Does it really take a Kung Fu Genius? No. No it doesnt

Kung Fu hustle a pretty great glimpse into the funnier side of postmodern film, where its just a big mash of references and kung fu parodies layed on the skeleton of a typical Kung Fu sort of story that is even more intense and blown out of proportion than usual. In class we talked about alll sorts of references, from ones I could understand like Drunken Master and Bruce Lee movies to some pretty out there suggestions like Star Wars (which was noted as referencing Kung fu and budhism already so thats probably where that came from...) . The references to other films and to other references was used in a very ironic and humorous way in this movie instead of being as serious and poignant like in Mullholland drive. Like Professor McRae was saying in class on monday, I definitely got that this was a film made just for entertainment. The over the top fighting, the hilarious and unexpected characters, the adorable love story; its all in there purely for entertainment, not really to make the audience think all that much.
So was Kung Fu Hustle successful in giving the audience a fun ride? YES. You would have to be some crazy, soulless ...thing in order to not love this film and just have a good time with it. I felt like it was the polar opposite of a David Lynch movie. It isnt designed to make people say "WTF?" and have their head explode. Kung Fu Hustle is all about put the audience in a really comfortable and enjoyable place where they can just laugh and laugh and say "Yea! Thats awesome! Of course the snakes bite him him right in the mouth when he tries to whistle! AWESOME!" The funny thing is that both films use the vehicle of postmodern filmmaking and references to get to completely different places.
Our class reactions really demonstrated this to me in the PERFECT way. End of Mullholland Dr. Credits start rolling and someone just shouts"WWWHAT?!?!?!" We laughed a little but it summed up the classes collective thoughts pretty well in my opinion. Flash forward to the beginning of our discussion about Kung Fu Hustle. "What did you guys think?" is question posed, and there is like this unanimous almost synchronized "AWESOME!" from several people (including myself quietly).
I think that this film was an excellent choice of a last film of the semester. Not serious and depressing or confusing, just really hilarious and enjoyable. But, it still drove home some of the elements of postmodernism because its pretty clear how it is used in this film with all the parodies to other films in this "Kung Fu Universe." From the Xiaolin Temple to the idea of the ranking of the "Number one Figher", and even the transformation of our "hero" into natural born Kung Fu butterfly Bruce Lee. I mean just look at him at the end. Hes Bruce Lee. The hair. The clothes. The facial expressions. The shirt getting ripped off and exposing the ridiculous muscles. Hes Bruce Lee.
Anyway, great movie, glad to see postmoderism being used as Im more used to it like in Family Guy and Seinfeld, etc. Who needs a strong moral lesson? just get to the karate and laughs.

Is Hollywood really the Protagonist of Mullholland dr or the big evil entity...or neither...confusing

So Mullholland Dr was a stunningly beautiful and dark movie that confused the crap out of me until I decided to just let it go and enjoy the ride rather than thnk too hard about what my eyes and ears were taking in. So in that way it is alot like Last year at Marienbad and even to some extent like the Daren films we checked out. Lynch was very, very clearly an artsy person and Mullholland makes much more sense to me as a mysterious moving painting than a narrative Hollywood movie.
So once I got my head to stop saying "WTF mates?," it was alot more fun.
So what were the images and sounds I enjoyed? The creepiness that comes up in the strangest places. Like when "Rita"/"Camilla" is stumbling around the city at night with no memory of who she is and she is just staggering around under these looming ominous palm trees, I was like whoa thats so weird. Those trees are normally used to show how fun and sunny and nice California is, and yet here they are so menacing. Same thing when the two gentlemen leave Winkies to go investigate the alleyway out back, there is something freaky going on and the viewer isnt even sure why they are on edge, but they are. The way the camera and the music work together, it transforms the simple act of walking in the street into a really on edge sequence. How does he make so much tension just moving around and pointing the camera at harmless things like a pay phone or a cappucino? Pretty great film making. And thats just the tip of the ice berg, because the ENTIRE movie works this way, subtle yet powerful emotions being conveyed through what are normally simple images or scenarios. Even when we cant be sure of anything that we are actually seeing and there are eighteen different weird and apparently disconnected things happening, we still get completely submerged in the film and the atmospheres that Lynch creates.
This sort of ties in with what really struck me from the reading and our class discussion, and that is the power of Hollywood and of film to affect people and create these dream worlds. I think we called Hollywood the "Dream Factory" at one point, which is so fitting because not only does it give people all these allusions that we love to latch onto (even when they make no sense *see above paragraph lol*) but it also represents a place where peoples dreams can come true or turn into nightmares. For the actress Betty, it was the land of perfect dreams where she instantly is recognized as stunning and wonderful and has no problems at all save for a thrilling mystery/love affair with an amnesiac. Thats a good dream. Not so much for the actress Diane, whose trip to Hollywood is quite literally a nightmare that only ends in terrible silencio. So, Hollywood, as a character, clearly has an immmmmeennnnse amount of power. The reading talks about this as being a reason for its rejection from ABC as a television program because it is a pretty ugly picture of the town with all of this absolute power over peoples lives. Heres the quote to show you what I mean....
" the contempt he heaps on its ludicrous power structure conveys the
heinous absurdity of the entire entertainment industry,
and with such vigor, that it is no wonder that ABC,
seeing its face in this dark mirror, pulled away from it"
The funny thing to me is that this is a movie. Its an Illusion. There is no band. Lynch is using this power of the dreams of Hollywood to show the power of the dreams of Hollywood. Kinda cool, sort of ties to postmodernism like we were talking about.
So yea, good movie. Wanna check out more Lynch now. Is Twin Peaks good? Worth checking out or will my head definitely explode after that?

Teen Suicide, Dont do It!.. but alas, Que Sera Sera

I really enjoyed the movie Heathers, but Im the type of person who enjoys dark, ironic humor which is so satirical its shocking. In class and in the reading, we talked about what postmodernism is and what makes Heathers postmodern. I didnt realize just how empty the film is while watching it, but it really is comprised of nothing but references and allusions to other things. There is no overarching moral purpose in the film; the characters dont really learn a valulable lesson like teen-movies from John Hughes. In class, some people were amazed by how much this movie reminded them of their own highschool experience, which doesnt really surprise me for some reason. Heathers shows ( in a really cutting and over the top way) what high school is like, more than other films where lessons are learned and things are better than at the beginning of the film. The point is that there is no point, its all senseless and monotonously monstrous. Or should that be monstrously monotonous? Eh, either way I guess.
Que Sera, whatever will be will be. That pretty much sums it up.
Kill the queen bitch, another steps up to take control. Life goes on. If thats what you can call what these people have. I think that is the greatest irony of the film, suicide as a joke because the peoples lives are based on nothing but references to other things and dont have anything there of their own. In class we sort of decided (after great struggle to make him a hero in a variety of ways) that JD is really an empty and meaningless character. I think that all of the characters are really hollow and meaningless, and that is the meaning. Everything is meaningless. The power of the film is that many people see it as a good mirror of reality. I think it displays that no matter how much we want to attach signifigance in everything around us, like with Red hair scrunchy things or games of croquet, we are sadly mistaken in doing so. We had a good example of people doing this when we were talking about people blaming video games and people with trenchcoats in films for the tragedy at Columbine.
Or something like that. I dunno Im really sleepy, I probably missed the mark on the significance of postmodern ideas in this movie. I liked it alot though and thought it was really witty. Someone said it reminded them of Fight Club, which I didnt really see the same way myself but I must agree just because of the sense of really morose hilarity that entertains me so much.
One thing I brought up in class was whether this film would ever get made today? Would any mainstream filmmaker be able to do what Heathers does in this day and age? Personally I dont think anyone would because it seems so inappropriate now, but im interested to see what you guys think. Is America desensitized enough by violence to shrug the teen murders and high school bombings off? or is it a very sore area that no one will dare touch for a while? I dunno

Masculinity and Emotional Disconnection

In class and in the reading, one of the main focuses (Foci?) of the discussion was what has changed in society today to lead to our masculine heroes being so different. On one hand you have the suave seventies Shaft, and on the other you have Samuel L Jackson laying down the law by bitch slapping gangstas and shooting it out with druglords. We talked about how much more violent movies are today and tried to figure out what was different then that we enjoyed such a different style of man as our action hero and particularly such a different style of black man. Our focus was on how much things have changed.
To me this is interesting, because throughout the movie I sort of payed attention to and noticed a lot on the similarities that persist through all of the masculine heroes. The main point of this being the idea of what a man is suppose to feel and how their emotions work.
Shaft cant or at least wont tell his girlfriend he loves her. Of course he cant be pinned down to anything or feel anything for a woman such that he could admit to loving her. He tries to make the pain of being shot as superficial and mundane as possible, and while he is probably kidding when he says he couldn't even feel the bullet being pulled out, the point is to show that a real black man laughs and makes jokes about the pain of getting shot and having the bullet ripped out of his belly by an amateur surgeon. There is a level of disconnect that the masculine character has to have on an emotional level. I guess the root of the idea is that emotions are feminine and showing them is queer. Showing that the world can have so much effect on you as to make you jump for joy or cry in anguish shows a lack of control, and Shaft is displayed as a character who demands control, as we discussed in class with examples of him looming over dangerous pimps and drug dealers.
Do we still see this today? I believe the answer is undoubtedly yes. Male characters who have emotions which rise to the surface are more girly than the ones who strictly guard their feelings and bury them such that they are able to blow the heads off their foes without the remorse. The idea is not a old or new but an ever pervasive idea of masculinity, be it black or white or any race. We like and have always like the idea of men who are not only physically strong and capable but willing and able to shrug off unimportant things such as their own feelings of sorrow and pain. The one thing they are allowed to have drive them is anger at certain points (it isnt really seen as one of the "bad" or "feminine" emotions), and too much of that is even a bad thing, as it violates the idea of self control.
I just found it interesting that while many aspects changed in how people see their masculine heroes, somethings always remain the same. Wether he is shacking up with some sweet thang like Shaft or blowing up a building full of terrorists, the masculine heroes we adore are never allowed to show too much of what lurks behind their good looks and blazing guns.

Deren and Brakhage Bending Reality

At first I pretty much just figured experimental was solely synonymous with weird as hell. While it is usually the case, I think the term makes more sense to me now as taking film to its limits and experimenting with what can be done with it and how it can be used as an artistic medium.

Time and space dont have to work the same in films because like everything else, they can be controlled and changed and altered. Deren talks about how while all fim is a reflection of reality in some fashion (because it is dependent on it), it is really only form of reality which can be altered and toyed with creatively by the director. In her films, she experiments with disregarding the rules of regular reality to create abstract and strange images which are figuritive and symbolistic, as opposed to other traditional films where the audiences expectations of reality are met and the meaning is easy to find in the dialouge and such,

Brakhage also discusses the world that the camera see. My favorite part of the reading was where he says, "To search for human visual realities, man must, as in all other homo motivation, transcend the original physical restrictions and inherit worlds of eyes." He is saying give up all your other senses and preconceived notions of what reality is like and use your eyes to absorb everything that film has to offer. To me this resonated best with Moth Light because I really tried to shed everything I thought I knew and really just drink in everything that was happening to my eyes. I sort of just like went into empty mind/meditation mode, and I felt alot from that film in a way my brain cant quite explain. I mean its interesting to think about how he made the film and this is an important piece of what was produced, I think the best part of the film is what happens to your eyes when you just stop concentrating and focusing and just accept what he is trying to show you.

The most interesting part of these films in my opinion is the struggle for power and control over the film. Obviously, these films are controlled by the directors and makers in every way. They take the time to fix and make sure they are showing you exactly what they want to show you and have complete control over what you see in the film. These films in particular are in the hands of the directors because they have ever taken control away from rules like gravity, time, and what is posssible and impossible and substitute whatever else they want in order to make creative points. However, by doing all of this, I feel like there is alot of control in the hands of the audience in how they interpret the films and how they let the images soak into their brains.

Fellini more catholic then Catholicism itself

I almost forgot to do this posting! Glad I got it in! So without further ado, I will answer the questions Professor McRae emailed to us.

"How do you think that Fellini is using Catholicism in this movie? Based on the question the reading rasies, do you think he is the ultimate Catholic, or the ultimate decadent?"

I think that Fellini is in truth the ultimate Catholic, though it is hard to see this at first. As the reading points out, Fellini clearly prescribes to a decadent and fun lifestyle and doesnt adhere to the strict rules of Catholicism. However, I think he is the ultimate Catholic for two reasons. The first being that "La Dolce Vita" was a hyper-realistic portrayal of Rome at the time. The film isnt a light and fluffy fiction out of hollywood at all, but is designed to capture the truth of the time and place it is discussing and show what the sweet life is really like, and what life in general is like. I found it funny that the church and Italian government were offended by the film and called it offensive, because Fellini wasnt doing a rude charicature, but painting a real picture of them, so by saying it is disgusting and offensive shows just how disgusting and offensive they really were. This window into Rome that Fellini creates shows how the Catholic church and traditional systems may be flawed. I think it is saintly of Fellini to show the truth of the situation in neither a super positive or negative light, but a realistic one, and allows people to decide if the world he displays is good or bad for themselves. The other reason I see Fellini as the ultimate catholic is from a really cool and beautiful quote from him in the reading, ""beyond sea and sky, through terrible suffering, perhaps, or the relief of
tears, God can be glimpsed - his love and his grace, not so much as a matter
of theological faith, but as a profound need of the spirit."
This is spot on, I think at least, and shows how Fellini is more catholic then most people because he thinks and makes his own conclusions about faith and God. He doesnt just pretend to listen to what the church demands of him as others seem to do when they follow blindly.

"We've talked a lot about surrealism and hyper-realism, and other ways that filmmakers so far have depicted reality in their films. Given that Fellini began his career as one of the Italian neo-realists, what images of 'reality' do you see in this movie, and how does Fellini seem to be using them?"
The issues and insecurities Marcello faces, the way the aristocracy behaves, the way all the men seem to suffer from dilemmas in being a good and mature parent and spouse while not wanting to lose their "freedom"; these are just a few of the elements which stood out to me as being very realisitic. O, and another would be the media and the paparazzis constantly being heartless a-holes who attack everyone relentlessly and are constantly nagging for the scoop. Like when they are trying to tell Steiner's wife about the tragedy and the photographers just wont leave her alone or have any respect for the situation at all. It really tore at me, and that is just one example.

Stuck in a piece of the Unexplainable (Last year in Marienbad)

So in class we discussed the reading alot and dealt with alot of different perspectives relating to this movie being a Cartesian fantasy or some other sort of dreamworld or mental hell/prison. This certainly makes alot of sense when looking at the movie because it helps deal with all the crazy stuff happening and lack of a real narrative to the story (no one is sure what, if anything, actually happened or who these characters are if they really even exist).

I saw the whole thing from a slightly different angle, and I dont know if its better or worse or if it helps make any sense of the movie at all, but this is how I like to think of the film. To me, the whole movie seemed like a poem or a painting which we have delved into with a camera.

In poetry, you often get descriptions of situations that arent really narratives, but we hardly even notice the lack of things like the lack of character names, plot, or anything else like that because it is a different medium for expressing oneself. I got the feeling that this was getting inside the head of a person who only exists as a piece of poetic fiction; he has no name, his love has no name, there is no world beyond there immediate surroundings, the other characters are there but are completely negligable, dialouge is constantly repeated and recycled and images switch and change and morph suddenly and jarringly. We accept alot of missing details in poetry and just enjoy the emotions or message that the poet is trying to get across. So to me this felt like a poem about a man trying to rekindle his old loves passion and take her away from her husband(maybe husband, some relation at the very least) and she refuses to accept him or remember him at all. The people we see on the screen, X and A and M, are not really people, they are merely the shadows of some poet or other artist when he was writing or creating. Their names dont matter because they are designed for people to sort of see themselves in their places when they are reading and feel what the poet was feeling . And like if the poet wrote the poem with the characters using only the most formal of languages then wouldnt it make sense that this is the only way the people in the movie can speak? I feel like viewing it this way makes all the illogical little weird things we see on the screen a little easier to accept and enjoy.

Does any of that make sense to anyone else? I feel like this is a good idea but I'm not expressing it very clearly at all. I just thought it was intersesting the way people suspend their typical notions of storytelling when they read a poem and yet have a much harder time doing so for movies because it seems very strange to do so. When we forget about the way we normally watch movies and try to see what the director is doing as more of a form of poetry then the paradoxes and weird things we see become easier to imagine as devices for creating a piece of art than telling a linear narrative story.

Please take this idea and run with it, I really hope that this makes sense for somebody else. There are probably very strong arguments against this line of thinking and I after doind the reading I really think the idea of it being a dream of some sort makes alot more sense. This is just an idea I had while I was trying to figure this movie out. As a side note, I enjoyed this movie and would love to watch it again to try and figure out all the aspects and layers that I am sure I am missing. Thanks, let me know what you guys think of this take on the film (if it makes any sense at all),

Orpheus accepting Death

When we watched Orpheus in class, I thought it was kinda meh. Good not great... Weird reverse rubber glove shots? huh???
After the reading and the class discussion though, I saw many more viewpoints and sort of understood what the point of the movie was a little better. The thing that really interested me in the reading was the whole idea of poets/homosexuals having like this sixth sense for hidden symbols and signals and such. I really saw that in the movie alot and felt like Orpheus was special because he was a poet and being a poet means that he sees the world differently and more aware of the strange symbols everywhere. Going along with this, I really loved Orpheus' line when he is defining what a poet is..."someone who writes who isnt a writer..." I was just like, YEA, nailed it! I felt like that line caught the contrast and irony of the contradictory nature of this film. It just sounded like something Cocteau would say about artists and poets, where it doesnt really make sense and yet you know almost what he means in a cool and sorta cryptic way.

One point that came up in the class discussion that got me thinking was the point about Orpheus' falling in love with death meaning some brush with suicidal tendencies. I thought this was really wierd though because to me just the opposite seems true. Orpheus isnt topping himself because his life sucks, but is rather sort of learning to accept and be comfortable with the idea of death rather than hating and fearing it and trying to escape it or wish it was a dream. In the beginning, his life is in shambles after meeting his Death because he is scared of what ever is happening to/around him. By the end though, he has learned that Death is not something to be feared but rather something to embrace and accept. Once he has done this, he is able to live happily and go on living with Eurydice. This also plays into the contradictory and ironic, because when he runs from death he cant escape it, but when he loves and understands death he is free.

I could be wrong though, thats just what that topic got me thinking about.
What do you guys think?

Independent Lady??

In the movie Laura, the thing which draws all of the characters to Laura is her strength and independence. The article we read from Slant magazine discusses each of the men's individual attractions, however all of their views are unified by the importance of her role as an independent and strong woman who is talented, intelligent and sophisticated. We get views of her from other characters which show her as bold and happy and able to control things and get to the top of her field. So, while we think that she is dead, Larua has this aura of power about her that is felt deeply in the visuals of the film. The best example of this that I noticed was summed up really well in the "No place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir", which is the portrait of her in her apartment which is so powerful and at the center of nearly all the shots while they are in the apartment. The portrait is just so huge and lifelike and displays this character that is being built up to be this incredible and perfect woman that everyone idolizes.
BUT, once she "comes back from the dead," we get to see that Laura isn't really quite so powerful and independent after all. This is when the fact that she is just this blank slate to which all the male characters affix their imaginings of the perfect woman comes to light. She is the opposite of a femme fatale. She wants to lose her current life and take up a domesticated life in a relationship with McPherson. Shots of her do not make her look strong, bold and in control, but rather as indesiscive and kinda mousy in my opinion.

The Third Man: Fiendish Irony and Orson Welles being too charming to hate

The reason I loved the film The Third Man is undoubtedly the amount of intense irony that occurs everywhere; in the story and dialogue, in the setting, in the music, and especially in the oblique camera angles and strange shots that are so compelling and make the movie so much more than just the lines of the actors. (Not to say that the actors aren't interesting or compelling, Orson Welles is the man!)

Generally, I have thought that it was a good thing that movies try and draw you totally into the story and really make you forget that you are watching a movie. The Third Man, however, really sort of makes a point of distancing viewers from the story in a lot of ways and pulling them out to say, "WTF? Thats really weird...Why are they doing that?"
The camera angles, for example, are just so off and angular that its really pretty much impossible to miss. I think that the odd camera work helps and adds to the story because it adds to the chaotic sense of confusion and isolation in the characters like Holly. We understand his lack of knowledge of the city, his not being able to understand what is being said half the time, and so these odd angles help to add to this weird confusing atmosphere that surrounds this character. The irony here, of course, is that generally to get a better and more in depth view of a character, you would naturally want a more straight and clear view of that characters experiences. In this however, Holly's experiences are confused and confusing, so a confusing angle is an ingenious way to sort of simultaneously deepen the audiences view of the characters and distance them from the film in odd way.

The setting that we enter would be one that I would expect to be well run and a pinnacle of the victors of World War II. Ironically, the reality is a ruined, chaotic world where terrible people like Harry Lime manipulate everything and exploit the weakened people of Europe and there isnt much the police can do to make justice a reality. Winning the war did not lead to a golden age(ish) for Europe like it did in America. The entire continent was destroyed. I hadnt really grasped this fact entirely and so I really found this chaotic setting of the beautiful city of Vienna to be an interesting eye opener

In the article "The Revenant of Vienna," they talk alot about Dracula and entering his "shadow world," which I found really interesting in relation to this movie in alot of ways. First of all, it plays directly into one of the major themes of the visual aspect of the film which is shadows and contrasts. The shadows are SOOOO important for making this gothic and dark feeling in alot of the scenes. Shadows even play a noticeable role in the plot of the film, with the shadowy figure of Harry Lime finally being revealed for example when Holly is shouting for the spy to come out of the shadows, or the huge shadows that he and other characters cast on the city and sewer walls of Vienna. Again, this is ironic because usually in movies, the things we want to pay attention to are the things where light falls, where we can see all the details. In this, emphasis is placed on the lack of light, on the lack of knowledge of what is really there, and on the confusion from not having the truth.

The article also talks about how Holly's arrival into the city of Vienna is alot like his arrival into this shadow realm, which I found interesting because before if you had asked me what the shadow world of the movie was I would say the Soviet section of the city. After all, this is where Harry Lime resides in the movie, its the place they are trying to keep Anna from (since she'll likely be imprisoned or killed), and I always thought that the Soviets are just generally supposed to be the bad guys in movies like this. It is not, however, just the Soviet sector that Lime lurks in and has power, and the "good guys" that arent on the Russian side of town arent really all that good in the end. So the better conclusion in my opinion is that the entire city is like a chaotic shadow realm.