The Practice of Theory: A Theory of Practice

This is Part I of a four-part series, where I will elaborate on some of the things I've learned during the past year studying Film Aesthetics.  I spent all year trying to come up with a satisfying answer for when people would ask me "What exactly is Film Aesthetics?"  I still don't think I've come up with an answer.  But here are some things I think are valuable, for new filmmakers and new film critics alike, to understand. I'll make some generalizations, but I'll also try to explain some things.  I know this topic is not of interest to everyone, but for those who do read it, think of it more as an essay (an "attempt") than as a blog post.  I wrote this all back in June, on my last night of prepping for my final exam. 

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Part I

In the tradition of the great cinéastes – the likes of Truffaut, Godard, and their cohorts – I want to put into words what I think is most important about filmmaking and film theory.  These men were filmmakers in the French New Wave as well as film critics in the influential journal Cahiers du Cinema.  After spending a year being barraged by theories, models, terms, and critics, while wanting all along just to prepare myself for making my own films one day, I’ve come to see the value in the wide array of film theory & criticism that has been published over the last century...or at least some of it. 

One of the first things that helped me understand this beast I was studying is this: the difference between so-called Cognitive Theories and Psychoanalytic Theories.  Both of these refer to what’s going on with the viewer while he or she watches the film.  Is the viewer actively analyzing the stimuli in front of him, engaging with the story and the images, thinking about what they make him think and feel?  This is what the Cognitive theorists would argue – that the viewer is in control of the impressions he gets from the film. 

Psychoanalytic theorists, by contrast, would say that the viewer is being acted upon by the subconscious associations that are implicit in the film, and that he is not aware of how his psyche is being affected by the story and images.  Rather than being able to think about concrete meanings in what he is seeing, the viewer is subconsciously swayed by how the film portrays people and situations. 

An important concept for Psychoanalytic critics is the concept of the ‘gaze’.  The gaze is the particular way that the film allows the viewer to view something or someone.  Often this concept can take on a political slant, such as when a female character is pictured from a point of view associated with a male character. 

For a filmmaker, having an opinion on the processes by which a person perceives a film, is of utmost importance.  If the director wishes to make the audience think or feel something, he must have conception of how a viewer is made to think or feel something.  To some degree, this depends on the individual viewer, as well as on the individual film.  Summer blockbusters operate on the intention of making the audience feel sympathy for the character, suspense when the character doesn’t know something that we know, and to side with him against his adversaries.  Often, mainstream Hollywood films do not leave much room for ambiguity within this model.  By the same token, some audience members simply want to be entertained in exchange for their ticket money, and some movies deliver just that – entertainment.  However, for a filmmaker who believes films have a deeper potential than this, bearing in mind how viewership actually works will most certainly affect the director's creative choices. 

For myself, I think that viewership functions somewhere between the two models outlined above.  We shall take as a given, of course, that not every viewer is the same.  However, we can go deeper than that and ask questions about viewership that relate to human beings in general and our commonalities, when it comes to our perception and appreciation of art.   

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Tomorrow, look for Part II on Film and the Mind.

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Little Nemo: Adventures in Allegory

Little Nemo is an oft-overlooked 1989 animated film, a Japanese/American co-production, about a little boy who can't help but dream.  The film, which took twelve years to bring into being, is based on characters from a 1910s comic strip called "Little Nemo in Slumberland."  With striking visuals, a screenplay co-written by Chris Columbus (The Goonies), and a story concept by Ray Bradbury, this film deserves some attention.

The film centers on Nemo, a little boy in 1900s suburban New York, who gets pulled into one of his dreams about a magical place called Slumberland.  This land is ruled by King Morpheus and his daughter Princess Camille, who invite Nemo to be a playmate for the princess and to become the King's future heir.  Nemo receives guidance and etiquette lessons from a man named Professor Genius.  Morpheus gives Nemo a key that will open any door in the kingdom, but warns him that there is one door he must never open - the door that locks away the Nightmare King.  Flip, a mischievous rebel clown, peer-pressures Nemo into opening the door, just a little, to see what's inside.  Doing so, Nemo releases unknown evil into the pristine and wholly-good Slumberland, resulting in King Morpheus's kidnapping during Nemo's coronation.  With the help of Flip and his questionable map of Nightmare Land, Nemo bravely ventures to the Nightmare Castle to do battle and rescue King Morpheus. 

This movie is a relic of my childhood.  I fondly remember watching it many times on a crackly VHS tape that was recorded from television.  I recently rewatched the film with my Mom (this time on YouTube), because I was thinking about the religious overtones that it strongly suggests.  If we take these overtones seriously, whether or not they were intended by the filmmakers, we can easily read Little Nemo as an allegory for the Christian paradigm of original sin in Adam, and salvation and redemption in Christ.           

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Slumberland/Eden

Take for example Slumberland itself: it is perfect, happy, harmonious.  The one time we see police officers, they are napping in the police stations, suggesting that there are never any crimes or disturbances.  Slumberland (which looks a little bit like Naboo) has the best of everything, and it functions as a monarchical kingdom.  Complete with gardens and many good things to eat, Slumberland's resemlances to Eden are obvious.  Caught in a rainstorm, Nemo, Princess Camille, and their companion Bon-Bon hang their clothes out to dry and are meanwhile clothed in orbs of glowing light.  This minor detail underscores the comparison of Nemo and the Princess to Adam and Eve, who, as many Bible scholars say, were not naked in the conventional sense but were clothed in a protective covering of God's glory, which was lost at the Fall.

When Morpheus gives Nemo the key to the kingdom, he gives him only one explicit restriction.  Flip fills the role of the serpent, tempting Nemo into transgressing Morpheus's command.  On one level the incident is a lesson for youngsters about peer pressure, and it extends one of the film's themes about keeping and breaking promises.  But on a more allegorical level, it portrays the central act of the Fall of Man, fusing a Christian idea with a Pandora's Box-like image of opening and unleashing evil. 

Not Yo' Mamma's Lucifer

The baddie in Little Nemo is a lot scarier than the baddies in a lot of current children's films.  I was always struck by the depiction of the villain in this film, because the hell imagery suggests that the hero's adversary is capital E Evil itself.  The Nightmare King is depicted with horns, red eyes, and a Darth Vader-esque voice.  The inside of Nightmare Castle looks a lot like the classical depiction of hell, dressed with cavernous expanses, pools of light and shadow, stalactites and stalagmites, and grinding noises (perhaps gnashing of teeth?).  

Behind the door that Nemo opens is a vast, oozing inky blackness - a physical, material substance.  The film is not clear whether this substance is the Nightmare King shapeshifted into this form, the force of Evil, or some medium in which Evil resides.  The fact that this "Evil" is shut up behind a long-locked door under the streets of Slumberland hints at some earlier battle that resulted in its containment.  In the same way, the Bible (and Milton) depict a battle between God and Lucifer before the universe began.   

Fall from Grace

The release of evil into Slumberland results in Nemo's fall from grace, after King Morpheus is bound and captured by the vine-like bands that steal him away.  The sequence  following this is one of the film's topsy-turvy blendings of Nemo's dream world with his home world.  After getting mobbed by an angry crowd at the coronation, he wakes up in his bed, thinking it was all a dream.  But his house is suddenly flooded by crashing waves and he ends upfloating on his bed in the middle of an endless, still sea.  He has sinned and is cast out of the Garden, so to speak. 

While caught in the doldrums, Nemo sees a waterspot that takes the form of King Morpheus before collapsing back into the sea.  Nemo then expresses his sincere sincere remorse for what he has done.  Soon after, Professor Genius floats by on a suitcase.  The two devise a plan for rescuing the King, and then paddle their way back to Slumberland.  Perhaps we can read this sequence on the water as a period of purgatory that Nemo must undergo.     

The Second Adam

While Nemo falls from grace, King Morpheus falls from power, leaving behind his magic scepter to Nemo's responsibility.  Continuing the allegory, this fall from power and descent into bondage represents Christ's humiliation and death on the cross.  Going even further, Morpheus is held captive within the hell-like caverns of the Nightmare Castle; this could be read as representing Christ's descent into hell.  Morpheus's fall from power represents Christ's giving up of power.

This is where the cool thing happens.

When he goes to rescue the King, Nemo transitions from an Adam figure to a Christ figure, a second Adam.  Nemo uses the King's scepter to do battle in Nightmare Castle, using the incantation that the King had used at Nemo's coronation.  He takes on Morpheus's mantle of power, using his words, to defeat evil.  I see this as an allegorical representation of Christ's defeat of evil at the cross.  Christ is called the Second Adam many times in scripture because he stands in Adam's (Man's) place to take the punishment for sin. 

What's more, He dies on the cross and is resurrected and restored to glory by the Father. After Nemo defeats the Nightmare King, he is overwhelmed and appears to die, or at least pass out.  Nightmare Land explodes in light, and the churning lava and fire are replaced by ice and snow.  King Morpheus, Princess Camille, the Professor, and Flip (who had all been captured and placed in some kind of cryogenic sleep) are suddenly released.  Finding Nemo lying on the ground, Morpheus uses his scepter to revive Nemo, resurrecting him even. 

The following scene shows Slumberland restored to its former state of happiness, as Nemo and the Princess float away on a dirigible back to Nemo's real world. 

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The thing I like about Little Nemo - other than its allegorical storyline, its imaginative characters, its disorienting editing and dream sequences - is the fact that it doesn't fall back on the "If you just believe in yourself, all will be well" idea that many children's film have.  Nemo must 'do something about it', but he doesn't act fully out of his own power either.  Even if we ignore the film's allegorical implications, the film is firmly rooted in the idea of taking action and keeping one's word.  Sin must be paid for, but redemption is the ultimate finale.      

Mob Week - The Consequences of Sorrentino

As many of us know, July 30 through August 5 is AMC's Mob Week.  So far, I've caught the restaraunt scene in The Godfather Part I, and the beginning of The Godfather Part II.  Despite my pitiable show of affection for Mob Week, I'd like to use the occasion to highlight one of my favorite contemporary directors, Paolo Sorrentino.

A native of Naples, Italy who's barely in his 40s, Sorrentino has the rhythm of a musician in his editing style, and visuals are as sharp and shiny as cut glass.  He's been rightly called the love child of Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Federico Fellini (here).  So far his films haven't been noticed by the Hollywood mainstream, most of his acclaim coming from the festival circuit.  However, he is certainly gaining notice far outside of Italy - perhaps his recent feature starring Sean Penn, This Must Be the Place, will help with that too.


This Must Be the Place (2011)

Set in Ireland and the U.S., This Must Be the Place is about an aging rock star, Cheyenne (based on Robert Smith of The Cure), who sets out to confront the ex-Nazi war criminal who tortured his father during the Holocaust - and in the process, finally grows up.  It has an almost Wes Anderson-style of dry humor and poignancy, and long takes that convey its grotesque yet deeply emotional undercurrent. Frances McDormand contrasts Penn's character as his energetic, health-concsious (and normal-looking) wife.  Sorrentino also brings in David Byrne as himselfe, lead singer of Talking Heads, to play one of Cheyenne's friends.  Part bildungsroman, part biopic, Sorrentino's first English-language film must not necessarily be the place to start if you want to get a sense of Sorrentino style as a director.

His pace slows down and his storytelling scope becomes more focused in this, his latest film.  His previous features have focused on Italian politics and the runnings of the Mafia, but they have always kept an intense focus on character, which is what Sorrentino chiefly does in This Must Be the Place.   Here's my take on two of his earlier films, ones which contrast organized crime with the breathing, bleeding human being that plays a central part in it.


The Consequences of Love (2004)

Staring Tony Servillo, The Consequences of Love is about a seemingly emotionless man who lives in a hotel in Switzerland.  Regularly, he delivers money to a bank account as a pawn for the Mafia.  Also, he's addicted to heroine. 

A few sequences stand out.  Each time he make the cash deliveries, Sorrentino dresses the scene with serio-comic, highly stylized music and editing.  It looks like a James Bond intro and a Jaguar commercial crashed into each other on the Autobahn.  The first couple of minutes of this.

Long takes are one of Sorrentino's specialties: the opening shot (doubling for the title sequence) is a 2-min. static shot of a bellboy traveling down a moving sidewalk.  Sorrentino is also a master of the moving camera.  When  Servillo's character sits on his hotel bed and shoots up heroine, the camera moves from a front medium shot, goes 180 degrees over his head and down the other side of the bed, while the music swells and the drug enters his body.   Acrobatic sequences like this contrast with quieter dialogue- and monologue-driven scenes.  Sorrentino's knack for conveying a stylized portrait of an inwardly tortured man continues in his political biopic, Il Divo.


Il Divo (2008)

Servillo returns to play Giulio Adreotti, who was Italy's long-reigning Prime Minister, with a political career lasting from the 50s to the 90s.   The film explores the various deaths connected with Andreotti's career and his alleged Mafia ties.  Stylistically, the film is breathtaking, and in certain places, funny.  Such as when Andreotti stares down a cat that has one blue eye and one green eye.  Narratively, you could probably get more out of the story that this film has to tell if you are familiar with Italian politics, which I am not.  But, that doesn't mean it's not worth your while.  Sorrentino said that he wanted to create for the audience the sense of being a spectator of the political scandals of Andreotti's life, flashbulbs and all.  In fact, the film's subtitle is "The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti."  

The latter half of the film lags a bit by trying to compress a lot of historical details into the narrative in a short amount of time.  The film overall, however, is a beautifully conducted symphony of private monologue, musical anachronism, interactive text, and a camera with moves that would rival Beyonce's.  The trailer says it best.

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If for no other reason, watch Sorrentino's films for their music.  He's found a fusion between music and image that few filmmakers have achieved.  And his body of work shows that he's much more than a director of "gangster pictures."  That being said, I'd love to turn on AMC's Mob Week in a few years and see Il Divo or Consequences.   The Godfather, Scarface, and Goodfellas have had a good run.