Final

 

 

 

A film can be indicative of human interactions and the events that occur within society; a series of what ifs or why nots. With that being said Holy Motors can be interpreted as the director and writer Leos Carax fantasy on the progression of society and how humans partake in socially aware roles. Actors, athletes, government officials exist in the public eye. How they are often portrayed is dictated by the media, more often than not it is all just an act. I don’t see this film as an accumulation of events of spectacle but a commentary on the relationship society often has with spectacle and those who initiate it, and how it affects the real lives of those who perform. If Holy Motors is a film about a man who is an actor performing different episodes that are shown to an intermediary audience within the film, it would mean the viewers enjoy acts of violence, death, music, sex, poverty, and fatherhood. How this film is constructed is a mind boggling endeavor, a cinematic feat. Holy Motors is an image of what fascinates society.

 

As Mr. Oscar is dressed as Merde eating a plate of Japanese cuisine he peers at a live stream image of the city of Paris, he then asks Celine his driver, “No appointments in the forests this week?” to which she responds, “Not this week Mr. Oscar.” Mr. Oscar solemnly peers downward stating, “Too bad, I miss the forests”. This exchange of dialogue between Mr. Oscar and Celine gives Mr. Oscar a normal human desire, to be in nature away from the people and the busy city. Although we know nothing about what happens in the forests, after all it is still an appointment, what we are witnessing is possibly a yearning for solitude by the performer or him wishing he had more control over his performances. In Guy Debord’s “Society of Spectacle” he states the “The individual who in the service of the spectacle is placed in stardom's spotlight is in fact the opposite of an individual, and as clearly the enemy of the individual in himself as of the individual in others. In entering the spectacle as a model to be identified with, he renounces all autonomy in order himself to identify with the general law of obedience to the course of things (Debord, 17).” Debord’s claim that performers are actually the opposite of an individual seem to coincide with the character of Mr. Oscar, he’s not asking when he is going to see his mother again, he’s asking when their will be another appointment he enjoys more than city appointments. If we compare Mr. Oscar to Tom Cruise it begins to make sense that performences set the tone for how art often imitates and influences real life behavior in society.  Why are we so fascinated by such vulgar emotional scenes? As Debord states “So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.” Society seems to be conditioned to accept spectacle as the rightful norm. Unlike films Tom Cruise performs in, Lavant as Mr. Oscar brings to light the complexity of the illusion of spectacle in film and why none of it really matters, it’s all just an act.

 

“For one to whom the real world becomes real images, mere images are transformed into real beings ­­tangible figments which are the efficient motor of trancelike behavior. Since the spectacle's job is to cause a world that is no longer directly perceptible to be seen via different specialized mediations, it is inevitable that it should elevate the human sense of sight to the special place once occupied by touch… (Debord, 7). 

 

A top model (Eva Mendes) stands posed for a magazine spread in a cemetery. Merde parades violently through the cemetery, eats flowers off tombstones (which read www.vistme.com), steals a cigarette, bites a photographer’s fingers off and then carries the model to his underground lair. This scene is a spectacle not because of the grotesque bloody arm pit lick, but because of how the model interacts with Merde. The spectacle of a beautiful model being abducted while the public gawks alludes to how corrupt modern society can be. It becomes a passive consumption of spectacle rather than active participation in life.  The model is a critique of American beauty standards. Eva Mende’s real life persona mingles with the models character she is playing. She’s thin and bored standing there as she lethargically falls onto Merde’s shoulders. This scene is commenting on the agenda of American beauty standards and how incredibly objectifying they really are and possibly a notion to change them. Mendes never seems uncomfortable with Merde, she accepts of his alterations, he challenges our concept of beauty by covering most of Mendes sexualized body in Islamic style balaclava exposing only her eyes. This expression relates to the saying which is mentioned in the film “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.  Merde has changed the model from a sexualized, bored-to-death figure into a loving mother as he extends his naked body onto her lap. The scene ends with her singing softly to him as he continues to sleep.

 

Birth Mark- “What makes you carry on Oscar?”

Oscar- “What made me start, the beauty of the act.”

Birth Mark- “The beauty? They say it’s in the eye, the eye of the beholder.”

Oscar- “And what if there’s no beholder?”

 

Does the existence of an audience justify the performance regardless of the absurdity of the act? If performers are the opposite of an individual how do they carry on?  Holy Motors utilizes an implied intermediary audience to justify the acts being carried out by the protagonist. The director uses this technique to employ a film which bounces from one dramatic event to another to showcase what kind of content society expects out of films.

Week 4

What I gained from Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulations” is that the human experience has been reduced to a series of symbols (simulations) through media as a result of capitalism. New needs, desires, and icons are created so that someone might profit from it. As time moves forward, new symbols are forged from reappropriation and rehashing of old symbols. New simulations emerge as past simulations are simulated. Motifs and certain visual cues or narrative structures become ingrained into pop culture to the point where they can be inderectly referenced or built upon indirectly, without an explanation provided for the consumer. This creates an alienation between individuals within society and forces members of the society to believe that these simulations are tangible goals that they are able to achieve rather than purely synthetic virtual versions that only have their basis in social interaction many iterations ago. This cycle continues and society becomes less attached to reality (meaning human connection and emotion) over time and the only reality left becomes the image which is purely a simulation of past truths which preceeded mass media (which I believeaccelerated with the spread of television as a fixture in homes around the world, but I guess the true origin would be the printing press).

“Holy Motors” is a film that relates to Baudrillard’s concept of Simulation. The film tracks an actor, Oscar, through many different scenarios, though it is never clear if there is actually a camera crew filming him. He is a part of many different genre oriented shorts or skits. He drifts through scenarios, getting harmed, killing versions of himself, and taking off/re-applying makeup and prosthetics over and over. He is a beggar, a monster, an upset father, a gangster, a dying man, an assassin, etc.  The film explicitly breaks into the territory of metacinema when the actor is riding in his limo and is confronted with a producer character. the producer questions him about why he thinks Oscar might be growing too old to be doing this anymore. Oscar says that he doesn’t feel the magic in motion pictures anymore, that cameras have gotten smaller and that the medium have lost something because of it. But he continues to do what he does because he loves to act. His comments about cameras seem funny or ironic because we never see a video camera during the film. “Holy Motors” never “feels” novel in that it never has a direct point where it feels like it’s simulations and rapid abandonment of different genres is forced. The movie ebbs and flows seemlessly through simulations. Oscar professes that he loves to act and that’s why he continues to do so in a manner which gives the impression of feeling infinite. I get the feeling that Leos Carax (the director) feels the same way about film making. The style and content of the film feel like a series of cliche rehashes of overused film styles. Yet the fearless quickness with which genres are left behind makes the film fun and wild. You can feel a love of cinema puring through the screen. 

Week 3

“Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” and “I am Curious (Yellow)” came out around the same time and both explore similiar themes in their exploration of metacinema. They are both pretty direct in their presentation of being films about the creation of a film, though they differ in the techniques used to convey the underlying philosophy. Because of difference in techniques, the emotional and philosophical response becomes different for the viewer.

In “I am Curious (Yellow),” the film is about a director’s (Vilgot’s) relationship with the lead actress (Lena) in his film and Lena’s relationship with Bill, an actor portraying a salesman. The film has a very autobiographical feel to it and the plot of the film is disrupted with documentary footage of Lena on the street asking the public difficult questions obout politics and ethics, as well as footage featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. in an actual interview that was conducted by Vilgot Sjöman. The film purposely blurs which parts of the line are documentary and which parts are staged. Some parts seem like part of the “real world” of the film only to have the shot pull back and reveal the Vilgot and a crew filming the scene. The only truly honest reactions that are illicited from subjects are the answers provided during the “person on the street” interviews. Even those feel effected by the presense of a camera though, particularly the scenes in which people are asked about Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain at the time. It seems as though they are afraid to answer honestly when their reactions will be made public through distribution of the film. At the heart of “I am Curious” is a statement about the effect film making has on relationships and politics. How the act of making a film influences one’s behaviour and dictates one’s actions.

“Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” is also about the effect making a film has on those involved, but is a more direct and experimental approach to that basic idea. In the film, director William Greaves hires a cast and crew to shoot some footage for a film he is making. He then hires a crew to document the making of the film and a thirrd crew to document everything that’s happening including the other two crews and the public in Central Park. William takes on a character as stupid and confused director. The project becomes unhinged as the crews begin to get fed up with William’s behavior on set, almost to the point of mutiny. Even during the scene where the crew is apparently plotting a mutiny, it’s not clear wether this is a legitamit meeting or if Greaves put them up to this, which is something one of the crew members references to the camera. “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” does a great job at capturing seemingly authentic conversations and interactions from the participants of the film. With so many cameras rolling, it seems like those involved sometimes forget that the camera is there.

While both films comment on the effect that filmmaking has on all those involved, “I am Curious (Yellow)” does so through a more nuanced and poetic script while “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” goes for an experimental approach.

Week 2

“Man Bites Dog,” “The Eternal Frame” and the “White Bear” episode of Black Mirror deal with excitement and passivity in the face of terrible violent acts.

“The Eternal Frame” documents a recreation of the JFK shooting. The crew is meticulous in recreating the events as realistically as possible. While one might expect the audience that gathers to watch the recreation to be upset or sad, it turns out they are pretty excited about watching the whole thing go down. The JFK assassination was the first true mass media spectale. It happened just as televisions had become a staple in American homes and prior to the assassination, there was never a film event as widespread. The film simulatneously deconstructs and celebrates the media’s appropriation of the assassination by putting on a huge spectacle for those around the neighborhood while at the same time exposing their obsession with the public death of a world leader.

“Man Bites Dog” is the most visceral film of the bunch, featuring the crew as characters that are part of the narrative. The film feigns a doumentary structure focusing on a serial killer, Ben, as he wanders around harming and murdering peope seemingly at random. As the film progresses, so does the physical involvement of the crew in regards to the violent acts. Their attitude towards the acts of violence is torubling from the beginning, they don’t stop Ben from murdering people or help the victims. The turning point in the film is when the crew help Ben murder a child. A few scenes later, the take turns raping a woman while cheering each other on. The gang rape scene is the most poignant and hard to swallow. Later, Ben murders a woman at a party, but instead of the other party-goers trying to stop him or calling the police, they just kind of act like it’s normal and go on with the party. That scene takes the film into surreal territory (although I guess the entire premise is a bit unbelievable from the beginning). Eventually the crew and the subject meet their demise as they are gunned down in the end.

Black Mirror consistently does a great job of taking the way media and technology is increasingly influences social behoavior and pushing it to a terrifying point. The plot of episode “White Bear” doesn’t disappoint. The episode begins seeming like an action thriller. A woman, Victoria, wakes up with amnesia and when she goes out into the world, she is confronted by violent masked characters while spectators watch on, all holding out their cameras to record the events. Victoria soon learns about a signal that is being transmitted that causes most of society to become useless voyeurs while the unaffected either choose a path of violence or evade the violent ones. Towards the end of the episode, Victoria finds out that the whole plot was a setup and she is actually a part of a punishment program where she relives the same trauma daily. The interesting part of the punishment program to me is that the spectators/audience endorse this program and routinely attend these daily events willingly, seeming to enjoy watching Victoria go through the same struggle every day.

All three pieces from this week dealt with the public’s fascination with violence. The approaches to conveying this obsession were a sign of the times in each case. “The Eternal Frame” is modernist in its approach; “Man Bites Dog” is postmodern; “White Bear” is contemporary.

Normally Odd Characters

Often times for a film to be seen or felt as similar to another film, the two will share major thematic elements, whether that be plot points, story structure, character developments, or even more broadly, genre. Having these core similarities help draw out more minor connections that could be missed otherwise. Yet somehow, despite Holy Motors and Man Bites Dog sharing very little in the characteristics mentioned, the two films succeed in being very similar to each other.

The plot lines for Holy Motors and Man Bites Dog are fairly removed from each other, the former being a mockumentary about a serial killer and the latter being a collection of performances being acted out by a man whose life seems to have been consumed by them. While the plot of these films vary quite a bit, the structure that the two are told in are very similar. In both films the audience is thrown into the life of a character they know nothing about but are quickly given looks into their bizarre lives. In Man Bites Dog, a unsuspecting man, Ben, stands riding on a train who then strangles a woman to death within the first minute of the film. The same man is then sitting next to a river, explaining how he is disposing of the body in detail to the camera.

Similarly in Holy Motors, the first introduction we have to Mr Oscar is that he is an apparently rich banker walking towards a stretch limosine, escorted by guards. Once he enters the limo, it is quickly revealed that he is in a costume and continues to change into a different costume and persona, and does so regularly throughout the film. Despite not knowing this trait initially for either character, and not having any sort of exposition as to why the characters are doing what they are, both are clearly laid out and have there far from ordinary lives establish.




The parallels between Ben and Mr. Oscar continue on throughout both films. Both are shown as very established and comfortable in performing the duties that they are required in doing. Neither show and sort of discomfort in their work and complete in as through it is something that they have been doing their entire lives, and also as something that is not at all out of the ordinary. Ben effortlessly kills people throughout the entire film while casually explaining his process to the camera as he does so. Mr. Oscar weaves through different characters both visually and emotionally, showing no attachment to a previous character within an scene through most of the film.

In addition to the character introductions and styles being structurally similar, both films overall structure are very similar in presentation. In both a world is presented that is far from ordinary for most viewers. While in the case of Holy Motors this world is changing dramatically from scene to scene, it still maintains a feeling of strage-ness. Despite having these abnormal tasks and events happening, the supporting characters around the main character never do anything to impede on the events taking place and actually take part in promoting them. In Holy Motors the limo driver is the vehicle for the mans oddities(no pun intended); she drives him to and from his "appointments" and also provides him with briefings on what is to be done at said appointments. The same can be said for the camera crew in Man Bites Dog. They are not only documenting what the serial killer is doing, but are eventually taking part in and assisting in his actions. While the influence of the camera crew on the events created by the main character are far greater towards the end of the film than that of the limo driver, they both carry essentially the same responsibility within the contexts of their story.

Memories - CS

All the Memories in the World is a very well put together film. Clips from hundreds of films with similar content are strung together to illustrate the narrative. It really makes one think about how much of our memories are that of film fiction. What is supposed to be entertainment sticks in our mind better than actual life events. We have to remember which memories are real and which occurred on screen. Sometimes that is difficult. Your brain can blur the real and the fiction together into a mess that all become life experiences.

This was online class I've taken that I have enjoyed the most. The video chats made this feel more like a class rather than just learning from an anonymous person on a computer. I enjoyed the films and it made me think about all the different ways metacinema can be used and the various purposed it has. I wish I would've had time to truly make the meta film I planned on making for this class, but now I'm inspired to make metacinematic work of my own.

Community, Society, and the Meta

              Community has never been a television show that has reached mass-appeal. When it was on NBC, it always seemed on the verge of being canceled. It has been said that the only thing that kept it on that network was a relatively small but vocal fan-base, who petitioned during every off season to bring Community back. How can a show with such vocal fans still stay out of the mainstream? This could partially be because the show would like to do “genre episodes.” Changing the cinematic style each week as an homage to a different film genre (zombie horror, western, documentary, to name a few). A new viewer tuning in for the first time might be confused and turned off by one of these “strange” episodes. Creating episodes to be in the style of different film genres is evidence that the show is self-aware on some level. It is using television to make a comment on film or the filmmaking process, aka metacinematic. But, even beyond the show’s high-concept, genre episodes, the more grounded episodes, centered around Greendale Community College, still use the ideas of metacinema to be humorous. Despite the low ratings, Community still had five seasons on a major broadcast network. This leads me to believe that there was a societal void for metatelevison because people were ready for shows that referenced an aspect of filmmaking or television.

                Before I get ahead of myself, it is worth noting the shows Community shared a programming block in its heyday: The Office and Parks and Recreation (both shows shot in a psudo-documentary style) and 30 Rock (a show about making a fictional television show). It appears that all the shows in this two-hour block reference film or television in some way, so Community was in good company. But why program this sudden influx of self-referential shows? For the answer we have to look at society. Vito Acconci writes in the 1990s “The TV consumer practices the roll of the TV producer. The means is the field of home-made video.” Back then home-made video was record on a VHS tape with a camcorder, but by 2009, when Community began its run, the home video creation and sharing had exploded in popularity. With the creation of YouTube and more affordable video equipment and editing software, average people started to create and share content. They had truly shifted from consumers of programming to the producers. Now that more people were familiar with how filmmaking works, they were ready for content that mirrors (or parodies) their experiences. Community functions on this theory.

                How exactly does Community function as metatelevision? To answer this, we will explore two episodes: “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples” from season two and “Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television” from season six. Both of these episodes heavily use meta to drive the plot of the episode or discuss the fate of the show.

                “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples” is about Abed, a film student, creating film about the life of Jesus. Because the story has been told to death, he claims that his film is the Jesus movie for the post-postmodern world. The idea is the filmmaker is Jesus and the cameras are God. 

 Abed is both the filmmaker and the star simultaneously. Abed calls it “Filmmaking beyond film.  A Meta film. My Masterpiece.” During shooting there seems to be specific scenes set up but if they become interrupted Abed goes with it. This process blurs the line between reality and the film which captivates the entire school.

Two students gossip: “I heard the film is the same backwards and forwards.” “I heard the scenes are the deleted scenes and the deleted scenes are the scenes.” These two quotes allude to the extra levels of thought that is involved with metacinema. The concepts of films played backwards or deleted scenes originated as film terms, and therefore, they connect the film back to the world of film at a fundamental level. Abed acts as though his film is omnipresent because the camera represents God. He is completely into his film until he sees a rough cut of it. In that moment he realizes that his film is a “self-indulgent, adolescent mess.” The phrase “self-indulgent” is often used to describe metacinema. Filmmakers making films about filmmakers making films seems to be the ultimate act of self-indulgency. Abed admits his film is film is crap but there was so much hype behind it that he had no choice but to finish it.

Shirley, who overheard Abed praying, took in on herself to destroy the hard drives with the footage to save Abed’s film career. His film then becomes one of the “great” lost films. Its legend is more powerful than the film ever would be.

“Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television” is the final episode of season six, which is possibly the final episode of Community. During this episode the characters “pitch” their ideas for “season seven” (playing into Abed’s habit of calling their years at Greendale seasons). 

 Abed begins with explaining their formula, which is acted out by the characters in a cutaway. The dialogue explains generically what the characters would say in one of their normal conversations and is quite accurate.  

After this, the other characters begin to pitch what they think would be the perfect season seven. Abed listens to each pitch but still thinks the seventh season is unlikely. He questions what show peaks after season six and is disappointed that his “show” has been hemorrhaging “characters” every year. (This is true because three of the original principal cast had left the show by this point.) 

Every line of dialogue that Abed says can be taken as direct commentary about the show Community. Abed works as a medium who the show’s creator, Dan Harmon, speaks directly to the audience though. The show is speaking for itself while not quite acknowledging that it is doing so. This episode works as metatelivision because it comments on how comments on how TV networks stifle creative control and use up a show to then toss it out. This was exactly the fate of Community. “Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television” brings the meta of the show so close to the surface that is nearly inverts itself and directly addresses the audience, but it stays true to its “formula” and stays meta.

Community’s small and loyal fan-base are exactly who this show is for. They are the section of society that can relate enough to its meta humor to not dismiss it. While the mainstream television audience might not be able to grasp all the concepts that the show puts forth, it will be noted as one of the great “cult” TV shows.

All the Memory in the World / Final thoughts on the class

All the Memory in the World is a great film to end on. There are countless examples of other films as the narrator, who deals with insomnia, tells his story. Every time the scene vignettes in or out, I feel like we are viewing as a camera would. Focusing on the whole subject and then drawing closer to individual parts of it. The narrator seems extremely creepy. His voice is monotone throughout the whole film. The narrator is also incredibly obsessed with images. It would be extremely hard to keep track of all the different images focused upon within the entirety of the film.  I like the fast paced style that we are given. It is very systematic, moving from one image to the next. Sometimes we are given a series of images in a row; well I guess the whole film is a series of images in a row now that I think about it. There are many superimpositions of images in order to tell the narrators story. The film really brings you to the same consciousness as the narrators. It does so with the pacing and editing styles. This is a film about thousands of films.

Now, as far as the course goes, I just want to say that I really enjoyed it. I was very much entertained with a lot of the films. Most of which, I would not have been exposed to had I not taken this course. This all was entirely new to me. I had not participated in a class like this before. I really enjoyed having our own special space on blogger to share thoughts and ideas. I feel like the most valuable part of the course, was our hangout sessions. During and after our hang sessions, I would start to look at the films in a way that had not come to me before. Sometimes I would go in not entirely understanding a film, and leave the session with a completely new understanding. Sometimes I would leave more confused than when I entered. Either way, I was still thinking about the films. After all, that is the point right? To develop some sort of new understanding. Or even to accept that somethings are to be misunderstood.  I also appreciated the texts shared, as those were very interesting as well. I think I will carry them with me through life. They definitely challenged my usual way of thinking. Which is important to me.

Well, it’s been real! Thank you for exposing me to some great films!

- Lynda Mouledoux

Final Post

For my final post, for many reasons, I would like to focus on the film Holy Motors. This film has stuck with me for the past few weeks. The film brings us into multiple different worlds, all while keeping us in one world. Because the film is so unrealistic, the unreal starts to seem real. Holy Motors brings us into a world without consequences. The film challenges our way of thinking and viewing the world.

The film starts in a dark theater. One thing to point out is that the audience eyes are actually closed. Which leads me to ask, who exactly is the intended audience? Are we? What world are we actually apart of? I would hope to have these questions answered. Although the film really does not leave us with any certainty whatsoever. Which is part of the reason why it is so great.

We dive into the movie. I almost forgot it was a film within a film. There are very few clues pointing to the fact that we are viewing a film within a film. One of them being, the audience in the beginning, of which all of them have there eyes closed. There is also a reminder every time the main character, Mr. Oscar, changes characters-- which I will dig into later. The third reminder comes into play when the boss visits Mr. Oscar in his limo. Olsen explains that the cameras have just gotten smaller over time. Even he may forget that he is acting for someone.

Every time the main character changes into a different character I do not question the reality of the situation. The costumes are great as well. Anyway—In Holy Motors, the unreal fades into the real. I did not question the reality of any situation, because I was already conditioned to expect the unreal. We are very much in a dream world. A world without consequence.  A world where Oscar can kill a man and jump back into the limo without any issue. We are the ones watching Mr. Oscars acting. As the film goes on, he seems to grow tired.

One of my favorite, and really most disturbing parts of the film is when Mr. Oscar is running in front of a CGI screen. He is three dimensional, but everything behind him is two-dimensional. That is, everything playing on the screen is two-dimensional. He is in a suit. The suit he is wearing is almost an elastic athletic suit, with little balls on it to detect motion. It is skintight. The whole atmosphere is very dark. His suit is black, the surrounding area is black. The only illuminated comes from the screen behind him. This was very much appealing to my eyes. It made me wonder, “What exactly is he doing?” Considering this was near the beginning of the film, I really had no idea what I was about to witness. He is running on this treadmill and ends up falling. After awhile, we witness a character change. He seems to change into a snake like creature mating with another snakelike creature. Which was extremely weird. It also set the tone for the film. There were going to be unrealistic things happening. But they are going to start feeling real.

Another crazy part of the film is when Mr. Oscar turns into a leprechaun monstrous creature. He runs through a public area and grabs a lady to take with him down to the dumpster. Before grabbing the lady, he bites the fingers off some innocent bystander. Why did this have to happen? This part was deeply disturbing for me because, well, who does that? The monster seemed relatively harmless after that. He then changes characters into a man playing the bagpipes. We watch him march and play music with other men. There was absolutely no consequence to his action.

One thing that I have mentioned in a previous post is that “the camera acts like an accomplice.” Would the actor be doing all of these things if it were not for the camera? No, probably not. He is doing these things for an intended audience. Although it may not be clear whom that intended audience is.

Another part in the film worth noting is when Mr. Oscar plays a young girls father. He picks up this girl from one of her friend’s houses. He asks her if she had enjoyed herself. She says yes and basically lies about everything. The father catches her in this lie and is very upset. This has to be one of the most “real” scenes in the Holy Motors. Perhaps it seems real because I can relate to it. I have lied to my father before and I have been scolded for it. But Mr. Oscar was almost offended that his daughter would lie to her. This is when we really start to see the toll that the rolls Oscar has played are taking on him. Mr. Oscar is growing tired. He explains to his daughter, well the character that he is playing daughter that she will need to be punished. He asks her if she would do it again if she knew that she would not get caught. She says yes, she probably would. He then drops her off at her mother’s house. She asks him about her punishment. He responds, “Your punishment, my poor Angèle, is to be you. To have to live with yourself.”

Just when things start to almost seem normal, they change abruptly. The only constant in this film is the limo. WE have no idea who the main character is. Who exactly is the main character? It seems to be a big mystery. His true self really isn’t revealed. Maybe the closest reveal we have is of him and the limo driver sharing a laugh. Even at the end of the film, we are led to believe he is going home to his family, when in actuality he is just playing another role. He ends up going home to a family of gorillas. This is how Holy Motors messes with expectations. Just when I thought that we would be given closure I was proved wrong. But, I think it is great in that way. The film challenges our way of thinking and viewing things.

ATMITW + Final Thoughts

Since we focused on a lot of narrative metacinema in this class, it is nice to end with a big experimental piece, to show metacinema in a different mode of filmmaking. Mike Olenick’s All The Memory In The World is a fantastical ode to image making and images themselves. Olenick focuses on using a lot of popular cinema to do the heavy lifting, editing hundreds of movies together into a cohesive piece focusing on the camera’s ability to capture life. The narrator uses a creepy drawl to relate a hundred years worth of image making in the hour and fifteen minutes of ATMITW.

The film focuses heavily on photography for most of its runtime, showing us darkrooms, studios, framed photographs, and photobooks full of memories. The narrator muses over the nature of memory and captured images with thick vignetted scenes from movies. The vingettes focus us onto certain aspects of the moving images, usually photographs, while emulating a spotlight, or the circle of the lens.

Many of the films are recognizable, a few are ones we viewed for this class (Peeping Tom makes a couple of appearances). This serves to take context away from the films, reveling in their artifice. We are viewing photographs on a screen, from a movies, cut into another movie, vignetted and with voice over. However, even while removing them from context, a lot of the film are about memory and loss, so it works double.

I found Olenick’s Travolta piece to be a bit more fun, really examining an actor and using his roles to tell a completely different existential story. Both of them remind me a lot of the curators and editors over at Everything Is Terrible (www.everythingisterrible.com) who similarly re-edit and re-purpose old footage to different ends. Olenick feels like Everything is Terrible with a thesis.

• As for the class, I thought that all the films we watched were pretty essential. I am now a big fan of Wim Wenders. However, I thought the works that spoke to me most and were doing the most interesting things were the experimental works, like the television pieces and especially The Eternal Frame. While narrative meta-cinema is great, I thought the experimental meta-cinema was much more fascinating (I’m including Holy Motors in the experimental category). The readings were a bit dense, but also fascinating once their codes were cracked, LARGELY due to the online meetings we had. While those are hard to coordinate, I think they offer an extremely helpful resource for an online class, and an invaluable amount of help for dissecting these films.

The Act of Killing

The power the cinema has on individuals around the world has been well documented. Hollywood’s mass media machine has pushed American ideals over every continent, giving outsiders a glimpse into American lifestyles. Of course, these lifestyles are a fabrication; a simulacra of an America that glorifies crime and gangsters, like in noir films; or an idealistic United States of America: propaganda powered by capitalistic and nationalistic tendencies meant to generate revenue, like in Hollywood Westerns. These ideas manifest themselves in both docile and disturbing ways, fundamentally changing people’s behavior in nearly every country American films reach.

Joshua Oppenheimer focuses on an individual who loves American cinema in his 2012 documentary The Act of Killing. The film follows Indonesian ‘politician’ Anwar Congo. Oppenheimer lets the movie unfold without narration, historical background, or context, letting Congo and his gang of lackies reveal themselves to the camera. We quickly learn about Congo’s past as the leader of a death squad, in Indonesia’s covered up 1965 genocide. Congo decides he wants to make a movie, like the American’s do, about what he sees as his grand achievements. Oppenheimer follows them during the making of their movie, a behind the scenes look at a mass murders vanity project.

The process echoes executive producer and documentary filmmaker Errol Morris’s style of truth-bending, with a love of recreations. The recreations in Killing however differ from Morris’ dramatized reenactments, in that Congo and his crew do it themselves, fully reveling in the atrocities they committed. In the beginning of the film, Oppenheimer and Congo go to a rooftop where Congo brags about choking a man to death in the very spot where they stand. Congo plays himself and eagerly acts out the murder for the cameras, keeping an eye on historical and physical accuracy. Anwar Congo is celebrated as a national hero in Indonesia, he believes he did a great service for his country and sees no wrong in his murder.

In a strange coincidence, Congo used to work at a movie theater that showed American films, selling tickets outside of the theater to make money with his gang before his rise. He speaks of American films in high regard. Congo likes to indulge in acts he thinks an American style gangster would: fancy suits, lavish meals, and ‘creative’ murder. His job at the theater is directly and economically connected to his hate of communists; as they began to ban American films, Congo and his gang started to make less money from scalping tickets outside the theater. As his sidekick says “Without (Hollywood movies), we gangsters made less money.” Perhaps without realizing it, these men have added a symbolic power to Hollywood film in addition to the films themselves. Congo walks and talks about leaving an Elvis movie, happy and catcalling, when he crosses the street to a paramilitary office where he regularly murdered Communists, he says “it was like we were killing happily.”

Anwar Congo mostly is entranced by the spectacle of American film. As Guy Debord states in The Society of the Spectacle, spectacle is “a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” Congo loves the spectacle so much, he decides his film must also have the same idea of spectacle behind it. There are dance numbers with a giant fish statue, a song about freedom where Congo is awarded a medal, and perhaps the most harrowing and challenging scene in Killing, a depiction of a town of Communists being raped and pillaged. All of the actors who participate in the latter’s destruction seem willing at first. Happy to be a part of a ‘great film’, and the men acting as the pillagers think this will be a fun scene to film. Intercut with Congo sleeping, these may be the demons that Congo repeatedly tells Oppenheimer haunt his dreams, causing him to lose sleep. It’s a disgusting simulacra of the crimes these men created. When the director finally yells cut, many people, including the children they used as extras are mentally distraught. The killers and rapists playing themselves even are put off by the realistic representation of what they have done. “Film stars only cry for a moment.” Herman Koto, Congo’s partner, tells his daughter. The ambient field recording nature of the sound in this scene detaches, yet enhances the dread. Debord says that “The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond dispute. All it says is: ‘Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear.’” The Act of Killing turns this on its head. In Anwar Congo’s pursuit of the spectacle, he reveals his acts true nature, the awful guilt begins to consume him from the inside. Re-enacting these events has a therapeutic effect on Congo, finally allowing himself to accept the atrocious crimes he committed.

This culminates in Congo being tortured himself for the movie, after being blindfolded and whipped, he has a mental breakdown. He shows symptoms for shock: faintness, confusion, and chest pain. He’s barely able to move and talk. The scene is a stereotypical gangster interrogation scene, uninteresting and gauche, but Congo feels it as something else. The simulation of interrogation breaks him. What fantasies he used to have about filmic gangsters are having their revenge on his psyche. These simulations are what really opens Congo’s eyes. Jean Baudrillard examines this idea simulation in his work Simulation and Simulacra. Congo doesn’t realize he is not just being “interrogated” by Herman Koto acting, he is also being interrogated by the simulation of the interrogation. Congo isn’t feigning his ignorance to what he has done, he is a simulated nation hero. As this unravels, he sees the truth behind what he has done.

Oppenheimer builds to this in interesting ways. He regularly lets the behind the scenes footage of Congo’s scenes cut directly to Congo watching them back on his television in his home. His reactions start out joyful; he is pleased with himself and his creative talent. As he continues making his film, the more he seems disenchanted with it. He begins to build scenes into the movie to deal with his guilt, like the interrogation scene mentioned above, and a scene where his decapitated head is taunted by spirits.

Only through the process of filmmaking is Anwar Congo able to reconcile with the genocide he has committed. Influenced and nurtured by American cinema, he is deluded into glorifying a lifestyle without realizing the consequences of his actions. One of the last scenes in The Act of Killing is Congo returning to the rooftop from earlier in the movie. Just being present in the location is enough to bring Congo to the ground, lurching and belching out whatever evil still resides in him. “I know it was wrong,” he says “but I had to do it.”

Contempt

The word contempt is defined as a feeling that someone or something is not worthy of any respect or approval and also the state of being despised. Contempt the film, written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard uses the title as a device for graphing the plot of the story. This strategy begins to open the door on the satirical drama between the characters relationships in the film.

The opening scene where Camille and Paul are lying in bed together and she questions if he loves every part of her body details their relationship and builds irony for what unravels later in the film. Also this exchange of what part of her body does he like best has some undertones that speak directly to how a woman's body is objectified. Small lines of dialogue from this scene from Camille such as, “gently Paul not so hard” creates the notion that Paul was deeply expressing his love and affection towards Camille with a kiss that was exposing that Paul can’t contain his lust for Camille, because they are in love.   

Tensions arises between the couple after Paul neglects his wife. This scenario is reflective of the story within the film.

A theory form Fritz Lang about the Greek tragedy The Odyssey heavily relates to the status of Paul and Camille and how Contempt is a film with similar connotations.  

“They always said that Penelope went back to Ulysses but maybe deep down Ulysses had gotten really fed up with Penelope. That’s why he did the Trojan war and he no longer felt like going home, and he made his trip as long as possible discussing mans fate. He used the Trojan war to get away from his wife. Penelope despised him because the husband was seemingly not being possessive of her.

She discovered that she stopped loving him because of Ulysses conduct.”

It’s evident in the film that Camille was expressing similar longing for possessiveness from Paul. The back and forth bickering over going to Capri, Camille’s irritability over being around the American Producer (a suitor) , Paul taking on a challenging job (assuming absence), are all moments that clarify that the film is an artistic expression on another version of how The Odyssey could be interpreted.

“Even in our relationships with those we love, you aspire to a world like in Homers. You want it to exist but unfortunately it doesn’t, why not?”

This quote from Paul towards the end of the film is complex and foreshadows the confusing state he is endearing. If it were a world of Homers, one where you could kill your wife’s suitors would it really be a better world?

Earlier in the film this quote comes up, I think it is from Fritz Lang but I am not certain.

 “A Greek Tragedy was negative in that it made man a victim of fate as

Embodied by the gods, who abandoned him to his hopeless destiny. Man can rebel against things that are bad, that are false, he must rebel when were trapped by circumstance, conventions. But I don’t think murder is a solution. Crimes of passion serve no purpose. I’m in love with a woman. She cheats on me. I kill her.

So what do I have left, I lost the only love because she died, if I kill her lover, she hates me and I still lose her love. Killing can never be a solution.”

This quote is very ironic to how the film concluded. The producer and Camille died together in a very cinematic car crash.

Camille and her anti-damsel in distress attitude while still eluding to the classic females role in film to be beautiful and stunning expresses how Godard was trying to reconstruct how women are to be and behave in film. Bardot is often used as a sex symbol in films but in Contempt it feels her character is exposing herself on her own terms not for male figures in the film. She swears, smokes, and isn't afraid of leaving her husband, shes living her life on her own terms. I loved Camille's style all throughout the film. Her hair was a perfect balance of messy and chic.  Seriously, that's some iconic style. 

There were many eye catching shots of Bardot almost to the point of it being completely and obviously unnecessary. The aesthetic of the shots using CinemaScope allowed for the apartment to become a character in the film as well, and had me feeling a little like a fly on the wall capturing a mundane personal conflict between the intimate couple.  The simple white walls and symbolic contrasting details like the red couch and towel are commenting on French culture. Exploring and theorizing on why human relationships churn and burn and why it is worthy of making a film about makes me more attuned to the interactions I have with people and culture on a daily basis. 

------My favorite shot------