Othon [Danièle
Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, 1970]:
To give the
film its full title, 'The eyes will not close at all times, or maybe one day
Rome will let herself choose in turn; after 'Othon', by Pierre Corneille.' The
title establishes the filmmakers' rigorous attention to language - the use of
language as 'form', its textures and its rhythms - and the significance of the
text; the 1664 tragedy by the French playwright and poet, Pierre Corneille. The text - set during the short reign of Emperor
Galba, 68 to 69 BC, and concerning both matters of the heart and matters of the
state - is not filmed, it is spoken.
Only by communicating the words aloud can it be filmed, personified,
made real; finding its expression, not through the conventional
"cinematic" manipulations required to condense the plot into a series
of significant set-pieces, or 'events', but through the meticulous delivery of
the actors, who adapt the play through speaking the words; creating the sense
of narrative as rhetoric, the audience, not so much the 'viewers', in the
traditional sense, but spectators; observers to the scene. This gives the film a theatrical quality, but
a living theatre; a theatre of life. The approach, where once again old words are
placed into a contemporary setting - suggesting the idea of the past, as an
echo, running parallel with the present - recalls the ideology of later films
by Angelopoulos, such as The Hunters (1977), or Alexander the Great (1980).
The notion
of the past existing within the
present, side by side - like a revenant, or as a reverberation through time -
is further suggested by the filmmakers' daring approach to staging; wherein the
use of anachronism - of locations that are significant to the actual historical
events, used, irrespective of their current, contemporary position -
deconstructs the reality of the film; reminding us throughout of the
artificiality of a scene; the subconscious truth that these characters are
merely actors, reciting words as they're written on the page. However, it also suggests the theoretical
idea of the past as an ongoing spectacle that takes place all around us,
unseen, again, like an echo to prior events.
The notion that the past (or pasts)
is always amongst us - that any place we visit, any place where we stand, is a
part of history - a part of our own history, and a part of someone else's. As the drama unfolds, these actors in period
costume, posed like living statues among the ruins of Mont Palatin or within the
grounds of the Villa Doria Pamphili, recite their lines against the noise and
confusion of busy streets; the sights and sounds of cars and traffic, or the
passing aeroplane that rumbles overhead, all remind us of the flow of the
present; of time still moving forwards, oblivious to these old ghosts, which
still exist; living and re-living their personal dramas and dilemmas, from one
century into the next.
Transformers:
Dark of the Moon [Michael Bay, 2011]:
Let's take
it for what it is: Godzilla meets Gamera, updated for the modern age. A 'kaiju' movie with a multi-million dollar
budget and a screenplay that consists of thirty-minutes worth of exposition
followed by over a hundred minutes worth of explosions and debris. And yet, buried somewhere deep beneath the
standard Baysian miasma of product placement, vulgar nonsense and rock 'em sock 'em robot carnage, there
is the sketch of a more interesting movie; one that gestures towards the state
of America - the state of the world - both politically and
socio-economically. In essence: a film
about a young couple, struggling through the current financial crisis. 'He', realising that his university degrees
aren't worth the paper they're printed on, has to suffer through the indignity
of the job interview process, corporate career politics and watching ineffectually
as his girlfriend is slowly wooed by a billionaire playboy with powerful
industrial connections. 'She', having to
take responsibility for the couple's desperate monetary situation, is forced to
endure the leering advances of an arrogant boss, objectified by his sordid gaze
(and by the gaze of the director) so as not to jeopardise the financial
security of the couple, still learning, as young couples do, how to make things
work.
There is a
lot of truth to this aspect of the film; a lot of things that I recognise from
my own experience or the experiences of friends. Of course, it's just one facet of the film -
one facet that exists in the shadow of the more necessary sci-fi extravaganza - but one that nonetheless dominates the entire
first act, and feels, almost - in its construction, or in the development of its
scenes - like a self-contained 'miniature-movie' that was somehow just dropped
into the narrative. Granted, there is
still much of Dark of the Moon that is repellent (the racial stereotypes, the crass
sexism, the homophobia, etc), but nonetheless, I still found myself floored by
the honesty of these early scenes; the way the situation of the characters is tied intrinsically
into the destruction of the world (almost as metaphor), as well as the more
sensory aspects of Bay's approach; the impression
of the film, or that experience of a film reduced to an endless blur of images,
colours, sounds and movement. The noisy chaos
and disorganisation that the director is often scolded for works perfectly in
the context of the story, where the sense of urgency is reflected in the urgency
of the run-and-gun aesthetic, or where the reminders of 9/11 as acknowledgement
of the true contemporary context of any current disaster movie, suggests a
sense of heightened reality, giving this fantasy an edge of very real, very physical
danger.
Phantom [F.W.
Murnau, 1922]:
The
necessity of the framing device is unclear until the very end. Only then do we finally grasp the meaning of
the character's initial unhappiness; his despondent disposition, which seems
improbable given his obvious accomplishments; the nice house, the pretty wife,
the sheltered existence, etc. As the
protagonist sits down to write out the story of his past-life, the justification of this wayward gloom becomes apparent. That age old story of ambition, corruption
and greed. The protagonist of Murnau's
film, Lorenz - a bookish clerk who works for the local government and has hopes
of one day becoming a successful poet - is presented from the outset as an idle
dreamer; a man sensitive to the dire circumstances of his family life - the
domestic hardships of his ailing mother, the scandals of his younger sister -
but is, to some extent, weak to their suffering; much preferring to lose
himself in books and fiction than to face such harsh realities head-on. It is this inability to engage with reality
that ultimately leads Lorenz into peril; his blinkered view of life - not quite
selfish, but still seeing the world from his own limited position - blinds him
to the deceitful nature of those around him. It is only during the course of the film - or
his own retelling of it - that Lorenz is confronted by the duplicitous nature
of the world; his own lack of perspective or emotional maturity leading him
astray; corrupting him, like so many characters before (and since).
In this
respect, the narrative of the film is not so remarkable; just a standard
melodrama with a crime and punishment edge.
However, it's the adaptation of the film that makes it work. That initial framing device - the extended
flashback - allows Murnau and his writer Thea von Harbou to imbue the film with
an aspect of meta-fiction; an acknowledgement of the story's inherent
fabrication. As such, the film becomes a
sort of confessional, informed by the central character's own recollections of events
and therefore marked by a more personal and somewhat 'subjective' sensibility. By recognising the voice of the protagonist -
as 'narrator' - Murnau is able to be more creative with his depiction of the
character's eventual descent. In one
sequence, the feeling of isolation felt by the tortured Lorenz (his sense of paranoia;
of the world closing in on him) is depicted literally, with the buildings
collapsing, three-dimensionally - like in a children's 'pop-up' book - suffocating
the character and recalling a similar, more famous image from the recent blockbuster
Inception (2010). It is this haunted,
dreamlike aspect to the subjective stylisation of the film that for me separates
(or elevates) Phantom from the many other silent melodramas that deal with
similar concerns.
