I would Totally have Stayed in Oz

Salman Rushdie opens his wonderful, 57 page analysis of "The Wizard of Oz" by telling the story of his first story. "I wrote my fist story in Bombay at the age of time; its title was Over the Rainbow...I don't remember much about the story...I remember that The Wizard of Oz was my very first literary influence."

The analysis itself is fantastic in that it delves into the real core of what makes the film so important and endearing; he even goes on to claim right off the bat that *gasp* it could be a work of art.

The question for today is, what would Rushdie, with such an obvious personal connection to the book, think of this clip?


This clip is difficult to compare to Rushdie's writing because of the choice of song on the part of the adorable Indian children; rather than something ripe with meaning and significance like "Somewhere over the Rainbow" (for more information about this song as used in attempt to give significance to minority children see the second half of the eternity that is the film Australia), they went with what is likely the least interesting or memorable song in the entire film. I am going to assume that the did this for logistical reasons (it is perhaps unfair to ask four year olds to sing a song which requires an octave and a half range) and simply examine the fact that they are singing a song from Oz at all.

Much of the content of Rusdie's analysis speaks to the desire on the part of the audience to live vicariously through the film. He opens the analysis by describing how he imagined Oz through his own eyes as a child, "I remember, or imagine I remember that when I first saw this film at a time when I had a pretty good home, Dorothy's place stuck me as a dump. Of course, if I'd been whisked off to Oz, I reasoned, I'd naturally want to get home again, but then I had plenty to come home for." He even incorporates characters from his life into the story, "It took me half a lifetime to discover that the Great Oz's apologia pro vita sua fitted my father equally well - that he, too, was a good man, but a very bad wizard." The significance of the film is most relevant and special when seen through the lens of the viewers own life.

However, the most significant example of audience's desire to participate comes on page 46 when he first mentions the auction of the Ruby slippers (which later becomes the setting for his somewhat disappointing short story). He tells the story of a 1970 auction for an original set of Judy Garland's slippers which ultimately sold for 15,000 dollars. This desire to be a part of the film's legacy leads Rushdie to speculate that, "in the case of a beloved film we are all the star's doubles." What he means is that the pleasure of any film or story with special significance is to imagine ourselves in the places of the leads.

For this reason, I think that Salman Rusdie would see these children, so distant from the roots of Oz and MGM in the same way as every other lover of the film; people celebrating the mysterious and distant and fantastical through their own vicarious lives.

But is it ART? (hint: it is)

Take a look at this link.

After a cursory glance most people would hardly comment on this image. They might laugh a little, but most likely it would not strike them as being particularly noteworthy. Fredrick Jameson sure would, but not because he has a deeper perception or a more finely trained eye. Rather, what he would believe was significant about this image is not some hidden meaning but its very meaninglessness.

To understand what all this means, we need to first take a look at Postmodernism, a theory of contemporary media culture which was close to his heart. Not surprisingly Postmodernism was a response to Modernism (the timeline there is aprox. Moderism=1890-1950, Postmodernism=1950-present).

Modernism is what you think of when you think of 'artsy' movies or paintings from that time period. Think Picasso. Think Salvador Dali. Think Metropolis. These were all part of a movement assaulting classic ideas about what art should be; they broke down reality and chose to depict things other that what we see and hear, all infused with a political aggressiveness. It was all about challenging assumptions and changing the way people are used to thinking. Not surprisingly, a lot of these guys were communists.

But the problem is that this art isn't particularly accessible to the working class. Sure, someone with a college degree can appreciate the meaning behind something like this, but a blue collar worker sure wont. And why should he? It is almost completely theoretical, so without the background it becomes meaningless.

Postmodernism as Jameson defines it is based in the idea that Modernists (and people in general) are looking for 'quality' in the wrong places, or even that they have the wrong definition of quality. Postmodernists tend to immerse themselves in popular culture (sound familiar?) in a twofold attempt to throw down previous conceptions about artwork (just as the modernists did) and to show that people can find aesthetic beauty in anything (completely different from the Modernists).

The place of postmodernism in a historical context is an interesting contradiction; it simultaneously overthrowing the 'lofty' standards of classic art, and embracing it as part of popular culture. Take another look at the picture above. Is this making fun of the Mona Lisa? Certainly, to an extent. But Jameson would also argue that this has a greater historical meaning. This image is the combination of two of the most classic works of 'high' art and 'low' art, and to Jameson that would represent the overthrow of the bourgeoisie; the high has become low, and now the accessible, low class art is the high art.

Freud would have had a Feild day with TRUE BLOOD

So. I know what you are thinking. What would Freud think of the show 24?

Well, Freud believed that all our behavior was linked to events or experiences we had as a child, particularly in relation to sexuality. If I turn out to be a sadist, it is probably because I walked in on my parents and thought my father was abusing my mother (or so Freud believed).

While none of Jack Bauer's actions are specifically sexual, Freud would undoubtedly have interpreted them as such. Jack's most relevant, most prominent trait is his assertiveness. In any situation he knows exactly what he believes is right, and he will do whatever it takes to get it done. If his daughter is missing, he will use FBI equipment to track her. If he has a hunch that someone inside the Beureu is a spy, he will not waste any time before he tranquilizes him.

Freud would probably link this to infantile masturbation, and probably would throw a little sadism in as well. The fixation on himself and his own ideas coupled with his total confidence is likely due to some positive reinforcement he recieved durring the infantile stage when he was experimenting with msturbation and autoeroticism. Then all it would take is him walking in on his parents in bed to make him the brutal, confident vision of masculinity that he is. Or so Freud would likely argue.

It is important to note that Freud had essentially no evidance, and most of his theories have since been disproved by neuroscience. However the type of analysis he invented, looking into someone's past and finding fixations and events which influence them later in life, is still how we analyze today.

Here is a website.
Here is a website about a German Media Theorist.

More specifically that was Jürgen Habermas, who theorized in 1962 about the difference between a Private and Public sphere. You can read the whole essay after the link. The question at had is, which is that first link to the blog I posted, private or public?

Habermas describes how the newspaper, once mearly a buletin for notifications became a source of political opinion in the eighteenth century. However, he also goes on to describe how mondern media can often straddle that line:

"In the transition from the literary journalism
of private individuals to the public services of the mass media the public
sphere was transformed by the influx of private interests, which received
special prominence in the mass media."

It is certain that the once completely private sphere (consisting of unopinionated material) the news encompassed took on a more public one, but we all know that the news as it currently stands is not, "Citizens...confer[ing] in an unrestricted fashion". We know this simply because modern news is not a debate, but rather a series of statements the viewer is expected to take a face value.

Take a look at this clip. Just the phrase "and who knows what else" brings us to jump to certain conclusions. That is not to say that nothing should be considered public opinion simply becuase of the subtext which lies beneith every statement. Rather, I would place that clip on the border between public and private sphere because this footage is being financed and controlled by one body--sure, they take callers and have panel discusions, but the callers and screened and the members of the panel are hired. A public sphere is a place where anyone who wants to can get up and state their opinion, and by that virture I think modern news falls short.

With that in mind, it is difficult to place the forementioned blog in either sphere--it too is owned by a parent company (in this case, Kos Media) and presumably their writers are hired. However, it is far closer to being public than something like Fox for three reasons: first, a website costs less to produce and the company itself is independant, so the sphere of influence that private individuals have on the content is more limited. Second, because the format of the site is just one person stating their opinion after another rather than focusing on the conent of the story they jump straight to the opinions and provide an enormous variety of them. Finally, underneith each full article is a space for comments. Anyone who wants to can write here, regardless of whose paycheck they are on. While the articles are certainly given more rhetorical credit on the site, the comments are still there for everyone to see.

Does anyone remember this image? If you clicked on it you know that it was an ad for the final Sopranos episode.

I have never seen an episode of The Sopranos, but in a way that makes me better suited to this assignment which is to analyze it through the theoretician Ronald Barthes who wrote an essay about Pasta ads. I'm not going to bother explaining that and jump straight into some quotes:

"We will start by making it considerably easier for ourselves: we will only study the advertising image. Why? Because in advertising the signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional...the signifieds of the advertising message are formed a priori by certain attributes of the product and these signifieds have to be transmitted as clearly as possible."

This quote comes at the end of a short exploration of weather or not images have meaning (you can probably guess that he thinks they do). This is an interesting point in that rarely would advertising be brought into an argument about the communicative possibilities of an image, an argument most likely argued by artists. However if images could not convey meaning then all advertisements would consist of text. Look back at that Sopranos ad for a second. Speaking as someone unfamiliar with the show, those words have no meaning for me whatsoever. They don't even come out and say what show it is. Sure, they may not be a high art but the fact that he ad was effective removes any doubt that the image can communicate.

Now that that is sorted out, onto the next quote:

"A second sign is more or less equally evident: its signifier is the bringing together of the tomato, the pepper and the tricolored hues (yellow, green, red) of the poster; its signified is Italy or at least Italianicity."

The first thing which likely caught the viewers attention about that sopranos poster is the fact that the only color throughout is the red of the text. The actual reddened words thrust meaning into a relatively obtuse image. True, red is often associated with America, but placed on a predominantly black and gray poster it takes a sinister tone. What would seem patriotic in a, say, bluer setting comes across as cynical and ironic in this image.

"Secondly the operation of the drawing (the coding) immediately necessitates a certain division between the significant and the insignificant: the drawing does not reproduce everything (often it reproduces very little), without its ceasing, however, to be a strong message; whereas the photograph, although it can choose its subject, its point of view and its angle, cannot intervene within the object (except by trick effects)."

On this point I am going to slightly disagree with Barthes. True, everything which is stated here is correct. However Barthes seems to be downplaying the importance of trick effects to manipulate the meaning of an image. The Sopranos image is obviously photoshoped. Almost no one would glance at that and think it was taken on location. Though this is hardly aesthetically pleasing, the difference in sharpness imediatly draws our attention to the actor. He and the text almost look like they are on one level and the rest of the image on another. This makes us, without thinking, imedatly attach the meaning of the text directly to him before we have even really examined the background. If this were a candid (or at least looked like one) the right composition could send out eyes straight to the statue of liberty. As it stands the monument feels more like an afterthought to fortify the point. In this way Barthes undermines the cameras ability to manipulate and draw attention in an almost illustrative way. Sure, he was writing this in the 50's when trick effects had nowhere near the power they have now, but the rebuttal still stands.

So...a Surgeon with an Aura?

Walter Benjamin, the theorist I mentioned last week has two interesting quotes regarding film (or at least, two which I plan to quote here)

“...for the first time – and this is the effect of the film – man has to operate with his whole living person, yet forgoing its aura. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.”

“Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.”

Now there is an obvious question which these quotes do not fully address, namely: how does this all relate to The Blair Witch Project? Patience, gentle reader. All shall be revealed.

These two quotes, pulled from the same essay, seem to be intended not to contradict one another. However, while the second quote seems almost as if it was written with TBP in mind, the first did not account the effect such films would have on their impressionable audience.

Benjamin correlated the sense of aura with the feeling of distance the artwork had from its audience. That can be described in a number of ways, the unrepeatable nature of a performance, the sense of history, etc. I like to describe aura as the sense that something is unique. This can take many forms. For example, a film nerd like myself would likely get slightly giddy looking at the original say, Seven Samurai film stock. Even though we can reproduce that film stock with no loss in quality, it would still feel special to see the original.

TBP is a fascinating piece of film in that it tries to cultivate that fuzzy "original-film-stock-feeling" by telling us that it is made entirely out of found footage. In that way (even if, like me, you knew from the start that it was all actors) it shakes up the lingering knowledge we all have in the back of our minds when watching a movie that this is in fact not real. Its a performance. Blair Witch comes right out and informs us that it IS real. Suddenly the cheap, mass produced DVD we are watching becomes a precious, completely unique archive of the last, terrifying moments of someone's life.

What is ironic is that this effect, the artificial cultivation of aura in a mass produced piece, is achieved not as Benjamin said by creating a distance from reality, but by thrusting us deeper into reality than ever before.

Ozu vs. State of California

A lot of people may not have heard of director Yasujiro Ozu, and if they have they are more than likely film students. This is a shame.

Ozu could easily slip through the cracks; those seeking to be entertained will probably find his films unbearably slow, and those seeking art could easily pass him by as there is nothing bombastically out-of-the-ordinary about his style.

I can hardly call myself an expert; the only movie of his I've seen was Tokyo Story, which, though it is his most famous, hardly qualifies as a good sample size. That said, I'm going to be writing about 1) the way it deviated from classic Hollywood films and 2) why that is a good thing.

Of all the places one is likely to hear the word "economy" in reference to something completely unrelated to money, Hollywood is up on the list. Ever since the 30's Hollywood narrative has needed to justify itself through motivation; every shot must be there to progress the story. This vacuum sealed structure, while marvelously effective for certain types of stories, is not the only way to make a movie.

The first thing which probably stands out to most viewers is the pace; Tokyo Story like many other Japanese films slowly investigates each scene before moving onto something different. In Hollywood this would most likely be passed off as redundant; if we have stared at a couple walking down a street for thirty seconds, chances are we have a good idea of what's up. To explain why this isn't a complete picture we need to turn to Walter Benjamin and his fabulous essay about mechanically reproduced art forms like film. According to Benjamin the time and space, the even of exhibition in which the art is observed is a factor in its content. Not only the experience, but the content is changed by having it up on the screen for several minutes rather than a matter of seconds. This type of pacing forces the audience to start to look deeper into the simple images before them. Our naturally bored brains start to examine all the little details which, especially in a story which is about capturing a unique moment, can be crucial to the work of art as a whole.

The slow pace of Tokyo Story is also emphasized by the content of the plot. The story is about a somewhat painful family reunion. Other than the ending that is all--there are no twists and turns, no real development of the situation, just different situations where the characters express themselves differently. Again, this flies in the face of Hollywood's need for economy. In classic American cinema the philosophy is that by putting the characters in extraordinary circumstances we will see their truest sides come out (it also doesn't hurt that extraordinary circumstances sell more tickets). This film presents an alternative theory--that the truth of the characters will come out best in the banality of their everyday lives. All of the characters in the film have recently come out of WWII (which in Japan is saying something), but instead of showing us that, Ozu shows us ten years later. Like with the pacing it all comes down the the type of story. Here, the themes that the film explores include hiding the truth and lying to ourselves and our friends, so the truth cannot be burst open like an oil drum. It must be gently coaxed out like a droplet of water squeezed from the skin of a melon.

One of the most subtle differences between Ozu and Hollywood is the editing style. Hollywood loves continuity editing, where the movement of the camera between cuts is meticulously designed to preserve a smooth logical feeling of time and space. It makes the viewer feel like they are right there in that place and takes attention away from the "filmed-ness" of the scene. Ozu on the other hand, through a combination of extreme close ups and anarchistic changes in camera angle makes us feel like we are stranded in a maze. In the wide shots it is often difficult to see everyone or tell where one person starts and the next ends, and in the close ups the character at hand seems lost.

This clip is from another Japanese film, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. Watch the first five minutes and fifty five seconds (and then watch the whole film because it is excellent). Even though Kurosawa is considered the "western" Japanese filmmaker, this is a great example of the kind of pacing I'm talking about.

At first watching these same guys hiking and listening to them gasping is boring, but after the first couple of minutes you start to notice things. You start to notice the details of their faces, and the sound of the snow. You start to notice you noticing things. It's magical really, to have to sit there living with something extraordinary for so long. And then when their voices finally sound it gives every word a kind of weight they would never have had otherwise.

I was not bored by this movie. Despite the slowness and the deliberation of the style, Ozu packed enough content into each scene to keep me fascinated. Though I have barely touched on it in this essay, the characters are fascinating, and their stories had me absolutely capitvated despite its difference from western film. I love films which reward the viewer for the patience, and this is certainly one.

Film Art vs. Practices of Looking

So. Here is a photo. How would David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson interpret this verses Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright? Let's take a look.

Sturken and Cartwright believe that meaning is comprised of three components, 1) The codes associated with and inseparable from the image, 2) the viewer's own interpretation made up of all their past experiences and opinions, and 3) the context of the location and setting the art is observed in.

For the following photo, the structure is on the surface quite simple; a place middle aged woman is holding a white baby on a street corner. It is a photograph taken in black and white with a shallow focus on the woman and baby. However the symbols there attached give us a little more to chew on. Obviously race becomes an issue; the woman seems to be taking care of the child, but her stationary position suggests that perhaps the child's mother is inside shopping while the African American servant waits with the child. Looking deeper we can see that she has an expression of mild discontent combined with a certain acceptance that this is how things are. We could even look deeper and notice that the baby has almost an identical expression, but perhaps with the acceptance replaced with confusion. This could say that the child is being ushered into the world the nanny has come to sadly accept.

These themes of race are supported in the context as well; if honoluluacademy.org is to be trusted, then this photo was released in a controversial album in 1958 when the civil rights movement was gaining momentum. At the time it was taken as a scathing criticism of the glorified image of American in that decade. In that light the simple composition of the photograph mocks this time period in addition to the content by differentiating itself from the busy merriment of artists like Norman Rockwell.

S&C also put a huge emphasis on artwork which challenges our assumptions, citing such examples as the Fred Wilson Guarded View exhibit of 1991 where he dressed mannequins in the clothing of art museum security guards. In that light (especially when seen by me, in this modern day) the photo could be seen to challenge the assumptions I made based around what I know about the period in American history which to me has, essentially, become mythology. Seen nowadays it would not be out of the question to imagine that the woman had adopted the child and was simply waiting for the cross signal to change. Even my initial assumption that the child was male could be challenged; did I see it as a boy simply because, due to their skin colors? These are questions S&C would want me to ask, not only because of the emphasis they put on assumption-challenging artwork (a good seven pages), but because they believe that the meaning is inextricably bound to the viewer, and thus changes over time.

Thompson and Bordwell's interpretation would doubtless contain many of the same elements as S&C's did. However rather than focusing on the questions the viewer asks themselves when observing art, T&B looks at the process of observing art and the structure art can be explained by. In addition, T&B broke down meaning into slightly different categorizes.

T&B would break down the photo like this:
1) Referential meaning: the bare bones description of content.
An African American woman stands on a street corner holding a white baby in a black and white photograph.
2) Explicit Meaning: what the art comes out and states its purpose is.
This is trickier with a photograph where nothing is ever 'stated'. One could argue that the nature of race is prevalent and coded enough that it could qualify as a statement. Other places to look would be an accompanying artist's statement or the title of the photo.
3) Implicit Meaning: meaning which is not implied but which must be determined by the veiwer.
Everything I wrote above could qualify, from the racial perspective to the chalenging of racial assumptions.
4) The Symptomatic Meaning: This is the cultural context in which the piece was presented.
This would relate to the time it was published, the book it was published in, who it published it, etc. as described above.

T&B would also examine the way we look at the photo to decide what meaning it could contain; our eyes naturally jump to the part of the photo which is in focus, the woman, and then skirt to the periphery to see if the rest of the photo is consistent to what we observed about its core. They argue that the periphery must be consistent with the bulk in order for a good opinion to be formed; how does the blury street match up with our ideas about race? Perhaps it is the idealized past of America drifting into memory. Perhaps it is the road the baby is destined to walk down, leading away from the black woman who is caring for him into the bury, sterile, inhospitable whiteness. Perhaps it is the blurry gray in which they are both encompassed as human beings. In any case, T&B believe that it must be examined if a valuable opinion is to be formulated.

District 9

My experience leading up to watching D9 was mixed--I was a fan of Neil Blomkamp back when all I knew him for were some brilliant commercials and it was good to see Peter Jackson back in action. However I was aware of the somewhat sticky issue that nothing he had ever directed had much plot--more of a mood than anything else. As anyone who likes trailers can attest, it is much easier to love a piece of filmmaking when there is no icky progression and story to deal with. When the film finally came out the reviews did nothing to ease my ambiguity. Either they applauded it as a bold new standard in sci-fi (you know you are in dark territory when the highest praise available is "not like the things its based on"), rolled their eyes at another nerds attempt to artistically justify their love of childish things, or worse, wrote something so incredibly condescending that all I wanted to do was stay away.

Well, I finally saw it. Instead of writing a formal review, these are simply the things I left the theater thinking about.

District 9 made me think further about a number of things which were already on my mind; 1) The art of making science fiction into art, and 2) what exactly it is that makes a good movie.

It is easy to lose perspective on what the building blocks of any art form consists of, especially with something as diverse as film. A few weeks thinking about anything from cinematography to the three act structure without actually seeing a movie and I won't even remember what I like about them. This forest for the trees mindset is often exposed when science fiction or fantasy come up. What exactly does it add to a story to place it in impossible circumstances? My mind always wanders back to what is likely the origin of all story telling, the legend.

Legends do what really just about any story should do to an extent; take something to its logical extreme to illustrate a point. Including impossible elements also prompts the listener to think a little more carefully about what is being said; if my anecdote about the summer includes dragons you will know instantly that what I'm saying bears some investigation.

There is a modern and in my opinion misplaced idea that fantastical stories are not to be taken seriously. Presumably this is because many such stories are intended for the most imaginative members of society, children, who are also subject to an arbitrary and frustrating lack of modern respect.

I wish that these doubters would take the time to read J.R.R. Tolkien's brilliant 1936 essay "Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics" where he brings up a fascinating and resonantly true perspective. Up until that point Beowulf was widely regarded as good except for the Dragons, both as a story and a historical document. Tolkien points out, without ever breaking the rules of rigid academic writing, that Dragons are cool and everyone knows this weather they will admit it or not.

Believe it or not, he manages to support this argument in a convincing enough way that it has permanently changed the way scholars look at Beowulf as a piece of writing. Instead of focusing on the historical value of Beowulf as a document he analyzes the narrative. The grandeur of the story, the fact that the story is about mysterious things and change in the world, these elements are improved by the presence of fantastical things.

What I like about this argument is that it doesn't rely on the cheat argument that all good science fiction is allegory. While it is true that brilliant films like District 9 and Blade Runner do refer heavily to real events, they do not rely on that connection to reality as a crutch towards artistic value. I think fantasy should refer to real life in some way, but when it is most effective it is most general; what these films have in common is that they use a made up setting to describe some human truth in a way for which there is no earthly vehicle. In other words the form changes from a film like the Godfather to a film like Blade Runner, but the function does not. After all, the Godfather really posses no more "truth" than District 9--both refer to events which never took place.

Many people cite a film's distinctiveness as positive; after all this is one of the foundations of Auteur theory. This is of course an incomplete way to look at a film; as Thompson and Bordwell say in Film Art, "Ninety minutes of a black screen would make for an original film but not a very complex one," (Thompson, Bordwell 59). However we all know that seeing something we have never seen before is often more stimulating and fun to watch.

I have never seen a movie quite like District 9. It was a combination of the documentary footage which slowly fades away but is never entirely lost (it is exhilarating the first time the viewer realizes what they are seeing cannot have been recorded by a human) and how little we get to see of any of the characters. Though the 72 hours we see are thoroughly documented, we are always aware that these characters have had whole lives before now, and we really don't get much of a sense at all of where they came from.

This doubt makes the progress of the characters and the films ambiguous ending much more powerful; the film doesn't ever come out and tell us if it will all work out, if the characters are selfish or compassionate, and just like in the real world the documentary footage constantly reminds us of, we never will know for sure.

I found myself wondering if the only reason I loved the film so much was because of its originality; I dread making bold statements I will retract later, and as a result I spend a lot of time deciding if I truly like a movie before I recommend it. But, as the previous paragraphs attest I think that these unusual traits simply tell the story in a better way than existed. If nothing else, it prompted me to think about it enough to fill this entire immense entry.