What Do You Have In Mind?

This film could have been retitled The Importance of Being Pleasant. It brings a broad statement about human nature and how many perceive the actions of others in a distrustful light. There is a difference between seeing the actions of someone as dangerous or untrustworthy or accepting someone at face value. The end message being that it is important to have faith in others, in them as human beings, their jobs, and social interactions.

A general statement about trying to keep up appearances around the quiet squeaking steps of the cook (a stand-in for the rest of the world, just outside of the door), Elwood's aunt and cousin are two sides of a coin, one trying to keep her household in some order and interested in finding happiness with high-society, the other seething with desire, enough to bring disorder, to break out into society and find a partner.

While Elwood is presented in a generally positive light, there is an apparent acceptance of how Elwood can make people feel uncomfortable when attempting to place flower on his jacket, he gives it to Nurse Kelly instead, saying, "I seem to have misplaced my buttonhole." Being buttonholed can mean to keep someone in conversation by talking or physically holding their clothing and talking and rather invasive act. 

At the end, Harvey may have spent weeks with Dr. Chumley, but decided he didn't want to be part of his static and perhaps boring fantasy. Formula 977 is Dr. Chumley's own formula, something that turns people "...into human beings..." or someone who has "...got no faith..." in other people as the cabbie says near the end of the film.

Early in the film, Dr. Chumley mentions "his" formula 977 as a cure. Something that turns people "...into human beings..." or someone who has "...got no faith..." in other people as the taxi driver says near the end of the film; it is likely that Chumley wouldn't be a good match for Harvey and hopefully, changed Chumley enough to keep him from prescribing it in the future. 

I initially thought the aunt's caving in at the last second was a bit of deus ex machina, but after re-watching, I think her action was foreshadowed early in the film when she said, "I always thought that you were, showed in your face."  Foreshadowing her reversal when she believes that Elwood is about to be changed from a person with a face that everyone finds friendly.

Elwood's regular response, "What did you have in mind?" seemed to illustrate his openness to something interesting coming from other people and that he was waiting to see what it was.

The Allegory of the Cave and The Purple Rose of Cairo

Woody Allen brings together a masterful work of story telling using both sound and visuals in The Purple Rose of Cairo. The story is told as a meta-film or a dissection of what it is to be the artist looking out at the audience and how that audience relates to the artist and the artist's work.

The film begins and ends with the voice of Fred Astaire singing of his cares that hung around him through the week and seemingly vanish like a gambler's streak as he danced cheek to cheek. The first image shown is Cecilia intensely examining a movie poster for The Purple Rose of Cairo, ripped away from her revery ("...heaven, I'm in heaven..." the song continues) by reality clanging behind her. This reality itself is not immutable, as later, we see the movie character Tom Baxter step in and out of it. The song parallels her gambling husband Monk and her troubles with work, vanishing from her thoughts when she escapes into watching and talking about movies.

Tom Baxter is a prisoner of the inner movie within this movie of the same name. He plays out the life of a the prisoner in The Allegory of the Cave. His introduction is in the flickering shadows of an Egyptian crypt or cave. The Allegory of the Cave is referenced again once Baxter has left the inner film for the outer world. People attempting to see the movie are angry and confused, demanding their money back or saying, “I saw the movie last week, this is not what happens.  I want what happened last week happen this week, otherwise what is life all about anyway?” It is during this scene that there are flickering lights over the patrons as they stand outside the theater, mimicking the flickering projection screen effect. I think this is a cue for both the actual audience and Tom Baxter. For the actual audience, it re-enforces what we are seeing isn’t real. For Tom this world is a projection that he was viewing while repeating his performances on the inner movie. Another irony in this is that the the holiday trip of the inner movie is to avoid doing the same thing over and over and yet is exactly what movie goers want to see, over and over.

When Tom transitions to the outer movie, the two begin to take on a role reversal. In the inner movie, the characters begin to sit around, talk, and provide no more action, much to the complaint of the outer movie audience. Meanwhile the outer movie characters are playing out an action story that the inner movie characters are sometimes witnessing. It is primarily audience members in the outer movie who have "trouble with live humans" who are watching the inner movie avidly.

While it is natural for the inner movie to be black and white, given the time period, this plays directly into the meta-story being told of the perfection of Tom and the world he inhabits. The inner movie characters are impossibly clever and beautiful. Once Tom steps out of the movie, he gains color, but is still impossibly sweet, impossibly loyal and impossible to damage. By having Tom step out of the immutable world of black and white, Allen amplifies and highlights the predicament of the relationship between story telling artist and story hearing audience.  Each has their own view of reality that shadows the other. Tom says, "You're married and old-fashioned and I'm a whole new idea. The truth is, you're unhappily married." The implication is that Cecilia was married to the idea of her reality and should divorce herself from it. Tom is a projection of the artist, who is projecting his "new idea."

If the outer movie audience, including Cecilia, are seeking out the denial of their, as inner movie John put it, "...most human attribute [the] ability to choose..." then it follows that Allen is stating that it is important to keep a distance from the art and story you participate in, lest you lose sight of your humanity. The projection of the new idea is not enough to sustain a person in life outside of the story. Tom is attempting to break out of his character as written, but he is fated to be Tom Baxter and Cecilia recognizes this when she chooses Gil over Tom. Tom pleads with Cecilia, "Look, I love you, I know that only happens in movies." and indeed, it only happens within the inner movie Tom and not the outer movie Gil.

Social Cages

Starting with the g-stringed bodies of South Beach Florida, keeping hidden that which is out in the open is a a recurring theme in The Birdcage. Cultural conservatives have invented their own idea of what it means to be gay or straight and placed the gay vision in a cage, locked away from the rest of society. The figurative cage the film and nightclub are named after are mirrored in the home of the Senator, held hostage by not only the press, but his own idealism that blinded him to the true nature of his Coalition for Moral Order co-founder found dead with an african-american prostitute.

The portable cage of the car, driven all the way from Ohio to South Beach, is not only an attempt to keep the press from being able to follow the senator, it also keeps the world outside locked away from the senator's family.

His daughter is also locked away in a dowdy dress, the plainest attire of all the characters, but for the golden horse brooch, exposing her free spirited nature.

By the end of the film, the senator and family take on the clothes of the drag queens and other people who are attending the The Birdcage night club. Drawing full circle that it isn't the drag queens and audience who are caged, but the cultural conservatives themselves.

The senator's obsession with sweets seems like a statement about what he and his wife actually want out of life, that so much color and creativity has been drained from their lives that they turn to exotic candies to sublimate their desires that are not approved of by their social peers.

I thought this was one of the funniest of all the movies we've seen this semester with great performances and great deliveries of intelligent lines.

But underling the humor, was great wisdom about the nature of being human, one example being when Val is speaking to his father and the subject of being open about the nature of his parents came up as Armand says, "You were a baby and Ms. Donovan was a small minded idiot, I didn't want you to get hurt. It's different now, you're a man." Val replies, "I can still get hurt." This speaks volumes about the nature of what society expects out of being male or female and how we should not ignore them.

I enjoyed aspects that involved being counter to stereotypes about gays such as Agadore's cooking fiasco. The interplay of masculinity mixed with the nurturing impulses of all the people surrounding Val  is a nice way to show the humanity of the characters being a more healthy take on existence than the narrow socio-cultural conservative views. It's also some what depressing that our society is still legally dealing with the concept of gay marriage, 17 years after this film was released.

The summation of the film, as both families work their way through the crowd, one side all dressed as men, the other, all thought to be men dressed as women, and singing we are family re-inforces the message that all of the characters are part of a larger society and worthy of seeking out their own happiness and that the greater society can be an extended family.

But One Life to Give

Embedded in a time when the Vietnam War was ongoing, Harold & Maude plays out Harold's adolescence on the verge of adulthood against the backdrop of the United States coming to terms with two failed wars.  His mother pushes him into being a man by looking for his dates so that he can be married and fulfill her view of what adulthood means.  She is bound up in forcing him into being what she wants and not what he, and by extension, the United States, wants to become.

In Greek myth, Calliope is one of the muses, in particular the muse of poetry. By the time Maude and Harold are at an amusement park, enjoying the mid-way rides, it should be clear that she is Harold's Calliope with calliope music in the background. She has shown him wonderful contraptions and art that hint at how wonderful the world can be if he embraces it and choses what he wants to do rather than accepting the choices of others.

Uncle Victor is representing an older view, wishing that the Germans could be setup again for a "good war" because the more recent wars "...have been a national disgrace." An older view that needs to pass away so that the younger generation can move on. For one moment, Maude is linked to the older world of Uncle Victor when Harold notices a numbered tattoo on Maude's arm.  The tattoo, put there by Germans during World War II, is another representation of something old that should be allowed to pass away and be left behind.

Victor's focus on Nathan Hale links Harold's theatrical fake deaths to Hale's famous quote, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Maude is pulling Harold away from his dramatic death scenes to show him that there is much more to life than the dramatic and shrill deaths he enacts.  You can see that Harold is already taking this message to heart before Maude passes away when, instead of faking his death with his second date, he cuts off his fake arm, like an animal biting off a leg to escape a trap.

And of course, there is the issue of Maude's age. When I watch Ruth Gordon's performance, I can see a younger person who is inside her aging body.  If taken as a tale about the adolescence of the United States, it is a good lesson about avoiding the obsession of youth in our culture and enjoying the good parts of age as much as the young. The last words of dialogue spoken in the movie are between Harold and Maude, "I love you" says Harold, and Maude responds "Oh, Harold, that is wonderful. Go and love some more."

I hadn't connected an influence of Wes Anderson's work with Hal Ashby.  The visual style and pace of story telling are very similar between Ashby and Anderson's work.

Cold Hands

Starting off with a credits roll that comes straight from a 1930's era film, Young Frankenstein would appeal to any connoisseur of early horror films.  The primary message of the story being the unthawing of a clenched, cold and stiff personality, I find it more interesting to focus on how the film uses and then creates its own tropes.

When Frankenstein is riding the train to New York, a husband and wife argue about the behavior of someone they know, possibly their child; the film whirls into a train ride into Transylvania and the exact same conversation appears to happen again, with german sounding participants. The subject is ambiguous, but the meaning of parents arguing over allowing someone (probably their child) do something or not is foreshadowing for the rest of the story. Allowing the beast out or sedating it, allowing your hair to be mussed or being satisfied with a tame elbow touching another elbow.

The running gags of the pronunciation of Frankenstein's name and Frau Blücher's association with horses naying are set ups for use later in the film. They punctuate situations and are self-contained tropes within the film.

A cold hand is presented in the monster when Frankenstein meets a constable and later in the detective's mechanical arm. The detective setting his finger on fire deliberately, a dead piece of wood, while the monster's finger is set alight  and is obviously alive and the cause of pain creates a symmetry that applies to how we live our lives. An overall arc to the story is that we should embrace life, to allow for a little pain along with the pleasures and that if we don't engage with the world around us (even if there is some pain) that there is much more good to be found overall.

Demons in the Freezer

Oh the surface Never Been Thawed covers the same ground as the documentary Trekkies. Groups of people who collect, obsess and gluttonously acquire items that fulfill desires for an alternate reality.  The irony is that the characters lives are richer through their pursuit of quirky collecting and road-word games, while frozen in recurring destructive behaviors and patterns. Each character is trying to exercise control in their lives.  Matt exemplifies this behavior when he says he captures and stores his urine, "...until I am ready to deal with it on my own terms. Take control back in my life." Scott is also trying to exert control, being out of the closet, while trying to shove himself back in, to become an ex-gay.

The opening of the film includes an explanation about collecting from a comics store owner, "...people become very glutinous for things, it's coveting, you covet something." As the story unfolds, each of the characters covets in various ways, Al covets Shelley, Shawn covets rock-n-roll success, Shelley covets Shawn and Shawn's deaf brother. And of course, they all covet frozen entrees.

The control the characters are trying to exert is dominated by the taking of treasures from the explicit or implied tragic circumstances of other people's lives. Scott, the fire fighter, takes collectables from the aftermath of fires. Milo the owner of No Choice Cafe is taking in wealth from the political turmoil surrounding abortion rights as he says, "...I was taking advantage-or-I was actually, you know, catering to, the protestors." Shawn and Al trying to monetize their band using Christian themes while dating christian groupies.

The sub-text of the film is less like Trekkies and more like The Glass Menagerie. Each character is creating their own illusion about the world around them and those illusions are only momentarily broken. When the film visits the characters months later, they are each still expressing their own illusions in modified form; the band on the road, Shawn and Milo talking about banging women and getting fucked up while praising Jesus and Al crushing out on an unavailable girl in the same way he did over Shelley.

The first hint that it isn't just about frozen entrees is when Shawn mentions he got his first freezer when he was 12. Later, Al says he has been consoling Shawn's ex-girlfriends since the age of 12-13. Linking us to the formation of their life long anxieties and obsessions. Shawn's apartment has a literal couch on top of a freezer.  He is living with his demons and anyone who enters the house will be living with them too.

The movie is really about our demons in our heads, usually frozen and looping over and over.

Idiocracy

While ostensibly focused on a dystopian future "Uhmerica",  Idiocracy is a mirror image of our contemporary society.  The media of today focuses on reducing individuals to a label that is consumed as easily as a fast food meal or sports drink. Similarly, most of the characters in Idiocracy are given single names or labels, during the end credits, Rita, Secretary of Defense, Prosecutor, Doctor, Horny Guy, Slutty Girl, New Slutty Girl, and so on. This is carried to an extreme when the husband and wife at the start of the film are given the names Trevor and Carol, only to be credited as Yuppie Husband and Yuppie Wife.

While the bulk of the story is set 500 years in the future, the scenes set in 2005 already show signs of a decaying society, the written news stories about Officer Collins and Upgrayedd being arrested are poorly written, "...arrested on several counts of attempted to run and use a call service..." and "Upgrayedd research, these 420 crimes are everywhere across the country, surfacing only recently..."

The extreme lengths the film goes to with a potential future carry the audience into humorous situations that are recognizably possible today.  Joe's soon to be attorney first stands up to tell Joe to shut up, and we see that he has been sitting on a combination toilet lounger, which flushes automatically. The blind corporate greed of a company buying up government institutions to help support its stock price. Starbucks logos incorporated on the printed money of 2505 and a Costco box store that spans miles on a side.

The labeling carries on with the description of Joe when he is identified by "Hair: Yes" and "Eyes: Yes". Further still, anyone who is working at their job has labels on their shirt sleeves, such as Attorney at Law and Secretary of Interior.

During the end credits, the "Ow! My Balls! Guy" is not credited as Hormel Chavez, but instead as "Main Character". This turns the movie back onto the viewing audience, pointing out that the movie itself has been one extended episode of the Ow! My Balls! television show. While Joe Bauers is the protagonist of the story, we have watched and laughed as he is put through physical and emotional pain. As the humor of the film is primarily focused on painful slapstick, sexual innuendo, and laughing at dumbed down caricatures of the government, the credits are poking fun at the audience for having watched and laughed at the movie.

The final message of the film is that if we dumb ourselves down, we leave ourselves to be taken advantage of by those who do not dumb themselves down. Watching past the credits, Upgrayedd awakens from the same Army experiment that took Joe and Rita into 2505. As Upgrayedd walks down the street, we know that he will be able to take advantage of the society of 2505 in the same way Rita did and how Joe became President.

The Sword of Time Pierces Our Hearts

M*A*S*H stands astride eras, one foot in the past, another in the future. Produced in 1969 and released in 1970, this movie was on the cusp of counter-culture movements in the United States. Its story is situated during the Korean war, while passing for what could be a battle field 20 years later in Vietnam. Some elements, such as the womanizing and treatment of homosexuality, are cringe inducing and evidence of a previous era not entirely left behind by film makers. The treatment of race is forward looking and turned on its head when one of the first scenes Hawkeye Pierce, a white officer, mutters about a black enlisted soldier being racist.

The attitude towards the military can be summed up when Hawkeye says, "You're what we call a regular army clown." to Major Houlihan. Characters who are more traditional military are clown like or considered insane; the enlisted man fighting MP's as Hawkeye drives off at the start of the film, Burns knocked into boxes of tampons by McIntyre, Burns and Houlihan being outed to the camp over the loudspeakers, Burns taken away in a straight jacket and Colonel Merril duped into being photographed with a prostitute.

The clownish behavior is taken to an extreme in the football game, which is presented as a war within the war, the two sides in clownish outfits, the background music is circus like and Major Houlihan's character has essentially become an insane cheerleader.

By the time the movie progresses to the football game, another character is introduced that turns race issues on their head again. Spear Chucker Jones, a professional football player and neurosurgeon, is transferred into the MASH unit to help them win the game. Other doctors and nurses in the camp look up to him, gather around him asking him questions and are happy to see him.  After the game, he is operating on a solder with Duke, when Duke receives news that he can return home. Duke quietly accuses Jones of being a perfectionist when Jones doesn't want Duke to leave before a final check of the patient. Cringe worthy though, was minutes before Duke's use of now archaic language referring to him as a negro. While acceptable during the era this film was produced, it is not today, and the lyric of the theme song for the movie poetically ties into this with:

The sword of time will pierce our skin
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger, watch it grin

Time has pierced this movie and it makes some of it hurt today.

Still, there is a professionalism shown in the operating room. While some jokes are made, the pranks and drinking are kept outside the blood soaked surgeries.

"You ever catch this syndrome before babe?" Hawkeye asks Duke. "No, not with anyone beyond the age of 8 years old I haven't." Duke replies. And thus begins the film's evisceration of religion. The last supper for Painless is a pitch perfect match for da Vinci's painting. The juxtaposition of Painless going willingly to his suicide with Jesus' willingly going to his own death. Which draws out the implicit argument that Jesus was implicitly suiciding. The film links the clownishness of the military to the religious mocking when the loud speakers announce that Yom Kippur will be postponed from Friday to Sunday. Yom Kippur is the most important religious observance for the Jews and postponing it would be as absurdist as postponing the observance of the midnight mass on Christmas Eve for Christians.

The camera work in M*A*S*H notably lacks dolly or hand held elements. Anytime the camera moves, it is from a stationary position and involves panning, zooming in and zooming out. This places the audience as a stationary observer, overhearing dialogue that mixes together, and requires hearing it multiple times to pull out the various interesting conversations.

Turgid Nash Equilibrium

The opening of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, starts with a physical act of love, represented by the refueling B52 bomber, a turgid protrusion from the fueling plane, ejaculating into the storage tanks of the bomber, presented more tastefully than I have written, with gentle music. This is a running theme throughout the movie, men chewing cigars, bodily fluids, affairs and the discussion at the end of the film about how to survive. In combining aspects of a horrifying doomsday war, sex and comedy, Kubrick directed a compact story that expresses deep truths about human nature and modern warfare.

The leaders shared humanity runs through the entire story. Turgidson accuses Kiss-off of being a "degenerate" after the Russian ambassador implies that Kiss-off is hard to reach because he is having an affair. This coming from the mouth of Turgidson, whom we saw with the only female character earlier in the film; his secretary, in a bikini at 3 A.M. Military personnel look the same in black and white, no matter if they are in the army, navy or air force. The President tells the Soviet Premier "I am just as capable of being as sorry as you are."

A beautiful part of this film is that it holds inside jokes for people who have a priori knowledge of the issues and culture surrounding the questions of nuclear warfare. When Dr. Strangelove mentions the "Bland Corporation" that is a reference to the Rand Corporation, a think tank that has written thousands of papers on military issues, and its renaming is a witty comment on their nature. The overall subject of the film is mutually assured destruction; also known as a type of Nash equilibrium. Shortly, the equilibrium states that if players of a game cannot benefit from a change in strategy, then it is in their interest to keep their strategy. In other words, if everyone will lose when one player does something the other players are unwilling to do, all players have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Dr. Strangelove illustrates that this only works if the players involved are rational and sane. And it makes the assertion that while the leaders may all be striving for sanity, we all have the seeds of insanity within us.

The Dr. Strangelove character is fighting himself, his sane half being his ungloved hand, his insane half being his gloved hand. There are insane elements to all of the characters: Turgidson arguing that the United States could win, while a folder in front of him has "World Targets in Megadeaths."

The very basis of mutual destruction is attacked in the film: even if  the Soviet doomsday machine was not secret, that would make no difference given the circumstances of an insane U.S. general sending attacking forces without authorization. The doomsday machine itself is an insane device, inhuman, designed to set itself off automatically because "...it is not something a sane man would do" says the Soviet Ambassador.

It is possible to find many meanings in the various names of the characters and I'd like to focus on the british officer, Group Captain Mandrake. Mandrake is referenced in the Bible as the "love plant". Mandrake is also poisonous, in keeping with Mandrake the character being poisonous to the plans of General Ripper. The christian view of love and peace being the central message of the new testament is central to message boards on the air force base, where "Peace is our Profession" is everywhere. This is also linked to what General Ripper was doodling before he shot himself, "Peace On Earth" and "Purity Of Essence." One is not necessarily part of the other.

The Tree Grabs You

Mid-way through The Gods Must be Crazy, Ms. Thompson gets too close to a wataba tree and becomes entangled in it. While the scene is farcical, as is most of the humor in the movie, it is related to a broader message about how easy it is to become entangled with other people if you get too close to them.

Andrew the ecologist/biologist becomes entangled with Ms. Thompson and with Xi the bushman. Xi with a society he is unfamiliar with; the professional mercenary Sam Boga, with the bushman when Xi is sent to prick the mercenary group with poisoned darts.

Given 32 years since the making of the film, it is tempting to interpret the plot and characters through a contemporary lens. The individuals can be seen as caricatures of Africans and the humor plays a fine line between portraying individuals as nobel and being worthy of respect versus being comical and silly background; such as mercenaries slipping on bananas. To the contrary, one of the strongest characters is Mpudi, the mechanic and friend of Andrew Steyn as well as Xi, who is primarily trying to do right in the world, by getting rid of what his tribe considers to be an evil object. Andrew is one of the most farcical when he flails around in front of Ms. Thompson.

Expanding outward from the story of military buffoonery, each group is portrayed as being caught up with outside forces. The bushmen from a bottle introduced from the sky; Sam Boga is a representation of forces from Europe, interfering with politics in the country. Meanwhile, the indigenous people are trying to simply get on with their lives.

Even the mercenaries are presented this way, when the two soldiers that blow up the helicopter almost immediately go back to playing cards, one still holding a bazooka, before the armored cars show up seconds later.

The style of the movie is like a nature documentary of the early 1980's, starting with a day in the life of people in an urban setting, a narrator explaining various elements of the world. As the story moves forward, the narration drops away. It is as if the movie were being presented to the audience in the familiar way of the Mutual of Omaha nature series. Given the 30 years of Discovery, History and National Geographic channels, the presentation in the movie comes across as a bit off putting.

Strangely, the movie does not address the Republic of South Africa, which had a full decade to go before the end of apartheid. It is unclear if Ms. Thompson is from the RSA or from another nearby country, but at least one of the early urban scenes shows a sign for Johannesburg, implying that she is in the RSA. I do wonder what was behind this aspect of the film, given the issues surrounding apartheid, perhaps the film makers avoided it to not entangle themselves in a side show of politics.

The Passionate Celibacy of Bees

Being primarily acquainted with Oscar Wilde through his quotes, I was happy to find it was with good reason. The Importance of Being Earnest is a biting commentary on the Victorian era upper class with enough word play to keep attention for multiple viewings. Unwinding the meanings behind the dialogue is like watching beautifully wrapped presents being opened, even if the present itself is dull, insulting or both. The story is not tied specifically to the Victorian era, even though it is set in that period, the messages could be applied to the present; which helps explain its endurance as Wilde's most popular play.

Near the start, Miss Prism says she, "...is not in favor of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moments notice." Only to have her go from good to bad to good again within moments notice. The other characters also go through such transitions. Toying with the good society ideal of marrying someone with the proper name or background, Gwendolen and Cecily desire to marry someone named Ernest. My immediate impression of both characters was that they were swallow and addle minded.  Reenforced by Gwendolen's mother, Augusta, when she says, "Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect what-so-ever. If it did it would prove a serious danger to the upper class."  Yet later, Gwendolen and Cecily are redeemed when they talk each other into keeping to their respective promises to marry, whether or not the name Ernest was involved.

Also, if the meaning of the word earnest is used instead of the proper name Ernest, then they are young women who want to spend the rest of their lives with someone named for having deep convictions and a promise of pleasant future events.

Augusta herself turns out to have come from a potentially "bad" place, as a dancer in a music hall, turned good at the moment of her marriage; even through the implied monocle popping news of her premarital pregnancy.

Given Wilde's classical education, I imagine there is a deeper meaning in Augusta's name, being the feminized version of the Roman Emperor Augustus. 

Looking at the original play, I notice that Jack goes from being Algy's older brother to his younger in the movie and I'm not quite sure what to make of that. This puts Algy near 38-39 years old, marrying a 18 year old girl. It remains unclear whether Algy's intentions are anything more than an attempt at gold digging, though Augusta comes around to approving his engagement to Cecily because Augusta had no fortune of her own before marriage.

The oscillations between good and bad people is further amplified by Augusta's hand hovering over the bell and drinking glass while interviewing Ernest-Jack. The arbitrariness of good society rules and the suitability of a person with a particular name or background is under intense focus.

Other flourishes of the 2002 version not found in the play include shared name tattoos. I think this is the film makers playing on Victorian era ideas about bondage and sado-masochism. As well as reenforcing Gwendolen's desire to marry someone named Ernest.

I'm sure there is something to be teased out of Miss Prism's name and her having written a "...three volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality." Earlier she says, "The good ended happily, the bad, unhappily. That is what fiction means." Foreshadowing the ending of the movie itself and making it unclear if someone ended being portrayed as bad, that they might have a bad ending once the story finished.

Banned in Norway

Starting with a contemporary and bombastic song, Monty Python's Life of Brian portrays society in Judea under Roman rule with a modern interpretation that is both funny and accessible to current-day audiences. Many critics of the film accused the makers of blasphemy; as if the inherent message of the story was to prove the Christian God does not exist and that writings about God are misinterpreted. While there are many tongue in cheek jokes about the potential sources of supernatural power, the overall message of the film is that individuals should not allow the beliefs of others to be their only guide in life to the exclusion of their own thoughts and ideas.

Released in 1979 the film was being seen when the Boomtown Rats released the song "I Hate Mondays"; a song written about a girl who shot 13 people, killing 2,  and wounding 9. The problems of today are echoes of yesterday's and those reverberations cross millennia. While the senseless song about a senseless act was topping the charts, Life of Brian was illustrating the dangers of blindly following others and how everyone projects their own meaning onto the thoughts, actions and desires of everyone else around them.

Brian starts life being slapped by his mother and the story quickly moves to 33 years later, showing Brian still living with his mother, getting badgered away from a barely heard speech by Jesus and off to a stoning. Once there, the film makes a quick point about the nature of blasphemy; that just saying a word, such as Jehovah and by extension any word, shouldn't be blasphemy.

It was a Roger Ebert review that helped open up another aspect of the film that I thought was brilliant writing.  Most of the people throwing stones are male actors, dressed in drag to portray women, dressed as men to overcome the limitation of no women being allowed at the stoning. The flattening of the gender roles helps illustrate a general pattern to human behavior as being cruel, quick to judge, and sentencing without sound evidence.

The film overall is not so much blasphemy as it is heresy, as the start of Brian's late career as an unintentional religious leader begins with an actual miracle. An alien space ship catches him as he falls, running from the Romans, and he then survives a space battle and consequent crash landing.  The episode is never mentioned again in the movie and it's easy to forget it even happened by the end titles.

By taking Brian into an incomprehensible dimension of space travel, the movie shows the audience something that is already a familiar popular tale and interpretable as not God-like intervention, but happenstance and being pulled into a much larger narrative of a clash between alien civilizations. The Voyager spacecraft made their closest approaches to Jupiter in 1979, Star Wars had been released in 1977, astronauts had landed on the moon in 1969, and War of the Worlds in the 1930's with dozens of space films released between. The audience might be surprised by the turn of events and laugh at the non-sequitor, but to the character Brian, it should be a sign that he might have a supernatural presence on Earth. He continues on without believing this and is oblivious to anything but Romans chasing him and a girl he would like to get to know.

Brian's babbling at the wall of prophets attracts the notice of passersby, who then proceed to follow Brian, and create, debate and codify an entire self-conflicting narrative and religious structure during the  chase, without Brian's help. One of my favorite scenes involves Brian stumbling into a hermit's hole. The hermit singing out now that he can talk freely and stopping after spotting the crowd still trailing Brian.

The remainder of the film continues a relentless series of scenes where mobs and others behave without displaying an ounce of sound critical thinking and projecting their own desires and views onto Brian's circumstances.

After being caught up in the desires of the mob, his peers, recently acquired girlfriend, and his mother; each project their own feelings about his circumstance, Brian is stuck responding to them while being held securely in place on a cross. The movie's signature song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" helps close out the story and the narrative that it is up to us as individuals to respond to our situation, hopefully with some sound reasoning.

Film's Reflection in the Television

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, starring Tony Randall as Rockwell Hunter and Jayne Mansfield as Rita Marlowe, is a direct and funny critique of the then new medium of television, commercial breaks, product endorsement, and the artifice of celebrity.

The plot centers about the acquisition of success, in the form of money for Hunter and fame for Marlowe. Hunter and Marlowe meet, early on in the film and strike a business deal.  The advertising agency Hunter works for is on the verge of failing and by using Marlowe to endorse lip stick sold by a client of his agency; Hunter expects to save his job and maybe even be promoted.

By publicly dating Hunter, Marlowe seizes on an opportunity to keep her name in the lime-light of gossip columnists and media, giving her leverage over her film studio. By elevating Hunter to fame, Marlowe is increasing her own. Jayne Mansfield was also at the height of her popularity during the period this movie was made and her character closely parallels herself, as the following years she was criticized heavily for many publicity stunts to increase her own fame.

While her character is ostensibly a ditzy blonde, as intelligent as her pet poodle, her character shows shrewd business acumen and at first claims her trip to New York is to start her own production company. Unfortunately, the film falls into a less enlightened plot device when Marlowe then admits that she's just trying to get away from her boyfriend in California.

Hunter is taking care of his young niece, who lives with him and helps him be introduced to Marlowe.  Where are her parents? They are never mentioned and no explanation is given about the circumstances behind her living with her uncle.

Out of the partners in the advertising agency Hunter works for, La Salle Jr., Raskin, Pooley and Crocket, only La Salle Jr. is seen in the movie, even though much of the plot focuses on the perks of being an executive at the firm.

These details help expose the thin layers of story telling that keep the plot moving, while allowing interjections of criticisms of television. The most blatant being a short intermission two-thirds of the way through the movie, when Hunter comes out on a stage, ostensibly to provide a break in the story out of respect for TV viewers "...who are accustomed to constant interruptions in their programs for messages from sponsors."  While he talks about TV, the film begins to simulate a black and white TV cropping the image severely with then typical signal interference.

The irony is that there are several points in the movie where product placement for 20th Century Fox is prominent, such as twice name dropping a movie that Jayne Mansfield starred in the year before and when Mansfield is reading the book Peyton Place in the bath; a movie 20th Century Fox released 6 months after the release of this movie.

At the end of the movie, Hunter is making an impassioned plea to his fiancé, Jenny, trying to convince her that Marlowe means nothing to him and that he wants Jenny.  Jenny believes that she's too average for him; that only someone like Marlowe would be good enough for him.  Yet more irony, given that the actress playing Jenny is gorgeous and was herself married to Cary Grant.

Groucho Marx makes an appearance as Georgie at the end of the film, playing the original love of Marlowe, who has been pining after him. A reference to "You Bet Your Life" is made and highlights another critique of advertisements interrupting television shows.  It also brings out a deeper structure of the movie, with three couples, Hunter and Jenny, Marlowe and Georgie, and Rufus and Violet, each seeking success in their own way; shadowing the format of the "You Bet Your Life" quiz show which starred Groucho, making the reference an advertisement for a then highly successful television show, mid-way through an 11 year run.

At the end, the movie brings out a general point of saying that you are what you make of yourself. At the start Hunter is coerced into claiming he is the president of the advertising agency. Towards the end of the film, he is promoted into that position, a direct outcome of his earlier boldness.  La Salle Jr, who inherited the position and then gave it to Hunter, tells him that "...success will fit you like a shroud."

A shroud usually implies burial and would portend death.  Fittingly, Hunter gives up the success of leading the advertising agency and instead opts for a farmers life.

Never Say Die

Modern Times, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, is a movie of visual extremes. By creating extremes of behavior, many of the situations become absurdist and lead to humorous outcomes that are visually self-explanatory. The movie is also a deeper meditation on the nature of the social changes sweeping through American culture in the early part of the 20th century. It is the fluid and jovial reactions of Chaplin that turn the somewhat horrific vision of the modern world into a series of funny events.

In the first scenes, a comparison between sheep and workers streaming into a factory makes the film maker's view clear and sets the stage for the primary character, the factory worker, being herded through life. The factory itself is an unlikely clean place, with technologies that would not be out of place in a factory today. The President of the company is able to see everywhere in the factory with a hawk like gaze. He too is shown to be a regular human being, piecing together a puzzle in his office, as an individual pursuing his own form of happiness.

The factory worker, played by Chaplin,  is performing an inhuman task, over and over again, and it consumes him. When stopping work, he continues to jerk and twitch the same motions as when performing his job. While his motions are comical and exaggerated, they are also sinister when considering our current understanding of repetitive stress injuries.

Between shifts, he is locked into a mechanical feeding machine. While the machine fails and the President of the company dismisses the technicians who presented it to him, it is obvious that if the machine were "practical", he would have no problem using it on his employees to limit the amount of time they are not performing their jobs. It is Chaplin's responses to the machine that humanize it, taking it from the realm of a claustrophobic nightmare and turning it into an laugh out loud folly.

 After the effects of his repetitive work situation lead him to a nervous breakdown, rampaging through the factory fiddling with valves and levers in a comical way; the factory worker recovers in a mental hospital but is swept up by police just after release, mistakenly believing him to be the leader of a communist march. In jail, the worker finds peace and is comfortable. He is once again in a herd, and in many ways is even more controlled than he was as a factory worker.

During this period, the gamin or street urchin is introduced, a character played by Paulette Goddard. She is shown desperately surviving by stealing food for herself, her family and other poor children. She is presented in a romantic way, as a pirate, knife between teeth, easily confusing and getting away from a dock worker trying to stop her.

The good nature of the worker inadvertently gets him out of jail, after he foils a jail breakout. It is interesting to see drugs, nose-powder, depicted in a film that was released in 1936.  This was just 3 years after the introduction of the "code" in Hollywood movies in an effort to limit themes in movies that were acceptable to Roman Catholic mores. This drug helps put the worker into a position to block the jail break attempt.

After being rewarded with release form jail for his good deeds, the worker and the gamin meet, while he is now trying to be put back into jail, he helps her avoid being put into jail. It is through this and being on the run together that they start to form a bond that leads to love by the end of the movie.

They fantasize about having a life together in a nice house and this requires the factory worker to find a new job to pay for it. He does so, working for a department store as a night watchman. During the evening, he invites the gamin into the store to be comfortable, and then burglars appear in the store, accidentally forcing the worker to drink rum until he passes out.

Now he goes back to jail but is not satisfied to stay there. When he comes out, the gamin has found a dilapidated home.  One that is in no way modern and yet, the couple is happy.

The rest of the film covers essentially the same ground. Both the worker and the gamin are trying to work their way through the world, and are failing, not always through their own fault, but through forces that are out of their control; a large crowd in a dining hall blocking the factory worker's path. The gamin being swept up by police to be returned to an orphanage.

In the end, they seem destitute and alone on an empty road. However, the worker won't let that keep them down.