme close-ups of Alice’s mouth narrating the film. It starts by saying “Alice thought to herself, now you will see a film, made for children...perhaps.” This is questioning whether it is a film for children or not. Although Wonderland itself has stereotypical connotations of being filled with wonderment, as its name suggests, Svankmajer’s telling is much unlike the other adaptations as his version shows Wonderland as a “dreamscape always teetering on the brink of nightmare” which goes against what is made for children (Bye, 2018, p. 34). She then ends this section of narration by saying “you must close your eyes otherwise you won’t see anything” being a direct link to surrealism as when you close your eyes it is to sleep and by saying you need to close your eyes to see, this is exactly what surrealism was about as they wanted to document the unconscious. We also know that the whole time Alice is in Wonderland, this is her unconscious as she wakes up at the end of the film showing that this was all a dream. As Fer mentions in her Freud and the unconscious section of her chapter- “the dream as a whole is a distorted substitute for something else, something unconscious and… the task of interpreting a dream is to discover this unconscious material.” (Fer, 1993, p.180). As Alice is dreaming, she is discovering unconscious material which is what surrealists attempted to do through automatic writing where they document what occurs while they are subconscious.
In the next scene the camera is in Alice’s bedroom. “The camera moves unhurriedly around the girl's bedroom, sliding across apple cores, a mousetrap, jars of pickled fruit, dead flies, and faded drawings; among the props it picks out are skulls, beetles, and dolls that will later appear in her dreamworld.” (Brooker, 2004, p.215). It also shows a close up of Punch and Judy puppets which is a homage to one of Švankmajer’s earlier short films, Punch and Judy (Švankmajer, 1966). All of these objects are part of what Fer discusses about Surrealist art practices as she discusses how “everyday items” such as a teacup can be “assembled” to be “absurd.” An example which I discussed earlier was Meret Oppenheim who took the everyday object of a cup and used the addition of fur to make it absurd. Fer also discusses how altered objects become an “incongruous motif [...] by surrealists to defy the logic of the rational mind and to express [...] the subconscious” (Fer,1993, p.174). The skulls in Alice’s room becomes part of the white rabbit’s team, the sewing kit features heavily in the blue caterpillar scene and the china doll to the left of Alice, becomes her body double when she shrinks down to the rabbit’s height. Švankmajer likes to use a collection of different objects to create something strange (uncanny). “Since the early 1960s, Švankmajer has created a panoply of imaginary beings in collages and assemblages, splicing elements from natural history illustrations together into new species and piecing together animal bones and taxidermy to form a wildly unusual bestiary.” (Noheden, 2017, p. 68). An example of this is the character of Bill who is made from bones that were found in Alice’s bedroom previously. When Alice is taken prisoner by the white rabbit, we see multiple uses of objects. For example, when Alice is about to eat a bread roll, it suddenly sprouts nails, showing that something that should be recognisable and safe (heimlich) becomes unsafe (unheimlich). Another thing that happens is eggs in a carton hatch and instead of a live bird, they hatch skulls. What should come out of the egg is something that is alive, not that of the dead. This is a direct metaphor of what Švankmajer does all throughout his oeuvre, which is bringing life to the lifeless, or “animating the inanimate” (Bye, 2018, p.36).
When discussing the use of objects in surrealist practices, Fer discusses how objects become a “modern fetish” (Fer, 1993, p. 174). “A fetish is an object for which we experience attraction and repulsion that marks it out as different, special or extraordinary” (Rabinovitch, 2004, p.167-168). In archaic religion fetishism is a magico-religious power that exposes objects associations and history (Rabinovitch, 2004, p.169). The objects also are either positive or negative. Represented as a “cherished icon or a fearful taboo” (Rabinovitch, 2004, p.169), therefore making the object a vehicle of symbolic power (p.170). The word fetish can be traced back to the Portuguese word feiticio which means “something made”. For the surrealists the fetish represented the “construction of extraordinary objects from intimate, taboo, or sacrilegious sources, for it implicitly acknowledges the magical quality of such emotionally suggestive objects” (Rabinovitch, 2004, p.170). The idea of magic surrounding an object is very common in surrealist practice, turning that object into a totem. What surrealist artists also do “play with our perception of the object” (p. 168) This is something Svankmajer does customarily. He takes an object and changes its function to something completely different. An example, being the scene with the caterpillar where he uses a blue sock as the caterpillar’s form as an almost sock puppet. This is an example of a fetish as it is marked out as different as a sock is used as a clothing item, not the form of a caterpillar. The caterpillar’s body then moves up and down to mimic breathing. This becomes uncanny as socks can’t breathe in in reality but while Alice is unconscious, they have the ability to. Svankmajer’s “manipulations” use everyday objects such as “fruits, vegetables, flowers and fish” to build faces and other objects, in this example the sock, to create other things (Cardinal, 1995, p. 68) and uses his “curiosities”, which were objects valued for their singularity and eye-catching appearance” (p.69) to create an “optical confusion” for his audience (p.67).
One of the things Švankmajer does is he uses animation to bring life to the lifeless and to make things part of the uncanny. “Švankmajer has commented that Animation enables [him] to give magical powers to things. In [his] films, [he move(s) many objects, real objects. Suddenly, everyday contact with things which people are used to acquires a new dimension and in this way casts a doubt over reality. In other words, [he] use(s) animation as a means of subversion.” (Bye, 2018, p.35). The first use of this that we see in the film is through the stuffed white rabbit beginning to move. The inanimate white rabbit is presented as coming animate by leaving his “glass coffin”. (Noheden, 2017, p.73). Although this animal was once alive, he is now stuffed with sawdust, ensuring the audience that this animal is dead but, Švankmajer resurrects him. “There is no sense of life and death in this Wonderland; nor is there any differentiation between what is and is not animate. As such, Svankmajer's peculiar take on the story makes more sense in its realization as an animated film and, in fact, as a live action/stop motion hybrid. Without that mix of media - for example, if the whole thing had been made as a graphic cartoon - the impact of Svankmajer's refusal to distinguish between the physical capabilities of a real girl and a stuffed rabbit would be more or less emasculated.” (Whitworth, 2008, p. 15). The fact that the rabbit is dead but is still animate can link to Freud’s uncanny as shown in Fer’s chapter as a normal stuffed, inanimate rabbit would link to the Heimlich as we know it is dead and unmoving but the fact this stuffed rabbit is animate, it is the unheimlich because we are unaware how it is moving. It is also one of many examples in the film of anthropomorphism as the animals have human characteristics. For example, the rabbit has human hands, wears gloves, a hat and a waistcoat. The rabbit also ironically uses his pocket watch which is a human characteristic. We also see him eating sawdust from a bowl with a spoon and wiping his mouth. We know that the rabbit is stuffed with sawdust so the fact he is eating what he is made off is almost cannibalistic and nightmarish, linking to the surreal. This is used all throughout the film, another example being a rat that swims through Alice’s sea of tears and he climbs on Alice’s head and uses a spoon to cook himself dinner. This is done through the stop motion animation but the fact it is both live-action and stop motion makes it unhomely as we are seeing things that are unusual take place in our everyday. “This challengers the viewer to both recognise that this is ‘animation’ and therefore different from live-action film-making, and to invest in engaging with animated phenomena as constructs which may relate directly to the terms and conditions of human experience, but equally may offer more complex meditations on sociocultural and aesthetic epistemologies” (Wells, 2002, p.11).
Probably the most surreal object used in the film is the china doll that Alice changes into when shrunk down to the rabbit’s height. The fact this is the most surreal is because the doll is made to look like a human, but it isn’t alive. Through Švankmajer’s stop animation, it is brought to life. Dolls are something that are inanimate and lifeless but through its human features we imbue life to it. It is all about uncertainty as to whether something is conscious or not. We see the doll at the beginning, next to Alice in her bedroom. At this point it is unconscious, having no life but, as soon as we descend into Wonderland the doll becomes conscious presenting the uncanny. In Fer’s chapter, she refers to dolls and mannequins (human-like objects) as being a “simulacrum” as they are an imitation of a human. She uses the example of Eugene Atget’s photograph- Boulevard de Strasbourg, Corsets, 1912 which is a monochrome photograph presenting corsets on mannequins in a shop window. The fact the mannequins are simulacra of the human body, it becomes uncanny due to the fact they are headless, armless and legless, affirming that they are unconscious. Using this example, it can then be presented in Wonderland as we are aware the china doll has no life but Švankmajer brings it to life. In conclusion, Fer’s definition of surrealist practices is presented all throughout Svankmajer’s Alice (1988) mainly using the uncanny, documenting the unconscious through automatic writing, fetishization and the use of objects. The uncanny/ unheimlich is exhibited using bringing life to the lifeless and changing our conception of what is real and what is not. The unconscious is documented as the whole duration Alice is in Wonderland occurs while she is asleep which is like what Breton did through his automatic writing where he documented his dreams. Fetishization is presented using totems and the taboo through the objects Svankmajer uses in his films. Finally, the use of objects is hugely important to this film as Svankmajer assembles everyday items and crockery to deliberately make it absurd for an audience. All these surrealist practices are contextualised and presented in Svankmajer’s film.
Bibliography-
Bacon, S. (2018) The gothic : a reader. New York, New York : Peter Lang. Brooker, W. (2004) ‘Chapter 6: Adapting Alice’, in Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, pp. 199–228. Bye, S. (2018) ‘Imagination and Invention: ALICE IN WONDERLAND ON SCREEN’, Screen Education, (92), pp. 30–37. Cardinal, R. (1995). Thinking Through Things: The Presence of Objects in the Early Films of Jan Svankmajer. In P. Hames (Ed.) The Cinema of Jan Svankmajer Dark Alchemy. London: Wallflower Press. Carroll, L. (1865). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: The Penguin Group. Dundes, A. (1997) ‘Binary Opposition in Myth: The Propp/Lévi-Strauss Debate in Retrospect’, Western Folklore, 56(1), p. 39-50. Fer, B. (1993). Surrealism, Myth and Psychoanalysis. In B. Fer, D. Batchelor, & P. Wood (Eds.), Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism. Art Between Wars (pp.170-249) London: Yale University Press and The Open University. Noheden, K. (2017) ‘Jan Švankmajer, Surrealism and Dark Ecology’, Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, (42), p. 68-79. Rabinovitch, C. (2004). Surrealism and the Sacred. Power, Occult in Modern Art. Oxford: Westview Press. Smith, A. (2007) Gothic Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Švankmajer, J. (Director). (1966). Punch and Judy [Short Film]. Czech Republic: Krátký Film Praha Švankmajer, J. (Director). (1988). Alice [Motion Picture]. Czech Republic: Condor Films. Waldberg, P. (1965). Surrealism. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Wells, P. (2002). Animation Genre and Authorship. London: Wallflower Press. Whitworth, E. (2008) ‘Patterns of Consumption in Svankmajer’s Alice’, Animatrix: A Journal of the UCLA Animation Workshop, (16), pp. 12–18. "What have you done to me, you vengeful bitches?"An adaptation is “the action or process of altering, amending or modifying something, esp. something that has been created for a particular purpose, so that it is suitable for a new use” (Etherington-Wright & Doughty, 2017). One of the main forms of adaptation is that of a literary source that is made into a film. This is done as it has many advantages, one being you can guarantee that fans of the book will see it, securing an audience. Although it has many advantages, there is also many cons including the film’s “lack of fidelity to the original text” (Etherington-Wright & Doughty, 2017) which is when the film-maker goes through the “mutational process” (Bluestone, 1957, p.5) as they are having to alter the book for the screen. This process is “inevitable…the moment one abandons the linguistic for the visual medium” (Bluestone, 1957, p.5) changes must be made as they are two separate art forms meaning that the original text can’t be replicated exactly on screen. Fans of the original text will also react very differently to the film because “what he has before him in the actual film is now somebody else’s phantasy” here Christian Metz is referring to the fact that when we read a book, we come up with how things should look and play out in our minds but then we are made to watch someone else’s view of the book instead of our own (Etherington-Wright & Doughty, 2017). In this essay I will be using this theory on adaptation when looking at The Beguiled originally written by Thomas Cullinan in 1966 and has been adapted twice into films of the same name. The first was directed by Don Siegel in 1971 and the second, almost half a century later, directed by Sofia Coppola in 2017. I will aim to establish the differences in each of the texts and the different factors as to why the changes are there. This will involve looking at the film’s release dates, audiences and the directors as auteurs and how this effects the finished product. The Beguiled book starts with a young girl, Amelia, who comes across a wounded Yankee solider, John McBurney and choses to take him back to her home, Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies, where they hide him and attempt to make him well but, this sudden presence of masculinity disturbs the homogeneous in their home and chaos follows. “The claustrophobic mixing of women with different needs, strengths and weaknesses, and the presence of a man who attempts to dominate through his smug masculine assuredness, all intertwining in an intricate network of sex, fear, and power” (Phillips-Carr, 2017, p.76). In the book, Miss Martha runs the school with her sister Harriet and Edwina is a student with a secret mixed-race descent but in both film adaptations, Harriet is removed entirely, and Edwina is made a teacher with nothing of her mixed-race being said. This was most likely done as films are shorter compared to books and therefore both adaptations may have liked to keep things less complicated in benefit of the audience. Another way the adaptations differ is through the protagonists. In the original novel, it’s told from the point of view of each of the girls, McBurney isn’t given a say which adds to the mystery of his character. Siegel completely flips this in his adaptation and makes Eastwood (McBurney) the protagonist. One of the reasons as to why Siegel chose to do this was because Eastwood was becoming more of a star as he was in Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971), also by Siegel, in the same year which secured his stardom. “Siegel is [also] notorious for depicting females as manipulative and evil, plotting to destroy men” (Herring, 1998, p.214) and he demonstrates this misogynistic tone perfectly through showing the women from the man’s perspective as they try to eradicate him. In juxtaposition to this, Coppola’s adaptation returns to the novel’s form making the women the protagonist. In a Sight and Sound article Coppola says “I wanted to create a very feminine atmosphere in contrast to the soldier and the war. It’s my sensibility, what I am interested in” (Kiang, 2017, p.46). One of the traits of Coppola being an auteur is through her “cool films about ennui and dislocation, particularly around the ranks of the world’s more privileged” (Abeel, 2017, p.123) mainly surrounding a female protagonist. The Beguiled (Coppola, 2017) fits with her preferred structure perfectly. We also see this proposal in other films of her oeuvre including Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 2006) and The Virgin Suicides (Coppola, 1999) which follow “wealthy white birds in a gilded cage” (Phillips-Carr, 2017, p.76). Coppola also turns McBurney’s character from protagonist to more of an object to the women. McBurney is “amid this froth of femininity he is hard-edged, blue-grey and incongruous as a gun in a gift basket of butterfly cakes” (Kiang, 2017, p.46); this is presented perfectly in the second dinner scene where the camera pans around to reveal McBurney amongst the women, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. The fact Coppola chose to shift the focus on the women may have something to do with the society we live in today which is a highly feminist culture where women are striving to become equal to men. Coppola always seems to favour the women’s side when telling a story, making each of her films her own whether it be an adaptation or not, creating a “transfer of ownership” (Cobb, 2012, p.108). Due to the original novel not having much cultural status, the adaptation “eradicates the original author’s authority” (Cobb, 2012, p.108). This is further shown in an interview between François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock where Truffaut says, “your own works include a great many adaptations, but mostly they are popular or light entertainment novels, which are so freely refashioned in your own manner that they ultimately become a Hitchcock creation” (Cobb, 2012, p.108) which can also be in Coppola’s work as she creates a film which can be easily identifiable as one of hers. Gothic fiction tends to be “informed by psycho-sexual anxieties, especially regarding gender boundaries and expectations” as observed by David Punter and William Patrick Day (Herring, 1998, p.214) which is the main theme and conflict in The Beguiled; the binary opposition (Levi-Strauss, 1955) between men and women. Coppola presents this divide in the sexes perfectly in the closing scene where they leave the body bag holding McBurney outside the gates with a blue handkerchief attached to it almost saying “come and pick up your man” while the female characters are on the other side of the gate. The gate presents this divide in masculinity and femininity and the dangers of mixing them which is a theme which runs throughout Coppola’s work. In Siegel’s adaptation the women are sexualised as shown in one scene where McBurney is found in bed with Alicia by Edwina and this is shown with an over-the-but shot, objectifying the female. Coppola flips this in her version, making McBurney the object. Elle Fanning said in an interview that Coppola “wasn’t looking to oversexualize the women the way the original did” (Reily, 2017, p.1) The same scene in Coppola’s version is mild in comparison as it is shown with a long shot, not revealing much. In Coppola’s oeuvre, she never over sexualises women. In the book there is a slave called Mattie, then changed to Hallie in Siegel’s adaptation. Coppola on the other hand completely erases this character and has taken criticism for this “racial rewriting” (Phillips-Carr, 2017, p. 77). As a film set in the south during the Civil war should have some mention of slavery but all that is said is “The slaves left” (Coppola, 2017) which is said by Amelia in the film’s equilibrium. The fact she removed the only black character has had people labelling her as racist which is supported by her other work including Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003) where she presents the Japanese characters as being dim-witted and comedic as apposed to the white characters. Siegel creates a “frenzied melodrama” whereas Coppola creates something more “muted” through her aesthetics (Phillips-Carr, 2017, p.76). Coppola is known for her elysian and delicate imagery she uses in her films. “The Beguiled is its own species of flora, a daylily crossed with a twisted root vegetable. Its skin is pretty, but its heart is dark” (Zacharek, 2017, p.51). It also has a look of a “misty dream, almost as if you’re watching from behind a wall of sleep” (Zackarek, 2017, p.51). She achieved this through the almost faded, elegant imagery which appears to be whimsical and delicate yet also eerie through the faded hues and candlelit sets which completely juxtaposes Siegel’s rustic look which resembles a “sweaty fever dream, bordering on hysteria” (A.L, 2017, p.18). From her fashion background, Coppola is always “characterised by such drowsy, heavy-lidded dreaminess” as this is a look that runs throughout all her filmography (Kiang, 2017, p.49) and she has “routinely been more comfortable telling stories via pure image than dialogue” (Carew, 2016, p. 104). In conclusion each of the adaptations differ due to the person adapting them. “Fidelity has become a fully archaic aesthetic measure, except as one can be faithful to one’s own self, desire, tastes, imagination and inclinations” (Cobb, 2012, p.111). Therefore, Siegel has adapted it to have a male protagonist and to have a misogynistic and hectic theme whereas Coppola has presented her usual feminist and aesthetically pleasing style. Scholars James Naremore and Timothy Corrigan have said that “auteurs avoid the restrictions of fidelity in their adaptations because the required faithfulness is to their own authorial identities” (Cobb, 2012, p. 107) and this is why each of the adaptations of The Beguiled differ as each auteur has their own vision on what the text will play out as and the reader may not approve of this due to them viewing “somebody else’s phantasy” (Etherington Wright & Doughty, 2017). Bibliography-
• Abeel, E. (2017, July). The Beguiled. Film Journal International, 120(7), 123-124. • A.L. (2017, October 7). The Beguiled. New Yorker, 93(20), 18-18. • Bluestone, G. (1957). Novels into Film. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press. • Carew, A. (2016, Autumn). Sofia Coppola. Screen Education (81), 92-105. • Cobb, S. (2012). Film authorship and adaptation. In D. Cartmell (Ed.) A companion to literature, film and adaptation (pp.105-120). Chichester: Wiley- Blackwell. • Coppola, S. (Director). (1999). The Virgin Suicides [Motion Picture]. United States: American Zoetrope • Coppola, S. (Director). (2003). Lost in Translation [Motion Picture]. United States: American Zoetrope. • Coppola, S. (Director). (2006). Marie Antoinette [Motion Picture]. United States/France: American Zoetrope/ Pathé. • Coppola, S. (Director). (2017). The Beguiled [Motion Picture]. United States: American Zoetrope. • Cullinan, T. (1966). The Beguiled. United States of America: Horizon Press. • Doughty, R & Etherington Wright, C. (2017). Understanding Film Theory (2nd ed.) Basingstoke: Macmillan Education UK. • Herring, G. (1998). The Beguiled: Misogynist myth or feminist fable. Literature Film Quarterly, 26(3), 214-214. • Kiang, J. (2017, August). The Kindness of Strangers. Sight and Sound, 27(8), 46-49. • Levi-Strauss, C. (1955) The Structural Study of Myth. The Journal of American Folklore, 68(270), 428-444. • Phillips-Carr, C. (2017, Fall). The Beguiled. Cinemascope,72, 76-77. • Reily, P. (2017, June 22). ‘The Beguiled’: How Sofia Coppola reimagined a macho seventies war film. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/how-sofia-coppolas-the-beguiled-reimagines-a-macho-seventies-war-film-w488760 • Siegel, D. (Director). (1971). Dirty Harry [Motion Picture]. United States: Warner Bros. • Siegel, D. (Director). (1971). The Beguiled [Motion Picture]. United States: Universal Pictures. • Zackarek,S. (2017, March 7). The Beguiled explores the dark side of female desire. Time, 190(1), 51-51. When looking at the creative and artistic industry it has always been male dominated. As Virginia Woolf said about poetry “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was a woman” (Cobb, 2015, p.2). This quote was written in 1929 from Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own showing that from early on, women are a minority in art industry. In 1998 17% of the people that worked on the top 250 grossing films were women and in 2013 it was 16% showing how low the number of women in comparison to men in the industry are (Cobb, 2015, p.3). In Britain, in 2009, women were accounted for 17.2% of British film directors overall (Hockenhull, 2015, p. 6). Before WW2 there was little opportunity for female directors and according to Sue Harper “in the 1930s, women experienced extreme difficulties breaking into the technical side of production” resulting in the few female directors at that time. The outbreak of war also saw a slight rise in female directors including Muriel Box and Jill Craigie for documentary films, although by 1947 documentary filmmaking “was rapidly becoming the preserve of men” (Hockenhull. 2015, p. 7). During the 1960s women made children’s films and then the 1970s focused on avant-garde and feminist cinema. During this period Sally Potter began her career and Laura Mulvey’s feminist writing was hugely significant amongst feminist filmmaking. Channel 4 then began funding independent projects and female cinema including Bhaji on the Beach (Chadha, 1993). The UKFC was introduced in 2000 which directed lottery funding into British filmmaking. Tanya Seghatchian became the Head of funding for UKFC from 2010 and she was described by the Guardian as “the most powerful woman in the British film industry.” (Hockenhull, 2015, p. 11). “Seghatchian had access to both the Premiere Fund and the New Cinema Fund, a sizeable budget enabling her to support the production of both smalland large-scale projects” and has supported the films of Lynne Ramsay, Clio Barnard, Andrea Arnold, etc. In this essay I will be focusing on Andrea Arnold as her films follow the British feminist route in terms of funding and how she began but also feminist in her use of gender regarding the focus on her female characters. I will be focusing on Arnold’s constructions of gender and youth culture in Fish Tank (Arnold, 2009) and her most recent film, American Honey (Arnold, 2016). One of the aspects that makes Arnold an auteur is through her interest in her young female characters and how they grow, make mistakes and their sexuality. She also has a British New Wave approach to film-making, shooting on "real locations and the employment of non-professional or little-known actors" (Taylor, 2000, p.3) “to tackle 'real' social issues and experiences in a manner which matched, a style which was honest and realistic as well." (Hill, 1986, p.127). Through Arnold’s oeuvre she is known for her female protagonists. The examples I will be using, Star in American Honey and Mia in Fish Tank, both fit into the youth demographic and certain stereotypes of this are shown throughout each film. When we are introduced to each of the protagonists, they’re unrecognisable to us. To use unprofessional/ amateur actors is a trait of the British New Wave which Arnold often homages. She discovered Katie Jarvis (Mia) having an argument with her boyfriend on a station platform (Christie, 2011, p.1) and Sasha Lane (Star) “on a beach in Panama during Spring Break” (Hans, 2016, p. 19). Arnold also most likely chooses to focus on the youth demographic due to the fact she “worked as a performer and presenter on youth-oriented television for much of the 1980s and ’90s” (Christie, 2011, p.1). We are introduced to Mia through a medium long shot in the apartment where she dances. The camera pans around her head looking around the window, which establishes the council estate setting. “Urban living’s concrete drabness is both bemoaned and limned with colour and grace, the smallest and most desolate corner yet capable of offering escape and earthbound pleasure. Her characters may not transcend their place in the world, but at least they’re allowed to fully inhabit it.” (Hynes, 2010, p.1). This first sequence immediately inhabits the audience into Mia’s stereotypical, rebellious youth culture. We see her dance, arguing on the phone and with her mother and headbutting a girl all in the first sequence establishing her as being a delinquent teenager. This is further supported by her clothing codes of a tracksuit which typically is the dress code of someone lower class. Although Fish Tank is about youth culture it also explores the world of sex for fifteen-year-old Mia when she is introduced to her neglective mother’s new boyfriend, Conor (Michael Fassbender). We are introduced to him when Mia is dancing in the kitchen and he walks in shirtless with ill-fitting jeans. He is the only one in the film who speaks to Mia like an adult, showing her transition into womanhood. There is a constant sexual undertone when it comes to Conor and Mia. For example, when Mia cuts her foot when trying to catch a fish, Conor carries her on his back. Her breathing becomes louder and we know she is allured by him. Her mother becomes jealous of Mia’s emerging sexuality, asking her to put some clothes on in front of Conor when they are kitchen as Mia is wearing her underwear and a t-shirt. The “powerful pull of sex” theme is something that has always interested Arnold and how it impacts her young female characters (Hans, 2016, p.18). We are introduced to Star in American Honey rummaging through garbage for food with her younger half siblings. She is dressed ruggedly in a tank top. When she sticks her thumb out to try and get a ride there is an extreme close-up of her hand, showing her chipped nail polish. This along with the smoking, tattoos and dreadlocks fits her into the stereotype of reckless youth. Her language is also quite aggressive in this scene as a car with a “God is coming sticker” on the back ignores her she shouts, “I hope he comes all over your car.” She then says to the children that they are invisible. The youth are in a way as people have stereotyped them. The mag crew she accompanies are part of the youth generation. She is first introduced to Jake in a supermarket with We Found Love- Rihanna playing. Jake starts jumping on the counters, security is called, and he is escorted out. The lyrics “we found love in a hopeless place” links to their situation perfectly as Star is currently in a hopeless place but breaks out of this, falling for Jake. Star is currently living with her alcoholic stepfather and half siblings who call her “mum”. Her stepfather, “a “cardboard cut-out of masculine oppression” abuses her in their small trailer home (West-Knights, 2016, p.1). While we see the abuse, the lighting is low key and the setting is claustrophobic, presenting her being trapped. The song Take Your Time- Sam Hunt is playing with the lyric “I don’t want to steal your freedom” with a shot of a moth stuck in a spiderweb. This represents Star being stuck in an abusive atmosphere. She escapes the situation by running off with the mag crew and falling in love with Jake. Both of their sex scenes completely juxtapose the abuse as the lighting is high key and they’re surrounded by nature instead of the isolated, dark setting. This is then contrasted again when Star turns to prostitution to earn money by pleasuring an oil field worker in his truck. The lighting is dark, and the car presents entrapment. One of the main constructions of gender that Arnold focuses on in her films is that of motherly tendencies from her female leads. She has always explored this, especially in her short films such as Wasp (Arnold, 2003) and Milk, (Arnold, 1998) one about a mother and the other about a woman who has lost her baby and begins to mother a young adult. Arnold was the “oldest of four children growing up in a council house in Dartford, Kent, on the opposite side of the Thames Estuary from where Fish Tank is set” which is probably a reason why she uses characters with younger siblings and presents them as motherly (Christie, 2011,p.1). Both Mia and Star have siblings in the films and to some degree mother them as both mothers in the film are neglective. Star is shown caring for insects in the film, including rescuing a bee from drowning in a pool saying “i got you” showing a maternal and caring side. “Arnold’s cut-in shots of butterflies, birds and bugs failing to take flight reinforce the feeling that something is keeping these young Americans down. Only Star pauses to set the bugs free. And her essential virtue, taking care of neglected children and dreaming of a trailer and family of her own, distinguishes her from her fellow travellers” (Hutchinson, 2016, p.1). Jacobs suggests that Arnold’s work is part of “maternal creaturely cinema” (Jacobs, 2016, p.161) due to her characters but also the way she presents them in terms of camerawork. Both Mia and Star are presented this way through the “phenomenological” filmmaking which forces “a physical engagement with the bodies on screen” (Jacobs, 2016, p.161). Arnold achieves this through her close camerawork. From the equilibrium in Fish Tank, the camera is tracking beside Mia closely like we are a child following its mother or it pans around her like the earth orbiting the sun. The film is mediated to revolve around Mia and even if she makes a mistake we stay with and support her. When Mia makes the mistake of taking Conor’s daughter Kiera, the camera goes in and out of focus and becomes jagged. The audience is omniscient, knowing she is doing something wrong, but we still support her. The camera is also close to Star in American Honey. “Arnold crops the Midwestern landscapes, framing sunset-hued vistas as Instagram squares.” Arnold says she likes using this aspect ratio as she wants to “home in on the person.” (Hill, 2016, p.21). One of the constructions of gender that Arnold puts place in her characters is that they have dreams and the hope of freedom in their social realist world. The title “Fish Tank” could refer to youth being trapped in small spaces where they are made to believe that this is all there is to life, when in actual fact there is so much more in the ocean. There is the metaphor of a white horse that Mia tries to free from its chains. When returning to see the horse she is told that the horse was killed “she was sixteen. It was her time”. Mia is fifteen almost sixteen and this symbolises it’s her time to leave too. When she drives away with Billy, her sister is chasing the car. The shot is looking at her through the back window of the car, framing her as being in a tank. It is her turn escape next. The theme of dreaming and freedom is also shown in American Honey, not just through the freedom of Star saving insects but through other means. One of the main way’s freedom is shown is through the American flag representing the American dream. The flag is shown in many scenes, examples being the curtain in her stepdad’s house, on the rodeo men’s house and when Star makes her first sale she says “I feel like fucking America” as she feels free and elated. In a scene towards the end, Star is riding with a truck driver and he asks her if she has any dreams. She says that no one has ever asked her that before “this ultimately is what the film is concerned with a young woman interrogating for the first time what it is she actually wants for herself”. (West-Knights, 2016, p.1). Star says she wants her “own trailer [...] somewhere with lots of trees [...] and lots of kids” (Arnold, 2016), again showing her maternal side. While this scene is happening Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ is playing which is ironic giving the subject matter is about dreaming. This also happens in Fish Tank with the song California Dreamin’ as we know Mia has dreams too. In conclusion, Andrea Arnold chooses to present her youthful teenage girl characters as maternal beings due to their personality and the close camerawork but also presents them as coming from hardship and striving for freedom as they have their own dreams. Bibliography
Arnold, A. (Director). (1998). Milk. [Short Film]. United Kingdom: Anglia Television. Arnold, A. (Director). (2003). Wasp. [Short Film]. United Kingdom: FilmFour. Arnold, A. (Director). (2009). Fish Tank. [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: BBC Films. Arnold, A. (Director). (2016). American Honey. [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: Maven Pictures. Chadha, G. (Director). (2003). Bhaji on the Beach. [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: Channel Four Films. Christie, I. (2011, February 22). Fish Tank: An England Story. Retrieved from https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1764-fish-tank-an-england-story . Cobb, S. (2015) Adaptation, authorship, and contemporary women filmmakers. Basingstoke, England. Hans, S. (2016, October). Wandering Star. Sight & Sound, 26(10) pp. 18- 22. Hill, J. (1986) Sex, Class and Realism British Cinema 1956-1963. London: British Film Institute. Hockenhull, S. (2015) ‘Damsels in Distress?’, Film International, 13(1), pp. 6–19. Hutchinson, P. (2016, December 14). Film of the week: American Honey. Retrieved from https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/american-honey-review . Hynes, E. (2010, January 12) The Girl Can’t Help It: Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank”. Retrieved from https://www.indiewire.com/2010/01/review-the-girl-cant-help-it-andrea-arnolds-fish-tank-245992/ . Jacobs, A. (2016) ‘On the maternal “creaturely” cinema of Andrea Arnold’, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 13(1), pp. 160–176. Taylor, B.F. (2000) The British New Wave A Certain Tendency? Manchester: Manchester University Press. West-Knights, I. (2016, November 16). REVIEW: ‘AMERICAN HONEY’. Retrieved from https://www.anothergaze.com/review-american-honey/ .
Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (2017) is a picturesque story which follows six-year-old Mooney over a summer on her mischief- filled adventures with her friends, and her life with her rebellious mother, all set in a run-down motel on the suburb of Kissimmee, next to Walt Disney World. The film is trying to spread the news of marginal voices that are usually silent, and, in this case, it is the “hidden homeless” (Porton, 2017, p.22) that live on the suburbs of Disney World. Baker has done this to make his audience question whether there are homeless people in their own communities. The three ways he has achieved this is through theme context and form. The theme refers to an idea that recurs throughout a text and in this case, it is the subculture of the communities that Baker is bringing light to. The form is how the “content is expressed” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009, p. 35) meaning how it is filmed and put together which coincides with Bakers auteurist style. Finally, there is the context which links to how the film is an independent feature and what this means regarding how the film was made and how this resulted in the finished product.
When looking at theme, The Florida Project focuses on subcultures. The subculture here being that of people in the motel communities. They’re not quite homeless, but each struggle to keep a roof over their heads as shown through Haley paying her rent late and turning to prostitution. The community aspect is shown throughout. The characters in the motel all know each other as shown in the scene where Mooney and Scooty give Jancey a tour around the motel, describing the residents by their room door. Some examples being “the man who lives in here gets arrested a lot”, “this woman in here thinks she’s married to Jesus” (Baker, 2017). Subcultural studies began in the 1920s in Chicago and then in the 1970s, the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) used it in a UK context. They focus on “urban grit and glamour” (Huq, 2015, p.107). In Dick Hebrige’s writing he links the term hegemony within subculture theory and says it “refers to a situation in which a provisional alliance of certain social groups can exert ‘total social authority’ over other subordinate groups” (Hebrige, 1979, p.16). This shows how due to the higher classes having more “social authority” the lower classes then become “the silent majority” (p.18), becoming irrelevant and invisible in our culture. Baker chooses to draw light to these silent subcultures in his films. Examples being the trans-community in Tangerine (Baker, 2015) and the porn industry in Starlet (Baker, 2012). Hebrige then says that the people above these subcultures in this hierarchy of class have an ideology or “common sense” (p.11) towards people in a lower class, in this case it is the subculture of people that live in the motel. When the newly wed couple arrive at the Magic Kingdom motel, the husband realises he’s mistaken it for THE Magic Kingdom in the Disney park. He then frantically talks to Bobby to make the changes as he doesn’t want to disappoint his wife. His wife then becomes aware of the mix-up and exclaims “This is a welfare slum hotel. We’re spending our honeymoon in a gypsy project?” (Baker, 2017). She has this negative view of the motel and the people in it as she’s using her “common sense” ideology to come to those conclusions. This is also shown when one of Haley’s “customers” from the night before, returns to the hotel in search for the Disney World park hopper wristbands she stole. When Bobby asks him to “get off the premises” he says, “it’s not a premises, it’s a fucking dump”. Hebrige then quotes Hall saying, “you cannot learn through common sense” and that classes “ideological nature is most effectively concealed” (Hebrige, 1997, p.11). Linking this to the quote about the “silent majority”, it is Baker that is making these voices heard, through the children. He also describes the tensions between dominant and subordinate groups. A scene where this is presented is when the DCF come to take Mooney into temporary foster care. The class difference is clearly scene here through the positioning of the characters and their clothing codes. The DCF including the police are placed outside the door and Haley and Mooney on the inside. The use of the door shows the juxtaposition and difference in the two classes. The DCF are also smartly dressed in blouses whereas Haley is in slouchy joggers and a tank top, again showing the difference in class and bringing light to this subculture and their struggles.
When looking at form, it is known in film theory that “form follows content” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009, p.35) and ,as I mentioned in the introduction, this means that the content is what the film is about but the form is how it is expressed using techniques such as the mise-en-scene, the script and story, montage or editing and sound design (p. 36-37). This is all used to create meaning in the story. Baker has used form to his advantage here. The main device he has utilized is the characters. Baker has taken inspiration from The Little Rascals (Roach, 1955), a television show that follows the children growing up in the depression and used child actors to bring light to the situation that he is trying to present. Despite the harsh reality of these children’s lives, Baker uses his protagonist, Mooney, to bring light to every situation. We follow the children in this story, and we are positioned to be one of them. This is shown through multiple scenes, for example when Bobby is walking back through the car park, after turning back on the power, he is presented with a low angle as he is the adult here and we are viewing him as a child. Another scene is when Mooney, Jancey and Scooty are looking up at the abandoned house, it is a low angle again and the audience is reminded how big the world seems when you are a child. Baker said, “I want audiences to go in there and enjoy ninety minutes of hanging out with the kids, being one of the kids, bringing audiences back to the summers of their youth,” regarding the child point of view (Johnson, 2017).
Baker also uses children to show us what is really happening indirectly. The camera is often focusing on Mooney when something is happening in the background. We focus on Mooney in these situations because the audience follow her in this story and it’s her world, we are in. Although we are aware of what is happening regarding Mooney’s life, the way these clues are presented are always in the background of shot, apart from a few occasions, so we know Mooney isn’t aware of them. For example, when Haley is at the job centre she is in the foreground, out of focus, and Mooney is in the background, in focus, playing with a doll. She is unaware her mum is struggling to earn money. In another scene Haley is trying to get into the Arabian hotel for one night so they don’t have to establish residency at the motel. Haley continues to argue with the owner as they’ve raised the price. This is presented in the background of the shot but in the foreground, we are focused on Mooney dancing. This again shows her vulnerability to the situation. The most emotionally hard-hitting shots are when the adult world is seen from the child’s point of view. In one scene Mooney is in the bath and then one of Haley’s “customer’s” opens the door, breaking the barrier between child world and adult. The camera remains on Mooney, shocked and then Haley tells Mooney to draw the shower curtain, again acting like a barrier between these worlds and keeping Mooney unaware of what is really happening. Another scene where this happens is when Haley beats up Ashley, Scooty’s mother, after she confronts Haley about her prostituting herself (again showing this idea of community as everyone knows everyone’s business). The scene is shown with Scooty’s back to the camera, viewing his mother being attacked as we, the audience, do. Baker has cleverly done this to make the scene more shocking than what it would normally be as the audience are viewing it through a child’s innocent eyes. This is like neorealism which Baker has been compared to using before, as children view a lot of difficult subject matters in that movement such as Bruno seeing his father get arrested in Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948). In an article about this it says, “the post war period was the great season of casting non-professional actors, and especially very young children due to their notorious lack of self-consciousness in front of the camera.” (Vacche, 2018, p. 169) which Baker has payed homage to also through using first time child actors. He goes against this slightly though through casting Willem Dafoe as Bobby. When we are introduced to him Mooney opens the motel door to him, showing this difference between star and newcomer but the opening of the door shows they are both part of this story and the fact he is a star actor doesn’t take away from the narrative.
Probably the most iconic features Baker has used in terms of form is the cinematography. Baker’s cinematographer Alexis Zabe shot both on 35mm film and digital to give the film a “natural beauty” (Vacche, 2018, p. 170). Baker uses stylized realism which “whimsically continues his preoccupation with charismatic outcasts. The film’s amalgamation of whimsy and social realism entranced most critics while alienating a vocal minority” (Porton, 2017, p. 22). Bakers work has been said to bring social realism to an American context and The Florida Project adds a child point of view. It swaps out the dreary, unappealing look of social realism for the candy coloured world of a child. The film appears like Baker has pushed the contrast setting all the way as the colour really makes this world pop. From the purple of The Magic Kingdom motel to the rainbows and the bright stores along the Disney strip. This exaggerates the fact we’re in a child’s world. Although he follows the social realism narrative, Baker makes it his own (auteur) through form by using colour.
One of Baker’s auteur tendencies is to use a hopeful ending as the film’s new equilibrium as also shown in Tangerine (Baker, 2015) with the hope of friendship through the metaphor of sharing the wig. The Florida Project follows his auteur style. After the DCF arrive to take Mooney away from Haley, Mooney flees to Jancey’s home and asks for help. The film then juxtaposes the cinema verité feel of the duration before this moment. As Jancey takes Mooney’s hand, the film has a happy, light soundtrack and the it’s in fast motion with a shaken handheld camera following the girls as they escape to Disney World. It’s ironic having the film set form the point of view of children and set around Disney World as that is an iconic semiotic for children’s happiness but the children’s situation completely contrasts this, although they’re making the best of what they have. Although this ending is hopeful and is “commercial, crowd-pleasing compromise” (Porton, 2017, p.22) the reality is that Mooney was taken away. The fast motion presents this as not being the realistic ending but it is there so the audience can choose what they want to believe, either the sad realistic ending or the hopeful one. Context wise, this film is part of the “indie” genre. This genre tends to have ‘low budgets and risky subjects, themes, or plots’, and neglected genres” (Staiger, 2013, p.21). This fits to this film perfectly as it focuses on neglected communities and subcultures, interacting with the theme of the film perfectly and bringing the film from “the margins to the mainstream” (King, Molloy, C. & Tzioumakis, 2013, p.3) as its bringing light to their communities. In conclusion The Florida Project interacts between form, theme and context perfectly. The context being the indie film interacts with the theme revolving around subcultures and brings light to them. And then the form interacts with both as “distinctive visual look” (Staiger, 2013, p. 21) from Baker’s auteur style makes it part of the indie genre and Bakers form choice to focus on the hidden homeless children then interacts with the theme.
Bibliography-
Baker, S. (Director). (2012). Starlet. [Motion Picture]. United States: Cre Film. Baker, S. (Director). (2015). Tangerine. [Motion Picture]. United States: Duplass Brothers Productions. Baker, S. (Director). (2017). The Florida Project. [Motion Picture]. United States: Cre Film. Benshoff, H. M. and Griffin, S. (2009) America on film : representing race, class, gender, and sexuality at the movies. Malden, MA, USA : Wiley-Blackwell. De Sica, V. (Director). (1948). Bicycle Thieves. [Motion Picture]. Italy: Produzioni De Sica. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: the meaning of style. London ; New York : Routledge. Huq, R. (2015). Young People on the Edge A World of Post-Subcultures and Post-Suburbs? (pp. 107-122) In B. Segaert, J. Haers, A. Dhoest & S. Malliet (Eds). The Borders of Subculture : Resistance and the Mainstream. Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies. New York: Routledge. Johnson, T. (2017, October 22). PopPolitics: Sean Baker on What ‘The Florida Project’ Says About the ‘Hidden Homeless’ Variety. https://variety.com/2017/politics/news/the-florida-project-sean-baker-homeless-1202595990/ . King, G., Molloy, C. and Tzioumakis, Y. (2013) American independent cinema.: indie, indiewood and beyond. New York : Routledge. Porton, R. (2017) ‘Life on the Margins: An Interview with Sean Baker’, Cineaste: America’s Leading Magazine on the Art and Politics of the Cinema, 43(1), pp. 22–25. Roach, H. (Creator). (1955). The Little Rascals [Television Show]. United States: Hal Roach Studios. Staiger, J. (2013). Independent of What? Sorting out differences from Hollywood. (15-27). In G. King, C. Molloy & Y. Tzioumakis (Eds). American independent cinema.: indie, indiewood and beyond. New York : Routledge. Vacche, A. D. (2018) ‘American Neorealism? Sean Baker’s The Florida Project’, Cinergie, Vol 7, Iss 13, Pp 169-171 (2018), (13), p. 169. "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."In John Cawelti’s “Chinatown and generic transformation in recent American films” (Cawelti, 2003, p.243) he outlines his idea of revisionism. He states that genre has a “hard-boiled formula” (2003, p.246) that is repeated continuously resulting in it being exhausted overtime. Because of this it has now become an “American myth” as certain genres are that easily recognisable that it has become an iconic semiotic within society. He has described four modes in which elements of a genre have been altered in order to give them a new context. The first is “burlesque proper” (2003, p.251) in which a conventional formula or style is exaggerated which then results in laughter. This presents the “breaking of convention by intrusion of reality and the inversion of expected implications” (2003, p.252) meaning that it is juxtaposing the conventional genre. This change is therefore mediated in a way to make the audience laugh. He uses The Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974) as an example as it parodies the horror genre. Although a lot of the burlesque films result in comedy, some also result in tragedy which he refers to as the “doomed burlesque” (2003, p.250). An example of this is Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967) as it is a new Hollywood version of the gangster genre but ends in the pair’s deaths. The second is the “cultivation of nostalgia” (2003, p.253). This is when films deploy certain aspects of past genre films such as characters, plot and style in order to “evoke nostalgia” (2003, p. 253). Nostalgia is evoked as it is “ironically commenting upon generic experience itself” (2003, p.254) rather just repeating the genre, presenting a “relationship between past and present” and the audience can distinguish the two themselves (2003, p.253). The next mode is “demythologization” (2003, p.254) which is when the text deliberately uses traditional genre conventions to make the audience see genre as the “embodiment of an inadequate and destructive myth” (2003, p.254). He uses Little Big Man (Penn, 1970) as an example as it uses the “myth” of the western genre and flips it as it is the Indians who are “humane and civilised” and the pioneers are the ones who are “violent [and] corrupt” (2003, p.256) which shows demythologization of the western genre as it is taking what we know and making it something new by modification. The fourth mode is the “affirmation of myth” (2003, p.258) which is when “a traditional genre and its myth are probed and shown to be unreal, but then the myth itself is at least partially affirmed as a reflection of authentic human aspirations and needs” (2003, p.258). This means that films use the traditional genre conventions but alter certain aspects to meet the needs of a modern audience. Cawelti states that the best films based on generic transformation use at least one of these modes and he approves of this as he dislikes the exhaustion of genre within popular modern culture. He uses Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) as a main example and I have chosen to focus on this too as it is a key text within the “myth” that is the film noir genre. Film Noir was the name given by French film critics in 1946 to an “unusually despairing group of Hollywood crime thrillers” that they missed during the war (Ewing. Jr, 2010, p.61). The period is said to have started with The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941) and ended with Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958) (Schrader, 2003, p.230). These films portrayed a darker side of American society, focusing on the themes of hopelessness, “claustrophobia, paranoia, despair and nihilism” (Spicer, 2002, p.64) with a “cohesive visual style” (Ward and Silver, 2010). The style was heavily influenced by German Expressionism as it used chiaroscuro and sharp lines to present the darkness and corruption within society. Cawelti refers to film noir as the detective story and says that it is an “important American myth” as it can be “defined as a pattern of narrative known throughout the culture.” (2003, p.244). He describes many conventions of this myth including the 1930s California city setting, black and white cinematography, a detective protagonist “American hero type” (2003, p.245) and the “beautiful and dangerous woman” character or the femme fetale (p.246). He also says that the story’s equilibrium begins with the detective being given a deceptive mission, either the client is lying, or the client is being deceived by another such as in The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946). The detective is drawn to the femme fatale character and finds himself in a web of conspiracy as he discovers a corrupt society, not just a corrupt individual. He must then decide how he can bring justice to the situation. The criminal then confesses, and the detective departs from the femme fatale character and returns to his normality, ready to “perform more acts of justice when the occasion arises” (2003, p.246). Cawelti also says that the detective/ film noir genre is one that is exhausted as it is done continuously. He uses Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) as an example but says how it disregards some conventions and uses some revisionism modes to make the genre divergent. Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) is a revised genre of film noir and it follows private detective Jake Gittes who specializes in catching out spouses who have committed adultery. On his most recent case, he finds himself mixed up in the corruption of society. “When noir was revived in the 1970s, it kept true to many of the genre's traditions, but altered others, in what has been called neo-noir.” (Fuchsman, 2018, p.60). This is a film that embodies Cawelti’s four modes of revisionism perfectly. One of the modes it fits into is the “cultivation of nostalgia” (Cawelti, 2003, p.253). It fits into this as it is a detective story with the archetypal detective figure based on Humphrey Bogart’s film noir oeuvre. Jake Gittes is dressed in a suit and fedora hat which has become an iconic semiotic for the Bogart character which is presented in À Bout de Souffle (Godard, 1960) where Michel mimics his idol, Bogart, in a tweed jacket and fedora hat. This could also fit into the “burlesque” (2003, p.251) mode or the “doomed burlesque” (2003, p. 250) as like Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967), it is a new Hollywood version of a genre, in this case film noir, and it embodies the iconic look of that genre but ends in tragedy with Evelyn being shot. It also makes homage to classic film noir look as Jake comments on the venetian blinds saying- “you can’t eat the venetian blinds Curly. I just had them installed on Wednesday.” (Polanski, 1974). Venetian blinds are an iconic genre convention within noir. Although it is an in-joke on the noir genre, but it is also an example of “demythologization” (2003, p.254) as it shows how the genre can be deconstructed. Here they are acknowledging the genre or “myth” itself and one of its most iconic conventions. An example of when this is used is in Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) as when Walter enters the Dietrichson house for the first time, he is surrounded by the shadows caused by the blinds, foreshadowing his entrapment by Phyllis. This can fit into the “burlesque” (Cawelti, 2003, p. 251) mode as it is making an in-joke on the film noir genre itself. Another way it fits into the “cultivation of nostalgia” is how the story begins with the black and white Paramount logo, referencing film noirs like Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) which begin the same. It then moves to a shot of a monochrome photograph, then removes it from the frame revealing that this film is in colour which was not common of the film noirs of the 1940s and 50s. Cawelti says that the mise-en-scene of Chinatown has the “aura of the hard-boiled myth” (2003, p. 244) but the use of colour departs from this slightly. “Polanski carefully controls his spectrum of hue and tone in order to give it the film of film noir” (2003, p. 244). The use of colour isn’t recreation but is repositioning the audience. It can’t “duplicate” the past experience of this genre but shows the “relationship between past and present” (2003, p. 253). Although it cultivates nostalgia, it also makes it new for a modern audience therefore moulding the genre. The fact the choice of colour was made could also fit into the mode of “affirmation of myth” (2003, p.258) as the film is using traditional genre conventions such as the narrative and the characters but altering certain aspects (the colour) to meet the needs of a modern audience. It also fits into the “cultivation of nostalgia” through the narrative. As Cawelti says, the hard-boiled detective story usually starts with the detective “being given a mission by a client” who is usually deceptive (2003, p. 245). This can be seen in many noirs including The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946) and The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941). Chinatown uses this same equilibrium to create nostalgia for the audience. This can be seen as the fake Evelyn Mulwray asks Jake to follow her “husband.” Jake realises he has been set up and investigates further into the real Evelyn Mulwray and the sabotaging the water supply plot. The detective then uncovers not just a corrupt individual but a corrupt society. Evelyn is the femme fetale here, again part of the “cultivation of nostalgia” as she seduces Jake and continuously lies to him about her daughter/ sister and her father. Even though she is the femme fetale in this story, it differs from the film noirs of the 40s and 50s as the audience sympathise with her as her relationship with her father was incestuous. She isn’t trying to manipulate Jake but is almost begging for his help with her and her daughter’s escape from the clutches of her father. This juxtaposes the femme fetale of the classic era as they were evil and deceitful. This can be seen in Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) as Phyllis uses Walter to kill her husband and this ends in her being shot. Women were presented in this way at the time as they had taken up the jobs of men while they were fighting in the war and when the men returned, they wanted to repress the women back into their domesticity. The shooting of Phyllis here can represent that as she is being repressed while attempting to rise. Although Evelyn is shot at the end, we feel sympathy as she was just trying to help her daughter. Jake is then made to carry on and move onto the next case which is shown through the iconic line “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” and the wide shot of Jake walking away. This presents how this is just one aspect of a corrupt society and Jake has other future cases to solve. Film noir was a genre that “offer[d] a ‘dark mirror’ to American society” (Spicer, 2002, p.64) as America had just gone through the Depression and was currently still in WW2. Unlike during the Depression where escapist musicals such as Gold Diggers of 1933 (LeRoy, 1933) were made, film noir chose to show a darker side of humanity. Chinatown did a similar thing because of the time it was made. This was a dark time in America. The film was made in the Watergate era and reflects the “darkness and disillusionment of that period” (Fushsman, 2018, p. 59.) The 60s was the time of Martin Luther King, Jr’s death, student radicalism and Civil rights activism, Vietnam etc. “As the sixties turned into the seventies, for many liberals and radicals hope turned into disillusionment” (Fushsman, 2018, p.59). The film noir genre was revived at this point to mimic the darker side of American society to fit the needs of its audience showing that Chinatown is part of the “affirmation of myth” mode (Cawelti, 2003, p.258) as it is revising the film noir genre again to mirror the dark side of American society that was being experienced at the time. “Chinatown tells a story which was absolutely modern, […] even though it is set nearly forty years before” (Eaton, 1997, p.21) showing how a story set in the past, appeals to an audience of the time through uses and gratifications of personal identity because of the chaos and darkness of America. From this case study of Chinatown, it clearly fits perfectly into some of Cawelti’s four modes of revisionism as part of the detective/ film noir genre. It places its story “within a view of the world that is deeper and more catastrophic, more enigmatic in its evil.” (Cawelti, 2003, p. 249). Because of this, it is a revised genre that can be demythed as the conventions are obvious and have been revised for a modern audience. Bibliography-
“As for the scenario, the “fable,” or “tale,” I only consider it at the end. I can state that the scenario constructed in this manner has no importance, since I use it merely as a pretext for the “stage effect,” the “tricks,” or for a nicely arranged tableau.” This source was said by “master of illusion” (Ezra, 2000, p. 51) Georges Méliès describing his thoughts towards the narratives of his films. Méliès focused on the “attraction” rather than the narrative as he wanted to show what the Cinematographe could achieve. Although Méliès followed the Lumiere Brothers short films, he differed from them: the Lumiere’s showed actuality films - the “documentary aspect of cinema” (North, 2008, p.51). In juxtaposition to this, Méliès presents the extraordinary, providing an ethereal experience for the spectator. However, Gunning argues, that they both present “a series of views” or images to the audience whether that’s it was “realistic illusion or magic illusion” (Gunning, 1990, p.57) based on the new spectacle of film technology. The Cinema of Attractions according to Gunning is “the ability to show something” (Gunning, 1990, p.57) resulting in exhibitionist cinema. Gunning also refers to “attractions” as having “unrelated acts in a non-narrative” and “illogical performances” (Gunning, 1990, p. 60) implying it was about showing not telling as shown when Méliès is gesturing for us to look at The Vanishing Lady (1896), there is no plot but about showing us the act. He says that Sergei Einstein came up with the term “attraction” when discussing the theatre and that the audience should absorb “illusionary depictions” (Gunning, 1990, p. 59) suggesting that the audience are allowing themselves to be tricked due to the ideas of escapist cinema and what it was capable of. Although “actuality films outnumbered fictional films until 1906” (Gunning, 1990, p. 56) Méliès’s films are hardly narrative driven and his intention is to show what cinema can do as presented in Voyage dans la Lune (1902) which simply follows a trip to the moon. The film lacks a narrative, as explained in Gunning’s reading, as it “expends little energy creating characters…it’s energy moves outward towards an acknowledged spectator rather than inward towards the character-based situations essential to classical narrative.” (Gunning, 1990, p. 59) Méliès treated character and narrative as an afterthought as film was a new medium. People were used to the narrative of the theatre, with film, the audience was focused on what it could do at this point, rather than the potential for narrative. Méliès treats the narrative of the film as an afterthought: “consider[s] it at the end” the important factor is the effects. Méliès describes the scenario as “a thread intended to link the ‘effects’ [to]…charm and intrigue” the audience (Hammond,1974, p.57) excellent. Méliès began as a magician so it is no surprise that his intent is to use visual trickery to interest the audience. This is evident through the theatrical aspects of his filmmaking including the static camera (like the audience are watching a show) and the fact that the first glass studio he built had the “exact dimensions of the théâtre Robert-Houdin” (Lewis, 2008, p.27) Méliès’s desire to present wonderment to the audience and experiment with this new technology to present “the dreams of cinema” something which he pioneered (North, 2015, p.128). Méliès “exploited the technological capacities of cinema” (Allen & Gomery, 1985, p.56) and has been described as the “father of special effects” (North, 2015, p. 128) for this reason. Although he performed his actual tricks in front of the camera he also “performed magic in the editing room…to create effects that were both spectacular and narratively motivated.” (Ezra, 2000, p.24). These phantasmagorical effects can be seen throughout his films. In The Vanishing Lady (1896) we see an example of his substitution splicing which presents a person or object’s disappearance on screen. In this example we see Méliès place a cloth over a woman and when it is removed she disappears. Then a skeleton suddenly appears and when he repeats the action of placing the cloth over her, she reappears. This was simply done with the magic of editing, which meant they were able to cut out when things were moved in front of the camera, resulting in the lady appearing to have vanished. Another example of Méliès’s techniques is the replication editing used in The Four Troublesome Heads (1898) where Méliès is presented centrally taking off and throwing his head in the air and then it’s shown on the table in the next cut. The fact that Méliès takes us to new worlds and “the domain of the marvellous” (Hammond, 1974, p.57) presents escapism and what cinema was capable of rather than experiencing everyday life as shown in the Lumiere Brother’s films. Méliès shows us a mermaid in La Sirène (1904), a fairy kingdom in Le Royaume des Fées (1903) and Ghosts in The Haunted Castle (1891), transporting his audience to new worlds and allowing them to experience new things which was what the cinema of attractions was about. Levi Strauss is quoted as saying “At long last we…really witness gods ascending rainbows to their castles in the sky...and sirens at the bottom of the ocean. And we would take it for real. Above all this is what I would ask of cinema” (Hammond, 1974, p. 1) From this quote you can infer that the audience knew they were being tricked but that was all part of the attraction and the escapist quality of cinema meaning that the audience wanted to experience new things. In conclusion from the points I have made and by using Gunning’s the Cinema of Attractions and other key readings it is clear to see that as a result of the times; narrative cinema was an afterthought as it was prominently about spectacle and the capabilities of cinema. This is supported by Gunning’s reading as it is “the ability to show something” (Gunning, 1990, p. 57) rather than telling something. This was presented through Méliès’s work who used tricks and effects to create wonderment for the audience and present phantasmagorical images on screen. This shows how narrative was purely the thread holding the spectacle together as in the beginning of film, it was about showing the capabilities of cinema rather than the narrative itself. Bibliography-
C. Allen. R & Gomery, D. (1985) Film History Theory and Practice. New York: McGraw Hill, Inc. Ezra, E. (2000) Georges Méliès The Birth of the auteur. Manchester: Manchester University Press Gunning, T. (1990) The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde. London: BFI Publishing Hammond, P. (1974) Marvellous Méliès. London: The Gordon Fraser Gallery, Ltd. Méliès, G. (Director). (1904) La Sirène [Motion Picture]. France: Star Film Company Méliès, G. (Director). (1903) Le Royaume des Fées [Motion Picture]. France: Star Film Company Méliès, G. (Director). (1898) The Four Troublesome Heads [Motion Picture]. France: Star Film Company Méliès, G. (Director). (1891) The Haunted Castle [Motion Picture]. France: Star Film Company Méliès, G. (Director). (1896) The Vanishing Lady [Motion Picture]. France: Star Film Company Méliès, G. (Director). (1902) Voyage dans la Lune [Motion Picture]. France: Star Film Company North,D. (2015) Being Georges Méliès. In D. North, B. Rehak & M.S Duffy (Eds.), Special Effects New Histories/ Theories/ Contexts (pp. 127-140) London: British Film Institute North,D. (2008) Performing Illusions Cinema, Special Effects and the Virtual Actor. London: Wallflower Press “[Her] films are intensely feminine rather than feminist-her aesthetic and taste is hyper-feminine, dominated by designer fashion, pink champagne, Ladurée macarons and the dreamy air of romance.” (Handyside, 2014, p.136)Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere on the one hand is a personal story reflecting Coppola’s childhood travelling with her father and on the other hand, encapsulates different perceptions of femininity from Girlhood to adulthood “shifting the focus from awkward navigations of heterosexual love relations to a father-daughter relationship.” (Handyside, 2014, p.134) allowing Coppola to explore her recurrent “girly” theme. Although one of Coppola’s traits of being an auteur is her female protagonists, this is one of three films told from a male perspective, in this case it’s movie star, Johnny Marco. Through masculine eyes and using Mulvey’s male gaze theory it allows us to view the different ways women are presented through the mise-en-scene and the eye of the camera. Although the demographic targeted for Sofia’s films is predominantly female, Handyside (2017, p.7) says Mulvey believes that “women’s enjoyment of the cinema pushes them into a masculine position.” This is presented all throughout the film as women are highly sexualised from the get go. In the equilibrium (Todorov) we see twins, Bambi and Cindy pole dancing as Nurses for Johnny. This scene is repeated, again, but they are dressed as tennis players. This is shot with a medium long shot with a static camera, giving an awkward feel as it is restricting to the audience. Johnny also appears disinterested as he falls asleep on both occasions, the bubble-gum ‘POP!’ in time with the edit suggests this. On the second occasion he mistakes Cindy for Bambi presenting his carelessness towards sexualised women in “adulthood,” similarly to the scene in Lost in Translation (2003) when Murray disregards a Japanese escort. The fact that the pole dancers are sexualisations of professional roles presents a disregard of adulthood and shows Sofia presenting mainstream, consumer culture. Somewhere is packed with this sexual representation of women in “adulthood.” He’s shown sleeping with his neighbours, looking at airhostesses, following women in his masculine black Ferrari and viewing topless models which Coppola has done herself with Marc Jacobs describing her as the “epitome of this girl I fantasise of” (Garcia, 2011, p.1) although she uses stereotypical feminine traits like that of “fashion and domesticity” she “moves them into the ‘masculine’ world of cinema” as presented through the eyes of a male protagonist. (Handyside,2017, p.18) In juxtaposition to this Cleo, Elle Fanning, presents the “delights of pre-adolescent girlhood” (Handyside, 2014, p.133) and is a theme Sofia explores in all her films. We are introduced to Cleo right after the first encounter with the twins. The lighting immediately changed from dim to a high key angelic light encapsulating her innocence. Instead of seeing Cleo’s face first she is introduced as a signature, signing on her father’s cast, similarly to the marriage signature in Marie Antoinette (2006). These adolescent girls are known for their being rather than who they are. In one scene we see Cleo ice-skating to Cool by Gwen Stefani. This teen- like feel is referred to as “cinematic fluff” by Kathleen Row Karlyn (2011, p.77) due to its archetypal teen feel. Marco claps at the end of this, similarly to how he claps at the end of the twin’s routine, showing how he is aware that both are shows, and he enjoys both. Cleo cooks for herself and her father, showing a role reversal as it should be the parent providing for their child. Cleo has an older mind due to the fact she has had to adapt as both her mother and father are absent in her life. She is independent and thinks things through. After Marco becomes worried about a black SUV following them (paparazzi) Cleo disregards this as just looking like a car but takes note of the number plate to put her father’s mind at ease. Coppola says, “When I was younger, I wanted to grow up…I was more suited to being in my 40’s than a teenager.” (Handyside,2014, p.136) Coppola uses fashion to present change. Cleo is presented in a white, simplistic gown connoting innocence and the adults look in awe at this change similarly to a scene in Marie Antoinette when she’s described as a “little piece of cake.” Although this doesn’t seem to be the real Cleo, she is adapting to these aesthetics for her father who in some ways shows a disregard for his daughter as he leaves a bed with his daughter to sleep with an ex-lover in Italy. Despite this, a scene where they seem the happiest is a montage of them having an underwater tea party to the non-diegetic indie soundtrack I’ll Try Anything Once- The Strokes. As the lyric “six things without fail you must do, so that your woman loves just you” could show how Marco must focus on his daughter more as she is the one who truly matters. When Cleo is shown crying in the car about the absence of her mother, Marco says “Cleo! Sorry I haven’t been around”, the noise from the helicopter drowning out this, emulating the closing scene of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, presenting Coppola’s love of European cinema. After this Marco calls Cleo’s Mother and regards himself as “fucking nothing” coming to the realisation that the sexualised woman of ‘adulthood’ he regarded as important in the past are insignificant. He then begins to change, cooking for himself and moving out of his apartment. A long tracking shot follows him driving, then stopping in an arid location and getting out, presenting a binary opposition from the equilibrium as we see him driving around in circles which could be what Somewhere is about. There are multiple visions of circles from the driving, to the ice skating and the pole dancers. The fact that we see Marco break this and starts walking presents him breaking this cycle. The ambiguous ending of Marco walking leaves hopes to the audience that his future will go ‘somewhere.’ In conclusion the difference between ‘girlhood’ and ‘adulthood’ is told through the eyes of the protagonist, Johnny Marco. In the new equilibrium he comes to the realisation that his daughter matters over the women he has been seeing and therefore shows Coppola providing a voice for her adolescent girl characters. Bibliography
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AuthorMegan Hilborne is a freelance film writer and graduated from the University of Portsmouth in 2020 with a degree in film. ArchivesCategories |