Fascism Then and Now: Trump and a Citizen Above Suspicion

Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion is a film that exudes strength on every level: Gian Maria Volontè’s police chief walks fast and with a purpose, wearing tailor-made, form-fitting suits, and holding his chin high. He is so arrogant he leaves pieces of evidence of the murder he commtted all over the place- just to prove he is above the law.

He is sometimes aggressive, sometimes stoic; always strong. He yells and chews out leftists – and his own subordinates. He moves with irrepressible swagger and confidence, never allowing any sign of weakness to seep through his exterior. Pauline Kael once wrote about Volontè: “When he marched to his death in Sacco and Vanzetti, you felt like it would take a lot of juice to kill him. Mastroianni can play a good man, but not a great man. Volontè can.”

As Volontè chews throught the scenery, the film’s parallels to present-day politics are hard to ignore. Like Donald Trump, Petri’s police chief uses his energy to seem determined, in-charge, and never ever, in doubt.

^{Volontè’s police chief adresses his underlings:
“The exercise of freedom. Our duty is to repress them! Repression is civilization!”}

Petri’s camera moves almost constantly: Fast pans and zooms add to the energy of the film. The story, the acting, the camerawork and the extraodinary, baroque score by Ennio Morricone all build towards the same theme: unchecked power.

Volontè represents the law, but like Trump, he considers himself untouchable. He can get away with anything. From Mussolini to Berlusconi, he is The Strong Man fascist Italy loved and loves.

Watching the film today it almost comes across as an analogy to Trumps ongoing coup d’etat. As Trump accuses his opponent of the exact crime he himself is committing (“They’re stealing this election!”), he mirrors Volontè’s police chief to a tee. They are both commiting their crimes in plain sight, with everybody watching. They can get away with it because their followers want a strong leader, not a law-abiding man. As Trump himself once put it: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

Petri has made a masterpiece. A colorful, kinetic film that feels as relevant now as its ever been.

_{Triumphant return: A Trump campaign-video with clear fascist undertones.}

Disagreeing with Cronenberg

In an interview David Cronenberg did in conjuction with the release of his latest film A Dangerous Method, he stated that

“Often people talk about things being theatrical, and they often think lots of dialog is automatically theater, like a stage play.You know, as a filmmaker, the thing I photograph most is a face talking. To me, that’s ultimately the essence of cinema: the human face talking. If you have a fantastic face saying fantastic things, you’ve got real movie-making.”

Wow, I have to disagree with this.

What is true is that the CLOSE-UP is inherently cinematic. Not necessarily people talking. That’s two different things. The close-up is an important cinematic technique, one of the major building blocks of cinema. It brings the viewer in close, leading him to see things that are rare in many other art forms, for instance the theater. But it’s far from the only important building block in the language of cinema. When used right, creating a contrast with other shots, it can be very effective. But to go from there to say that shooting people talking is the essence of cinema honestly couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Cronenberg goes on to say some even more remarkable things:

“I’ve often said you give the movie what it wants and the movie will tell you what it needs, and you give it that. It’s a mistake to impose on the movie some outside idea of what it’s supposed to be.”

Imposing an outside idea of what the movie is about? Really?

I’m pretty astonished by this. All art is about presenting your personal view of the world. In Cronenberg’s view the director is aparantly not such an artist. That makes no sense to me. For me the director is an artist, creating meaning through images. If not the director, then who else?

Why Scarface is a true Masterpiece

I always considered Scarface to be one of De Palmas lesser achievements, as I saw it as a more impersonal film for him, a film that did not reflect his particular social, psychological and political sensibility. In that sense, I saw it as being in opposition to films such as Hi, Mom!, Blow Out, Snake Eyes, and Femme Fatale.

Well, I was wrong.

I just rewatched this film expecting to see a spectacular, but ultimately somewhat superficial epos. However, not only does De Palma coax what is perhaps a career-best performance out of Pacino, but the movie is wildly entertaining while at the same this serving as a stinging criticism of the Reagan administration’s hypocritical “war on drugs”, which was little more than a PR-campaign and the consruction of an external enemy.

De Palma makes it clear that both police, bankers and politicians are all corrupt, meanwhile using Tony Montana as a scapegoat to illustrate everything that is wrong in America. No wonder the afro-american community has taken this film to heart, as they have experienced this first hand.

Watching Scarface today, it’s easy to forget that the story was contemparary in 1983. The political reality that the movie describes – enormously brutal violence, government corruption at all levels – was happening outside the movie theatres as the movie played out on the screen. No surprise De Palma almost got lynched after this one. The criticism of the Reagan administration and American society was so intense that it was impossible to accept. It was an incredibly ballsy move by De Palma. The satirical critique of capitalism and the American Dream is easily recognizable in this movie as well as in De Palmas filmography as a whole.

Making Dressed To Kill, Blow Out and Scarface back to back over three years? Has any major Hollywood director ever offered a more direct criticism of American society? All while keeping his audience glued to their seats with their eyes wide open.

Bad Lieutenant: Pain as Metaphor

Regardles of original director Abel Ferrara’s apparent wish to see the people behind this picture die and burn in hell, I thought this was Werner Herzog and Nic Cage’s best effort in a while. Cage is able to express a number of different emotions and personas as convincingly as I’ve seen this year. (Jeff Bridges also did it empathically in Crazy Heart, but Cage’s performance seems more important.) With his hunched back, walking with stiff, short steps he embodies a whole city’s (if not to say country’s) feeling of despair and disillusion.

Cage’s character, Terrence McDonagh, is a highly flawed, corrupt cop who at one point decides to jump into a flooding prison cell from one story up to save a drowning prisoner. The result is irrepearable back damage and a permanent condition of severe back pain. These chronic back pains spiral McDonagh further and further down into a world of narcotics and prescription drugs.

Setting the plot in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a masterstroke by Herzog. If there is ever a place to illustrate the brimming injustice of the ever-growing inequality in the U.S. (and the world), this is it. (Consider the plans to privatize and gentrify the area in the wake of the catastrophè.)

I find it hard not to see Cage’s tortured cop as a metaphor. A metaphor for how poverty and downward social mobility as the result of disease, injury and disaster strikes coincidentally, dragging shame and humiliation along in its footsteps.

Cage’s good deed does not go unpunished. His injury perfectly illustrates how New Orleans’ poor and predominately black population was brought to its knees. The same way desperate people all over the world see the windows, doors, and borders of opportunity close all around them by a brutal, overwhelming, and merciless force, as poverty sweeps up its random victims.

“If He is not the word of God, then God never spoke”

The movie uses a post-apocalyptic world as an analogy to discuss contemporary issues. Such as the struggle to find meaning in a capitalist world. In this sense I thought it was reminiscent of Kafka’s The Trial. Struggling to find a reason to go on, Viggo Mortensen looks at his sleeping son, and says “If he is not the word of God, then God never spoke.” A lot of credit goes to author Cormac McCarthy’s poetic words. Even for an agnostic like me, the love I feel for my son is so strong that it feels like it has God-like dimensions.

Brilliantly, The Road sheds light on the struggle of the poor, starving and desperate populations of the present day world. It removes the blindfolds from the prosperous, showing a harsh truth. Steven Spielberg also the same in his underrated allegory War of the Worlds.

However, director John Hillcoat chooses to use tremendously low contrasts in his imagery. At times it’s hard to make out anything at all in the the muddy grey and brown colors. The flashbacks to present time, on the other hand, have over-saturated  colors, creating a dramatic distiction between now and then. A different approach emphasizing the parallels between the two worlds would have been much more interesting in a cinematic sense.

Because that parallel is the real story here.

Nowhere Boy -the young John Lennon

Just saw this on dvd. It is a surprisingly well shot film. It is rare these days that a movie tries to take advantage of cinemas’ intrinsic visual capabilities, but instead relying on dialogue, plot, narrative and character to convey meaning. To a considerable extent, this is also true for Nowhere Boy -which is nonetheless an interesting look at some Freudian trauma of John Lennon’s dramatic childhood and youth.

The camera is always a player in Nowhere Boy.  Nowhere Boy at times uses editing and cinematography to achieve beautiful results. Let me give you one example of how director Sam Taylor-Wood uses cinemas own vocabulary to convey meaning.:

At one point Lennon is given a guitar, and rehearses in his living room. We see him pull out the guitar, sit down, and start playing. He is alone in the room. After a few seconds we realize that the images have been sped up. The other members of the family fly in and out of the living room at exaggerated speeds while John sits still and plays his new instrument. The idea is that he has finally found his calling.; for him time is standing still.  It is understood that John’s life will never be the same again after this moment, brilliantly reinforced by pure visual storytelling.

KICK-ASS

Apart from the nihilism that have become all-too common in action films – particularly since Tarantino popularized the tooth-for-tooth  revenge fantasy in the mid nineties – Kick-Ass is a very likable movie. In that sense it is reminiscent of 1994’s Falling Down, which was a sensationally watchable and engrossing vigilante-drama with a poignant turn by Michael Douglas.   

The editing in Kick-Ass is rapid and competent. It is a rare sight to see action-sequences edited together this well, without cheating. Most action-directors employ a blisteringly-paced and eventually confusing form of jump cutting that leaves the audience to make out the spacial-temporal logic of the scene by themselves. Such directors do not show how the different elements of the scene relate to each other. Take for instance films like Quantum of Solace,  District 9 or Avatar. 

Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaugh is, however, able to do this to a considerable extent. The action sequences in Kick-Ass are exciting, suspenseful and truely involve the viewer. 

Add to that an unusually vibrant color scheme and a truly charming lead actor in Aaron Johnson and you have the year’s second best action movie to date, only behind the fascinating real politics of The Green Zone.

In the Mood for Love

The greatest film I saw in the past ten years was Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love. 

When was the last time you saw a film that transported you to another place, another reality, another world. This movie does that -and keeps you there spellbound.

 

In the Mood for Love is by far Kar-Wai’s best film. There was not a better example over the decade of a film using the elements of pure cinema to create atmosphere, emotion and reflection. Certain segments of the film combines music and mise-en-scene to create astonishing results, carrying the viewer away into a dark, dreamy world where you are completely encompassed in the film’s universe. The rythm, color and pacing of the gorgeous, slow, tracking shots have a hypnotic effect which reaches for cinemas highest aspirations.

Other shots visually and metaphorically underline the films theme of distant, impossible love.  A true masterpiece of visual cinema.

Communicating Space, Pt. 2

Reality is three dimentional. Paintings and photographs are two dimentional.  Part of cinemas mission is to explore space in the three dimentions.  As previoulsy mentioned this can be done with a moving, probing camera and also by editing; by mise-en-scene or montage, some might say. Mise-en-scene is sometimes referred to as what is front of the camera but keep in mind that what’s in front of the camera depends on the cameras constant movement and reframing -therefore the proper definition must be what’s in front of the camera as it relates to the camera itself.  

Camera movement is essentially cinematic. But some director don’t utilize these possibilities. There are tons of directors who hardly ever move the camera or explore focus or editing – in short, the cinematic language. Two of the most critically acclaimed directeors whom I’ve never seen move the camera are Bent Hamer (Factotum, Eggs) and Roy Andersson (You, the living). They are good at what they do, but it’s not my cup of tea.

Che Part 2 – communicating space

Cinema is about communicating space.  Film can communicate three dimentional space in a way none of the other art forms can.

This is done primarily with the techniques of editing and camera movement. It is an absolutely essential aspect of the art form.

Steven Soderbergh does a pretty good job of this in the battle scenes in ‘Che’. He doesn’t really engage with the language of cinema to any extensive degree in the two films. But at one point we see the guerrilla soldiers walking down a river shot from an overhead angle -it is a rare and refreshing visual touch that adds some texture to the film.

But still – space is represented quite consistently in the film’s battle scenes, especially the final scene where the Bolivian soldiers close in on  Che and his men hiding in a a hillside behind some rocks. As the the soldiers (who are far superior in numbers) approach, the claustrophobia mounts. The way this is done is through use of foreground and background in the frame, as well as consistency in the communication of the spacial relations in the editing. That means that there is a relationship between the shots, that they relate to each other and work together to communicate space, and don’t contradict each other visually. 

I will write more  tomorrow.