April Fools! Camera Obscura: Weird Films from Famous Directors

An uncharacteristically tame still from Capra's Controversy.

I haven't updated in a few weeks, but never fear, as today I've got a special treat for y'all. As you might know, on Thursdays I usually recommend an unusual double bill to watch, but as I've not updated in a while I though I'd do an especially unusual double bill for this week's main post, with two films that are barely known at all. The first is by the legendary director Frank Capra, whose almost completely forgotten Thirteen Nights in Farvardin was made in 1922 but banned before release. The plot follows the adventures of a young woman traveller in the Middle East, and her sexual encounters with (embarassingly stereotyped) Persian men. Each night, Dolores, the central character, is visited by an increasing number of men who seduce her with presents, such as marigold gloves, which were in short supply in the 1920s following a yellow rubber shortage. Indeed, adjusted for inflation, in 1920 just one pair of mid-market marigolds could cost as much as the equivalent of a plane ticket in today's money. The film was banned before release, and all copies were thought lost until 2005, when a restoration team were shocked to find a Capra film which involved hardcore pornography, bondage and one particularly explicit scene with a snake charmer. Dubbed 'Capra's Controversy' by the New York Times, it's thought that after the censorious furore that followed completion of the film, and a stern telling off from long-time friend and collaborator James Stewart, Capra turned his back on erotica for good. It's quite astonishing to see a pornographic film from the director of It's a Wonderful Life and It Happened One Night, and at 4 hours and 17 minutes long, it's an especially lengthy trip into silent erotica.

The second film is a low budget, 1976 arthouse production from Richard Curtis, the writer-director responsible for the TV series Blackadder and the films Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually. This early project was entitled Happy in Paris, but unlike his more recent work, Happy in Paris was an experimental film that explored the effects of psyschotropic drugs on the mind. Positioning himself as a maverick against the studio system, Curtis insisted that his entire cast and crew took LSD throughout the shoot, so as to accurately capture on film the experience of taking acid. Other bizarre requests included that all publicity for the film should be in Danish, and that only egg mayonnaise sandwiches were to be served for lunch, but that crew members were to supply their own bread. The star, French actor Jacques Lauren, said of working with Curtis:

"He is an eggomaniac. And that's not just my accent: the only thing he loves more than himself is eggs. I believe in this project, but Richard's a screwball. Yesterday, he wouldn't shoot until he inspected all of our fingernails for 'contaminants'. Then afterwards he kept blinking very quickly and timing his blinks with a stopwatch. We were there until four in the morning".

Happy in Paris' poster. To keep with the esoteric tone of the film, Curtis insisted that no promotional material should contain the film's name.

Set not in Paris, but rather in Japan, it's about a French ex-pat who finds himself in post-war Japan, and who slowly becomes embroiled in a sub-culture of drug-fuelled karaoke binges and massive scalectrix competitions, with an impressive 43-minute climactic toy-car race, filmed in black and white and with no dialogue or score. Both films are fascinating, if bizarre and confusing experiments, but also I think, both present examples of a fascination with the exotic, that if we look, bear out in the rest of their works. Ironically, despite their rarity in physical form, Thirteen Nights in Farvardin and Happy in Paris are in the public domain and are currently available on Youtube. Check them out for a couple of unusual slices of cinema history.

Films that Everyone Loves but I Hate

Taste is an amorphous, subjective thing, and often separate from the recognition of quality. My favourite film, for example, is Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future, but I'm well aware that it's far from the best film ever made, or even that I've seen. I think you can argue that The Godfather, The Maltese Falcon and The Seventh Seal are objectively 'better' films, but they simply don't conjure in me that magic combination of excitement, nostalgia and wonder that Back to the Future does. That said, Back to the Future is a fine, fine film and if you don't like it you probably need to seriously rethink your life. Films have different meanings for different people, and though I've never bothered with it myself, I understand that The Rocky Horror Picture is a huge cultural touchstone for many people, as is Dirty Dancing, or for others, The Lost Boys, which though I like very much, doesn't strike the same chord with me as it does with many people. However, in the last ten years or so, there have been a few films released that not only utterly disappointed, bored, or angered me, but also, baffled me with their phenomenal popularity. It's not enough that the following films irritate me on their own merit: their incessant and inexplicable popularity exacerbates my already considerable irritation. What's worse is that my dislike of these films is overwhelmingly in the minority, garlanded as they are with major awards, box office success, audience adoration, and critics clamouring to heap praise on them. I have carried around this irritation for years, and now its time to get rid of all that bile, once and for all. What follows are a few examples of popular films that I hate. Enjoy!

1) Pirates of the Caribbean

Following the double disaster of the third and fourth films in this interminable franchise, most people seem to have woken up to the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean is shit. In 2003, when the snappily-titled Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was released, everybody just couldn't wait to say how wonderful, and fun Johnny Depp the film was. Of course, PotC came out when everyone was for some reason obsessed with Depp, but his mugging here just underscores the fact that Depp had long since become a parody of himself, giving a predictably 'wacky' performance as the 'hilarious' Captain Jack Sparrow. PotC was supposed to be a fun, swashbuckling adventure in the tradition of Indiana Jones, but for me, it was just another forgettable action film with boring, staid fight scenes and special effects, a flat, cliched script, and dull characters. And that's before we even consider this charisma vacuum:

Orlando Bloom practising his trademark vacant expression 

Mercifully, Orblando's career seems to have faded back into the ocean of grey from which it emerged, but the boring memories linger on. The mere sight of his cloudy eyes triggers an uncontrollable chemical reaction in my stomach that makes me want to smash the little squirt's squashed-up face in. Here is an actor, so devoid of any discernible personality, talent or ability that he is capable of physically sucking the fun out of any scenario. This guy has starred in movies about pirates, dragons and mythological epic battles and still Bloom can never be found doing anything remotely interesting. Not that that matters in Pirates of the Caribbean, because nothing remotely interesting happens in any of the films anyway.

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Being a Shithead Hipster Summer is one of the more offensively vacuous little turds to have recently passed through the guts of Hollywood. Focussed-grouped and market-driven away from any real wit or insight it was packaged as not only as a romantic comedy for guys (switching the stereotyped genders of the cookie-cutter leads around), but also as one that's really honest about relationships (by following the romcom formula to the letter until the end when He doesn't get Her after all). (500) Days of Boredom tricks audiences into thinking they're seeing something original by having the male lead go all gooey over 'wacky' go-to MPDG Zooey Deschanel, a pernicious force of manufactured kook that is about as intriguing and stimulating as a box of all bran with googly eyes glued on to it. Unfortunately for the terrific actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Slow Dying stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The writers show that his 'character' is creative and sensitive because he's into The Smiths, and he, like, wants to be an architect, or something. The whole film is like an Ipod advert: it's all very shiny, and wants you to think it's all new and touchy-feely and individual, but really it's the same old commercial vomit they've been serving you for years, except now it's got hand drawn titles and massive earphones. If you want an honest, sincere romcom, just watch High Fidelity instead, it does more or less the same thing except with a bit of class and heart, unlike this vapid garbage.

Zooey Deschanel

A box of All Bran with
googly eyes glued on it

3) Gran Torino

I wanted to like Gran Torino. I really did. Clint Eastwood is one of my favourite actors, he's a great director, and the prospect that this film would probably be the last one in which he acted was simply tantalising. It's a shame, then, that what we got was an overly-simplistic fable about a crotchety old racist who learns to love through an unlikely friendship with a Hmong youth who lives next door. Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski teaches Thao the value of manual labour and resisting peer pressure, while Thao teaches Kowalski the power of inter-racial fwiendship. Eastwood hams it up as Kowalski, grumbling and growling his way through a performance that is best described as self-parodic, and while the central premise isn't completely without merit, stories of the friendship between a grumpy bastard and a cocky kid have already been done about eight bazillion times.

An example of the subtlety of Clint's performance in Gran Torino.

To be fair to old Clint, he's got a damn fine track record, and he's responsible for some of the best films of his generation, so I'm almost willing to let this one slide. Almost.What I dislike most about Gran Torino is that the film's message seems to be that out-and-out prejudice is wrong, but casual racist language is fine. Hey, it's just banter, it's what working class stiffs do, right? For example, in one particularly cringeworthy scene, the Polish Kowalski exchanges insults with his Jewish barber, before explaining to Thao that it's ok, because they're both immigrants, just like Thao (oh, the IRONY!). Later, in front of Kowalski, Thao is encouraged to verbally abuse the foreman of a building site in order to win his respect, cos hey, this gook's just one of the guys like the rest of us!  Thanks Clint, all these complex urban racial / generational / immigrant / economic tensions could be solved by a bit of simple manly banter. Why didn't I think of it before? Thank you Clint, thank you.

4) Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings can fuck right off. I am fucking sick to death of Frodo and his stupid concerned little face, Gandalf's declarative speechifying and Sean Astin's irritating little lickspittle histrionics. My problem with Lord of the Rings is twofold: primarily the series' intolerable self importance: every overlong scene, every meaningful glare, every overwrought bar of the score that is so utterly satisfied with its grandness, its power, its unquestionable gift to the cinematic art, is profoundly irritating. Secondly, it's the squawking fans of the franchise that seem to rise up like some army of the nasal every time that you so much as hint that you don't have the comically tautological extended editions on repeat in your DVD player. If you're an especially rabid fan, you're probably already foaming at the mouth, confused and enraged that I should dare to desecrate the holiest of holies. You may even be blindly thrashing around your darkened bedroom recklessly knocking over your Warhammer figurines and tearing your World of Warcraft posters off the wall, as panic-stricken, you scrabble  through mountains of tattered copies of  Advanced Dungeons and Dragons manuals and H.P. Lovecraft novels in a futile attempt to make sense of this heresy. The Star Wars prequels that you've got hidden in that compartment at the back of your wardrobe are beginning to shake and moan eerily. Even now, across the land, mountains of tarot cards are being knocked over in blind fury, autographed boxsets of Deep Space Nine are being rent asunder by dozens of gnashing, halitosed teeth. Xbox controllers are smashed, dreamcatchers ripped from their hangings, dousing crystals shattered into plastic shards, and burning incense extinguished by an unstoppable wall of shrill bleating. All because most people have failed to realise that Lord of the Rings is claptrap.

This is honestly the first image that came up when I googled 'Lord of the Rings fanboy'.

All of which amuses and aggrieves me in equal measure because I honestly do not understand these films' astonishing popularity. I think the word 'pretentious' is over-used, but I also think the word 'wank' is probably quite underused so I'm going to compromise and call Lord of the Rings pretentious wank. I only ever made it about half way through the first half of the first book, and then gave up because I noticed a moth doing something more interesting. As a matter of fact, a moth doing nothing would be about as compelling as any given moment in Lord of The Rings because nothing ever happens in it. By the way, running across hilltops every other scene to bombastic music doesn't count, nor does stopping to have something to eat, and nor does the obligatory and entirely predictable third-act battle rendered on such a ludicrously grand scale that's impossible to actually care about anything other than the spectacle. There is basically no emotional development in Lord of the Rings. Oh, Frodo feels out of place when he gets back to Hobbitville after his boring adventure? Well, I'm glad you took nine hours to develop that, because I don't think I quite would have understood the existential ramifications of the human capacity to outgrow one's origins without nine hours of wandering around moping beforehand. The only character that is remotely interesting is Gollum, and even he's mostly rubbish.

Don't even get me started on the notion that Lord of the Rings is any kind of serious, important cinema. No. Now, under normal circumstances I'm prepared to accept the significance of any old trash, given its social and cultural context. Even the risible Twilight, as searingly atrocious as it is, is still important as a cultural phenomenon. And so it is with Lord of the Rings. Yes, you can bang on all you like about its incredible popularity, and its profound influence of fantasy literature and related media. In fact, do bang on about that, I'm sure it would make for a really interesting analysis of contemporary fantasy sub-cultures. But don't, for Christ's sake, try to tell me that LotR is anything other than exceptionally well made exploitation cinema. Yeah, I'm aware that I said it's exceptionally well made. Only a fool would deny that Jackson's adaptations are extremely technically proficient, but that doesn't mean that they're either enjoyable or meaningful as narratives. Look, before you choke on your tongue again: I like trash. I like films with titles like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, and House of Dracula, but I'm not about to argue that they're an authentic exploration of the human condition. And don't give me any of that crap about Tolkien 'creating a whole new world' or inventing new languages. Star Trek did that for decades, and the more that series became obsessed over inconsequential minutiae and pseudo-philosophy, the worse it became. Brevity is the soul of wit, and Tolkien would have been better served developing recognisable, fully dimensional characters instead of figuring out how to render Elvish verbs in the perfect tense, or the difference between an ogre and a troll. Who honestly cares about this stuff? How does it make the story more compelling, or meaningful, or exciting? It's all just fluff, spun to fill the gaps left by a boring story and largely uninteresting characters. 

I told you he was rubbish.

Ironically, Jackson was a perfect director for this material precisely because he's an exploitation director: his early films Braindead and Bad Taste deliver exactly what you'd expect, and his last major film was a very good, if bloated and sentimental, remake of one of cinema's greatest exploitation movies of all time, King Kong. Lord of the Rings is an exploitation film with a huge budget, and that's it, regardless of what the legions of fanboys say. And you know what? For those of you that enjoy this particular brand of schlock, I say fill your boots! I like shite too, so enjoy, if that's how you get your kicks. For the more vocal fans, I don't want to be rude, but please, will you just shut up about how great Lord of the Rings is? There are so, so many more insightful, exciting and better-written films out there that it truly boils my piss when I hear for the ten thousandth time that Lord of the Rings is someone's favourite film. How is that even possible? Have they not seen any other films? Just watch Harry Potter instead. It's miles better.

The Bechdel Test Part 2: Romantic Comedies

Okay, so it was Oscar night on Sunday, so you may wondering what I thought of the outcome. The Artist pretty much deserved to win Best Picture, Score, Actor (though Gary Oldman was equally deserving for his turn in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), and Director, but I remain irked that Nicholas Winding Refn's fantastic Drive didn't get even a nod in any major categories. Scorsese's Hugo earned its five wins, especially cinematography and set design. Sacha Baron Cohen's stunt was predictable but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it was funny. I couldn't give two fucks about The Help, I haven't seen Midnight in Paris, and Meryl Streep's win was as inevitable as it was pointless. So that's that for another year. Incidentally, you should check out this video from Anita Sarkeesian  for some really interesting points about women filmmakers and the Oscars.

Also, beware, as this post's a long one, so you might want to put on a pot of coffee.

Anyway, in my last post, we had a look at the Bechdel Test and how women are grossly under-represented in films. This time, I want to focus the discussion by examining a few films that are aimed specifically at, and are about, women. As I mentioned before, 'women's films' are often referred to as 'chick flicks', which is a deceptively problematic term. If we take 'chick flick' simply to mean a film that appeals in particular to women, then we have an incredibly broad raft of different types of films. Romantic comedies tend to be the dominant chick flicks, but often melodramas such as John Avnet's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe are seen as chick flicks, as are musicals, and films about 'women's issues', such as the recent The Help, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Chick flicks tend to focus on characterisation, relationships and emotional conflict and resolution, as opposed to action, violence, or the other preserves of 'male cinema'. But even this definition incorporates films as diverse as Gone With The Wind, Now Voyager, and Maid in Manhattan. The core concept of the chick flick is that it appeals exclusively to women. It's very interesting, then, that 'chick flick' is broadly a pejorative term, used to denote frothy, inferior films that lack the artistic gravitas of a 'male' film. On this second point, I think the damage to women's films is twofold: 'chick flick' diminishes the value of women's cinema by framing it as an inferior 'other' to male films. Furthermore, it makes it too easy to criticise unsatisfactory tosh aimed at women by giving it a label rather than actively engaging with it and asking what in particular is so unsatisfying and toshy. 

To paraphrase Chris Rock, I hate chick flicks, but I love women's films.  We need to start making and watching good women's films, and relegate chick flicks to the past, both by being more demanding of women's cinema, and not using the term 'chick flick' as a vague, insubstantive pejorative. For the next section of this post I'll be briefly discussing three romantic comedies. Originally, I wanted to discuss a broader range of films, but  for now I'll leave it at the rom coms and return to the rest in a future post.

It's no surprise that romantic comedies are as successful, or ubiquitous, as they are. They're cheap and quick to make, and a guaranteed formula means even critically panned dross like Bride Wars tends to make a respectable return for their studios. It's partially through the slavish adherence to the familiar romcom plot formula, as well as the identikit marketing of almost every example of the genre (evidence of which is here, here and here) that mean that rom coms are generally regarded as inferior, which is a shame because there are good examples of romantic comedy, some of which are, admittedly, responsible for the model on which so much other crap is based. What follows is a summary of a few notable examples of romantic comedies that, for better or worse, exemplify the genre in some way, and whether they pass the Bechdel Test.

1) Pillow Talk

Frothy but fun: Pillow Talk

Michael Gordon's Pillow Talk comes from the tail-end of Hollywood's so-called Golden Age in 1959, and while not the first romantic comedy, is certainly partially responsible for the modern rom com formula. The plot begins with Jan Morrow, played by Doris Day, being tormented by Brad Allen, her womanising neighbour who keeps tying up their shared phone line with his string of girlfriends. Initially they hate each other (can we see where this is going?), before Brad sees Jan and realises she looks and dances like Doris Day. He therefore instantly decides he wants to sleep with her, but knowing she'll reject him once she finds out who he is, he adopts a fake Texan persona called 'Rex Stetson' and gets her to fall in love with him. However his jealous friend, also in love with Jan, brings the whole deck of cards crashing down, which of course, results in the brief end-of second act conflict, before Jan gets over the fact that was duped and decides she really is in love with Brad and marries him. Despite the formulaic plot, Day and Rock Hudson, who plays Brad, inject their roles with wit and humour, and while the film is undoubtedly unenlightened about women (and in one unintentionally ironic scene, homosexuality), it feels very modern. For example, Jan is a single, independent woman with a job and an apartment, and although she does end up with Brad in the end, the film doesn't portray her as the kind of unlucky-in-love loser that more recent, supposedly more progressive films have done.

Bechdel Test: Fail. Jan talks to her housekeeper, who also serves as her 'wise friend' character, but they only ever really talk about Brad Allen's annoying phone habits.

2) Down With Love

Pillow Talk has become so archetypal of the genre that it was semi-remade the 2003 film Down With Love, directed by Peyton Reed. It borrows the basic plot and character beats of Pillow Talk to tell its story of Barbara Novak who, while promoting her new pseudo-feminist book, falls for the womanising Catcher Block. Down With Love tries to gets away with repeating the catalogue of rom com cliches by setting itself in the golden era of romantic comedies, and by overtly mirroring the style and structure of of films like Pillow Talk. It's a self-aware rom com, one that refers to and pokes fun at formula while itself adhering to it. Even the post-modern twist at the end doesn't really change the direction of the movie, and so the two leads end up together against all sense of odds or social ethics, proving once again that even crazy feminist go-getters just want to be loved.



Red text on a white background strikes again

What is frustrating about this film, apart from the overdone production design and score, which insist on incessantly reminding you that YOU'RE IN A 60s COMEDY!, is that its setting provided a great opportunity to satirise and deconstruct the cliches of rom coms. In parts it clearly wants to: in one scene, for example, the 'friend' character, played by Frasier's David Hyde Pierce, refers to Catcher's apartment switcheroo caper as being straight from a film, and to Catcher and Barbara as 'the leads'. The final twist reveals that it was Barbara who was fooling Catcher all along, which consciously and directly subverts the dynamic it borrows from Pillow Talk. But alas, all this clever meta-commentary ultimately signifies nothing, as 'the leads' end up together just as surely as supporting characters always pair off with each other, just so everyone gets at least one shag. Barbara fools Catcher because she fell in love with him as his former secretary, before reinventing herself a glamorous writer. She even wrote her feminist book just to attract Catcher's attention, 'cos that's like, you know, all chicks really want. Apparently, the only arc that Barbara goes through is to do dye her hair red at the end, as some sort of contrived compromise between being a sexy blonde and a frumpy, secretarial brunette.

Bechdel Test: Pass. Barbara and her friend character talk about promoting her book. Which is about love, and indirectly, men, because apparently even when women aren't talking about men, they are really.

3) When Harry Met Sally

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal: Perfect casting

If Pillow Talk exemplifies the genre in the 1950s and 60s, then Rob Reiner's 1989 When Harry Met Sally is undoubtedly the archetypal modern romantic comedy; the yardstick by which all other boy-meets-girl stories are judged. I think When Harry Met Sally is the best example of a rom com that adheres almost completely to formula, yet manages to transcend those limitations and become a good film in its own right. What makes Reiner's film so successful is the combination of snappy, funny writing, well-written, properly developed and likable characters, and a romantic sincerity sorely lacking in many more recent rom coms. The leads are perfectly cast - Sally is initially fussy and slightly annoying (ironically Meg Ryan has never been less so), whereas Billy Crystal plays Harry at first as cocksure, faux-wise beyond his years and even a little chauvinist, propositioning Sally just hours after he's left his girlfriend to go to New York. What is great about these characters is that they don't sacrifice their unlikable traits for the sake of the audience. Rather, we gradually get to know and understand their idiosyncrasies, watching them develop over the course of years. In a lesser film, Harry's climactic dash to tell Sally he loves her would be trite and cynical, but it works here because we're genuinely invested in the characters: they're right for each other because they're written well, not because the movie has to end with them getting together. What I like in particular about When Harry Met Sally is both leads are given equal screen time, and both are developed equally well. Despite the plot being a fairly formulaic romantic comedy, it would be especially unfair to call When Harry Met Sally a chick flick because it's about two people falling in love: it's categorically not about a woman's search for a man, which despite all its cleverness, is basically what Down With Love, and many other inferior romantic comedies, are about.

Bechdel Test: Fail. I think in this instance you can forgive the failure as all any of the four named characters do, male and female, is talk about the opposite sex. If you're selective, can reverse-apply the Bechdel Test to men in films, and find that many male characters only talk about women. However, as Anita Sarkeesian has already pointed out, there is not a problem with male representation in films, but there is with female representation. Many great films fail the bechdel test and many bad ones pass it, but the point is that it is still extremely useful as a gauge for the culture of gender bias in cinema.

I'm aware that I've missed an entire raft of films that would have been useful in this discussion; Bridesmaids is a particular interesting example of a typical 'guy film' - in this case the gross-out sex comedy - being reappropriated by a majority female cast and for a female audience. I'll save my thoughts on Bridesmaids for another post, but I'll say here that although I welcome films like Bridesmaids, and I applaud its attempt to represent women as just as funny and oafish as men, I do think that it largely fails at doing so, and fails at avoiding the cliches of the conventional rom com. Similarly, romantic comedies have experienced a similar reappropriation for male audiences, with examples including the fantastic High Fidelity, the iconic Annie Hall, the silly but amusing Knocked Up, and the overrated (500) Days of Summer. Also, and I'm saving these films for later as well, I think there are some great films with strong female leads and casts that don't fit into the rom com genre, including Alien, Thelma and Louise (both directed by Ridley Scott and both of which pass the Bechdel Test), and Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.

Good effort but can we try it without the pink and the puppies next time?

I've suggested that women are under-representend both in films and as film-makers, and I think part of the problem is that women are cast in the same roles over and over again - as the wife, the girlfriend, or as the single woman who wants to become a wife or girlfriend. What can we do to change this? Supporting films that cast women in less conventional and more prominent roles would be a good, such as in Clint Eastwood's teriffic Changeling, or indeed Bridesmaids, even though I personally think it's overrated. Still though, babysteps. Secondly, in order to combat the lack of prominence of female filmmakers, I suggest two new categories for the Oscars (and other major film awards): Best Male Director and Best Female Director. We have male and female categories for the Best Actor awards, so why not for directors? It would force the major awards ceremonies to at least acknowledge the existence of female directors, which apparently at the moment they don't do at all, and it would bring greater prominence not only to specific female directors such as Kathryn Bigelow (the only woman to have ever won a Best Director Oscar or BAFTA), but also to women filmmakers in general. Women are clearly marginalised in front of and behind the camera, and it is incredibly detrimental to cinema. When any group is given excessive prominence over another, we all lose out because we miss the potential for new ideas, images and stories. The absence of women in films is gross and bizarre, and on a purely financial level it's stupid. The fact is women's films make money: Bridesmaids grossed almost $288 million worldwide, on a relatively small budget of $32.5 million, and Steven Soderbergh's 2000 Erin Brockovich made $256 million on a budget of $52 million. Making quality films for and about women isn't just about feminism or art - it makes financial sense too, and it's about time the film industry woke up to this and cleaned up its act.

The BAFTAs, the Oscars, and the Bechdel Test: Part 1

This week, I'll mainly be talking about the Bechdel Test, which is a method of determining how present female characters are in a film. It's something that I've wanted to discuss for a while, as I think the lack of women characters in films is a real problem in cinema. There's a lot of ground to cover, so we're going to do a two-parter, to be followed up in a fortnight. 

For a film to pass the so-called Bechdel Test it must have two named female characters, they must talk to each other, and they need to talk to each other about something other than a man. The test originates from a comic strip published by Alison Bechdel in 1985, from a comic called Dykes to Look Out For. Here's the strip for your viewing pleasure:

The original Bechdel Test

Sounds simple, right? Surely many films pass a test in which the only criteria is that women talk to each other? Nope. Ah, I hear you say, most of those that don't pass must be dumb action movies aimed at adolescent men, what do you expect? Surely more sophisticated films, or even films that are supposedly aimed at and about women (more on this next time), would naturally pass the Bechdel Test? Sadly not, dear reader. I consider myself a reasonably enlightened man, with a relatively diverse taste in films. I like Westerns, film noir, animation, spy thrillers, dramas, indie, and even I'm partial to a good romantic comedy. But out of the first 200 films in my collection how many do you think pass the test? 100? 50? Not even close. It's 8. A paltry 8 of the first 200 films I own have two women characters that talk to each other about something other than a man. And it's not as if those two hundred films are all 80s Arnie-fests, either. Amongst others, the genres this sample covers include gangster flicks, documentaries, monster movies,  science fiction, political thrillers, comedy, romance, and children's films, all ranging from the early 1930s all the way up to 2010. With the exception of silent films and blaxploitation, I don't think there could be much more diversity in terms of genre, style and period, and yet ninety six per cent (ninety six per cent!) of those films do not involve conversations between women that don't involve men. Think about that for a second. I don't think my DVD collection is particularly unusual, either: go and check your own film collection and see how many of your films pass the test. How many was it? Did any of them pass at all? This is a problem endemic within the film industry and it seems to pervade through almost every genre,  from small indies to massive summer blockbusters, from the earliest films to the latest Oscar nominees. The fact is, women just aren't present in films, either in front of or behind the camera. Out of the four hundred and fifty or so films I have on DVD, only two (TWO!) have been directed by women, namely Kathryn Bigelow's 2009 The Hurt Locker, and Sofia Coppola's 2003 Lost in Translation, and guess what: neither of those even pass the Bechdel Test.

Awards Season

Speaking of the Oscars, in the eighty two years the Academy awards have been running, only one woman has ever won best director, which was Bigelow for her superlative The Hurt Locker in 2009. At this year's Oscars, there are no female nominees for best director, and of the twenty one producers nominated for best film, only four are women. Last night's BAFTA ceremony painted a similar picture: best film and best director were given to The Artist, directed by Michael Hazanavicius and produced by Thomas Langmann, and the outstanding debut award went to Paddy Considine for Tyrannosaur. Incidentally, neither of these pass the Bechdel Test, either. Similarly, Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to have ever won a BAFTA for best director, and one of only two women to have ever been nominated for one, the other being Copolla for Lost in Translation. I think these figures speak for themselves: the British and American film industries have always and continue to be run by men, for the entertainment for men. Even the few women film makers that achieve success in the industry tend to make films about men and for a largely male audience. 

Witness the apocalypse

More to the point, it shows that the Bechdel Test isn't about quality. The Artist, Tyrannosaur and The Hurt Locker are all terrific films, as are many of the other BAFTA and Oscar-nominated films that don't pass the Test. What the Bechdel Test shows, however, is that even great films, made by talented, enlightened, modern film-makers, some of whom are even women, still struggle to represent half of the human race. And I don't even mean represent them well, I just mean represent them at all. Thankfully I haven't seen the Sex and the City films, but if we applied the Bechdel Test to the TV show, even though it's a vacuous wasteland of revolting characters, obnoxious writing, and cynical world views, it would still pass because the horrible characters talk occasionally about other things than men, like the virtuous pursuits of shopping and being over-privileged whiny little shits. The Bechdel Test is not an indicator of quality but it is an indicator of a gross and bizarre misrepresentation in cinema. Surely we can't leave the Sex and the Cities of this world to fill the gap of representation left by otherwise quality films? Why does the film industry continue to be dominated so overwhelmingly by men? I'm not entirely sure, but it's a problem that can be dated well before the advent of Hollywood. 

The Madwoman in the Attic

Historically, literature has been dominated by male writers writing about male characters, with female characters defined strictly in relation to their male counterparts. Even major novels by women, whose main characters are female, tended to focus on who their heroine would marry, and both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, written by Charlotte and Emily Bronte respectively, were originally published under the names of male pseudonyms. Ironically, when the novel as a form was developed it the eighteenth century, it was perceived as a somewhat crude and intellectually vapid degeneration of literature, and was therefore associated with femininity. There are two aspects here that modern films share with literature that I want to pick up on. The first is the way women are typically portrayed in film, and the second is the difference between 'guy' films and 'chick flicks', which I'll be discussing next time. In 1979 Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar published a seminal essay on the portrayal of women in nineteenth-century fiction, entitled The Madwoman in the Attic. Their essay argued that women in Victorian literature are typically represented eihter as either pure, virginal and innocent, or dangerous, monstrous and exotic. It's a dichotomy that is best exemplified by Jane Eyre's own madwoman Bertha, who is directly contrasted with the innocent Jane, and whose husband Rochester has hidden in his attic. 

Beautiful and deadly: Veronica Lake as the
archetype we've all seen a thousand times

Any of this sound familiar? Well, it should do, because it's a model for femininity that Hollywood continues to frequently use to represent women. You can often see this dichotomy in film noirs such as Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, and The Big Sleep, where the only two women, who invariably never interact with each other, are the erotic, dangerous femme fatale, and the bookish assistant / victim character. The James Bond franchise continues to trade on this very formula, with 2008's Quantum of Solace's female characters still filling the roles of either 'early love interest-cum-victim', and 'dangerous female lead-cum-love interest', that typify the Bond girls of every decade since the 1960s. For other recent examples, see Christopher Nolan's 2010 Inception, whose Mal, played by Marion Cotillard, is the archetypal femme fatale. Mal is particularly interesting because all we ever see of her is the version in Cobb's imagination. She is a meta-character, quite literally a concept and not a real person. In the publicity for the film, she is labelled as 'The Shade', alluding both to her non-reality, and to her conceptual femme fatale forbears. Mal is essentially a self-conscious reflection on female characters in film. Nolan alludes to the femme fatale trope, but he doesn't really deconstruct it either, and instead reverts to the demon / angel female dichotomy by contrasting Mal with the only other named female character, Ariadne, played by Ellen Page, who is herself defined only in relation to Cobb's struggle banish Mal from his subconscious and return home. I think this is a real problem for a lot of films, because while men are typically cast in a variety of interesting roles, women too frequently end up playing the same tired, cliched and boring parts that are rooted in anachronistic conceptions of gender. Literature in the twentieth century underwent a wake-up call, and there have been many works that have attempted not only to present better, more developed female characters and female-centric stories, but also to co-opt classic literature into modern gender discourse, as in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, which acts as a parallel to Jane Eyre, telling the story of the 'mad' Bertha Mason. I think it's about time that something similar happened in cinema, as too often women continue to be marginalised and written as boring archetypes instead of real people. It's bad for cinema, it's lazy on the part of screenwriters and directors, it's cowardly on the part of studios not to distribute films that aren't squarely aimed at young men, and it's fucking boring for the rest of us to have sit through another bloody sub-plot about a 'hooker with a heart of gold'.

Films with Julia Roberts are always boring and stupid

Next time, I'll be wrapping up our little discussion with a look at the so-called chick flicks, and arguing that they're even worse than 'men's films' at representing women, and I'll also be taking a few pot shots at recent poisonous pseudo-feminist horseshit like Sucker Punch. Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion!  

  

A Study in Satire: This is England and Four Lions

If you didn't catch the three-part miniseries This is England '88 over Christmas, then I highly recommend that you track down a copy and watch it through. It offered a wonderfully unvarnished, beautifully written and acted human drama, as did its predecessor, This is England '86. Of course, these TV series, both directed by the brilliant Shane Meadows, originate from the 2006 film This is England, also directed by Meadows. Here Meadows tackles racism and youth culture in the 1980s, in an occasionally warm and funny, but more frequently bleak and disturbing view of Thatcher's Britain. In contrast, Chris Morris' 2010 Four Lions was an irreverent, controversial and often hilarious farce about post 9/11 fundamentalist terrorists in Britain. The would-be terrorists in question are woefully inept, bumbling their way through terrorist-training camp, childish bickering, and bomb-making towards an attempted attack on the London marathon.

Four Lions: Mass murder has never been funnier

The respective tones of these films are wildly different, their subjects differ in content, setting and era, and the aims of their directors seem worlds apart. So why compare these apparently disparate films? Because, despite superficial differences, both Four Lions and This is England are both part of the same tradition of social and political commentary known as satire. It's a common misconception that satire must be funny and silly, making fun of, say, a prominent politician, as in Have I Got News For You. Although satire often is funny and irreverent, this isn't always the case; Charles Dickens Oliver Twist (amongst his other works), for example, is a blisteringly satirical novel, and though it has moments of farce, its overall tone is of anger and disgust at Victorian society. Satire is often as angry as it is jovial, and indeed This is England is a very angry satire, as I'll discuss in a moment. Both This is England and Four Lions tackle issues of race, prejudice and fundamentalism in Britain, but their use of satirical perspectives means that their connections go much deeper than that. More to the point, I think comparing these films in particular is a really useful way of understanding that satire, a tradition that has existed since ancient Rome, still works and is still highly relevant in modern films, especially in those that deal with contemporary issues such as terrorism.

This is History

So how can two films that not only differ in tone and content, but are also set in different time periods, both be considered satirical? I think it's quite easy to see Four Lions as a satire: it's set in contemporary Britain and sends up in an amusing way the contemporary issue of terrorism and fundamentalist religion. This is England does none of that; its story focusses on the skinhead culture of the 80s and the emergence of the National Front, movements that surely have been resigned to the pages of recent history. Well, sort of. The tricky thing with period films and literature is that, with the exception of the ghastly ITV period drama factory, narratives that are set in an historical era are more often than not about the period that they are made in, rather than the one they are set in, if that makes sense. For example, John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, whilst ostensibly about the biblical fall of man and expulsion from Eden, equally provides a mirror for the English Civil War, seventeenth-century regicide and the restoration of the monarchy. Paradise Lost was set in a period removed from when it was written, but discusses (or at least, reflects) contemporary issues. In this respect, This is England is no different. The presence of the National Front in the film is an obvious reference to the rise of the British National Party, which has become worryingly prophetic with the recent emergence of the violent English Defence League. 

But there are more parallels than simply emergent cultural racism. Released in 2006, This is England features a young boy whose father was killed in a morally dubious and unpopular war, living under the shadow of an increasigly unpopular and authoritarian government, while unemployment, immigration and youth culture dominate social discourse. Sound familiar? This is England does exactly what it says on the tin - present a portrait of England not simply in the 1980s, but also of an England / Britain very close to a modern audience. This is in contrast to Four Lions, which is set in the present, and so therefore is only able to deal with modern, rather than historical issues. So why the difference? Well, for one thing Chris Morris' satirical background is in pardodying news programmes, as with Brass Eye and The Day Today, so it makes sense that he would follow that with a modern setting for Four Lions. Shane Meadows, on the other hand, partially based Shaun's character on his own boyhood experiences, so again, it's a natural fit that he would set the film in the eighties, the period in which he had those experiences. However, I think there's more to those choices than the simple biographies of the filmmakers - they consciously chose the period settings of their films, and for satirical reasons.

Two sides of absurdity

This is not a pleasant man.

But why would the historical period affect the satirical tone of these films? Well, without becoming too technical, historically there have been two forms of satire, known as Horatian and Juvenalian, after the Roman satirists Horace and Juvenal. Horatian satire is generally jovial and lighthearted and aims to poke fun at its targets, rather than out and out eviscerate them, while still criticising them. Something like Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G or Borat is a modern equivalent of this type of satire. In contrast, Juvenalian satire is harsher and angrier, aiming to demolish its objects rather than merely sending them up. In a modern setting is often a little more difficult to identify as satire because it tends to treat its subjects more seriously. George Clooney's 2005 film Good Night and Good Luck would be an example of a modern Juvenalian satire (as well as another period piece discussing modern issues, in this case using McCarthyism to criticise the Bush administration), treating its subject seriously (paranoia in politics and censorship), angrily and rather solemnly attacking its targets.

Undoubtedly, This is England is a Juvenalian satire, and Four Lions Horatian, and the periods in which they're set contribute significantly to this. In its modern setting, Four Lions presents immediately familiar imagery and associations, and it encourages us to laugh at them, and by extension, ourselves. Towards the end of the film, police shoot a runner in the London marathon, mistaking him for a terrorist (an obvious allusion to the real-life and very unfunny shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes), but we're encouraged not to lament, but laugh, as two police officers argue over whether the costume the runner was wearing was of a bear or a wookie (for the record, it was a wookie). Interestingly, the gag doesn't come off as tasteless, and although there is clear rage behind the Menezes reference, ultimately the outcome here is laughter at the gross absurdity of the situation. In contrast, This is England depicts racism as a very real and very serious issue in Britain. Although there are many funny moments in Meadows' film, the humour always comes from the film's internal reality, and usually reflects the natural comedy of adolescence; Michelle's awkward and slightly creepy invitation to Shaun to 'lick her tits' is one that springs to my mind. This naturalistic, charming humour is offset by moments of deep melancholy and disturbing violence that threatens to erupt at any time. The final scene, for example, where Combo brutally attacks Milky is both frighteningly real, and one that could not exist in Morris' Four Lions without completely breaking the tone. 

Bernard Manning gets red in the face over a made up drug

The difference in settings help differentiate the tones of these films, because, although still familiar, This is England is at a remove from the audience in a way that the modern Four Lions is not, and that distance encourages us to look at the subject of racism and skinhead culture in the eighties more seriously. The jovial, Horatian satire of Four Lions really only works because its object is completely immediate: what it is satirising is still in the headlines. For an example of how this works, see how esoteric and dated the gags become in Have I Got News For You when old episodes are repeated out of context, or note that in repeats of Drop the Dead Donkey there are textual summaries of the episode's contextual current affairs. Without immediate context, neither show works as humorous satirical commentary. This is England doesn't need that level of context (though it does provide some with archive footage and references to Thatcher and the Falklands), because its focus is on the human drama, rather than on the funny absurdities of specific events. Ironically, however, this lack of context allows This is England to slip under the door a raft of serious commentary on our contemporary world. Again, this approach works in Good Night and Good Luck, just as it worked in Arthur Miller's seminal play, The Crucible. In one respect, the subject matter of Four Lions is, if anything, more horrific than This is England; for all its brutality, mass murder is never on the cards in Meadows' film. And I think this, too, informs the approaches of the films. Perhaps something like terrorism and religious fanaticism is simply to terrible to contemplate in anything other than comical, irreverent terms. Certainly, Chris Morris is no stranger to courting controversy by treating serious topics in an apparently light way, as with his infamous paedophile sketch on Brass Eye, or his brilliant practical joke involving cake, a made-up drug. In contrast, Shane Meadows approach is generally less overtly satirical, and so the satire in his film is subtler and intermingled with a more grounded, realistic sense of human drama.

Shine a light

Good Night, and Good Luck: not all satire is silly

Which approach, then, is most effective? Does the Juvenalian attack of This is England mean that a harsher blow is inflicted on its target, or does the irreverent, Horatian humour of Four Lions provide a better, and ultimately more damning, counterpoint to the horrors that the four central characters intend to enact? Both have their place, and indeed, Four Lions would be a far less powerful and engaging film if it stuck to a sombre examination of modern Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, as would This is England if it chose to lampoon racist skinheads, rather than shining its harsh light on their pitiful world of violence and impotent frustration. Both forms of satire work for different reasons, and both tread fine lines between seriousness and po-facedness, and absurdity and tastelessness. Both This is England and Four Lions are successful satires, in that they shine lights very effectively on their targets, highlighting by turns their pathos, their silliness and their baffling, obscene, hilarious and disturbing absurdities. What I find particularly interesting about these films is that despite their modern relevance, and both of their respective directors' penchant for edginess and controversy, they are both part of a satiric tradition that has its roots planted roughly two thousand years ago. It's often very easy to forget that modern art, literature or film is connected in any meaningful way to the past, or that exciting modern filmmakers like Meadows and Morris might be influenced by something as dusty and historical as a 'satiric tradition'. I think, however, it's remarkably refreshing to remember that satire, Juvenalian or Horatian, remains relevant and vital in even the most controversial and dramatic films produced today.

'Every Time a Bell Rings an Angel Gets Its Wings': A Tribute to the Greatest Christmas Film of All Time

Well, it's a week before 25th December, and as convention dictates I must do a Christmas Special blog post. As this is the first time I've done something of this kind I didn't have to rack my brains especially hard to find the perfect subject for such a post - a tribute to Frank Capra's 1946 classic, It's a Wonderful Life, and surely the best festive film ever made. It's a Wonderful Life is undoubtedly one of the most beloved Christmas films of all time, and I've yet to meet anyone who has seen it and doesn't love it. If any such person exists, I don't want to know about it. This post won't be arguing for Wonderful Life's position as top Chrimbo flick - I think that's already pretty well established. Rather, I'm going to systemically and objectively discuss just why It's a Wonderful Life is just so fucking lovely, and amongst the films that can and will make me cry like a baby every single time I watch it. I'm going to have to include some pretty major spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film before, I urge you to see it - it's on at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle and probably elsewhere, and it's readily available on DVD. Nevermind if you're one these cretins that don't like 'old' films (the subject of a future post, to be sure), if you have even the slightest degree of humanity you will surely love It's a Wonderful Life. I can't explain why without ruining the experience, but in this season of goodwill and friendship, just trust me on this one. Watch it.

So on with the show, and the reasons why It's a Wonderful Life really is wonderful. At the top of the list is the fact that:

1) It has Jimmy Stewart in it

How good is Jimmy Stewart? Ooh, about this good.

James Stewart was, and remains, one of the best screen actors to have ever lived. Second, perhaps, only to Gregory Peck, Stewart imbued his roles with a profound and quiet dignity, playing the smart male alternative to the more conventional machismo of the John Waynes, or the sophistication of the Cary Grants of Hollywood. And it is dignity that is the key word of Capra's classic, never moreso embodied than by Stewart's George Bailey, a man torn between his dreams and his responsibilities. For my money, Stewart never had a role more suited to his physique, his mannerisms and his skills as an actor. George's transformation from a brash, charming and idealistic college student, into a desperate family man driven to the edge of suicide is made utterly believable by Stewart's performance, and creates a deep and lasting pathos for the character.

2) Christmas is barely present
Like all the best Christmas films (Gremlins, Die Hard, The Hudsucker Proxy), It's a Wonderful Life doesn't actually feature Christmas as a story-telling device. Most of the film isn't even set during Christmas, and that the final act is set on Christmas Eve is almost incidental, serving more as an emotional underscoring of the themes in the film, rather than the central focus of the story. Undoubtedly, the iconography of Christmas plays a large part during the alternate-reality sequence and the final scene, but they're in the service of the wider narrative arc, providing the natural setting for the conclusion of the films themes of friendship and community. To contrast, something like Chris Columbus' Home Alone, while having none of the complexity, depth or emotion of the former, features similar themes of family and isolation, but uses Christmas as a specific narrative device; to get Kevin McAllister's family to leave him while they go on a Christmas vacation. The Christmassy feeling we get when watching It's a Wonderful Life is all the more powerful because it's not emphasised from the outset. It almost sneaks up on us, slowly building until that final scene where George's friends finally come through for him, while his daughter tinkles away on the piano playing 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'. The swell of emotion at the end of the film is genuine, not because it's about anything inherently Christmas, but because that scene is the culmination of the relationships that we have witnessed George forge and maintain throughout his life.

3) It's more subversive than you might think
While the main thrust of the story is about George's journey as an ambitious young man, It's a Wonderful Life contains some quiet, yet quite strong political and social commentary. Firstly, George's failed attempt at escaping the small town of Bedford Falls reflects contemporary American anxieties over the suburban lifestyle and increased material consumption. As a child and college student, George vows that he'll 'shake of the dust of this crummy town' and travel the world, but as circumstances conspire against him, he gradually finds himself less and less upwardly mobile. A very large part of It's a Wonderful Life is an examination of life's unavoidable descent into entropy, from the naive, energetic optimism of youth to the quiet desperation of adult life, culminating in the moment when George decides to kill himself. Despite the warmth we feel by the end of the film, It's a Wonderful Life is largely a dark, satirical look at mid-twentieth century American life, and could even sit alongside other bleak masterpieces like Death of A Salesman, or Richard Yates' novel Revolutionary Road.

More to the point, It's a Wonderful Life takes a pretty big swipe at big business and the rise of corporate America. Don't believe me? Senator Joe McCarthy, who headed the hysterical anti-Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, hated the film, objecting to its portrayal of Henry Potter as a ruthless and amoral profiteer. One of the major themes of It's a Wonderful Life is the conflict between community and individual profit. The Dickensian Potter, the film's villain, makes his fortune by buying out smaller business and charging extortionate rent for substandard property. It is only George Bailey's family run business, Bailey's Savings and Loan, that stands against Potter's town-wide monopoly. Where Potter's rampant, individualistic avarice threatens to destroy the community of Bedford Falls, George sacrifices his own personal ambition for the sake of the community he grew up in. At the heart of the film is the depiction of someone defying, and inspiring his community to defy, corruption, profiteering and unbridled greed. It's a Wonderful Life shows the small, grubbiness of these things in the face of human community.

4) It's simply a beautiful film

Christmas Eve with George Bailey and friends.

From the cinematography, the performances and the use of music, to the silent re-introduction of falling snowflakes that signal George's return to his own reality, It's a Wonderful Life is a beautiful, beautiful film. As we watch George grow up and become world-weary we witness the decline of Bedford Falls, and when, haggard and soaked, George returns to his dilapidated home we see a bittersweet reinvigoration of the town as they rally to his support. I cannot think of another film that feels so full of goodness, is so unabashedly wholesome, or is so full to the brim with feeling, without resorting to sentimentality, mawkishness or cynicism. The film peppers itself with the key moments in George's life that will later come in to play when he wishes his life away, and yet those moments feel natural and compelling in and of themselves, as snapshots of the ebb and flow of a person's life. As a result, when Clarence explains to George's dismay that his brother never saved his brothers at arms, 'because you weren't there to save him', we feel the loss that George feels, because we too were there when as a boy George saved his brother from drowning. Just as that moment in George's life is ripped from him, it's ripped from us, too, and it hurts. We are shown, not told, that Clarence's words are true: 'Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?' Even the smallest person touches dozens of lives without realising it, affecting the world around him in a tapestry of relationships and friendships that he himself barely glimpses. It's a Wonderful Life goes straight to the heart of the nature of a life lived in one community, ultimately touching and altering the lives of people that George has never even met. And finally, when George returns home to his friends and family to find that they have raised the money that his bumbling uncle left at Potter's bank, we weep, just as George weeps, as he reads Clarence's send-off, that 'no man is a failure who has friends'. Every year friendships bloom and others wither, jobs come and go, people move away, people die. Every year I watch It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, and every year that last phrase seems to take on new meaning, reducing me each time to an ever-more embarrassing pile of emotion. As the spectre of failure (whatever that means) seems to loom greater with each passing year, Clarence's note becomes increasingly powerful. It's a Wonderful Life is the perfect Christmas film because watching it at Christmas marks the end of another year in our lives, with Clarence's words as the epigraph. No man is a failure who has friends.

Merry Christmas.

"Along come these left-wing militants who blast everything within a three-mile radius with their lasers": Why the concept of over-analysis is a stupid myth and doesn't exist.

This fortnight's / month's post is on a subject dear to my heart, and one which surrounds a popular myth that has bugged me for years: the position that certain films, books, music and popular entertainment weren't meant to an analysed in any serious way, and any attempt to do so is a futile and pretentious enterprise, practised by only the most self-indulgent of navel-gazers. I put to you that this viewpoint is not merely misguided and narrow-minded, but that it is self-contradictory and demonstrably false. Yes, dear readers, tonight I defend that most unpopular and derided of creatures: the film critic. Incidentally, this one is a bit of a rant.

Spongebob Squarepants: Disproving the myth of stuffy academics

Firstly, let me begin my blasting the popular conception of art criticism. Since this is a blog about films I'll limit myself to that medium. The image of the critic distanced from both popular opinion and reality, jollying himself to the meta-academic pleasures of Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, sat in his ivory tower while he misses the more earthy, blue-collar pleasures of Joe Dante's Gremlins, looking down his nose at anything that resembles a blockbuster, is as old as the hills and is still extremely pervasive. Whilst I'd agree there is an element of snobbery amongst some schools of criticism (Halliwell's Film Guide, I'm looking at you), the vast majority of popular critics that I read are as open to American blockbusters as they are to Scandinavian social realism and Italian arthouse cinema. Even amongst so-called bonafide academics, there is an extraordinary rejection of snobbery: one of my university supervisors, who has got a PhD and academic publications and everything loves Spongebob Squarepants and Batman: The Animated Series. The notion that 'high' critics don't engage with 'low' art in any positive way is nonsense and needs to stop.

This leads me on to my main target - the (frankly, idiotic) mantra that some films were never meant to be 'over-analysed'. This is something that I have heard repeated over and again from intelligent, normally open-minded individuals, and it has to stop. Firstly, let me start with the word 'meant'. This is misleading because is presupposes that the mantra-chanter somehow had access to the inner-motivations of the film-makers when they wrote, directed, filmed and edited their work. You might well think that Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was never meant to be watched as anything other than entertainment, but, how exactly do you know this? Did Bay consult with you beforehand, wringing his hands over whether he is an artist, or entertainer (as if those things are mutually fucking exclusive to begin with)? No? Well then sit the fuck down. More to the point, the intent of the artist doesn't bloody matter. In scholarship / criticism / whatever, there's a rule called the Intentional Fallacy, which, in short, states that 1) We can't ever really know the intentions of an artist so there's little point in trying to decipher them, and 2) there will inevitably be meanings and subtexts in any piece of art not necessarily consciously inserted by the artist. Did Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster consciously invoke Christian iconography when they created Superman? Maybe, maybe not, but it's damn well there and you'd be a fool to deny it on the basis that the creators didn't intend it to be there.

Gremlins is only fit for entertainment, you say?
Fuck you.

So that's one word polished off. Let's move on to the next one, and the real meat of my argument: 'over-analysed'. Like it or not, we analyse things everyday. If you're not particularly bothered about the cultural significance of Roy William Neill's Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, or how Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo is really about the voyeuristic nature of cinema and the objectification of women, that's fine with me (though I really do think you're missing out if you don't care just a little bit), but don't call the discussion of these things something they're not. What, I think, people usually mean by 'over-analyse' is that whatever film review / article / opinion they're griping about, a review of the aforementioned Gremlins, for example, has exceeded the analytical limitations they would like to see set for that particular film. Let's say you disagree with my opinion that what makes Gremlins interesting is the way it constantly breaks the fourth wall in a way that reflects the delightful, dangerous and hilarious anarchy that the eponymous Gremlins embody. Perhaps you don't like my writing style, or you favour the opinion that the Gremlins represent something other than anarchy, which is all fine and dandy. But, and excuse me while my prose briefly devolves into splenetic fury, exactly who the fuck put you in charge of how far I'm allowed to analyse a film, or whether that's how I should derive pleasure from it? Do you like Gremlins? Well, bad luck chump-change, because you've just analysed a film. Yep, that's right, even deciding whether or not you like something constitutes analysis, since presumably you've come to your decision based on, you know, the component parts of the film and whether they add up to something that pleases your pink little brain. To return to my carefully considered question, who (the fuck) put you in charge of deciding when I should stop analysing Gremlins, or Superman, or my fucking Campbell's Tomato Soup if the mood should strike me?

There is no such thing as over-analysis. You can analyse something well, and you can analyse something badly. You can make your points in a measured articulate way, or you can ramble incoherently. You can make complex ideas clear and accessible, or you can obscure simple ideas with impenetrable prose and a contempt for your reader. You can look at every facet of one frame of a film, or you can discuss the movie's big themes. You can make a value judgement based on a historical or purely aesthetic basis. You can hate a film because it's pretentious and self-indulgent, or because it's violent and over-crammed with unnecessary CGI. You can take whatever opinion of a film that you like, but you can't accuse critics of over-analysis because it's nonsensical, and this silly, embarrassing fallacy of taking criticism 'too far', whether it's for The Three Colours Trilogy or Uncle Buck, has got to stop. It's just bloody stupid.