Clerks (Smith, 1994)

I've taken a little departure from my previously outlined film viewing list. I am currently reading, as suggested by Anthony (who actually lent me his copy of the book), My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith. Interestingly enough, besides Dogma (1999) a fairly long time ago, I have not even seen any of Kevin Smith's films. So naturally, I decided to watch one, his first film - Clerks (1994). As a result, I had to return the DVD's I borrowed before getting to two of them; I'll get back to Chris Marker and Traffic as soon as I can.

I am not really sure how to go about writing on Clerks. It is really just about two guys that hate their jobs and are not all too nice to their customers. It is funny and definitely has its moments, but overall I was unimpressed. It does not feel like a film at all. It is just a series of events that do not go together coherently. I must say though, that as a former employee of Togo's sandwich shop, I can relate to the film. I think this is probably where the film gets most of its fan base; most people have worked in some job that had to do with customer service.

I do not understand the large following behind the movie, but it is at least somewhat entertaining. It is much better to bear in mind that Clerks is Smith's first film. With that, and the fact that he was a VFS dropout, in mind it isn't too bad of a film after all. I guess I will have to just keep reading, and check out Mallrats (1995) and some of his later movies.

Volver (Almodóvar, 2006)

In celebration of finishing my Spanish final I picked up four movies. The choice for that night was Pedro Almodóvar's 2006 film, Volver. I grabbed it because I remembered trying to decide whether to see it or a different movie at the Rialto Cinemas Lakeside one night. I actually don't remember what we did end up seeing, but I do remember thinking Volver sounded pretty good. so when I saw it, I grabbed it.

Volver was an interesting choice to celebrate the completion of this sememster's classes (except Canadian Literature, which I have tomorrow) especially Spanish, because, well, it's in Spanish. I enjoyed this aspect of it, I was actually able to make out quite a few of the words and phrases. I watch a lot of films that are not in English, but a Spanish language film is pretty rare in my viewing experience. The last film I can remember watching in Spanish is Guillermo del Toro's award winning El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) from the same year. The cool think about somewhat knowing the language of the film you're watching is that you do not need to read the subtitles so closely, and you can focus more of your attention on the screen. I certainly could not watch it without the titles, I am actually pretty bad at Spanish, but I was able to pay closer attention to the photography of the film.

The photography of this film is what really catches your attention first. The cinematographer José Luis Alcaine and Almodóvar create a beautifully colorful, brightly lit world to unleash this dark story upon. This irony comes in the very first shot. An extremely high-key, colorful, exterior, tracking shot roams passed women dusting/cleaning gravestones in a cemetery. Throughout the remainder of the film this style remains. There are certainly key scenes that are more darkly lit, which is clearly an attempt to make an obvious contrast between the two; but even the exterior night scenes are very high-key. I think the only thing that saves these scenes from looking like a 'telenovela' or even an American daytime soap opera is the fact that the picture was shot on film. Had it been shot HD or BetaCam I believe the lighting would have felt like daytime television. Since it was not shot on video, it works; it adds to the surreal or even ethereal fantastical feel to the film. High-angle shots are pretty common in this film. It may be a reference to the spiritual beings watching over the characters (supposedly), or maybe Almodóvar and/or Alcaine are just into the directly over head shots.

Penélope Cruz offers an impressive, yet goofily hilarious performance. She goes from intensely dramatic, to so silly it's hardly acting from scene to scene. And I am not quite sure if it was on purpose or not, but her make-up is all over the place. Some scenes she is stunningly beautiful, others she's lookin' about as Plain-Jane as Ms. Cruz can get in a motion picture. She not only has an impressive screen, her breasts almost play a character themselves. I am willing to guess that this is a cultural thing. The unabashed close-ups of her cleavage, as well as numerous references in the dialogue, don't really seem to add to the characters, and very little to the plot. I'm guessing Spanish culture places more blatant emphasis on the female body than we like to pretend we do in North America. The rest of the cast offers great performances as well. Since I am reading a lot of what they're saying, rather than listening it is truly hard to judge.

Gender plays an important role in this film, but I believe that it would take another viewing or two and some research to truly articulate and argument on it. I will mention though, that there are absolutely no important male characters in the story. There are some supporting males, but they occupy a minuscule amount of screen time.

I am now starting to equate Spanish-language/Latin American cinema with fantastic and imaginative stories, firmly routed in the real world. Almodóvar tells a wonderful, suspenseful story with Volver. You are never quite in the dark about the secrets of the plot, but you are still anxiously on the edge of your seat through the whole flick. I warmly welcome the unorthodox approach he takes to story-telling, and would recommend this movie.



Well, that's all I have to say about Volver for now. Even though the last sentence makes it sound like it, this is not a review (especially since the film has been out for 3 years...) but more just the thoughts off the top of my head on the film. I realize it is not that interesting for anyone else, like I said in my first post, I originally intended this to be in a notebook, but I figured I'd put in online for others to read if they want. So, if you do read it, let me know what you think. And if you like it tell your friends or something? Someone should put me in my place.

And so it begins...

Alright, about time to get this blog rollin'. My most recent post concludes this semester's term papers. I have just one more final left (Canadian Literature), so I can finally start watching some movies again. In celebration of finishing my Spanish final yesterday I ran (in the snow, with my hole-y shoes) to the Koerner library to pick out some movies. I grabbed Volver (Almodóvar, 2006), Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000), Rashômon (Kurosawa, 1950), and a DVD of two Chris Marker films: Sans soleil (1983), and "La Jetée" (1962). It's kinda funny, I went to get four movies to watch for fun, and when I walked out I realized all four were in different languages. Anyway, after some Super Mario Bros. for the NES and washing dishes with Acacia, we made some dinner and watched Volver. So, as you guessed it, my next post will be discussing said film.

I am not really sure at this point what form my writing will take; it will likely change, understandibly, from film to film. My style may change drastically, but after a few films I figure I'll sort of figure out what I'm trying to do here. I've decided not to read anything on Volver, so I'll try the first post that way. I'll likely write it later today, so stay tuned.

Representations of the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland in cinema

Interpersonal Relations in The Crying Game and The Boxer

Daniel Robbins

FIST 332 - Studies in Genre or Period

Professor Mark Harris

11 December 2009

Films that aim to make a political statement often do so loud and clear, sometimes much too loudly, and much to clearly. Films dealing with ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland run the risk of becoming victim that very affliction. The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992) and The Boxer (Jim Sheridan, 1998) attempt to show the “Troubles” of Northern Ireland through the interpersonal relationships between characters. They show the ‘Troubles’ in this way because it is difficult to show a political situation on film, while simultaneously telling a compelling story. Sheridan and Jordan both accomplish this endeavor.

In The Crying Game the first relationship between characters we are introduced to is between Jody (Forest Whitaker) a black British soldier, and Jude (Miranda Richardson) an undercover IRA volunteer. They are at a fair on what appears, at first, to be a date. We soon find out that she is luring him into an IRA trap, to be held hostage. From the first scene in the film Jordan is saying that, in this world, getting involved with someone can be treacherous. The first sequence sets the tone for the interpersonal struggles that permeates the entire film.

One interesting interaction between the two comes very early in the picture when Jude holds Jody’s hand while he urinates, because he is afraid she might leave him. It is a very interesting scene indeed. Jody seems very pleased with the sensation of a woman holding his hand while he urinates, a fact that becomes even stranger after learning of Dil’s ‘secret’. Jody also is afraid of being left alone, another sentiment that is brought up later in the film, in his conversations with Fergus. The two clearly are not meant to be together, especially after knowing why the are together. This scene in particular outlines Jody’s naïveté, as well as Jude’s deceitful ways.

The next relationship to discuss will be that of Jude and Fergus (Stephen Rea). Fergus is first introduced with a clever tracking shot that reveals him watching Jude and Jody, and following them as they pass him. It is him who a few minutes later ambushes Jody and subsequently kicks him in the face. We find out in the next seen, back at the IRA hideout that Fergus and Jude were in on this plan together, and are actually romantically involved with one another. This time the relationship is introduced with deceit between it, but it exists on a basis of deceit. They are not just romantically involved; Fergus and Jude are together as participants in a political terrorist organization.

“Miranda Richardson has a key role as an IRA terrorist who toys with Fergus, early and late, confusing sexual power with political principles” (Ebert). Jude more or less tortures Fergus. She gives him a hard time for befriending the hostage, Jody, and even physically abuses his new friend. Toward the end of the film she turns up in London to involve him yet again in an IRA operation. She threatens to harm Dil, “the wee black chick”, if he does not agree to the plan. Fergus has realized that he is better off without them, and he has grown since then. Jude however, has not grown. She is the same deceitful snake that trapped Jody in the first sequence of the film.

When we first arrive at the IRA hideout where the hooded Jody is to be held hostage, we are introduced to leader of the little gang. Maguire (Adrian Dunbar) is first seen lighting a cigarette and informing Jody of the situation: that he is “being held hostage by the Irish Republican Army” and will be shot if the British army does not release an IRA senior member then Jody will be shot. As the top dog of the small group, Maguire’s relationship to Fergus is one of power. He is able to give orders, and Fergus is required to ask “permission to watch the prisoner”. Their relationship is facilitated by a notion that one person is more important, or powerful than another.

In the end, after Fergus does not show up to execute the IRA operation because he is ‘tied up’; Maguire attempts to do it himself. This results in Maguire’s death. He is nothing without his power. When Fergus disobeys him, deliberately or not, he is destroyed. Living through power over another person is not the most successful way to live.

The relationship that follows throughout the entire film is the one between Fergus and Jody. Jody singles him out as the most compassionate of the IRA people, and the two of them form a bond during Jody’s captivity. They form a most unusual friendship out of even more unusual circumstances.

In Jody’s yearning for communication, he tells Fergus a fable about a frog and a scorpion. The point of the story is that there are two types of people in the world, those who give and those who take. “Through both subtext and narrative, the film proves Jody’s thesis by refusing to draw a line between English and Irish, men and women, hetero and homo; each division is blurred” (Giles 54). Jane Giles’ words speak for themselves. The relationship these two men share, defined by Jody’s story, guides the viewer through the film and shows that people are people. It tells us that we are all humans, and it is our ‘nature’ that differentiates us, not our skin color, nationality, or sexual preference.

It is between Jody and Fergus that the hand holding urination motif comes back. Jody’s hands are cuffed, so he asks Fergus to help him. Fergus eventually gives in, because it is ‘in his nature’. He not only has to pull Jody’s penis out of his pants, and put it back, but he needs to hold Jody’s hands while he goes so he can lean forward. It seems a little bit as if Jody is insisting on this because he wants that kind of human contact. Whatever Jody’s reasons for asking, Fergus gives in and helps his new friend out. This form of humility toward the ‘other’ or the ‘enemy’ is what sets Fergus apart from the rest of the IRA group.

When Fergus first meet’s Dil at the ‘Metro’, the two of them are soon accompanied by the pestering ex-boyfriend, Dave (Ralph Brown). Dave spends his time following Dil and, rather pathetically, trying to convince her to take him back. This relationship, while being relatively minor to the plot, is based on a need for acceptance and companionship. This is a common theme seen throughout most of the characters, reflecting the people of Ireland and England at the time.

After Jody’s death, the film completely changes. We go from an IRA hideout in the Northern Ireland forest, to London. There, Fergus meets Dil (Jaye Davidson) and it is there relationship that the rest of the film hinges around. On Jody’s request Fergus is supposed to find Dil to tell her that Jody loved her. Fergus fails to tell Dil why he had found her, and Jody haunts their relationship which turns out to be based on more than one secret.

The big secret of the film, the fact that Dil is biologically male, comes as a complete shock to Fergus. Their intimate foreplay quickly becomes Fergus’ date with the porcelain throne. He can not immediately handle the shock, but he learns to cope. “After the revelation, Dil herself remains the same, but the film changes tone to hit its comic stride” (Giles 59). This is showing that the film itself, along with Fergus is learning to understand things that are different. It is learning to accept facts that it would previously have been at odds with. This sets an example for us in the real world, a hopeful message to the people of Ireland, and the world.

Roger Ebert argues that “the love story transcends all of the plot turns to take on an importance of its own.” While I agree with the statement, I disagree with the implications. Ebert is suggesting that the love story is so intriguing that it takes precedent over everything else. I find quite the opposite: that much like many of the other relationships in the film, Dil and Fergus’ relationship is a reflection of the larger social context that surrounds them. Their struggle with trust, and secrecy, as well as their ability to fall in love against all odds is a commentary that there is hope for the struggle in Ireland and England.

Jody is the tie between Dil and Fergus. “The image of the dead Jody haunts the film; Dil ends up wearing his cricket whites” (Dunne). Fergus has visions of Jody playing cricket throughout the film. Near the end, in an effort to hide her from the IRA by making her “into something new”; Fergus dresses Dil up in Jody’s cricket clothing. This makes it clear that their relationship is mediated by a middleman: a black Englishman, playing an Englishman’s sport, cricket.

The relationship between Dil and Jody, which we never actively see because the film begins after Jody is separated from Dil, is solidly the topic of interest, especially to Fergus, throughout the film. In the first half of the film, Jody tells Fergus about Dil while he is being held captive. Then, in the second half of the film Fergus prods Dil for information about Jody. Jody’s pictures adorn Dil’s apartment. Their relationship is defined by absence.

Sean Dunne points out this lack of togetherness in his review of the film, remarking that “while Jordan casts the characters in relation to each other, the film is also a study in loneliness”. The absence of one another in Jody and Dil’s relationship can be extended to most every character. They are all dealing with their own inner struggles. This internal struggle is an analogy for Ireland’s inner turmoil.

Through the way the characters interact with one another, Jordan reflects the status of Northern Ireland, and offers options, but not necessarily answers. The “social and political implications of the Northern Troubles” are not, as Sean Dunne states in his review of the film, “subsumed beneath the subtleties of personal discovery”; the ‘Troubles’ are addressed through personal discover and interpersonal relations.

In The Boxer, Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Maggie (Emily Watson) take a form of a somewhat familiar ‘star-crossed lovers’ scenario. They had been young lovers, and when Danny went to prison for IRA activities they lost contact and Maggie married Danny’s friend. Maggie’s husband was sent to prison shortly afterward. When Danny gets out of prison he hopes to win back Maggie’s heart. Not only is their potential rekindling of a romantic relationship prevented by the fact that Maggie is married, the wives of imprisoned IRA men are expected to adhere to strict rules about who they talk to and where they are seen to protect the morale of the prisoners. This relationship of apparently ‘true love’ is prevented by the circumstances of the political situation in Northern Ireland.

When Danny gets out of prison he runs into his old friend Ike Weir (Ken Stott). The two decide to put the old boxing gym back together. Together the two of them, with their bare hands, attempt to bring the Protestants and the Catholics together under one roof the only way they know how, with boxing. Their relationship is based on the idea of uniting the two sects of people, not with politics, but with sports.

This bringing together of people is very important to a community whose “ordinary values have been distorted by years of violence” (Macnab). Ike and Danny are able to transcend the ‘Troubles’ by hanging up old pictures and training children. They bring in both sides of the fence in order to participate together as one community undivided.

Boxing ends up bringing Danny together with Maggie’s son Liam (Ciaran Fitzgerald). The two form a bond through Danny training Liam to box at the gym. Under the same roof that boxing brings the Protestants and Catholics together, this relationship is forged.

This changes when Danny and Maggie start seeing each other. Liam is afraid his mother is going to leave him and go to Britain with Danny, so in an attempt to rebel against England and Danny he, somewhat inadvertently, burns the gym down.

Liam eventually realizes that Danny is not the bad guy, and it is in fact the people his father is involved with that are the scary, violent people.

Liam’s relationship with his mother, Maggie, is stressed by the ‘Troubles’. They have a close relationship, but when Liam starts to realize how things work around him things change. Their relationship comes to be about fear of being separated, quite the opposite of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’.

One relationship that is legal, but basically nonexistent is Maggie’s marriage. Her husband Thomas, who is never seen on screen because he is in prison, still plays at least a symbolic role in the film. It is symbolic of what all of the wives of the imprisoned IRA men have to go through. The marriage stands to prevent the proliferation of true love between Maggie and Danny.

The danger that Maggie and Danny enter into when they become romantically involved is shown to the viewer before we even know that the two are connected. At the wedding reception of a woman and her imprisoned man, a boy dances with a woman who is married to a prisoner and a couple of Harry (Gerard McSorley), an IRA leader’s men threaten to shoot the kid in the knees if he ever does it again. They are not messing around. They intend to protect the morale of the prisoners, by means of violence.

As a married woman, Maggie is subject to this same kind of ‘protection’. Even though this practice may or may not improve the prisoners’ morale, it tears the community apart. The women are treated as objects and tools of the IRA’s cause. This kind of division reflects the practices of the terrorist IRA tactics. They are putting too much energy into the wrong direction to reach their goal.

The relationship between Maggie’s father, Joe Hamill (Brian Cox), and Harry (Gerard McSorley), two men high up in the IRA, is very contentious. Joe believes that the violence approach just is not working, and they need a new angle. Harry, however, feels that bombing is the only thing that works. The inner turmoil within the group represents the struggle with oneself, not the ‘other’.

In the end, in a surprising twist, the IRA kills Harry instead of Danny. This seems “to suggest that for peace and reconciliation to be achieved, men such as Harry must be eliminated” (McIlroy 82). In other words, Belfast was not big enough for both Harry and Joe. In the end a decision was made that in order to stop the violence, some violence must be committed.

Out of The Boxer’s “complex yet cohesive tapestry” of interrelated characters Sheridan is able to communicate the struggles of a divided community (Simon). Through the telling of a beautiful love story, he is able to show the problems within Northern Ireland and some possible solutions. He at least provides a bittersweet resolution, the gym is burned, and a man is dead, but Danny, Maggie, and Liam are happy so there is hope.

Both The Boxer and The Crying Game tell fascinating stories that deal with the ‘Troubles’ without pushing them to the side. They do not delegate the ‘politics’ solely to a contrived subplot. Both Sheridan and Jordan skillfully weave their commentary on Northern Ireland inescapably within and between each and every one of their characters.

Works Cited

Dunne, Sean. "The Crying Game." Film Ireland. December 1992. Film Ireland, Web. 19

December 2009. Film Ireland.

Ebert, Roger. "The Crying Game." Chicago Sun-Times: Roger Ebert. 18 December

1992. Chicago Sun-Times, Web. 10 December 2009. Chicago Sun Times

Giles, Jane. The Crying Game. London: British Film Institute, 1997. Print.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “The Boxer”. Sight and Sound. 1997. FIST 210 Custom Course

Material. Vancouver, BC: UBC bookstore, 2009. Print.

Mcilroy, Brian. Shooting to Kill. 1st ed. Richmond, BC: Steveston Press, 2001. Print.

Simon, John. “Fists, Fires, and Hearts”. National Review, Vol. 50 Issue 4. 1998. FIST

210 Custom Course Material. Vancouver, BC: UBC bookstore, 2009. Print.

Intertextuality in Pulp Fiction

Intertextuality in Pulp Fiction
by Daniel Robbins
Presented to Prof. Ernest Mathijs - 8 December 2009
FIST 300 - Cult Cinema - UBC

Drugs, sex, gangsters, guns, profanity, and witty dialogue: Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) has it all. These are just the things that get cult audiences in the door, however. What makes them stay is quote-ability and intertextual referencing the film beats the viewer over the head with. Pulp Fiction creates a world not from reality, but from movies themselves for audiences to get sucked into, and take pieces with them when the film is over, and the credits are done rolling. Through persistent intertextuality, Quentin Tarantino creates a fan following to be reckoned with.

In Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino makes reference to, literally, countless films. These intertextual references are so numerous that they cannot carry any meaning of their own. Tarantino includes these references, possibly because he likes them, or because the viewers that ‘get’ the references like them, or both. There are some obvious references as well as some very obscure ones.

The scene at Jack Rabbit Slim’s when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) is showing Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) a good time for the boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) can “almost serve as a metaphor for the activity of the spectator at whom the film throws dozens and dozens of references.” (Polan, 2000: 17). Many of these are the easy references to catch. The wait staff is stocked with celebrity impersonators, most notably Marilyn Monroe, and Buddy Holly, who are even named aloud. Some of the other easy to catch references are: The dance scene in Jack Rabbit Slim’s as a reference to Travolta’s earlier dancing movie roles such as Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977) and Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978); a quick, but fairly obvious one is the nickname for the (never shown on screen) character Antwan Rockamorra, ‘Tony Rocky Horror’, which alludes to The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975); and just before Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) goes back into Maynard (Duane Whitaker) and Zed’s (Peter Greene) basement to save Marsellus he picks up a few items in an attempt to choose the right weapon for the job. Butch picks up a hammer, then a baseball bat, then a chainsaw, and finally a samurai sword. This is a reference to horror cinema, with the most obvious one being The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974). The rest of the weapons are a little more vague as to their referent, but the samurai sword is certainly meant to nod at Japanese samurai cinema such as that of Akira Kurosawa.

Tarantino uses innumerable intertextual references that are much more ambiguous and obscure. It is unclear how many and which of them are intentional, but the viewer rich in cultural capital can pull these things out of virtually every character, scene, and line in Pulp Fiction. The character of Mia Wallace, Dana Polan states, sports a hairstyle that “is like that of Anna Karina in several Godard films” (2000: 21). I saw an intertextual reference in Mia, especially her hairstyle, as well; but it was not in France in the 1960’s. Mia Wallace seems to be to be a reference to Louise Brooks’ character Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s great silent film Pandora’s Box (1929), which has become a cult film in its own right. Mia is not in every way similar to Lulu, but she does have a little bit of the pre-femme fatale, naive view on the world that is so alluring, and self-destructive in Lulu. One scene that seems oddly self-referential is when Butch and Marsellus are tied up in the basement, beaten and bloody, and Maynard is spraying them with water (possibly to wake them up). This immediately brought the image of soaking a beaten and bloodied person in gasoline from Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992). Butch wakes up with a start in his hotel room with Fabienne (Maria De Medeiros), he is awoken by a “motorcycle movie” that is a nod at exploitation ‘B’ pictures. The character of Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is a reference to blaxploitation in himself. Again, there are hundreds of other examples; these are just to name a few.

Yet another way Tarantino makes intertextual references is by referencing other directors. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Tarantino talks about his influences, among them include Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese. As I have already illustrated, the films of the 1970’s are a major influence on Tarantino. These two offer a decent representation of the great films that were being created in the United States during that decade. Scorsese, who went to New York University, was part of a new wave of directors called the “film school generation” (Belton, 2009: 366). Not only does Tarantino cite Scorsese as one of the directors who influenced him most on the Charlie Rose Show, he claims Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) as one of his top three favorite films, along with Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) and Blow Out (De Palma, 1981). Elements of Taxi Driver can definitely be found in Pulp Fiction. Just after Butch flees the boxing match by jumping out of a window, he hops in a taxi cab. This vehicle is clearly not a modern 1990’s car; Tarantino uses a vehicle very similar to the one Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) drives in Taxi Driver. Butch’s conversation with the cab driver, Esmerelda Villalobos (Angela Jones), conjures up memories of Travis’s conversations with all kinds of “scum” in his taxi cab. Tarantino’s reference to De Palma is a little less concrete, or stylistically evident. Tarantino evokes a sense of De Palma’s influence through his constant use of intertextuality. De Palma’s ‘postmodern’ method of filmmaking involves the use of pastiche ,that is, imitation without any connotation around the imitation. De Palma used other people’s styles, specifically Alfred Hitchcock’s, without glorifying or satirizing them (Belton, 2009: 372). Tarantino uses elements from and even styles of his favorite directors.

Another director who is extremely well ‘quoted’ in this film is Alfred Hitchcock. Tarantino uses many various techniques of Hitchcock’s in Pulp Fiction. One of these techniques I attribute to Hitchcock more because of the term I choose to use than anything. The brief case, which the whole narrative revolves around, to me is a clear example of Hitchcock’s idea of a ‘MacGuffin’. No one knows what is in the case, and it really does not matter. The case moves the plot forward without anything specific being inside. Another Hitchcockian technique Tarantino employs is what is known today as the ‘Hitchcock Zoom’, ‘Dolly Counter-Zoom’, ‘Zolly’, or ‘Vertigo Zoom’. This occurs during Vincent’s date with Mia. This one, however, could be another reference to Scorsese, as he uses it in Goodfellas (1990). But either way it is a reference to Hitchcock, whether it is through Scorsese or not.

It has been said that the film is half European Art-House, and half Exploitation cinema of the 1970’s; that it is half French New Wave, half blaxploitation. I already mentioned that Mia Wallace can be seen as a reference to Anna Karina in Jean-Luc Godard’s films. Tarantino uses quite a few other references to the French New Wave cinema. To me, Butch and Faibenne’s relationship feels like Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). The man is on the run from the law (or the gangsters in Butch’s case) yet the relationship has this existential quality about it. This is not always the case since Butch has to go back to retrieve his watch and comes back bloody, for example. But having conversations about ‘potbellies’ instead of talking about how Butch just killed somebody in the boxing ring, or about their plans to leave the country in the morning evokes the same feeling for me as Breathless. Another French New Wave reference comes when Vincent and Jules “go to the house of Jules’s friend Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino himself), which some see as a reference to Jules and Jim[mie], a masterwork of the French New Wave cinema that is so central to Tarantino” (Polan, 2000: 20). I would not say that the characters represent Truffaut’s Jules and Jim completely, but the names are there and should be taken for what it is. Tarantino is clearly influenced by the French New Wave, and weaves elements of those films into his own.

I still have not nearly exhausted the number of elements that Tarantino has used from other films in Pulp Fiction, but I have given several examples in various contexts that will show that rather than being one film, Pulp Fiction is a conglomeration of other films. Just as Umberto Eco said about Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942), Pulp Fiction “is not one movie it is “movies”” (1984: 74). Much of the appeal of the film is that it is constant puzzle for yourself. The viewer is able to search, and find pieces of movies of their past.

Now that this film is fifteen years old viewers have a much different view of it than they did when it was originally released in 1994. Even though it is not logical, viewers can ascribe pieces of the film as references to movies that came out after Pulp Fiction. “A modern cult film is merely one huge collection of quotations, no matter whether, intertextually, it points forwards: Casablanca refers to ‘Play it again, Sam’, or backwards: ‘Play it again, Sam’ refers to Casablanca.” (Jerslev, 94). Jerslev is saying that the quotes from a movie can make you think of the movie, or the movie can make you think of the quote. The interesting thing is that she misquotes from the film. Play It Again, Sam is a 1972 film directed by Herbert Ross, starring Woody Allen. The line that Bacall’s character, Ilse delivers is merely “play it, Sam”. This speaks to our ability to identify movies, and lines from them, with one another. Every time I watch Pulp Fiction, in the scene where Vincent in shooting up heroin, Tarantino shows extremely dramatic, close-ups of the lighter and the needle and the bent spoon. These shots invariably make me think of Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000). In Requiem, Aronofsky uses the same sorts of intense shots of drug paraphernalia against black backgrounds, he takes it one step further with really inventive use of sound, but that is another topic entirely. Tarantino clearly could not have taken from Requiem, but every time I watch Pulp Fiction the thought goes through my head.

Beyond the highly intertextual nature of Pulp Fiction, what really give it its cult status are its highly dedicated fans, which is not too surprising considering, as illustrated above, Tarantino himself is the ultimate movie fan. Unlike many cult films, Tarantino’s second directorial effort, Pulp Fiction was fairly well received. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and its opening weekend grossed over nine million dollars (exceeding its production budget) (Box Office Mojo, 2009). Critics thought fairly highly of it as well; it was given good reviews by The Rolling Stone (“Pulp Fiction”, 2000), BBC (Haflidason, 2000), and Roger Ebert (Ebert, 1994). They did not seem to know what to think of it, but the bottom line of all three reviews was that it was a good movie.

Since its theatrical release in 1994, its popularity has grown much further. “Pulp Fiction is not so much a film as a phenomenon. Winning major prizes, giving rise to an immense culture of obsessive fandom, generating countless wannabes” (Polan, 2000: 7). There are various websites dedicated to the film. Sites such as pulpfiction.com, “a Tarantino fan site for bad mother fuckers”, offers a place to discuss the film, watch videos, look at pictures, and read about the film and its director. This seems relatively normal compared to “one of the most striking cases of fan dedication, the Fox Force Five website” (Polan, 2000: 11). With this, fans of Pulp Fiction have taken a minor part of the story and given it life in the real world. Fox Force Five is the name a of television show that Uma Thurman’s character, Mia Wallace acted in the pilot for. The show was not picked up and that is the end of it, in the film world. In the real world the fans have “their own culture built from the semiotic raw materials the media provides” (Jenkins, 1992: 444). For the fans, the Pulp Fiction does not exist solely within the 154 minutes of the film. They are able to appropriate pieces of the story to create their own fan fiction.

Pulp Fiction still holds a place beyond the very niche culture of the fanzine crowd that creates websites and art about the movie. Any time I walk into a store that has a display of posters, Pulp Fiction posters are nearly always included. Jules and Vincent adorn the walls of countless college dorm rooms. The film is extremely quote-able. It “provide[s] a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan’s private sectarian world” (Eco, 1984: 68). Pulp Fiction lends itself well to a cult following. It is easy for fans to pick out pieces and lines to emulate or repeat.

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction will surely remain a cult film for a long time to come. Its use of innumerable quotations and paraphrases from other movies lends itself to repeat viewings, and dedicated fan participation. The intertextual references cover such a broad range of cinema, that there is an ‘inside joke’ for everyone. In this way it is easy for groups of fans to gather to discuss the film through their own, fan-created forums. This inevitably breeds more fans.

References

Belton, J 2009, American Cinema American Culture, 3^rd Edition, Higher Education, Boston.

Box Office Mojo 2009, viewed 5 December 2009, .

Ebert, R 1994, “Pulp Fiction”, Chicago Sun-Times, viewed 7 December 2009, .

Eco, U 1984, ‘Casablanca: Cult movies and intertextual collage’, in The Cult Film Reader, eds E Mathijs & X Mendik, Open University Press, New York, pp. 67-77.

Haflidason, A 2000, “Pulp Fiction (1994)”, BBC, viewed 7 December 2009, .

Jenkins, H 1992, ‘“Get a life!”: Fans, poachers, nomads’, in The Cult Film Reader, eds E Mathijs & X Mendik, Open University Press, New York, pp. 429-444.

Jerslev, A, ‘Semiotics by instinct: “Cult film” as a signifying practice between film and audience’, in The Cult Film Reader, eds E Mathijs & X Mendik, Open University Press, New York, pp. 88-99.

Polan, D 2000, Pulp Fiction, British Film Institute, London.

“Pulp Fiction” 2000, The Rolling Stone, viewed 6 December 2009, .

Soviet Montage

Pudovkin and Eisenstein
by Daniel Robbins - 7 December 2009
Presented to Prof. Mark Harris and TA Brent Strang
FIST 210 - Silent Cinema - UBC

Vsevolod Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein both take a holistic view on montage; that the completed film is greater than the sum of a film’s parts. Their execution of this view, however, is very different. Pudovkin chooses to build meaning by adding pieces together, whereas Eisenstein uses pieces against each other to create a new meaning. This ‘construction’ versus ‘collision’ can be seen in each of their early works. Considered two of the greatest films of the silent era, Mother (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926) and Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) exemplify the montage theories of these two directors. With reference to those films, a close look at some of the techniques the two use, and how they use them will provide a specific example of the way these films work. Eisenstein and Pudovkin both use some of the same techniques as well as using some that the other does not use. Through the use of these methods of montage they are able to construct a meaning and theme to their films in similar but very different ways.

One aspect that can be used to show the difference in the editing styles of Pudovkin and Eisenstein is the close-up shot Pudovkin thought “the close-up directs the attention of the spectator to that detail which is, at the moment, important to the course of the action” (Pudovkin 67).Pudovkin uses the close-up to move the story forward, by showcasing the elements that he feels are the most significant.

This is especially noticeable in the scene in Mother in which soldiers come to the Vlasov home to question Pavel Vlasov (Nicolai Batalov) about the resistance effort, and about the leaflets and arms associated with it. Pudovkin uses close-up shots of Pavel’s, his mother’s, and the soldier’s faces during the conversation. He then uses a shot of Pavel’s hands clenching behind his back emphasizing the character’s emotion. Instead of using a long shot to show the short conversation, Pudovkin uses tight shots of the important characters and pieces to construct a feeling of tension in the scene that would be absent in a long take from a wide angle.

He uses this same technique later in the film when the mother visits Pavel in jail. The close-up on hands comes again when the mother passes Pavel the note with the plans for the escape. Rather than showing the visit from a wide angle shot, he uses close-ups of their faces and more importantly, their hands, to emphasize the important features of the scene. Intercut with the conversation between Pavel, we see what the prison guards are doing. One guard is falling asleep, and the other one is rather preoccupied with tormenting, and ultimately smashing a bug that had become stuck. These shots do two things simultaneously: the guard smashing the bug that was already trapped seems to be a metaphor for the oppressive tsarist regime, and the sleeping guard as well as the preoccupied guard is of an equally antiauthoritarian sentiment. Showing these bits in close-up Pudovkin is saying that the guards are callous and inept, respectively. These shots, while seemingly unrelated are “no sort of interruption at all. [They represent] a proper form of construction” (Pudovkin 68). While they are presumably in the same room, we never see a wide shot of the whole scene playing out. Instead we get little glimpses into the most important actions of everyone involved. Pudovkin uses the close-up to create an extra level of depth that would be absent if he merely used a wide shot. He brings attention to details that he thinks are important to guide the way the viewer views not just the scene, but the characters as well.

Eisenstein uses the close-up in a much different way than Pudovkin. He believed that close-ups “give place to long shots” (Eisenstein, Notes 59). Eisenstein makes greater use of the long shot than does Pudovkin. He lets a view from farther away take over and only uses close-ups to create a new feeling. He uses the close-up to interrupt the shot and break the rhythm to create something new. Examples of this can be found in the famous ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence of Battleship Potemkin.

The beginning of the scene is dominated by wide shots of the masses running down the steps. While the frame is filled with the stairs and people, it is not by any means a close-up and nothing is isolated as important. After he has established the sense of mass panic through these types of shots, he begins to move in to singular characters. An old man falls to the ground, and we get a medium close-up of him trying not to get smashed. We do not feel any extra emotional attachment to this man, since he has not been introduced previous. Instead Eisenstein uses this close-up to shock the view and to amplify the emotion of the scene. Going back to the long shots, we do not think about the old man, it merely heightens the effect brought on by the shots previous. If these shots were separate, they would take on entirely different meanings. Or, as Eisenstein would put it, “depiction is in the shot; the image is in the montage” (“Rhythm” 227). If we were to see the old man first, or exclusively, fighting for his life in a sea of panic we would surely identify with him. Having the wide shots of mass pandemonium precede the close-ups of the man forms a new perspective on it.

After the old man, a young boy falls and is trampled by the masses. Eisenstein offers not only close-ups of feet crushing the boy’s body, but we get close-ups of a woman devastated by this sight. This, the viewer feels more sympathy towards, but again it is the relation between these shots and the ones around it that truly shapes our emotions. Both the boy, and the woman are unidentified, these are the first shots we see of them. Despite this, however, the viewer immediately assumes that the woman is the boy’s mother. There is no other clue to lead to this conclusion besides the montage. Any concerned person would react much the way the woman does upon seeing a young boy beneath a stampede. The close association between the two that leads to a mother-son relationship in our minds comes from Eisenstein’s use of the close-up. Had we seen this interaction from the same wide shot that precedes it, it is likely we would not be drawn to that conclusion so hastily. The interaction may have gone unnoticed.

Our opinion on the relationship between characters seems not to be the only goal to Eisenstein, however. He also uses these sections of montage in such a way that we do not think that these are the only people that terrible misfortune such as this is coming to. Eisenstein does this to “express the mind of the people and not of the individual” (Rotha 230). His shots of the masses in conjunction with these isolated instances suggest that there are countless others sharing this experience, and these are just a few examples. While making significant us of the long shot, Eisenstein uses the close-up shot in collision with other shots in order to create a new meaning within the film and to the audience.

Although Eisenstein and Pudovkin differ on their use of the close-up, they both use it effectively in their montage. One aspect of montage that they do not both use is visual symbolism. Specifically with reference to Pudovkin’s Mother and Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, Pudovkin makes effective use of an editing technique, which he calls ‘symbolism’, that is virtually absent from Eisenstein’s film.

Symbolism, as Pudovkin describes it, “introduces an abstract concept into the consciousness of the spectator without use of a title” (Pudovkin 77). In several cases throughout the film Pudovkin incorporates shots, usually of the naturally world, that have no direct link to the narrative. They provide, rather, a new level of understanding to the narrative.

In Mother, immediately after the scene in the jail, as discussed above, Pudovkin cuts to shots of free, running water and children, accompanied by titles saying, “Outside.…it was spring”. It is not until after this short departure from the narrative that we return to the mother, who is seen walking alone, and alone amongst the children. He thin cuts back to Pavel in his dark, confined jail cell. Pudovkin cuts from the jail to the running water to emphasize how trapped Pavel is in jail. He is both kept from the beauty, and peacefulness of nature, and kept from running free like the water. Since Pavel represents the people fighting back against the oppressive authority, this juxtaposition gives “pictorial form to the theme” (Dart 15). Through this use of symbolic imagery in montage Pudovkin is able to transcend the story for a moment to make his theme clearer.

The flowing of water comes up again at the climax of the film, of the two forces, the people and the state, meeting at the demonstration. As the two forces collide, Pudovkin shows the water flowing underneath the bridge, with the ice breaking on the pillars. Contrasted with these shots are low angle shots of the soldiers, and high angle shots of the marching people. In the combination of these shots, “the irresistible forces of nature are compared to irresistible political forces, creating a powerful image” (Dart 15). Just as the water emphasized Pavel’s oppressed position in jail, here the water emphasizes the power of the state over the common people. With the added dimension of the symbolism, Pudovkin is able to guide the viewer’s reading of the scene.

Pudovkin adds elements of the story to elements that fall outside of the story in order to construct a stronger feeling for his theme. Through “powerful associative montage” he makes it clear to his view what he is trying to say. This is not the case for Eisenstein. He “does not seek help from outside sources, from irrelevant but symbolic references, as does Pudovkin, in the expression of his content” (Rotha 231). Most all of the images that appear within Battleship Potemkin fall within the film’s narrative construct. This seems to be a major difference between the two. Eisenstein even accused Pudovkin “of using hackneyed images dependent upon verbal metaphors” (Sargeant 170). These kinds of images seem unnecessary and distracting from Eisenstein’s collision montage. He does not need to add extra images; through the rhythm of his editing, he is able to convey his theme.

He deliberately defies logical usage of screen direction in order to create a rhythmic feeling. During the scene on the deck while the officers are bringing in the tarpaulin to execute the mutinous sailors, he clashes neat, orderly compositions with movements of ambiguous screen direction. As the sailors attempt to escape through the hatch, the Admiral fights them off. The way Eisenstein shows this we see it from various angles, and the Admiral throws the different guys in separate directions. This creates a sense of chaos, and pins that chaos not on the lowly sailors, but on the established authority. As things fall back into order, we see multiple shots of the men turning their heads, some to the left, and some to the right. We see the officers deployed to retrieve the tarpaulin and they turn to leave in seemingly opposite directions. Cuts to change angles are not on action. Eisenstein shows movement in every direction, and shows movements more than once in a way that creates an even more chaotic rhythm to the situation. Then, the Admiral calls, “Attention!” and we see five different shots of straightening. Officers sanding up straight, guns parallel. We also see shots of the Potemkin’s looming cannons. Throughout this scene everything Eisenstein offers comes from the world that the narrative creates, but he uses them in collision to create a new feeling. Without this editing, it might appear to the viewer that the mutinous sailors are in the wrong. But Eisenstein’s use of montage leads us to the conclusion that the sailors are doing the right thing to escape the evil of the authority.

Another instance of Eisenstein’s use of rhythm in montage to communicate his theme comes again from the ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence. He contrasts shots of the mass chaos of the people with the orderly marching of the soldiers, then again with the panic and then the stroller falling down the stairs. “One aspect of movement (people running, falling, tumbling down the steps) gives way to another (rolling perambulator)” (Eisenstein, Notes 60). He creates a rhythm that evokes a feeling and emotion that is separate from any of the images involved. The editing suggests that the Cossack soldiers are inhuman, machine-like, monsters, and the people of Odessa they are marching on are ‘good’. Through nothing else than the editing, Eisenstein makes his point loud and clear.

Eisenstein uses motion in his images against each other to create a meaning, while
Pudovkin constructs a theme through the addition of shots. Or, in the words of Paul
Rotha:

The rhythmic cutting of Eisenstein is governed by the
physiology of material content, whereas the editing of Pudovkin is controlled by the constructive representation of the elements of the scene, governed by the psychological expression of the content. (Rotha 233)

Eisenstein uses shapes, lines, and motion to create a rhythm that conveys his theme. Pudovkin gets his point across by adding shots together to emphasize his thesis. Though they are both done effectively, they are done in very different ways. Amy Sargeant quotes Léon Moussinac comparing Eisenstein and Pudovkin saying, “[a] film by Eisenstein resembles a shout; a film by Pudovkin evokes a song” (Sargeant 168). Here lies the difference between the two styles. Pudovkin constructs his theme through the use of the beauty of nature to draw an irony from the situation. Eisenstein, however, creates a rhythm that he can then disrupt with disorienting, blunt collision of images and motions to prove a point. Pudovkin viewed editing as “in actual fact a compulsory and deliberated guidance of the thoughts and associations of the spectator” (Pudovkin 73). He believed that without editing, the spectator would draw nothing from the film. The filmmaker would not be able to make a statement through the cinema without montage to guide the viewer’s thoughts through and beyond the film. Eisenstein took a somewhat different view on the subject saying that, “any two pieces of a film stuck together inevitably combine to create a new concept, a new quality born of that juxtaposition” (Eisenstein, Notes 63). He thought that one plus one does not equal two in film; he believed that adding one shot to another creates a third idea. It is the job of the filmmaker to juxtapose the correct images in just the right way in order to elicit the theme that he wishes to convey.

Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, two of the earliest great editors in the cinema, are still studied today because of their inventive and effective use of the ‘montage’ to create a meaning from their films. They did so through using some of the same, and some very different methods. Even using some of the same techniques, such as the close-up shot, the way they made these techniques work within their films varies considerably. Eisenstein uses collision of images to create a rhythm that develops his theme. Pudovkin constructs his theme through the addition of shots, both from within and from outside of the narrative construct. These two directors use montage in their own way to create a powerful statement in their films that comes directly from the use of editing.

Works Cited:

Dart, Peter. Pudovkin’s Films and Film Theory. New York: Arno Press, 1974. Print.

Eisenstein, Sergei. Notes of a Film Director. New York: Dover Publications, 1970. Print.

---. “Rhythm”. Towards a Theory of Montage. Trans, Michael Glenny. London: British
Film Institute, 1991. 227-48. Print.

Pudovkin, V.I. Film Technique and Film Acting. Trans, Ivor Montagu. London: Vison:
Mayflower, 1958. Print.

Rotha, Paul. “The Soviet Film”. The Film Till Now. London: Spring Books, 1967. 217-
51. Print.

Sargeant, Amy. Vsevolod Pudovkin: Classic Films of the Soviet Avant-Garde. New York:
I.B. Tauris, 2000. Print.

Framing the West: Doorways in My Darling Clementine
by Daniel Robbins
Presented to Prof. Lisa Coulthard 23 November 2009
FIST 220 - Hollywood in the Classical Era - UBC

In the film genre of ‘The Western’ there is a prominent theme of wilderness versus civilization. This usually seems to be shown in terms of the frontier versus the town or community. Through the use of cinematography, specifically frame-within-a-frame shot composition, John Ford creates a borderline between the ‘Wild West’ and ‘Civilization’ that is obeyed, reversed, and blurred throughout his film My Darling Clementine, challenging standard notions of wilderness and civilization.

In one respect My Darling Clementine can be seen on the same terms as countless other westerns. Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and his brothers ride into a town called Tombstone. The viewer believes this is going to be the standard town, a safe haven from the harsh west. The first thing Wyatt does is go to a barber to get a nice shave. He wishes to shed himself of the grunge he as accumulated herding cattle out in the Wild West. After finding his brother James has been killed and becoming marshal, Wyatt sends his brother Virgil out to hunt down the Clantons to find out if they were the ones that killed James and stole the cattle. When Virgil returns, Ford frames Wyatt and his other brother, Morgan, underneath the gateway to the Tombstone jail. This creates a frame within the unchanging frame of the movie. It is here that Wyatt waits for word from the wild. Wyatt and Morgan stand on the border between civilization and wilderness waiting for their brother who returns with news that the Clantons had been moving cattle. This can also be seen around the middle of the film. Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) interrupts a dinner party to remind Clementine that he told her to get out of town or he would. When he storms out Wyatt follows to try to get him to stay. This conversation is framed with a medium two-shot, and the two are placed on the outside of a doorway through which the dinner guests can be seen. Doc does not have many nice words to say, ending with, “my advice to you is start carrying your gun” (My Darling Clementine). It is clear in this shot that these types of confrontational arguments belong outside, not at the dinner table. Perhaps the most obvious instance of the doorframe as the borderline between wilderness and civilization comes at the end of the film, during the shootout at the O.K. Corral. After the Earp’s and Doc have killed all of the Clanton sons and Wyatt has spared Old Man Clanton’s life, sending him off into the frontier, just as Clanton passes the gates of the O.K. Corral he turns around on his horse to shoot back at the Earps. As soon as a character passes the threshold between civilization and wilderness, new rules take over. Using the doorframe as the borderline between wilderness and civilization, Ford follows conventions of the Western genre by portraying the town on the tame side of the doorframe and the frontier on the wild side.

While he sets the town up to be a safe haven from the Wild West, Ford also constructs the town of Tombstone to be much more dangerous than the frontier. At the very beginning of the film we get a slight hint of this; the first person the Earps encounter is Old Man Clanton. Clanton is introduced wearing all black while sinister music plays. He tells Wyatt that there is a “fine town” named Tombstone up ahead (My Darling Clementine). The fact that Ford first associates Tombstone with Clanton gives us an indication that maybe something is not quite right with this town. As soon as they enter the town the Earps are met with the noise of pianos and loud people chatting, screaming, and laughing in a dark town. As they dismount their horses and begin to assess their surroundings, Ford frames the Wyatt and his brothers through the doorway of the Bon Ton Tonsorial Parlor. We then see a shot that establishes the source of all the noise, through the doorway of the saloon and the Earps proceed into the barbershop with caution. Wyatt wants to get a shave, to clean himself up after a rough time in the wild, but this town seems just as wild as the frontier. These first shots through doorways set up the importance of the frame-within-the-frame in this film and also begin to form skeptical opinions in the viewer about this town. After gunfire starts, even entering the barbershop, Wyatt begins to ask, eventually for a third time, “what kind of town is this”. It is clear that, even to the characters, this is not the average town in the average Western film. Later in the film, the Clantons are fully set up as ‘wild’. Billy Clanton shoots Chihuahua through a window, and runs away. After Virgil Earp chases him all the way back to the Clanton house, and walks in to see Billy dead in bed, Virgil gives his condolences and walks out of the room. We see a shot, framed by the doorway, of Virgil walking out and then getting shot in the back by Old Man Clanton. Clearly, the Clantons are wild and they bring that wilderness inside. Here Virgil is shot from the inside, not from the outside. It is not in the Wild West that he is attacked, it is from within society. The Clantons are the personification of the wilderness presence within the town. But this wilderness can be seen throughout the town, always highlighted by Ford by framing the doorway for the audience to take note of who is on which side of the border between wild and civil. In man cases in My Darling Clementine, wild is on the inside, and the more civilized people are on the outside, thus reversing the common conventions of the film Western.

In both supporting and reversing the conventions of the Western, Ford has blurred the lines between wild and civil. He goes one step further in doing this, by using the frame-within-a-frame to show explicitly the confusion between the two. After Wyatt becomes Marshal, he spends his time on the porch of the hotel. The porch becomes, as Michael Budd put it best in his essay “A Home in the Wilderness: Visual Imagery in John Ford’s Westerns”, “the meeting place between shelter and wilderness” (Budd 164). The porch is both inside and outside. Furthermore Wyatt sites in the sun, and leans back into the shade of the roof. He is clearly sitting the border between wild and civilized, keeping watch as Marshal. This is further emphasized by Fords inclusion of the support columns of the porch in the shot, like the doorway from outside onto the porch. It is in this position that Wyatt first encounters Clementine, the films personification of Tombstone’s transition from wild to civil. She is clearly more proper in dress and speech than most of the town from the moment she arrives. From this same porch Wyatt and Clementine are seen in a tracking shot walking from the hotel to the new church. This tracking shot shows not just one of the porch’s support columns, but many. Ford uses this shot to show the transformation that the town is going through, as well as Wyatt and Clementine’s part in that transformation. They pass through many doorways on their way to the church, which is only half built. This is a symbol of the transformation in itself. It is an attempt at religion which considered one very important sign of civilization, but it is only half built, it does not even have a doorway to keep the wilderness out. They are on their way to full civilization, but not there yet. Through the use of porches, Clementine, and the church, as well as Wyatt’s interactions with the three, Ford makes his point clear about the distinction between wilderness and civilization; there is no clear line and the change from wild to civil involves a complex transformation process.

Ford both follows and reverses the common Western genre ideas of which side of the doorway the wilderness is on. He does this in order to blur the lines and bring to attention the fact that issues such as this are never black and white. He does this throughout the film using the town of Tombstone as his example. It is a town in a transitional period of development. It is half civilized, and half wild. Ford constantly frames his shots with the doorway in the foreground to bring this to the forefront. Through his use of the doorway as the blurred borderline between wilderness and civilization John Ford which challenges the way these issues are seen in film Westerns.

Religion in Irish Cinema

The negative impact of religion in Angela’s Ashes and The General

by Daniel Robbins
Presented to Prof. Mark Harris - 13 November 2009
FIST 332 - Studies in Genre or Period - UBC

During the last century, and beyond, Irish life has been in a state of turmoil. Alan Parker’s Angela’s Ashes (1999) and John Boorman’s The General (1998) both portray religion in a negative light, as the cause of problems rather than solution to them, but they do so in very different ways.

Angela’s Ashes is a film about growing up Irish Catholic. It is narrated by, and told from the perspective of, Frank McCourt. Since this story is told by a child, we see the world through the naïve, innocent eyes of someone that is not yet shaped and molded into a part of society. When his brother dies he does not “know why [they] can’t keep Oliver. [He doesn’t] know why they sent him away in a box like [his] sister” (Parker). In this way we get a bit more of an objective, albeit limited, view of Ireland. A child’s life consists of a few very important influences: his parents, his teachers, the people in his church, and his peers. Through Frank’s interactions with these influential people we discover how a person without preconceived notions of social interactions views society.

Frank’s parents impress upon him Catholic ideals. When Frank’s twin brothers die, after the death of his sister, Frank, his father Malachy Sr., and his brother Malachy pray together. Malachy Sr. leads the prayer saying, “I’m not supposed to question this am I?” (Parker). With this Frank’s father is teaching his son that Catholics do not question God and even when the worst things happen, you continue to obey. Malachy Sr. is hardly a steadfast role model; he is extremely problematic in his role as father. As Frank himself says there are three very different sides to his father. Malachy Sr. is a very troubled man suffering from alcoholism; Frank has trouble dealing with this and even has a drunken episode himself. His father is from the north of Ireland and is not accepted into the community of Limerick because, even though he is Catholic, the people assume he is Protestant. Frank’s mother, Angela, is a Catholic as well. Her family enforces religion on the whole family. To Angela’s mother there is “no excuse for that kind of ignorance” that the children bring about the religion from America (Parker). The presence of these people in young Frank’s life puts pressure on him to conform to the Catholic faith. His family teaches him to see life as a way of reaching the Lord.

Attending the Leamy School influences Frank in the ways of the Church. Teachers are just as influential in a child’s life as his parents. When these teachers are Catholic school teachers, there is an inevitable religious pressure on the students. In one lesson, the teacher teaches that it is “Latin that gains the entrance to Heaven itself” while distributing pieces of newspaper as the “body and blood of Christ” to the children’s’ tongues (Parker). In this way they are being taught in the ways of being Catholic before they are even old enough to participate in Communion. Instead of learning math, science, or literature, they are learning about Christ.

An even more obvious influence on a child in the ways of religion that a Catholic school, is the Church itself. The priests play a role in Frank’s life as well. We see it from giving his first confession to his guilty emotional breakdown at age 16 about Teresa, masturbation, and hitting his mother. These clerical figures teach him the ways of the bible and help Frank make decisions throughout his childhood.

His peers are possibly the only ones that do not force the Church on young Frank. It is with his fellow youngsters such as Mikey Malloy that he spends his money for traditional Irish dance lessons on the movies, “interferes with himself”, and steals apples and milk (Parker). These children show him the opposite of what everyone else teaches him. He would rather dance like the stars of Hollywood than in the ways of Irish tradition. If it were not for these troublemakers, Frank would not have had anyone that did not tell him to mind the bible.

This alternate reality that his peers present the Frank is most likely a good thing. Through its constant reference to Catholicism amidst Frank’s childhood, “Parker’s movie is anti-clerical” (Harrington 58). The defiance towards the Church that Frank learns eventually allows him to break free from Ireland and head back to America. Through the correlation between the presence of the Church and misfortune in the lives of the Irish, the film highlights the negativity of that presence.

The film begins with Frank McCourt saying in voice over, “Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood, is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood”(Parker). This quote, taken directly from Frank McCourt’s book on which the film is based, sets up for the rest of the film to show just why the worst miserable childhood is that of the Irish Catholic child.

Frank goes with his mother Angela as she goes to the St. Vincent de Paul Society to ask for clothes, furniture, and food. As we see Angela essentially begging, her and her son are standing below the St. Vincent de Paul Society backed by a “massive crucifix hanging on the wall” (Harrington 59). This kind of shot shows visually where the power is in Irish society. God is the almighty, the clergy is below but still high and mighty, and everyone else is on their knees begging for mercy. Parker’s use of images of angels and crosses throughout the film conveys this omnipresence of God in Limerick. We get the feeling that God is not overseeing, he is looming. As Angela is begging for furniture, they judge her on her “nice coat” and ask why her husband does not go to Belfast to ask for help since he’s from the north (Parker). These men that personify the fear of God, are brutally judgmental, and hold all of the power over the poor people of Ireland.

The threat of the Lord is not just seen in imagery. The teachers at the Leamy School are brutal, and unreasonable. “The masters at Leamy School all have straps and sticks… one master will hit you if you don’t know that Eamon DeValera was the greatest man that ever lived. Another will hit you if you don’t know that Michael Collins was the greatest man that ever lived” (Parker). These teachers use the hand of God to beat children even over different views of Irish historical figures. The teachers also, under the disguise of compassion, exert their own power and superiority over the student. In one scene, Malachy and Frank McCourt are too embarrassed to wear the shoes that their father fixed with a bike tire. They are this embarrassed because their classmates laugh at them. When this comes up in the classroom the teacher orders the kids to stop laughing because none of them are any better. He reminds them as well that you do not see Christ “hanging on the cross sporting shoes” (Parker). While this is going on we see close-up shots of the teacher’s own dress shoes. They are somewhat dusty, but wholly intact. This irony is a powerful statement to the power of the Church over the people of Ireland.

Angela’s Ashes sits at the extreme end of the spectrum. It shows Irish life at its worse: poverty-stricken slums during the depression. It is also set in a situation in which religion guides people through life. Closer to the more discreet end of the spectrum sits The General. Religion is much harder to see in everyday life, and people are much more well off.

The story of Martin Cahill set in the 1990’s in Dublin has many similarities to Angela’s Ashes. It is set in a family in an almost equivalent economic situation for the time. Religion prevalent in the society they live in as well. The way in which the characters relate to these things and the nature in which the things confront them is the difference.

Cahill becomes a criminal early on in his life to support his family. This gets him institutionalized as a young boy. Here he is almost molested by a priest. Martin reacts in a much more violent and defiant way than anyone in Angela’s Ashes, he punches the priest, who proceeds to beat him. We then see in very short, few shot, montage that he grows up in and out of institutions. From the start of the film we see how the Church negatively affects the people of Ireland.

Later, when he has his own ring of partners in crime he gets tipped that some of his men may be involved in drug trading. He suspects that one of his men has been stealing to feed a narcotics habit and in order to get information out of him he nails his hands to a snooker table. This is a clear allusion to Christ’s crucifixion. It is ironic in this sense because it is a criminal performing the crucifixion on another criminal. This could be a critique on the Church itself, and a judgment on what it stands for.

Toward the end of the film, his right hand man who wears a chain the whole film is put up for charges of molestation of his daughter. Cahill tells him “criminals don’t molest kids, leave that to the priests” (Boorman). When Cahill tells him to use his past being raped by priests as his defense in court, his response is, “I wouldn’t want to rat on him” (Boorman). The fact that this man would protect a priest that molested him instead of saving his own pedophilic hide is just downright ironic.

Boorman constantly uses stereotypes of the Church to undermine its authority, while underlining its negative presence in Irish life. Much like Angela’s Ashes, religion is found in all aspects of Irish life in The General. In both films this presence of the Church is quite opposite of the Bible’s intentions. It holds down the common people and elevates members of the clergy over poverty, and even the law.

Quiet Man scene study

Scene Study of John Ford's The Quiet Man(1952)
by Daniel Robbins
Presented to Prof. Mark Harris - 2 October 2009
FIST 332 - Studies in Genre or Period - UBC

The particular scene in question is opening sequence of John Ford’s film, The Quiet Man. Just after the opening titles we see a green train pull into a green station on what looks like may even be green tracks. The first line is spoken in voice-over narration by Father Peter Lonergan, the town of Innisfree’s Catholic priest. This in a way gives an almost literal meaning to the common way of referring to a narrator as “the voice of God”. This also sets up Father Lonergan’s character before we ever see him. After the train has come to a stop at the Castletown station “three hours late as usual”, our protagonist Sean Thornton, played by John Wayne, hops off. As Thornton unloads his luggage, (a small suitcase, and a sleeping bag) Father Lonergan fills us in on the back story. Sean Thornton is an American, but he is not here traveling, “not a camera on him”. We get the feeling that he is here to stay, suggested by the V.O. and the sleeping bag. He is quickly surrounded by six people on the railway platform, all speaking over each other to tell him how to get to Innisfree. None of them are actually interested in helping Sean get where he needs to go, they seem to be more concerned with competing with the people around them. An argument ensues between the unnamed characters as to which route is the best way to get to Innisfree, possibly suggesting that there is no one way, each person has to find their own way to get there. Sean cannot even get a word in, even though they supposedly are trying to help him. As the crowd loses site completely of what they originally intended to do, a small man in a top hat holding a horse whip comes and takes Sean’s bags away. After a few steps he turns around to say, “Innisfree, this way”. This man seems to be watching over Sean. Throughout the film Michaleen Oge Flynn, plays a sort of godfather role for Sean. He leads Sean to a horse drawn carriage and as they pull away from the station the people of Castletown wonder together “why a man would go to Innisfree”. They make the place out to be a fantasy location that has no place in the real world. The next shot shows the carriage going under a bridge as the train goes by overhead. It is as if Sean Thornton is leaving his life in the city for something more basic. Whatever direction Innisfree is in, it is not toward technology, and big city life. On the carriage ride, while Sean smoothly lights a match for his cigarette Michaleen smokes a pipe. This is another reference to the urban versus rural theme that is starting to appear. They pull onto a little bridge over a brook and stop, unannounced to the audience. Sean gets out and goes to the edge of the bridge and stares a little cottage. Meanwhile, in voice-over, a woman is speaking nostalgically about how the house, town, road, and roses were. We assume this to be the voice of Sean’s mother. He then goes to ask Michaleen who owns it. We then find out Michaleen’s name, and that Sean intends to buy that house, because he was born there. The events that transpire in these first five minutes of the film are director John Ford’s way of filling us in on the whole back story, and telling us everything we need to know to set up the rest of the film. This style of storytelling was very common of Hollywood films at that time.

This scene appears to be shot on location at a train station, and in the Irish countryside. Is suppose one of only ways to romanticize Ireland is to merely shoot there and show how green and beautiful it is. This scene sets up Sean Thornton’s romanticized, fantastic image of what Ireland is. The entire scene is exterior shots (except the one shot of Sean walking through the station). This is really so the audience has time to take in the feeling of Ireland. Few places can pass as Ireland on the exterior, but a scene in a pub can be shot anywhere. The audience needs to experience for itself this fantasy come true for Sean Thornton.

The bits at the train station are pretty exclusively shot with medium shots, and plan américain (American shots). In addition the camera does not move during the shot, save a couple slight tilts and pans. The only thing breaking up the static shots is the editing, which is pretty minimal as well. It keeps the pacing well, but does not do much more. The style of filmmaking employed here is largely meant to keep the viewer caught up in the story. The suspension of disbelief is essential for this movie to work with audiences. The shot of the carriage going under the train is a super wide, panning shot. This is done so that we can see the separateness of the two worlds, the new and the old. This shot is far too long. It is cut several frames too late, just to show the viewer that it is more than just a pretty shot. That it has meaning other than the superficial. The next shot, with the camera ridding along on the carriage rolls for 30 seconds, only to find out how tall Sean is and where he is from. We also get some information about the two characters and their cultures based on the way they are smoking. This continues Ford’s minimalist way of filmmaking to show the viewer everything they need to know without them noticing. The next shot is a wide shot again of the brook and the old, very old, stone bridge that goes over it. It shows we are going somewhere that has been around a long time, and still does things that way. As Sean’s mother speaks in V.O. we see exactly what she is talking about in wide, static shots. These are cut with the static shot of Sean sitting on the edge of the bridge. This is so straightforward and blatant it almost does the opposite of what it is meant to do. It almost brings the audience out of the story in the exact way it is attempting to keep them in it. The shot of Sean on the bridge also seems to be shot in studio, based on the lighting, background, and the fact that Michaleen is not in the shot. This also takes away from the feeling of being in Ireland. We go back to the wide shot before getting back into the carriage with Michaleen and driving away.

No music is heard until Michaleen shows up. It is a very jolly and almost fantasy evoking tune. It is clearly meant to have an Irish feel to it. This kind of tune is associated with Michaleen throughout the film. It is also used when Sean is courting Mary Kate. The tune gives a feeling of motion and helps move the story on down the road on the carriage. A soft harp melody is heard during Sean’s mother’s voiceover which turns into an emotional string piece as Sean reminisces on the memory of his mother and gazes at his Irish home. The music is tells the audience, subtly, how they should be feeling at this point. It helps establish what White O’Morn and his mother mean to Sean.

The acting is rather amusing in this scene. The six strangers that argue about which way to go to Innisfree all seem to have a different accent. They are also playing up the fact that they are Irish. They are almost caricatures of Irish townsfolk. Sean’s cool demeanor is to show how American he is. Michaleen walking on is almost a reference to a leprechaun. This analogy really goes well with the fact that he is almost a fairytale character sent to protect, and help Sean.

The first scene in The Quiet Man tells the audience, in true Hollywood style, all of the back story and setup information they need to know to be ready for the rest of the film. Ford immediately lays out a goal for our protagonist to attempt to achieve. We immediately have a problem that needs a solution. Thornton has come to Innisfree to buy his old home back.