For Ever
Mozart [Jean-Luc Godard, 1996]:
In one
scene, the bodies of two young dissidents killed earlier in the film by a band
of militant guerrillas still sensitive to the conflicts in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, are placed in period costumes and "revived" before the
whir of an archaic camera, which incorporates them into the making of a
film. In the presentation of this, the underlining "idea",
Godard seems to be communicating, as a rhetorical gesture, the common practice
of taking the stories of the dead - their histories and their experiences - and
turning them into fodder for the motion picture; exploiting the very real, very
physical pain and suffering endured by these people - often while ignoring the
greater moral causes that led to their untimely demise - for the benefits of
creative fiction. In a sense, this, as an illustration, is a precursor
to the later argument regarding the relationship between Hollywood invention
and the histories of actual persons, as outlined in the masterpiece Éloge de
l'amour (2001). There, an elderly couple
(once part of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France) sell their
stories to 'Steven Spielberg and Associates' for the basis of a Hollywood picture,
only to discover, to the outrage of their eldest granddaughter, that the true
facts of their experiences are being distorted to make the events more
sensationalist and, as such, more "commercial."
As with the
supposition of that later film, the philosophical subtext of For Ever Mozart
finds Godard questioning his own responsibility as an artist, not just through
the appropriation of a symbolic young woman, and the use of her death and subsequent
resurrection to give weight to the film's comment on the unending exploitation
of war, but through the presence of the protagonist, Mr. Vicky; an ailing
filmmaker coerced into accompanying some young relatives on a trip to Sarajevo,
with the hope of perhaps staging a performance of Musset's 1834 play, 'No
Trifling with Love', as both a protest and a declaration of support. Two of these relatives - headstrong Camille
and her young cousin Rosette - are literally adapted from Musset's play, making
the back and forth connection between fiction and reality all the more
direct. In later abandoning these young
characters for the sake of his film, Godard is effectively challenging, through
the actions of Mr. Vicky, his own motivations as a filmmaker; his commitment to
his subject in contrast with that more fearful retreat into the personal; into
the solitude of his craft. That Vicky's
film is subsequently rejected by its audience again seems like an
acknowledgement by Godard of the futility of such gestures; where the art -
which attempts, in this instance, to intercede on behalf of human indignity; to
respect the voice(s) of the dead - falls, inevitably, on deaf ears.
Night of the
Demon [Jacques Tourneur, 1957]:
The opening
sequence suggests a journey between worlds.
On one side, the world of the rational, defined, as it is, by the logic,
reason and genuine parapsychology put forth by the soon to be introduced
central character - the American, Dr. John Holden - and on the other, the
irrational, defined, in this instance, by the forces of magic, superstition and
the bizarre. The journey itself is pivotal
to the progression of the narrative, in as much as it introduces the first
victim, Professor Harrington, and establishes, in a subtle but no less menacing
way, the film's primary antagonist, Dr. Julian
Karswell; a man supposedly possessed with the ability to conjure a great demon from
the outer reaches of hell. However, in
introducing these characters and their 'worlds' in such a way - showing Harrington's
literal journey from the safety of his own reality into the world of Karswell;
this man of science encroaching on a world of the unexplained - the film
outlines the central hypothesis that defines much of the action; the power of
fear, either as a tangible manifestation of the unreal - in this instance, the
appearance of a genuine demon - or as a symptom of superstition; a psychological
sleight of hand.
The director,
Jacques Tourneur, had already proven himself to be a master of terror and
suspense with his earlier Val Lewton produced supernatural thrillers, Cat
People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943). There, as well as here, every action, no
matter how strange and fantastical in nature, has both a supernatural and
psychological interpretation, creating a sense of restless ambiguity. As such, the audience throughout is never
quite certain of Karswell's true motivations; if his control over the
development of these events derives from a genuine "mystical"
influence, or if that otherworldly perspective of his is simply a smokescreen;
a way of implanting a seed of suggestion into the subconscious minds of the
central characters in an effort to create an atmosphere of uncertainty; fuel
for an overactive imagination. Even the
appearance of the demon itself - rendered on-screen as an elaborate special
effect - is justified by the dreamlike atmosphere created by the director and
his crew; the significance of Holden's introduction, for example - half-asleep
on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean - once again establishes a
character caught between two worlds; a sleepwalker trapped, forever in his own
nightmare, both vivid and surreal.
My Case [Manoel
de Oliveira, 1986]:
It begins
with three versions of a single scene; three repetitions. In each version, the basic action remains the
same. A man, played with great integrity
and conviction by Luís Miguel Cintra, invades the stage of a small theatre
company in an effort to plead his case to an unseen, impassive audience,
suggested only by the off-screen presence of Oliveira and his crew. As the man gestures and pontificates with a
crazed abandon, thwarted in his continual attempts to put forward his own
tormented appeal against the protestations of 'others', we're instead made
witness to the testimonies of the various supporting characters; amongst them
the star of the play currently being rehearsed, its beleaguered director, a
harried stagehand and a lone member of the audience who appears, as if from
nowhere, as if indicative of the audience of this film - the cinematograph - as opposed to the play within. After the three initial repetitions, the film
cuts to a stylised, post-apocalyptic landscape, against which a dramatisation
of The Book of Job - where each of the main characters once again appear, but
this time in a different guise - provides a late riposte to the first scene
(and its three iterations), while also allowing the central figure, still
portrayed by Cintra, to finally plead the solemnity of his case.
Although the
action of each reiteration is effectively the same - at least in terms of its
development and the choreography of events - the three scenes are still
presented via a different, highly contrasting cinematic approach. The appropriation of different styles - from
the more conventional 'filmed play', to a silent cinema pastiche, to something
eventually more avant-garde - seems intended to draw our attention to the
artificiality of the medium and our own perspective as the audience of a
film. The self-awareness of the form
also creates a context for that remarkable moment during the third repetition,
in which a man, interrupting the interruption of Cintra, sets-up a movie
projector and screen in the centre of the stage, and uses it to project images
of actual atrocity and despair. In this
one moment, Oliveira seems to question the complacency of his characters (and us, the 'unseen' audience), making it
clear that Cintra's "case" - or at least one interpretation of it -
is partly related to the inability of man to mediate on behalf of the great
sorrows of the modern world. This
interpretation is perhaps more in keeping with that unforgettable final image
of da Vinci's the Mona Lisa, where the art - as ever, in its capacity to
transform complex themes into simple gestures - is able to provide a 'case' for
humanity (a reason or justification for our existence), which this man, in his
very personal, very self-righteous
indignation, could not.
