tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92022389915463399432024-03-28T20:29:36.616-07:00The Lesser Feat"It is not expected of critics as it is of poets that they should help us to make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives." Frank KermodeJames MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-7172596010327032702019-01-08T17:30:00.002-08:002019-08-12T05:51:15.293-07:00Vlogging and Aesthetics: YouTube as an emergent 'artworld'<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7lds9lzoJyFnbKjcER6bi_DTbA7KrudmTpvI1UXVwOKjE4rUB9FRnjIfzSsJXptI7FLFH9gF762KkL3wUQ6mpoQ2xBo8CBT3f6xx07zXE0gDmWIaZpeblIDgVg4t4nfdXmtBKbegbCmk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-01-06+at+17.56.55.png"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7lds9lzoJyFnbKjcER6bi_DTbA7KrudmTpvI1UXVwOKjE4rUB9FRnjIfzSsJXptI7FLFH9gF762KkL3wUQ6mpoQ2xBo8CBT3f6xx07zXE0gDmWIaZpeblIDgVg4t4nfdXmtBKbegbCmk/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-01-06+at+17.56.55.png" width="400" /></a> </div>
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<br />
I've submitted the following proposal for the 2019 <i>Screen</i> conference; we'll see if they like it:<br />
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<br />
Today,
the first questions that scholars of screen media ask about any new
audiovisual technology or form may not necessarily be primarily
aesthetic. For instance – the most pressing questions about forms like
vlogging, or platforms like YouTube, have not been: do they facilitate
new types of art? Or: what expressive properties must, for example, a vlog possess in order to be
profitably interpreted and evaluated as an artwork? On YouTube itself, however, such
questions <i>are</i> increasingly being contemplated – by
content creators themselves.<br />
<br />
Producing a rapidly evolving
array of genres and stylistic conventions, vlogging on YouTube has also
been giving rise to lively meta-critical debates amongst creators and
video-essayists, who are addressing the question: “What does 'YouTube
art’ look like?” I will survey the style of a variety of vlogs, as well as
some aesthetic discourses used in discussion of them by creators and
commentators. I will close by addressing a<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfsbKmAcL2w"> video essay</a> by the YouTuber Sarah Zedig, from which the
question quoted above (and the above image) is taken. A
thoughtful critical reflection on another popular trans YouTuber,
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNvsIonJdJ5E4EXMa65VYpA">ContraPoints</a>, I suggest that it is indicative of the current emergence
of a YouTube-centred aesthetic community, or what Arthur Danto might
term a developing vernacular '<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2022937?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">artworld</a>'<a href="http://./">.</a><br />
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James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-22696837366520472902019-01-08T17:28:00.001-08:002019-03-22T17:23:54.460-07:00YouTube Activism or YouTube Art?<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLsf6MAXqeYsLUlCID4QOVhLI8dvu47l5_OJsvKlu6WgUxTWaqM6tlrKDoaztW3XBKRtUqmO2LJ_O2C7gDypvV0lxBg8u2UPIcH6Uk639kKpl0PTILw8jurM6vKLTJ441w0DF4AqJFwB8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-01-09+at+01.39.21.png" imageanchor="1" style="text-align: start;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLsf6MAXqeYsLUlCID4QOVhLI8dvu47l5_OJsvKlu6WgUxTWaqM6tlrKDoaztW3XBKRtUqmO2LJ_O2C7gDypvV0lxBg8u2UPIcH6Uk639kKpl0PTILw8jurM6vKLTJ441w0DF4AqJFwB8/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-01-09+at+01.39.21.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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I'm very pleased to have written a little post about YouTube, aesthetics and the YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ContraPoints">ContraPoints</a> over at <i><a href="http://mediacommons.org/imr/">In Media Res</a> </i>for their week themed around ‘Online
Influencers’. The main purpose of the entry is to introduce a fantastic video essay/meditation on ‘YouTube art’ and trans activism by the YouTuber <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjSJq8eE73nCc9mtSMkNh6g">Sarah Zedig</a>, from which the above image comes.<br />
<br />
You can read it <a href="http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/youtube-activism-or-youtube-art">here</a><span id="goog_1114605456"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1114605457"></span>; it opens like this:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuI4Jdu70cHI02tZBKfGBIGyjUttgEWw3cgd8pdgRjTAelQCo7-xpChpMMAwQuyx2TZ6uyjOWsQ3URnZ8he1Gl9uvGtF9_cM_orC2OoX3gyAiediHoUUVr9K8gop8s_arD3sLXWNOuf-M/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-01-09+at+01.43.09.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuI4Jdu70cHI02tZBKfGBIGyjUttgEWw3cgd8pdgRjTAelQCo7-xpChpMMAwQuyx2TZ6uyjOWsQ3URnZ8he1Gl9uvGtF9_cM_orC2OoX3gyAiediHoUUVr9K8gop8s_arD3sLXWNOuf-M/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-01-09+at+01.43.09.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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<br />James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-28614795098582825992019-01-08T17:17:00.001-08:002019-01-08T17:36:17.968-08:00YouTube Aesthetics and YouTube Art<div style="text-align: center;">
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A couple of slides from a lecture I gave recently on the Film Aesthetics module at Warwick, which give some sense of a new strand of research I'm tentatively pursuing:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCPYbGrVEMhhjSV7n_NXee6H80eN7jkJDqYewPFUjdhuF4OfqGC6iYjcW6dojH-u5jQuNeeh3a6E75Uxb9wEHvlAJ4SDdipk0PTR4Ng3Fa9haVOvEVuBQSEXNKtObuXS1WftDsOgcDgKE/s1600/+1+11.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCPYbGrVEMhhjSV7n_NXee6H80eN7jkJDqYewPFUjdhuF4OfqGC6iYjcW6dojH-u5jQuNeeh3a6E75Uxb9wEHvlAJ4SDdipk0PTR4Ng3Fa9haVOvEVuBQSEXNKtObuXS1WftDsOgcDgKE/s400/+1+11.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyp4VZL33ssjEd5Ayf-96OhHG6XHvEEWN-hUk1FV3QsN4bf1dPv8DRsKE0kC3DYnP9AlkxtpkfzWBtj7246i9js6LOzKZBRrO54tb1zMZedF4GoZcyStNWheWf1pjEDbbcXWx6D6lknM/s1600/+12.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyp4VZL33ssjEd5Ayf-96OhHG6XHvEEWN-hUk1FV3QsN4bf1dPv8DRsKE0kC3DYnP9AlkxtpkfzWBtj7246i9js6LOzKZBRrO54tb1zMZedF4GoZcyStNWheWf1pjEDbbcXWx6D6lknM/s400/+12.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_n3dGz0gky7vRThwMX15kFeykgMrRwrhseAdHs33GvTIEuQt7r-DhkhsBK2R5SqJ91ZLv3eERU9qhvAkH2gvZ55tSMZWNTCNoyDbXQXrKaybIjYfpz26uDSAlk43PTeD4ShPAj2p0efw/s1600/+13.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_n3dGz0gky7vRThwMX15kFeykgMrRwrhseAdHs33GvTIEuQt7r-DhkhsBK2R5SqJ91ZLv3eERU9qhvAkH2gvZ55tSMZWNTCNoyDbXQXrKaybIjYfpz26uDSAlk43PTeD4ShPAj2p0efw/s400/+13.png" width="400" /></a>James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-33425726923964681912017-08-24T06:00:00.004-07:002017-08-24T07:10:44.442-07:00An idle theory about Twin Peaks: The Return...<br />
...Regarding the mysterious character 'Judy', who was first mentioned by Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) in <i>Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me</i> (1992),<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCS3tP2hIW1g-VULoRbEDx8mkZMFTfDXeVI8sjttpS4P9tmfRH9vJL4XjTmiIjYd4w-QIy0G-d9mqYFdrsenrLGL1-tYgifpr7rjq9VVg9omlYSsn4R4QeZiIH_5yFVAThb88HHL0vCAA/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h41m15s459.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCS3tP2hIW1g-VULoRbEDx8mkZMFTfDXeVI8sjttpS4P9tmfRH9vJL4XjTmiIjYd4w-QIy0G-d9mqYFdrsenrLGL1-tYgifpr7rjq9VVg9omlYSsn4R4QeZiIH_5yFVAThb88HHL0vCAA/s400/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h41m15s459.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
...and whose identity is still confounding Cooper's doppelgänger in Episode 15 of Twin Peaks: The Return (2017):<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPesTPRxebU5_68L-P5SzMW82K8-IgLl8ULLS7WU3l1D6lD83w4oXJVLPR7QemsB8JIlBZk51Yi8bSvsJLt9s3eqv67hvUzg9xdtSBpOxKsO7huHqL09Kw90wS9EC3n-LO4lYV9ENHrww/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h41m35s459.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPesTPRxebU5_68L-P5SzMW82K8-IgLl8ULLS7WU3l1D6lD83w4oXJVLPR7QemsB8JIlBZk51Yi8bSvsJLt9s3eqv67hvUzg9xdtSBpOxKsO7huHqL09Kw90wS9EC3n-LO4lYV9ENHrww/s400/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h41m35s459.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
Given that Jeffries tells Cooper...<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6olBW3gMKGCUGpCahF1TZbSBiFvKtwzGuvBvm4v1W4LbSzwWRA9ep0FE6m-OMXY-gB_i46u7ur_ggH_VE0TyX6ColLiy7Ox7WkwHI_-JvqK6a5n5NxKvaijkYmHTrrUIliLsns2sxpjU/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-13h25m29s901.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6olBW3gMKGCUGpCahF1TZbSBiFvKtwzGuvBvm4v1W4LbSzwWRA9ep0FE6m-OMXY-gB_i46u7ur_ggH_VE0TyX6ColLiy7Ox7WkwHI_-JvqK6a5n5NxKvaijkYmHTrrUIliLsns2sxpjU/s400/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-13h25m29s901.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
...And given that Cooper has just encountered this figure outside...<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-yoSsPxn6V4ZFb5mvn3lSxSKK0GigPsy321cqG0HWXGhGy0srVQuu546KYz5tVpET9dU7y9SG-NfuUAo6SnfxdezoyhE79_DrqDFIFRVDoWEx9wL2Uvbna96_JM90jcR8Pq4xo6cVR3s/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h40m19s814.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-yoSsPxn6V4ZFb5mvn3lSxSKK0GigPsy321cqG0HWXGhGy0srVQuu546KYz5tVpET9dU7y9SG-NfuUAo6SnfxdezoyhE79_DrqDFIFRVDoWEx9wL2Uvbna96_JM90jcR8Pq4xo6cVR3s/s400/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h40m19s814.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtDVSniXzpbz-H7oh4jA2mKP0eyIbX56qHj8WCUhn2V1SejrCz0ppnFQMqQMBVOrgdO96c6Jkp4isk1I7JxPXgdHxyrHLElTtWnypnu887OMz9P1uhZs2NIAgCGzjewTyaXkkFyUteN6c/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h40m27s117.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtDVSniXzpbz-H7oh4jA2mKP0eyIbX56qHj8WCUhn2V1SejrCz0ppnFQMqQMBVOrgdO96c6Jkp4isk1I7JxPXgdHxyrHLElTtWnypnu887OMz9P1uhZs2NIAgCGzjewTyaXkkFyUteN6c/s400/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h40m27s117.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJmj9iF5FNVS0T12DtWZEOOmZdzQlU6YwXkJghXEnLSPKwOverEblA_-0-V9DxJbq5-ltsbooL1Gn1lOZiwcbBet8fuQEEwg2sic7aE4xr2RR73rgw3o0RuwZ7DF8qrOUK1aoE6qMkq4/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h39m55s266.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJmj9iF5FNVS0T12DtWZEOOmZdzQlU6YwXkJghXEnLSPKwOverEblA_-0-V9DxJbq5-ltsbooL1Gn1lOZiwcbBet8fuQEEwg2sic7aE4xr2RR73rgw3o0RuwZ7DF8qrOUK1aoE6qMkq4/s400/vlcsnap-2017-08-24-12h39m55s266.png" width="400" /></a><br />
...Could this woman be Judy?<br />
<br />
Furthermore, could this woman/Judy be Mrs. Tremond?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwiSNpQoX3SgVJ72ec-VYjEsUaYubgYm2uRvtCPWjV8Vf-_LWawrALrKjGFuLDRXynXAqoYwc0QjsySCe1x0FXak47dqdntW3F3nHWS1mB795Bqp1u3tZPeymrLSsN5TO9ML1odlxOefk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+12.38.31.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwiSNpQoX3SgVJ72ec-VYjEsUaYubgYm2uRvtCPWjV8Vf-_LWawrALrKjGFuLDRXynXAqoYwc0QjsySCe1x0FXak47dqdntW3F3nHWS1mB795Bqp1u3tZPeymrLSsN5TO9ML1odlxOefk/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+12.38.31.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
She is a character who has links with the Black Lodge...<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEpgvxFfrcNTqVUVkiIw0MnuQKuitCSLMWZuGmEFvLZWQ-MqETRnbEbE2ZPRxrk0yeiKoTz2JYDkNlWEpnK-ku7uE3wMYSkIBwZOnswwjYBN_2gEaWXzEuDqWdGXebLR1Fju7o6V8gpAU/s1600/screenfirewalk6.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEpgvxFfrcNTqVUVkiIw0MnuQKuitCSLMWZuGmEFvLZWQ-MqETRnbEbE2ZPRxrk0yeiKoTz2JYDkNlWEpnK-ku7uE3wMYSkIBwZOnswwjYBN_2gEaWXzEuDqWdGXebLR1Fju7o6V8gpAU/s640/screenfirewalk6.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
...is not infrequently seen in a dressing gown:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqndNjqGgMY0Yq8-c_3SG-OJxkpGOn06PoQ1cw4XJD9srjxYqIhh1VHErvSDgob8xkwkryCbG8jlrUO-3g63vIViR0vyWGc7nh7pqBLr6OI2Q4caJldDNR0MjX7jwkTki2y_3p0RlgWM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.36.13.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqndNjqGgMY0Yq8-c_3SG-OJxkpGOn06PoQ1cw4XJD9srjxYqIhh1VHErvSDgob8xkwkryCbG8jlrUO-3g63vIViR0vyWGc7nh7pqBLr6OI2Q4caJldDNR0MjX7jwkTki2y_3p0RlgWM/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.36.13.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
...and sometimes ushers characters through doorways:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPec3sSEdf9xsKqWqFl4McZuRMxzqB60XBeSKfg1B1UJm77WK2aNTjJP3ikejmeTj3R5Ch4HeORBXxd2gwKOp2qO88JslsHnM9DeFCNPG4jO4HMkrbBbCEvkdEdNHyABDUB55_L6f9gN0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.07.32.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPec3sSEdf9xsKqWqFl4McZuRMxzqB60XBeSKfg1B1UJm77WK2aNTjJP3ikejmeTj3R5Ch4HeORBXxd2gwKOp2qO88JslsHnM9DeFCNPG4jO4HMkrbBbCEvkdEdNHyABDUB55_L6f9gN0/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.07.32.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
...And a further theory (courtesy of my partner Fiona): could Mrs. Tremond be the girl from New Mexico in 1956?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoYxA1v-_NNhzZtC7RLN2PLnRC-37M4SJHz_KYWLjI68BAKA8BKKEMaKXZEZxe52l8qPLukWv9vUydq_Vh5at-6CWM71_tuvfFJwivTcE1aq6BGpzLhYPS35GZsxGQNQy0np4kzgRTDlo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.09.37.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoYxA1v-_NNhzZtC7RLN2PLnRC-37M4SJHz_KYWLjI68BAKA8BKKEMaKXZEZxe52l8qPLukWv9vUydq_Vh5at-6CWM71_tuvfFJwivTcE1aq6BGpzLhYPS35GZsxGQNQy0np4kzgRTDlo/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.09.37.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
...who (in Episode 8) is 'impregnated' with the creature?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWIs-myZ6Te9uquTFMgM8dzWphDLRsiH5Kh4cO-QZ9ij9jYWSr-AdIyGw9VzFNYTiW2Q9mbKvVm7K4952TPoWhktH-m8uYedLrMy_W_-Oq8mQI3LHV8sjFcfqe3MrY-mq3Q85dssj9N18/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.08.13.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWIs-myZ6Te9uquTFMgM8dzWphDLRsiH5Kh4cO-QZ9ij9jYWSr-AdIyGw9VzFNYTiW2Q9mbKvVm7K4952TPoWhktH-m8uYedLrMy_W_-Oq8mQI3LHV8sjFcfqe3MrY-mq3Q85dssj9N18/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-08-24+at+13.08.13.png" width="400" /></a>James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-72112743437265978262015-04-14T11:04:00.001-07:002019-01-18T04:22:26.112-08:00Intention and InterpretationIn <i>A Rhetoric of Irony</i>, Wayne Booth uses a distinction (which he credits to<i> </i>'the hermeneutic tradition' in philosophy) between a text's ‘meaning’ and its ‘significance’; he is, he explains,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
relegating to "significance" all of the indefinitely extendable interpretations that works might be given by individuals or societies pursuing their own interests unchecked by intentions. (1974: 19)</blockquote>
This captures well for me a distinction between instances of critical writing (especially those attempting to make value-claims) that I think are worthwhile or convincing, and those that I might find diverting, but finally consider insubstantial, or indulgent, or at least unconvincing-as-criticism.* If it is to constitute an attempt to grasp a text's <i>meaning</i>, rather than its <i>significance</i>, I think that an interpretation must appear to find some justification in what we can reasonably hypothesise are the text's intentions. While it will forever remain true that even the best hypotheses may turn out to be wrong, I would suggest that it nevertheless remains the critic's responsibility to attempt - in the first instance - this best hypothesis as far as is possible. Of course, one needn't stop there, and there are many reasons why we may often want to take into account significance <i>as well as</i> meaning; nonetheless, one also probably shouldn't start anywhere else.<br />
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*That is to say: while it strikes me as uninteresting as criticism, it may seem useful and convincing as an example of something else: political/media critique or philosophy, for instance, or simply a record of how an interesting writer's analytical mind works. James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-54158445307458820402015-04-14T06:11:00.001-07:002019-01-18T04:24:43.500-08:00Irony and Reason<br />
<style>' </style><style> </style><span style="color: black;">"On
the one hand, one <i>wants to say </i></span><span style="color: black;">that
Western reason has been used to domesticate, subordinate and tyrannise its
others, but such a judgement also employs the very sense of reason and properly
universal justice it would deny." (Claire Colebrook, <i>Irony</i> 2004: 165)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">One potential response to this state of affairs is to abandon, or consider somehow tainted, the activity of critiquing tryanny and the accompanying need to fight for a more just world, since one cannot do so without recourse to concepts and values about which one is suspicious. This route, sometimes favoured by critical theory, has the ring of radicalism, but it is also comforting, since it effectively relieves one of the responsibilities of commitment: if all affirmative positions are equally tainted, why should we pursue any? </span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black;">Another possible response is to take from this ironic state of affairs the lesson that it is not the concepts of reason and justice themselves that are at fault, but rather merely too many of their applications in practice; this is the more challenging route, since it starts one on the path of having to examine individual cases where 'reason' and 'justice' might be needed, rather than denouncing the ideas bankrupt in all cases. This, though, is surely the necessary starting point for any practical and effective forms of moral and political commitment.</span>
James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-9409556175176187192013-03-11T14:38:00.001-07:002013-04-05T06:22:21.975-07:00Value, Intention, and the Aesthetics of 'So Bad It's Good'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p>Below is a version of the paper I delivered last week at SCMS 2013, on the panel 'So Bad It's Good' (alongside excellent talks by Richard McCulloch, Nessa Johnston, and Phil Oppenheim). It is based on a much longer, currently unpublished piece I have co-authored with <a href="http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/film-studies/staff/james-zborowski.aspx">James Zborowski</a>.</o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p>- James MacDowell</o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Firstly, a word about ‘bad’. I won’t here be using ‘bad’ to mean media
that is simply ‘critically disreputable’ or offends ‘mainstream tastes’.
Instead, my focus is specifically aesthetic artifacts valued for their <i>incompetence:
</i>what in film studies is often called ‘badfilm’ (Sconce 1995). I will indeed
be largely focusing on film in what follows, though I hope my ideas might also
have broader application.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">What I will suggest today is that media widely praised for being ‘so bad
it’s good’ is capable of prompting a revitalization of two very old, but vital,
questions for aesthetics – specifically, value and intention – and not
necessarily in the manner we might usually imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Let’s start with intention…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Intention<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Of course, artistic intention is a subject that has been granted short
shrift in the last 60 years or so of the humanities. In his introduction to a
recent special issue of the journal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nonsite</i>,
Charles Palermo, for instance, recounts a familiar narrative of intention’s
conceptual sidelining.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u> </u></b>He
begins with Wimsatt’s and Beardsley’s infamous ‘The Intentional Fallacy’ in
1946; proceeds through Barthes’s ‘The Death of the Author,’ and Michel
Foucault’s ‘What is an Author?’, via Derrida and de Man, going on to say that,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">If one adds […] developments in structuralism, semiotics,
reader-response theory and hermeneutics, the effect is of something like a
broad and general effort to minimize or eliminate reference to authorial
intention in the practice of interpretation. (2012: 1)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Emerging during the last couple decades, scholarship on so-called ‘cult’
or ‘paracinematic’ texts – which includes those viewed as ‘so bad they’re good’
– has in some way epitomized this trend. And initially, this would seem to make
absolute sense. As Mathijs and Mendik put it in their book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cult Cinema Reader</i>:<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">‘while traditional fandom remains largely respectful to a film’s
interpretive integrity, [cult fandom will often] involve challenges to its
interpretation [by] imbuing it with meanings that may counter its intentions’
(2008: 5)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We can agree that the phenomenon of audiences enjoying, say, films for
their apparent badness demonstrates their ability to read texts in ‘unintended’
ways. Yet we should also acknowledge what this phenomenon makes equally clear:
how fundamental assumptions about intention are to this very process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Indeed, mentions of intention tacitly haunt a number of canonical
discussions of cult. Susan Sontag’s ‘Notes on “Camp”’, for instance, distinguishes
between naïve and deliberate Camp, arguing that ‘pure Camp is always naïve.
Camp which knows itself to be Camp (“camping”) is usually less satisfying’
(Sontag 1966: 282). In his important piece ‘Trashing the Academy’, Jeffrey
Sconce writes that badfilm viewers take pleasure in a ‘deviance born, more
often than not, from the systematic failure of a film aspiring to <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">obey<i> </i></span>dominant codes of
cinematic representation’ (Sconce 1995: 385).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Having touched upon intention, however, such accounts tend not to make
it a central term in their debates. Yet, the reason it needs to be touched on
at all is that appreciating a cultural artifact as ‘So bad it’s good’
fundamentally requires the presumption that a text’s original intentions have
been discerned. As Allison Graham says, speaking of Ed Wood’s films: ‘It is the
appearance of Wood’s intentions that so engages cult audiences – the perceived
distance [...] between his desire to create compelling narratives and his
inability to do so’ (Graham 1991: 109). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Because it demands this kind of engagement, I claim that – far from
adding fuel to the theoretical sidelining of intention – ‘so bad it’s good’
culture requires us to revisit a fundamental aesthetic problem: how can we
presume to infer artistic intention, given that we necessarily <i>do </i>so
regularly? (See, for instance, Gibbs [1999] for an extended treatise on the
argument that <span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">‘</span>the
recovery of communicative intentions is an essential part of the cognitive
processes that operate when we understand human action of any sort’ [1999:
3-4]).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Before addressing that question, though, let’s first move on to value. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Value<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Of course, the quest for objective evaluations of art has often been
dismissed as futile. In 1957 Northrop Frye wrote that<i> </i>‘the demonstrable
value-judgement is the donkey’s carrot of literary criticism,’ and yet it
‘always turns out to be an illusion of the history of taste’ (1957: 20). Again,
as with intention, such conceptions of the ultimate instability of artistic
value have often accompanied cult studies. The phenomenon of ‘so bad it’s good’
appreciation is thus frequently viewed through just such relativist approaches
to value, and thus often accompanied by claims like Mathijis’ to the effect
that ‘when bad films are hailed – tongue in cheek or not – as masterpieces
[...], notions of what counts as “good” are problematized’ (Mathijs 2009: 366).<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">However, it’s my contention that, far from problematising ‘what counts
as “good”’, ‘so bad it’s good’ culture in fact has the potential to make
demonstrable (one version of) what counts as <i>bad, </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">and offers a </span>challenge to the
proposition that we should conceptualise aesthetic evaluation as nothing but a
historical illusion of taste. Explaining why involves returning to an old, but
still vitally important, debate concerning the place where considerations of
intention and considerations of value may meet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Value as achieved intention<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Addressing the role of the reader in the evaluation of texts, Wayne C.
Booth has argued that there are different kinds of questions we may ask of a
text, including ‘those that the object seems to <i>invite </i>[...]; and those
that <i>violate </i>its own interests or effort to be a given kind of thing in
the world’ (Booth 1988: 90). ‘So bad it’s good’ appreciation specialises in
this last kind of relationship with a text. And yet (unlike a ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mis</i>reading’) it also presupposes that
the reading which a text ‘invites’, will have already been discerned. But, if
we are wary of invoking the intentions of flesh-and-blood authors (as we tend
to be these days), who or what do we say extends this invitation to a reader?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Umberto Eco has argued that, ‘between the unattainable intention of the
author and the arguable intention of the reader there is the [...] intention of
the <i>text</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">’ (1992: 78)<i>. </i>A
useful concept for aesthetics – similar to the notion of a text’s ‘preferred
reading’ (Brunsdon/Morley 1999) – the intention of the text is</span>, in Eco’s
words, ‘the result of a conjecture on the part of the reader’ (1992: 64). It
seems obvious that making such a conjecture is essential for the viewer
undertaking to appreciate a film on the grounds of its incompetence. So, on
what basis might this be done? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Important here is what Booth called a text’s seeming ‘effort to be a
given kind of thing in the world’; Eco writes:<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">‘to recognize the [intention of the text] is to recognize a semiotic
strategy. Sometimes the semiotic strategy is detectable on the grounds of
established stylistic conventions. If a story starts with “Once upon a time”,
there is a good probability that it is a fairy tale.’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ibid</i>.: 64/5)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Or, we might say, that it <i>intends </i>to be a fairytale. Something
that will often guide our sense of the intention of the text, then, is the
existence of pre-existing cultural genres and categories, and their
accompanying conventions. One <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">film</i>
scholar who has argued that categorisation is fundamental not just to
interpretation, but also therefore to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">evaluation</i>,
is Noël Carroll, who writes: [knowing] the category (or categories) to which
the artwork belongs […] provides us with a basis for determining whether the
work has succeeded or failed, at least on its own terms. (2009: 93-4)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It is my contention that ‘so bad it’s good’ appreciation necessarily
relies upon such a determination –<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u> </u></b>resulting
in something like the following process: (1) identifying that a text has
certain intentions, before (2) evaluating it as ‘bad’ for failing to achieve
those intentions, and then (3) ironically recasting this badness as ‘so bad
it’s good’.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">To help me expand on this, I’ll now turn briefly to a recently hugely
popular badfilm, the 2003 movie <i>The Room</i>. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Room<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Room </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">stars, and is both written and directed by,
Tommy Wiseau. Its broad intention as a text seems very much to be a convincing
and affecting melodrama - its plot revolving round Johnny (Wiseau), a San
Franciscan banker, whose life unravels when his fiancée, Lisa, begins an affair
with his best friend, Mark. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In order to succeed passably as a melodrama – the film would need to
deploy familiar generic conventions, which include – crucially – narrative
coherence and comprehensible emotional trajectories for its characters.
However, around its central premise, the film constructs an array of elliptical
sub-plots, and bafflingly superfluous scenes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Indeed, baffling narrative superfluity is a major feature of <i>The Room</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, and key to its failure to successfully
inhabit the category of coherent melodrama<i>. </i></span>In one early scene,
Lisa’s mother, Claudette, casually tells her daughter ‘I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">definitely</i> have breast cancer’. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx2P80Q71UfOIUwLhbsD0_rjiS7p8V4hqkpdtfMiGWDr_TsZQriJsRtyraOLqujQWd2o_fOIZuwYtVfRp-_1qCos5LuIDjuHcHmnNgOPKJlDkE4tauW6PO0BShyzotg8qGJw2oHfDUZos/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-03-11+at+21.18.49.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx2P80Q71UfOIUwLhbsD0_rjiS7p8V4hqkpdtfMiGWDr_TsZQriJsRtyraOLqujQWd2o_fOIZuwYtVfRp-_1qCos5LuIDjuHcHmnNgOPKJlDkE4tauW6PO0BShyzotg8qGJw2oHfDUZos/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-03-11+at+21.18.49.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In almost any other melodrama this
would be a very alarming revelation; here, however, both characters airily
dismiss the illness (‘Don’t worry about it, everything will be fine…’), the
subject is changed, and Claudette’s cancer isn’t returned to again for the
remainder of the film. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">At another moment, a major character, Denny, is suddenly threatened at
gunpoint by a drug dealer... </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjstsQFAt75Cuhlfj7cHfbt4sTgn0X4D2MGS5HGCGupb7jhKRPLuL-F6puriAeifMwCdcRfFSBBhWYjSW8ytengItTVeZhbaUrgEyhd4CMAHE1NZfpYyFbZopeG5uWcHgMucY38c82nAXQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-03-11+at+21.19.00.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjstsQFAt75Cuhlfj7cHfbt4sTgn0X4D2MGS5HGCGupb7jhKRPLuL-F6puriAeifMwCdcRfFSBBhWYjSW8ytengItTVeZhbaUrgEyhd4CMAHE1NZfpYyFbZopeG5uWcHgMucY38c82nAXQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-03-11+at+21.19.00.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the second half of this dramatic scene, after
Denny has been saved, we learn that he bought drugs from this dealer, and –
tantalisingly – that he ‘needed some money to pay off some stuff…’ However,
again, this scene is entirely self-contained - Neither the violent incident,
nor Denny’s money problems or possible drug habit, is ever mentioned again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Room’s </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">narrative
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">coherence as melodrama is further compromised by its approach to
temporal organisation. One scene, for instance, ends with Lisa going upstairs
to ‘wash up and go to bed’, despite a preceding shot having established that it
is broad daylight outside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In another scene, between Lisa and her best friend, many details
establish that an aforementioned surprise party for Johnny will be occurring
later today: while preparing the apartment, Lisa comments that ‘People are
going to be getting here soon’, and that ‘All I have to do is put on my party
dress’. However, after this scene there follows: a panning of the Golden Gate
Bridge; a sequence of Johnny and Mark jogging in a park; a brief night-time
shot of the city; a scene in the apartment in which Johnny kisses Lisa as he
heads out of the door, dressed for work; a sequence showing Johnny walking
through the city at dusk. Then, after this a digressive passage depicting a
miscellaneous set of moments from a dramatically inert 24 hours<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u> </u></b>– we have the party scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Finally, there’s the issue of the affective inducements we expect from
melodrama. In perhaps <i>The Room’s </i>most famous moment: Johnny, distraught
by Lisa’s continued callous treatment of him, exclaims “You are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tearing me</i> <i>apart, </i>Lisa!’ (See
below, from 00:06 to 00:55).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I don’t have the time to demonstrate this in detail, however: to me, it
is clear that the playing of this moment, and its contexts, make it unavoidable
that we should conjecture that this outburst is intended to be a sincere and
moving expression of pained emotion. It is likely to fail in this, however, in
large part because by this point the film’s inept filmmaking (including
performance) has been forced so prominently into the viewer’s conscious
awareness that we are likely to be distanced from the diegetic reality of the
scene, and are rather paying attention to all the extra-diegetic aspects of the
moment – Wiseau’s mechanical yet laconic acting style, for instance, or the oddly
awkward framing. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This is what we often have on display in <i>The Room: </i>the
spectacle of a putative melodrama inviting yet failing to find a form capable
of soliciting an intended emotional response. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">So, what can we take from all this? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Intention, convention, and evaluation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Though I’ve only begun the process here, I hope my brief discussion of
The Room has started demonstrating that we can indeed say that it fails to
achieve basic levels of coherence that thousands of examples of popular
narrative filmmaking have taught us to take for granted. And, until evidence is
provided that the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">intention of the
text </span>is to abandon these conventions knowingly, our best conjecture must
be that the film’s failures are precisely that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Using the intention of the text as our framework, then, we can indeed
agree – with the film’s many fans (for whom this point is crucial) – that <i>The
Room </i>is <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">bad; and, furthermore,
that we can use this word <i>without inverted commas</i>. This evaluation,
furthermore, is not a matter of historically-contingent taste, nor does it
involve holding coherence up as an inherent good: it is simply a question of
judging a text against what we can most reasonably conjecture to have been its
intentions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This raises the further question: should the phrase ‘so bad it’s good’
be taken literally? I suggest that to appreciate a badfilm for its failings is
to say: ‘It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> in fact, demonstrably,
bad, but <i>nevertheless...</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">’ A
more accurate inflection might be, then: ‘so bad it’s pleasurable’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This distinction does some justice to the
fact that no claim is being advanced for a text’s <i>intrinsic</i> value (that
is – its internal aesthetic properties), but rather its potential <i>instrumental</i>
value – that is: the experience it can provide for the viewer (see: Budd 1995,
Kieren 2001, etc.). </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Yet what, we need then to ask, might allow
us to value intrinsic aesthetic badness, instrumentally, as ‘so bad it’s
pleasurable’?<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I want to end by suggesting two
possibilities.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Instrumental pleasures: 1. Critique<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">First, there’s obviously the pleasure of ironic critique. We might say
that a potential appeal of <i>The Room </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">is simply </span>the sheer number of times at which it fails to achieve
whatever it aims to achieve. One answer to why the film is ‘so bad it’s good’
thus lies in the word ‘so’. It can be thrilling simply to experience such an
overwhelming quantity of failed intentions. In one sense, this – ironic –
thrill can flatter the kind of viewer prepared to indulge it. A key outcome of <i>extreme</i>
and obvious ineptitude is that it virtually guarantees that any viewer
possessing even a passing familiarity with ‘mainstream’ cinematic conventions
becomes able to notice and critique elements of style, storytelling and
performance. We might say that in this way such a film provides something like
a democratisation of the pleasures involved in being a critic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Still, there is something else pleasurable at stake in appreciating the
film as being ‘so bad it’s good’. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Instrumental pleasures: 2. ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Closeness’ </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I would argue that another outcome of the fact that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Room</i> pushes failures of style, storytelling and performance to
the forefront of the viewer’s awareness is that – at the same time as it’s
likely to create an affective ‘distance’ between us and the fiction – also
allows for an imagined <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">closeness</i> to
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">extra</i>-textual. More specifically,
it affords a sense of perverse closeness to the film’s ostensible auteur,
Wiseau. Let me give an example via my favourite line from the film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Immediately after Johnny explodes with ‘You are tearing me <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">apart</i>, Lisa!’ (see above clip) he
demands desperately of his fiancé: ‘Do you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">understand</i>
<i>life</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">?<i> </i>…<i>Do </i></span>you?!’ </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiuLKqTXX3Lt6B9kbE3drAS_A0xLeVK25JuBKv-jH55BjQX-NEqFQINaie9bE-i5ymnEWH0UDE75Kwm2QUmjjkNMtoxKQIACx9Grzq7gdxHPArJUA5j8qw95_W5PK84bihTctEvf-d67s/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-03-11+at+21.57.41.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiuLKqTXX3Lt6B9kbE3drAS_A0xLeVK25JuBKv-jH55BjQX-NEqFQINaie9bE-i5ymnEWH0UDE75Kwm2QUmjjkNMtoxKQIACx9Grzq7gdxHPArJUA5j8qw95_W5PK84bihTctEvf-d67s/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-03-11+at+21.57.41.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This line<i> </i>is one of many in <i>The Room </i>which seem to constitute not
simply a failure to embody a convention, but something more strange. Whereas a
failure to establish whether a scene takes place at day or night is a
conventional failures we can readily critique, this ‘failure’ is far more
mysterious. Rather than mere ineptitude, what seems important about this moment
that it is so idiosyncratic - at once bafflingly weighty, inappropriate to the
conversation at hand, and yet indicative of a <i>kind </i>of fraught emotional
logic. As such it permits the possibility of imagining that only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i> writer/director, Wiseau, would or
could write and deliver such an incomprehensible line in this way, and that it
might thus offer a small insight into the unusual way Tommy Wiseau’s mind
works. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Room </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">is thus often described by fans in terms of
its ‘misguided authorial honesty’ (Semley 2009: 7), the supposition being that
it offers an ‘exploration of life through the eyes of an incompetent mentor’
(‘Walmart’ 2011: 1), and thus ‘a tantalizing glimpse into Wiseau’s mind’
(‘Miss’ 2011: 1). The instrumental pleasure involved in this supposition, while
still ironic at base, is nonetheless supplemented by something other than
critique alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This seems to be another potential appeal offered by badfilm. The fact
that these films permit us to presume we can see filmmakers doing their jobs,
and doing them artlessly, can permit us to feel a greater sense of closeness to
the inner workings of filmmakers’ minds than might be afforded by a more
accomplished mode of cinema.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">So, I want to leave you with two preliminary conclusions. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">(1) Since the cult process of taking pleasure in a film like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Room</i> relies upon the certainty that
it is indeed intrinsically bad, far from problematising regimes of aesthetic
value, ‘so bad it’s good’ culture rather seem to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clarify</i> them; any instrumental pronouncement of such a film as a
‘masterpiece’ by a cult viewer can, in this sense, only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever </i>be ironic; see, for instance, ‘Walmart Goth’ writing on ‘Why <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Room </i>is a Masterpiece’ while also
acknowledging that its qualities stem from ‘blind drive and enthusiasm paired
with inconceivable incompetence and bad luck’ (2011: 1). As such, this ironic
appreciation is scarcely threatening to even the most traditional standards of
aesthetic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">evaluation</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">(2) In order for a viewer to feel that they’re taking pleasure from the
film’s failings s/he must first feel sure that the film’s original intentions
have been divined; in this sense this process poses no challenge to familiar
understandings of the ways inferences about intention govern our responses to
works of art. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Therefore, far from encouraging us to leave behind what might sometimes
seem old-fashioned critical concepts, one of the benefits of examining badfilm
is that it forces us to return with renewed vigor and evidence to still-vital
issues for aesthetics – intention, evaluation, and indeed, as I’ve suggested
towards the end, authorship – which we can sometimes be too quick to presume we
have moved beyond. Furthermore, if we can agree that we can indeed reasonably infer intention and make value judgments without quotation marks here, then perhaps these films have something to teach us about the place of intention and value in the interpretation of film, and art, more broadly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">References<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Booth,
Wayne C. (1988), <i>The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction, </i>Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: xx-small; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Brunsdon, Charlotte and David Morley (1999), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The </i>Nationwide<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Television Studies</i> (London: Routledge. 1999.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Budd,
Malcom (1995), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Values of Art: Pictures,
Poetry, and Music</i>, London: Penguin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Carroll,
Noel (2009), <i>On Criticism, </i>London: Routledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Eco,
Umberto (1992), ‘Between Author and Text’, in Stefan Collini (ed.), <i>Interpretation
and Overinterpretation, </i>Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Frye,
Northrop (1957), <i>Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, </i>Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia;">Gibb</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">s, <span style="color: #262626;">Raymond W. (1999)</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Intentions in the Experience of Meaning, </span></i><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Graham,
Allison (1991). ‘Journey to the Center of the Fifties: The Cult of Banality’,
in J. P. Telotte (ed.), <i>The Cult Film Experience: Beyond All Reason </i>Austin,
TX: University of Texas Press, 1991.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Kieren,
Matthew (2001), ‘Value of Art’, in <span style="color: #262626;">Berys Gaut,
Dominic McIver Lopes [eds], <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Routledge Companion To Aesthetics</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, </span>London: Routledge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Mathijs,
Ernest and Xavier Mendik (2008), ‘Editorial Introduction: What is Cult Film?’,
in Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik (eds.), <i>The Cult Film Reader, </i>Maidenhead:
Open University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Mathijs,
Ernest (2009) ‘Review’, <i>Screen, </i>vol. 50, no. 3: 365-370.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">McCulloch,
Richard (2011), ‘“Most People Bring Their Own Spoons”: <i>The Room's </i>Participatory
Audiences as Comedy Mediators’, <i>Participations: International Journal of
Audience Research </i>(November 2011), <
http://www.participations.org/Volume%208/Issue%202/2d%20McCulloch.pdf>
[Accessed 25 November, 2011], p. 201.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">‘Miss
Media Junkie’ (2011), ‘So Bad It’s Really, Really Good!’, <i>Miss Media Junkie,
</i><http: missmediajunkie.blogspot.com="" so-bad-its-really-really-good.html="">
[accessed 27 June, 2011] <o:p></o:p></http:></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Palermo,
Charles (2012), ‘Introduction: Intention and Interpretation’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nonsite</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://nonsite.org/article/introduction-intention-and-interpretation">http://nonsite.org/article/introduction-intention-and-interpretation</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Sconce,
Jeffrey (1995), ‘“Trashing” the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging
Politics of Cinematic Style’, <i>Screen </i>vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 371-93.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Semley,
John (2009), ‘“Oh Hi, Movie!”: The Unironic Aesthetics of “So Bad it’s Good” in
Tommy Wiseau’s <i>The Room’, Paracinema, </i>Issue 8 (December 2009), pp. 5-8. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">Sontag,
Susan (1966), ‘Notes on “Camp”’, in <i>Against Interpretation and Other Essays </i>(New
York, NY: Anchor Books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;">‘Walmart
Goth’ (2011), ‘Why <i>The Room </i>is a Masterpiece’, <i>General Depravity,
<</i> <i>http://generaldepravity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/why-room-is-masterpiece.html
> </i>[accessed 20 June, 2012] </span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-79432343627751359782013-01-01T06:20:00.003-08:002017-04-12T01:26:12.126-07:00Romantic Comedy and the 'Unsuitable' Partner: Macaulay Connor in The Philadelphia Story<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The
Philadelphia Story </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">opens
with the divorce of wealthy socialite Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) from C. K.
Dexter Haven (Cary Grant). Set over the course of a weekend two years later,
the rest of the film tells of how Tracy comes to call off her wedding to George
Kittredge (John Howard) and remarry Dexter. In the film’s final moments, Tracy
receives a marriage proposal from Mike Connor (James Stewart), with whom she
has had a brief flirtation, though she turns him down – in part because of
Mike’s relationship with his colleague Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey). Nervously
addressing the gathered wedding congregation, Tracy looks to Dexter for advice;
he obliges by feeding her lines that amount to a second marriage proposal, and
she accepts. Mike and Liz are corralled in as best man and matron of honour,
and Dexter and Tracy are re-wed; ‘The End’.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">In </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">Beyond
Genre </i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">Deborah Thomas makes the point that “so-called happy endings […] are
rarely happy for everyone, especially where romance is concerned” (2000: 21).
One measure of this, as Thomas points out, is the romantic comedy convention of
‘unsuitable’ partners – potential romantic mates whom we are encouraged
consider incorrect matches for the film’s protagonists, and whom we fully
expect not to form part of the final couple (</span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">ibid</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">: 20). In </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">The
Philadelphia Story</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">, however, we are invited</span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;"> </i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">to measure the relative
merits of the three potential relationships Tracy could form with her three
suitors. Paradoxically (though entirely conventionally), it is Tracy’s fiancé,
George, who is coded as ‘unsuitable’ – in large part due to star casting. For a
time, the two remaining men – Dexter and Mike – seem equally capable of winning
Tracy. Stanley Cavell has argued that both of these men “are honorable and
likeable enough for their happiness at the end to make us happy” (</span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">ibid</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">:</span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">
</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-indent: 48pt;">135). Yet I would maintain that Dexter is a far less attractive candidate
for her affections than Mike.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">Never
once is Dexter on the back-foot with Tracy: he is forever calm, seeming almost
to possess “some mysterious power to control events” (Cavell, 1981: 137). He
arrives at the Lords’ house with at least half a plan and, while he may
improvise in accordance with changing circumstances (Mike’s knowledge of Kidd’s
indiscretions, Tracy’s late-night swim), appears to execute it throughout with
calm authority. This sense of control is further heightened by the fact that,
having been a serious drinker, Dexter has by now given up alcohol; thus rid of
the only “weakness” we learn he has, he is able to maintain a perpetual
self-composure and detached amusement which other characters lack – in
particular Mike and Tracy, whose inhibitions are crucially lowered by
champagne. One result of this is that Dexter is able to conduct himself always
as though he is Tracy’s superior.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">Mike and
Tracy, by contrast, encounter one another on a level of comparative equality –
the faults of both (his inverted class snobbery, her unthinking “patronising”)
permitted to become the subject of debate. In contrast to Dexter, who never
veers from an attitude towards Tracy that appears unshakably predetermined,
Mike goes through </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">changes</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"> with her, experiencing attraction and
repulsion, tenderness and anger – the pair continually shifting their
estimations of one another. Whereas in the Tracy/Dexter relationship the
characteristic remarriage trope of the “acquisition in time of self-knowledge”
(Cavell, 1981: 56) is entirely one-sided, Tracy and Mike move back and forth,
their interactions becoming a </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">mutual</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"> process of learning and discovery –
she realising that “I can’t make you out at all now”, he finding her a “blank,
unholy surprise”, both coming to see that the other “[puts] the toughness
on to save [their] skin”; put simply, they have that which Cavell so values: a </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">conversation</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">Although
Tracy and Dexter’s shared past may bring them back together, the fact of this
past also seems to have locked Dexter into a single view of Tracy in a way that
Mike, as the new man on the scene, is able to avoid. As well as this, while
Cavell says of remarriage couples that “what this pair does together is less
important than the fact that they do whatever it is together, that they know
how to spend time together” (<i>ibid</i>: 113), it is striking that in <i>The
Philadelphia Story</i> it is not Dexter, but Mike, with whom Tracy spends the
most time – and certainly the most time alone (in the library, strolling the grounds,
at the party, on the Lord’s veranda, in the pool). The total screen time Mike
and Tracy share comes to approximately 39 minutes, compared to Dexter and
Tracy’s 17; the time they spend alone, meanwhile, is around 16 minutes for Mike
and Tracy, compared with Dexter and Tracy’s 9.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">Furthermore, as with the screwball couple
in <i>Bringing Up Baby </i>(1938), but unlike Dexter/Tracy, the time Mike and
Tracy share is largely <i>fun</i>. The pair’s drunken play with the
wheelchair-cum-deckchair and midnight swim, for instance, have the air of
precisely the kind of innocent regression – “the wish to be children again or
perhaps to be children together” (Cavell, 1981: 60) – so important to the
creation of the screwball couple. Cavell may emphasise that Tracy and Dexter have “grown up together” (<i>ibid</i>:
136), but it is only with Mike that we see Tracy enjoy hints of the anarchic
pleasures of a second childhood</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">I should
make clear that I am not suggesting that Mike and Tracy could satisfyingly form
the film’s final couple according to the terms the film establishes: quite
apart from the qualified but never quite absent class tensions between them,
there is also Liz to think of. What I am suggesting is that, </span><i style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;">were</i><span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"> they
to, the marriage we would be free to imagine for them could surely only be of a
far more democratic sort than any we can conceive of for Tracy and Dexter.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: justify; text-indent: 48pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<b>Works Cited</b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Cavell, Stanley. <i>Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage</i>,
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Thomas, Deborah. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beyond Genre: Melodrama, Comedy and Romance
in Hollywood Films</i>. Dumfrieshire: Cameron and Hollis, 2000.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-40419921623046969482012-07-10T08:39:00.003-07:002012-07-10T08:41:27.405-07:00Update to Classical Hollywood Cinema directors list...<i>.</i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I've added a couple of names to my ongoing list of directors whose films go unmentioned in Bordwell/Staiger/Thompson's <i>The Classical Hollywood Cinema</i> (1985): Robert Rossen, Jacques <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #29303b;">Tourneur</span>, and Robert Wise. See <a href="http://thelesserfeat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/directors-whose-films-go-unmentioned-in_02.html">here</a>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrzPpHyfMolHvM0ob6vyAeuWnyJn9k2A05SPMBxkbsyoSBZ3HpfHmxZLaSJQtpp3kRTrhKF14iVKdxovDNeCb3AqSU2M3pE-8cRZu_koHv_1Z2DnPGZQunBBbH_XEE_6Rgb8KSEQqc6c/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-07-10+at+16.40.27.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrzPpHyfMolHvM0ob6vyAeuWnyJn9k2A05SPMBxkbsyoSBZ3HpfHmxZLaSJQtpp3kRTrhKF14iVKdxovDNeCb3AqSU2M3pE-8cRZu_koHv_1Z2DnPGZQunBBbH_XEE_6Rgb8KSEQqc6c/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-07-10+at+16.40.27.png" width="235" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span>James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-13170714425270721242012-02-29T09:33:00.009-08:002015-04-21T07:52:12.418-07:00What does feminism look like?.<br />
This day, marking (in the UK) that absurd leap-year-female-proposal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year#Folk_traditions">tradition</a>, seems as good an excuse as any to share an excellent line I came across during my recent recapping on feminist history. Made into a cheery, meme-able image.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS3yARKziaiYyzDQqpiNB9sNvb8C5h9y_PzSio7LHL2H1oDQ6M3FXV9zu3KkhDBiS_k4a6jmybExrfqWJW_uvF0-2kEk0ULm66XKoEJm9a24DJdEzVa0pytgErjgmJbRLfIsqnjebK9Hg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-02-29+at+13.46.17.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS3yARKziaiYyzDQqpiNB9sNvb8C5h9y_PzSio7LHL2H1oDQ6M3FXV9zu3KkhDBiS_k4a6jmybExrfqWJW_uvF0-2kEk0ULm66XKoEJm9a24DJdEzVa0pytgErjgmJbRLfIsqnjebK9Hg/s400/Screen+Shot+2012-02-29+at+13.46.17.png" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5714612738861860178" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 338px;" /></a><br />
<br />
(The image, by the way, shows a clash between suffragettes and British police in Parliament Square, November 1910; it can be read about <a href="http://www.hastingspress.co.uk/history/elsie.htm">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
Incidentally, while preparing the lecture on romantic comedy that occasioned my re-trawling through past articles and books, I was reminded again of quite the extent of the anti-feminist backlash in the U.S. that Faludi <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlash:_The_Undeclared_War_Against_American_Women">wrote</a> so well about in the early '90s, and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Terror-Dream-Fantasy-Post-9-America/dp/0805086927">again</a> for the post-9/11 climate. Looking absent-mindedly, as I often do, for easy anecdotal evidence with which to catch students' imaginations, I ventured onto Youtube and actually began seeing the site's like/dislike bar as some kind of depressing barometer of just where we're currently at on this subject. <br />
<br />
Entirely unscientific as the evidence is, it's difficult not to feel disheartened when an almost embarrassingly friendly and non-confrontational video promoting feminism like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YA13GNT8Mc">this one</a> gets this rating:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNS4luuvAGLg9cPEzXm995FtGI7wLDXjEPF5H6mKoBW_WPrvi8-sz68hXAlWe0z7hbhWRj-WSRWFGRhigSaTanwLqkxiC9YeD2ZDH8FKZ32KXkr-EkrFVKEHjLog5mMPU2Y_YdFL9CxRk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-02-29+at+17.49.43.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNS4luuvAGLg9cPEzXm995FtGI7wLDXjEPF5H6mKoBW_WPrvi8-sz68hXAlWe0z7hbhWRj-WSRWFGRhigSaTanwLqkxiC9YeD2ZDH8FKZ32KXkr-EkrFVKEHjLog5mMPU2Y_YdFL9CxRk/s400/Screen+Shot+2012-02-29+at+17.49.43.png" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5714616390116703058" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 332px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
...while one that carries <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0L3ik9fp-M">this title</a> gets rewarded with a bar that looks like this:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnvEw3i2tWgjJswbQqBZ1kTXpo5RQ_IPrE0T4Go1NJwKj4mssRFid3W8WB1g6lLGxUWDIgQuHljEKRGmp6Nn0ahsdPukAZBBxv75_iWF24L-SIhBntpVy7ibGnfN5XarJrDfjf32r5s4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-02-29+at+17.55.21.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnvEw3i2tWgjJswbQqBZ1kTXpo5RQ_IPrE0T4Go1NJwKj4mssRFid3W8WB1g6lLGxUWDIgQuHljEKRGmp6Nn0ahsdPukAZBBxv75_iWF24L-SIhBntpVy7ibGnfN5XarJrDfjf32r5s4/s400/Screen+Shot+2012-02-29+at+17.55.21.png" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5714618024252748898" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 326px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-15357547300692348122012-01-02T07:30:00.001-08:002012-07-10T08:34:22.709-07:00Directors whose films go unmentioned in 'The Classical Hollywood Cinema' (1985)....<br />
That is: directors who (while they may be named in passing) do not have their films mentioned or taken into account in David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristen Thompson's long-canonical survey <em>The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960</em> (London: Routledge, 1985). I've gathered the information through re-reading the book, as well as by performing word searches for all the titles in the directors' bodies of work, via Google Books.<br />
<br />
To be periodically updated...<br />
<br />
---<br />
<strong>Dorothy Arzner</strong><br />
.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ61cc-yfG0Q8RMGUe8jM_NVfeUGimgAvAzs1ctEOTAvRUVe62863RHUztidK7tHPZqSsLB0bXfALr5MAvKDT_ZzMzN3fUpqwNhdV-iMUBfYGahC5cpsAohiWRZhP00bcazOgGEIJOh00/s1600/Dance+girl+dance+1940.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693059336164775858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ61cc-yfG0Q8RMGUe8jM_NVfeUGimgAvAzs1ctEOTAvRUVe62863RHUztidK7tHPZqSsLB0bXfALr5MAvKDT_ZzMzN3fUpqwNhdV-iMUBfYGahC5cpsAohiWRZhP00bcazOgGEIJOh00/s400/Dance+girl+dance+1940.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 225px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
E.g.: <em>Dance, Girl, Dance </em>(1940)<br />
<br />
---<br />
<strong>Leo McCarey</strong><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAyRmi0yfWdja5oOFzveX4vv28mIhPbT0ibxgZW5HHYzLZuESeQlFof4ruDik4R6Qfkle8xClm4aK55HLJDhVcF5FzmkI3Wukp1W0bRBDH_0SKB5bAy3pmZD0Ha77Xm6l91091LHsLDpo/s1600/awfultruth3.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697546796060366578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAyRmi0yfWdja5oOFzveX4vv28mIhPbT0ibxgZW5HHYzLZuESeQlFof4ruDik4R6Qfkle8xClm4aK55HLJDhVcF5FzmkI3Wukp1W0bRBDH_0SKB5bAy3pmZD0Ha77Xm6l91091LHsLDpo/s400/awfultruth3.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 303px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
E.g.: <em>The Awful Truth</em> (1937)<br />
<br />
---<br />
<strong>Oscar Micheaux</strong><br />
.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2olG9E38bFdLkpvKyx-HR7h84kAwEHbbR6P9M9hIddMoCQlqk3FqmUqTLHbV_CxOEm9z8Qfey16jmUxYbB2XRFjA8exBitHDt2ZAJLuR8ieSUhb-8KUvIapD-ILl0rNx1BCkXaB2eB5g/s1600/Body+and+Soul.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693059706320857874" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2olG9E38bFdLkpvKyx-HR7h84kAwEHbbR6P9M9hIddMoCQlqk3FqmUqTLHbV_CxOEm9z8Qfey16jmUxYbB2XRFjA8exBitHDt2ZAJLuR8ieSUhb-8KUvIapD-ILl0rNx1BCkXaB2eB5g/s400/Body+and+Soul.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 193px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 261px;" /></a><br />
E.g.: <em>Body and Soul </em>(1925)<br />
<br />
---<br />
<strong>Max Ophüls</strong><br />
.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixD8tqzEAIaFIKUzSxKX1hI9tBnay3K07W4XAynqwqH9KhgFG9WUdtNbtoJM8xMtLm52lcyaS1ppNauxKLWkk-YIDAjwegBiNrEOh1QhUmfcWvVcnMRcCPIMBMfQLQCl4tcpX7yV56bFM/s1600/letter+from+an+unknown.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693057752908661890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixD8tqzEAIaFIKUzSxKX1hI9tBnay3K07W4XAynqwqH9KhgFG9WUdtNbtoJM8xMtLm52lcyaS1ppNauxKLWkk-YIDAjwegBiNrEOh1QhUmfcWvVcnMRcCPIMBMfQLQCl4tcpX7yV56bFM/s400/letter+from+an+unknown.bmp" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 306px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
E.g.: <em>Letter From an Unknown Woman </em>(1948)<br />
<br />
---<br />
<strong>Nicholas Ray</strong><br />
.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkjrW0HE0ivik112i-NssUw-xs4cOHBsOR3lHfhby1WccKddoi_1PoI7SdK5NMoTMyKnTeMBw8DojAXm9ybYlDRi8rhCKv4nzZqSyHiCtNuLvPyZBA2P7G8CtKYxp7tImJvXmvRpKF4Qg/s1600/johnny+guitar.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693058437883454018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkjrW0HE0ivik112i-NssUw-xs4cOHBsOR3lHfhby1WccKddoi_1PoI7SdK5NMoTMyKnTeMBw8DojAXm9ybYlDRi8rhCKv4nzZqSyHiCtNuLvPyZBA2P7G8CtKYxp7tImJvXmvRpKF4Qg/s400/johnny+guitar.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
E.g.: <em>Johnny Guitar</em> (1954)<br />
<br />
---<br />
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>Robert Rossen<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbgpcPvtCqr2aYBfYbvphsoSgoDpk3-tQM942U7IUllP5dJw_y8LKGnPwVCS7JCj42QSWP9O6d-88SrPuPFGmjDIHJfgShmITplup4GkEguVe2RlROdOLbcF1C9aLxuhCzIyBhqKxCEw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-06-07+at+17.20.41.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbgpcPvtCqr2aYBfYbvphsoSgoDpk3-tQM942U7IUllP5dJw_y8LKGnPwVCS7JCj42QSWP9O6d-88SrPuPFGmjDIHJfgShmITplup4GkEguVe2RlROdOLbcF1C9aLxuhCzIyBhqKxCEw/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-06-07+at+17.20.41.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">E.g.: <i>All the King's Men </i>(1949)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">---</span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<strong>Frank Tashlin</strong><br />
.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZYIlmZ8fZ1SY6c8FBEvNz928aLV4XOxrhun5Muhy5SHY5BWG4Eh5iiUqsZozgVKOiL2WQaBsgK_V0lAmzZmV6aKRAJyj5elK5OABU6ZxbVyf4r4JaIn07prRtlWq1kDNq604_qvKF9Kk/s1600/Rock+Hunter.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693059069369175858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZYIlmZ8fZ1SY6c8FBEvNz928aLV4XOxrhun5Muhy5SHY5BWG4Eh5iiUqsZozgVKOiL2WQaBsgK_V0lAmzZmV6aKRAJyj5elK5OABU6ZxbVyf4r4JaIn07prRtlWq1kDNq604_qvKF9Kk/s400/Rock+Hunter.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 180px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
E.g.: <em>Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter </em>(1957)<br />
<br />
---<br />
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>Jacques Tourneur<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHR5NBnULtYLvlrQh1SZcolpMvSJWEck4iL_tDZwT_xxuRF38C__aw_M_CCwnL0Zw1XTpG6Y3s6Pn0ukl6Ka__4SJOUMzZ78RxO8WOpzoSlpBozO8PYSanlpaYur6JTKUTmQ6-8tQq9zI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-06-07+at+17.59.32.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHR5NBnULtYLvlrQh1SZcolpMvSJWEck4iL_tDZwT_xxuRF38C__aw_M_CCwnL0Zw1XTpG6Y3s6Pn0ukl6Ka__4SJOUMzZ78RxO8WOpzoSlpBozO8PYSanlpaYur6JTKUTmQ6-8tQq9zI/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-06-07+at+17.59.32.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">E.g.: <i>Out of the Past </i>(1947)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">---</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>Robert Wise<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcaHxuMcYE_drnk2GkhObCjygPHs7Ycq2RzRqtZANYtmbdmFxu6qwNJ-6tPltZlslmBecCk-bxAvM4hl9Q3va4Hy2pmwlhgdUIXggGgaWx_G4bmrYnQE1JpMv0pOCw9vU31jHPn2BrFc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-06-07+at+17.51.13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcaHxuMcYE_drnk2GkhObCjygPHs7Ycq2RzRqtZANYtmbdmFxu6qwNJ-6tPltZlslmBecCk-bxAvM4hl9Q3va4Hy2pmwlhgdUIXggGgaWx_G4bmrYnQE1JpMv0pOCw9vU31jHPn2BrFc/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-06-07+at+17.51.13.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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E.g.: <i>The Day the Earth Stood Still </i>(1951)<br />
.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-64598882133811028332011-09-12T07:44:00.000-07:002011-09-12T07:51:49.350-07:00Book Review: Britton on Film.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOgV4BJXplQiTHQ4PcwLx63IdZgquxbo_4RzhlVJl0x7_HbDQ89Iuu25jIG5S_Yh4VpTeYEBRpAm4zsFUDq18JzWWvGqlQbUzUxJiC1kR4PCpRVdMike04a5L_qVL93lkCXt2IkcMcqq7x/s1600/Picture+1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOgV4BJXplQiTHQ4PcwLx63IdZgquxbo_4RzhlVJl0x7_HbDQ89Iuu25jIG5S_Yh4VpTeYEBRpAm4zsFUDq18JzWWvGqlQbUzUxJiC1kR4PCpRVdMike04a5L_qVL93lkCXt2IkcMcqq7x/s400/Picture+1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651483203031840546" /></a><br /><br />I'm happy to be able to provide a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/64670773/Review-Britton-on-Film">link</a> to downloadable version of a book review I wrote for <span style="font-style:italic;">CineAction</span>; the book in question is the indispensable <span style="font-style:italic;">Britton on Film: The Complete Film Criticism of Andrew Britton</span>, edited by Barry Keith Grant. Britton is one of my very favourite film critics, so it was a pleasure to be able to delve in detail into his work and argue its merits. Thanks to editor Richard Lippe for permission to reprint the article online.<br /><br />Here's a brief extract to give a flavour of my approach:<br /><br /><blockquote>Andrew Britton believed in setting out his stall. A merciless critic of hypocrisy and evasiveness in others, in his own work he sought always to declare his attitudes and assumptions as explicitly as possible, often opening articles with declarations of principle that served as landmarks for the field upon which battle was soon to commence. As he writes in ‘The Philosophy of the Pigeonhole: Wisconsin Formalism and the “Classical Style”’, “If readers do not know where the critic stands in relation to the work, they have no means of defining or assessing the critic’s judgments” (p. 125). In tribute to such candor, let us begin this review with the conclusion I hope will be reached by anyone upon closing this book: the marginalization of the work of Andrew Britton by the field of film studies must be regarded as nothing short of a scandal. This review will in large part attempt to argue why I consider such a conclusion unavoidable.<br /></blockquote><br />Originally published in <span style="font-style:italic;">CineAction</span> no. 84, (2011), pp: 44-49.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-23379224494070919252011-08-11T04:09:00.000-07:002011-08-11T04:25:55.293-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZtIs83fbdg_mC4Ches27eVyAPBfl-RVkSvuDVtyyC865z8T8gX-f4G9TY1d0IRAnlEx5cprVvplznnwUJD3xPPhOjThzkd2i0RVUpARKRDBC2wyZyz1LVpIy_joHS3TkXWOctmRldS4/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZtIs83fbdg_mC4Ches27eVyAPBfl-RVkSvuDVtyyC865z8T8gX-f4G9TY1d0IRAnlEx5cprVvplznnwUJD3xPPhOjThzkd2i0RVUpARKRDBC2wyZyz1LVpIy_joHS3TkXWOctmRldS4/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5639554600632014530" /></a>
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<br />"For me, the root cause of this mindless selfishness is [...] a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society - people allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities, and that their actions do not have consequences."
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<br /> - David Cameron, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzl07N0rweo">10/8/2011</a>
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<br />James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-46383259967075515772011-07-06T12:59:00.000-07:002011-07-06T14:27:52.642-07:00Notes on Empathy in the Quirky: Bunny and the Bull.<br />In his book <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wes-Anderson-Movies-Matter-ebook/dp/B004Z13NEA">Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter</a></span>, Mark Browning objects to Anderson's supposed occasional shifts from 'ironic' detachment to moments of 'sincere', melodramatic engagement with characters' emotions:<br /><br /><blockquote>It is very difficult to maintain a dominant tone of detached quirky irony and then expect audiences to engage emotionally with characters to the level where tears are expected. This kind of tonal seesaw does not really work. (62) </blockquote><br /><br />I remembered this passage whilst watching one of the first British films to be transparently influenced by what<a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,3,250"> I've defined</a> as the quirky sensibility of American indie cinema, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_and_the_Bull">Bunny and the Bull</a></span> (2009). If Wes Anderson is guilty of mismanaging his tonal ironic detachment to the point of seriously endangering our ability to empathise with characters at moments of pain and suffering, then <span style="font-style:italic;">Bunny and the Bull</span> should be convicted ten times over.<br /><br />In my view, Anderson is on the whole extremely skillful in the way he envelops his entire films in largely the same melancholic, yet gently amused, tone. Comic moments tend always to still be slightly sad, sad moments still slightly comic. Even the funeral in <span style="font-style:italic;">Darjeeling Limited</span> (2007) is dealt with using the director's trademark slow-motion-and-retro-song combination, which encourages us to reflect on the extent to which the film is in a significant sense <span style="font-style:italic;">performing</span> this gesture of transcendence and seriousness. (I'd need more time to get across this completely convincingly, but allow me to take this point as read...)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Bunny and the Bull</span>, by contrast, is a film which most certainly for the most part strives to "maintain a dominant tone of detached irony". Strongly cribbing from the quirky - and particularly Michel Gondry/Jared Hess - most of the film is told via a flashback that takes the form of highly stylized cut-out-cartoon locales and unreal landscapes. See, for instance, the restaurant near the opening:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF0TsE-xxuAxAH44xDm7rHB1L2TFNobzwV8lVe9IUI27CJU_D-LsnzLSxDIiIhEvFm5ojb9orH6H-FdorfY0fO7tvsQxgELbRI6B2plKIVG4b24xQlpOgVj_AEXQpQpCbmdRq-TKrB4ac/s1600/Picture+15.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF0TsE-xxuAxAH44xDm7rHB1L2TFNobzwV8lVe9IUI27CJU_D-LsnzLSxDIiIhEvFm5ojb9orH6H-FdorfY0fO7tvsQxgELbRI6B2plKIVG4b24xQlpOgVj_AEXQpQpCbmdRq-TKrB4ac/s400/Picture+15.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626337347645662210" /></a><br /><br />There's nothing to say that, just because the places they inhabit are always patently artificial, we couldn't empathise with this film's characters - it could mobilise any number of conventions or devices to try to bring the viewer into a close empathetic relationship with its central figures. However, despite the seemingly clinically depressed nature of the movie's main character, Stephen, the film is determined always to undercut the integrity of its world and the feelings it potentially has at its disposal - often via either absurd surrealist humour that places us near the realm of Monty Python (see: Julian Barratt's dog-suckling cameo), or through bathetic bawdiness (at the moment when our hero finally goes to bed with the girl of his dreams, the camera pans away and we hear "Hmm, nice penis!"). Basically, this seems to be a film that is unconcerned with placing us into a relationship of empathy with its characters and reality - more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Boosh"><span style="font-style:italic;">Mighty Boosh</span></a> than anything else.<br /><br />And that would be fine. Except that, very close to the end, the film reaches the primal scene it's been hinting at throughout: Bunny's fateful encounter with a bull in the field. And at this moment, the film <span style="font-style:italic;">really</span> wants us to feel something. The problem is that the trauma comes so suddenly, emerging unheralded from beneath the veneer of "detached irony", and doing so all but literally.<br /><br />The sequence begins with us in the artificial, naively-rendered fantasy world that the majority of the film has taken place in, with Bunny on the field with the (at this point mechanical) bull...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiR8i_twomeCb8PX_Qka7xS-Y5Vv1hdY48KYI-sNoUuOeeuSwfEPsiAOyyRnwYInxMYFEUrsd1WEftwse1QDjI4Pwd2dkX-XP394mEF0GQ_ceN7f1MaUiHT0-VYGinAUaSk2aF_5o0-8/s1600/bull+landscape+fake.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiR8i_twomeCb8PX_Qka7xS-Y5Vv1hdY48KYI-sNoUuOeeuSwfEPsiAOyyRnwYInxMYFEUrsd1WEftwse1QDjI4Pwd2dkX-XP394mEF0GQ_ceN7f1MaUiHT0-VYGinAUaSk2aF_5o0-8/s400/bull+landscape+fake.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626341565885320130" /></a><br /><br />...and Stephen watching from the wings by a nearby fence:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTOONh-7LUPIJT500HV1PathH_ARlFBPLAJ2yzQP_nzsCZkh7jl2SVPgmQmCeLJFZgtac-N_rS5MKY9TefI_vQEimYROFZ-8GxK3bruIYw9CXDVJgGqoBppFB1-nMbTbkNl9q3nh0-8q0/s1600/fence+fake.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTOONh-7LUPIJT500HV1PathH_ARlFBPLAJ2yzQP_nzsCZkh7jl2SVPgmQmCeLJFZgtac-N_rS5MKY9TefI_vQEimYROFZ-8GxK3bruIYw9CXDVJgGqoBppFB1-nMbTbkNl9q3nh0-8q0/s400/fence+fake.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626341867958004098" /></a><br /><br />However, just when it seems that Bunny might have bested the beast, dark music begins. At this, we begin quickly intercutting shots of what we have till now seem only as a Mechano-like toy (on a patchwork rug) with a real-life bull (in a real-life field)...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMf0Pz7NDdweMr_w4GzqJb1C9ftJa3cLpjOPaMr5xEuMHfdkt3JKlZDXOStqJMMwl56kC64S1RdGMTzxpLUvfw150Ay88T4Z2W4FgE2V0F1fRUlVgLOfWJSqPVul9B8muQ0e0yXEgWM8/s1600/bull+medium+fake.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMf0Pz7NDdweMr_w4GzqJb1C9ftJa3cLpjOPaMr5xEuMHfdkt3JKlZDXOStqJMMwl56kC64S1RdGMTzxpLUvfw150Ay88T4Z2W4FgE2V0F1fRUlVgLOfWJSqPVul9B8muQ0e0yXEgWM8/s400/bull+medium+fake.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626342909638809554" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSUgTS2rT7-E4ococ92VbD-L_m-Oi0FfBfDe51Ilp62uycvQisIgCexruCo40CwMyvlvRkCOFwkiMOsiSPLJMCbIMxrQO0-ES0iZBBlalY5WOHmc8Hj4F8jT5ozwXtuV654QC1K4Z1dBo/s1600/bull+medium+real.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSUgTS2rT7-E4ococ92VbD-L_m-Oi0FfBfDe51Ilp62uycvQisIgCexruCo40CwMyvlvRkCOFwkiMOsiSPLJMCbIMxrQO0-ES0iZBBlalY5WOHmc8Hj4F8jT5ozwXtuV654QC1K4Z1dBo/s400/bull+medium+real.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626342938995320530" /></a><br /><br />As it begins to charge Bunny, this pattern continues - frantic cuts between the stop-motion animal and its real-life counterpart...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5SHZkhTWcXf9IqYJ65Gk0PAnNQ4VkqGSI1bCg_bqr9Sm6nTYacOsdIXDNhUnFkhy3ZeSivBF29MyEKHLYzLpE5XqY4VkHY7y3F6e7KknJnIpARSgBMS64GlBxOSWDxLF19KN_BjBoc8/s1600/bull+close+fake.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5SHZkhTWcXf9IqYJ65Gk0PAnNQ4VkqGSI1bCg_bqr9Sm6nTYacOsdIXDNhUnFkhy3ZeSivBF29MyEKHLYzLpE5XqY4VkHY7y3F6e7KknJnIpARSgBMS64GlBxOSWDxLF19KN_BjBoc8/s400/bull+close+fake.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626342947653551762" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUzwIUx17tsZr53H6RTVZu8K4lBQlxHneJflwAmM-ZIYldVndAbkFxV57AI9U1Y13uSP404yh0Fkewt9H-MRqlFVLzLgoM-qy6sHhPk3youG1pMZ0rBJPVWtVMtDaaueerdhHCQZERmhw/s1600/bull+close+real.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUzwIUx17tsZr53H6RTVZu8K4lBQlxHneJflwAmM-ZIYldVndAbkFxV57AI9U1Y13uSP404yh0Fkewt9H-MRqlFVLzLgoM-qy6sHhPk3youG1pMZ0rBJPVWtVMtDaaueerdhHCQZERmhw/s400/bull+close+real.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626342971236416978" /></a><br /><br />From the moment it makes contact with Bunny, we're exclusively in the 'real world' - a world we've never before seen in this film. Stephen scrambles terrified over the fence, pursued by a handheld camera (a further aesthetic signifier of 'real'), over to his fallen friend, who is now dead...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYOnBbFDUOSsg4snMZDCqt5aUvkgn4ZkVlpPd3KPAj3F69emOO3yzLB2m8_TotpP92LMIfwfel14tD_xbDqc8zFbUX9UaOf1WmnsyI3cni-TTCEG0yO_NO55hRLBm4TCPwaBQ4G5KazY/s1600/running+real.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYOnBbFDUOSsg4snMZDCqt5aUvkgn4ZkVlpPd3KPAj3F69emOO3yzLB2m8_TotpP92LMIfwfel14tD_xbDqc8zFbUX9UaOf1WmnsyI3cni-TTCEG0yO_NO55hRLBm4TCPwaBQ4G5KazY/s400/running+real.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626344423772756754" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9F3TLUvws-aeoCkuzdAS_vUuuSRFx4QY1P2zNl1G35Spb4W1V0h7Pwrx3ex4uA5G2ggSSyqMJ78Azcl-IBnk6lopDzpFD0RSUdRpIn8bOtSCblywdpQFEWXPJrlD6sYZcVz62Cs46OxU/s1600/dead+real.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9F3TLUvws-aeoCkuzdAS_vUuuSRFx4QY1P2zNl1G35Spb4W1V0h7Pwrx3ex4uA5G2ggSSyqMJ78Azcl-IBnk6lopDzpFD0RSUdRpIn8bOtSCblywdpQFEWXPJrlD6sYZcVz62Cs46OxU/s400/dead+real.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626344214445879698" /></a><br /><br />So, seemingly believing that - if it wants to elicit empathy from the viewer (which it quite clearly does) - it is necessary to strip away 'artifice' wholesale, the film at this moment transforms itself into an entirely different sort of aesthetic object than it has previously been. The result is a huge tonal lurch which the movie cannot handle, feeling entirely unearned - precisely the kind of "seesaw" effect Browning claims takes place in Anderson's films. <br /><br />But no Anderson film attempts anything as clumsy as this. Indeed, <span style="font-style:italic;">Bunny and the Bull</span> makes you realise quite how impeccably nuanced and coherent Anderson's approach tends to be, reminding us that the reason the quirky sensibility works (at least, when it <span style="font-style:italic;">does</span>) is that it is concerned above all with tonal <span style="font-style:italic;">balance</span>, not tonal <span style="font-style:italic;">shifts</span>. While clearly a descendent of the sensibility, <span style="font-style:italic;">Bunny and the Bull</span> doesn't have enough faith in this fundamental lesson of quirky cinema: empathy doesn't require a 'real', merely consistent relationships and attitudes <span style="font-style:italic;">towards</span> the 'real'.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-32042670340852812432011-07-05T09:53:00.001-07:002011-07-05T09:58:46.883-07:00V. F. Perkins on 'Inception'.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsgSdS49IFgSdrQAwW3FTE7QCVo7uwVyJEw4r6fSyVMp4-xFRYWqAkBmoPXw77FzlgCwVEim3VjRh77nCAviHOvDm9172sNco6j0pFCK6WUtXpmmL-LfKIzu62dUjqdHsRWqlDMK1GEtM/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsgSdS49IFgSdrQAwW3FTE7QCVo7uwVyJEw4r6fSyVMp4-xFRYWqAkBmoPXw77FzlgCwVEim3VjRh77nCAviHOvDm9172sNco6j0pFCK6WUtXpmmL-LfKIzu62dUjqdHsRWqlDMK1GEtM/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625912564225423682" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote>"ANATOMY OF A MURDER could run for another three hours after the end titles, cover another three years in the life of its hero, and we should still be no nearer the truth of the case. In LA NOTTE the ‘real ending’ is knowable, but has been withheld. The picture would need to cover at most another two or three hours in its protagonists’ lives in order to resolve the ambiguities of its last sequence. In Preminger’s movie the story ends with a major issue unresolved. In Antonioni’s the story is abandoned when it has served the director’s purpose." <br /></blockquote><br />- <span style="font-style:italic;">Film as Film</span> (1972: 148)<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-68579993178301281952011-05-29T05:23:00.000-07:002011-05-29T05:35:34.292-07:00On the Feminism of Sucker Punch.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifYx-WGGB6jPV2XquUeLtI17wXiNnkYvHtC7vTDpxzpSWCwxIS2RZcHNSMj25jOYpUSo0BoMsWUHG8lYqMXyXPuoNXSK7T6cWcdhR44uwGjz7c2axqcLce7UDumhJ0jBMCcmjyPCAEnFA/s1600/Sucker+Punch+Vintage+Poster+-+Sweet+Pea.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 274px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifYx-WGGB6jPV2XquUeLtI17wXiNnkYvHtC7vTDpxzpSWCwxIS2RZcHNSMj25jOYpUSo0BoMsWUHG8lYqMXyXPuoNXSK7T6cWcdhR44uwGjz7c2axqcLce7UDumhJ0jBMCcmjyPCAEnFA/s400/Sucker+Punch+Vintage+Poster+-+Sweet+Pea.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612113323355035202" /></a><br /><br />I have a new <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,5,299">article</a> over at <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,3,240">Alternate Takes</a> about the much maligned and misunderstood <span style="font-style:italic;">Sucker Punch</span>. I think that there have been few more fascinating Hollywood blockbusters, so I was very pleased to be able to delve into this movie - both its strategies, and its reception. An extract from the piece:<br /><br />-<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Sucker Punch</span> seems to me to be one of the most widely misunderstood films of recent years. By this I don’t just mean that it’s underrated - though in my opinion it is also that. I mean that an alarming number of commentators (i.e.: almost all) somehow seem to have failed to grasp its basic aims, and thus haven’t been able to assess it <span style="font-style:italic;">appropriately</span>.<br /><br />Other than the many complaints about the lack of narrative tension and rounded characters (neither of which, as I suggested in my <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,4,263">short review</a>, need necessarily be seen as significant problems), the main objections to the film have, of course, tended to be made on the grounds of its sexual politics. I want to address this matter head-on, looking at some recurring complaints about the movie’s approach to gender, and argue that most of them stem from a fundamental misperception of what the film is trying to do. I should also say that I’m certainly not going to argue that the film is unimpeachable - only that it’s far more interesting than it has usually been given credit for. My point is essentially that, before we call a film a failure, we first need at least to be sure what exactly it is failing <span style="font-style:italic;">at</span>.<br /><br />The thing that seems to drive people crazy about <span style="font-style:italic;">Sucker Punch</span> is that it appears to offer “faux feminism” but in fact constitutes a “fantasia of misogyny”. Yet I think that the film, far from offering something like lipstick feminism, does in fact genuinely strive to be a rather forceful and angry feminist film, and comes closer to earning the title than most have acknowledged. The thing is: its attempts at feminism aren’t to be found in the areas where people have generally been looking. Stated briefly, this film is primarily about itself - that is, it’s about the problems involved in trying to find positive images for women within the kind of popular culture which it itself embodies. Of course, given that this strategy naturally involves irony and flirting with having-your-cake-and-eating-it, this is a difficult and dangerous game to play - and one that <span style="font-style:italic;">Sucker Punch</span> is perhaps only half-successful in. But it is frankly bizarre that so few people seem to have noticed that such a game is even afoot - preferring to say that the movie’s problems stem from stupidity rather than over-cleverness (which would be closer to the mark). But this is to get ahead of ourselves...<br />-<br /><br />Read the rest of the article <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,5,299">here</a>. Hope you enjoy!<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-52648399550510620292011-05-25T01:23:00.002-07:002012-03-20T03:50:59.563-07:00Does the Hollywood Happy Ending Exist?.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGNvdjyb_4ai_-pdepTyMGjxfo430czgmZ-ID4KvbFLHMabYUhAOvC0mCZ2gafrtIxgw2FkHuAcSXJPvU6u8ToUg7J4GTj-n2tpRQC23G5OrsW6FqrlAvHoBGOgYkYCHruW5IKZiwfXqA/s1600/Picture+3.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGNvdjyb_4ai_-pdepTyMGjxfo430czgmZ-ID4KvbFLHMabYUhAOvC0mCZ2gafrtIxgw2FkHuAcSXJPvU6u8ToUg7J4GTj-n2tpRQC23G5OrsW6FqrlAvHoBGOgYkYCHruW5IKZiwfXqA/s400/Picture+3.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610593780446165762" /></a><br /><br />I am happy to be able to provide a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/56195466/Does-the-Hollywood-Happy-Ending-Exist">link</a> to a downloadable version of my first published piece on the Hollywood 'happy ending' - the subject which was the focus of my doctoral thesis. This essay, the opening chapter of an edited collection called <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Happy-Endings-Films-Armelle-Parey/dp/235692034X"><span style="font-style:italic;">Happy Endings and Films</span></a>, offers an account of the invariably negative critical reputation that the 'happy ending' has acquired in film studies, arguing for the need to interrogate this reputation. Along the way we touch on David Bordwell, '<span style="font-style:italic;">Screen</span> theory', the 'self-consciously artificial' happy ending, and Sirk's <span style="font-style:italic;">Written on the Wind</span> (1956).<br /><br />A brief extract:<br /><br />"We tend to assume we understand the ‘happy ending’ of Hollywood cinema – both that it exists, and what it is. This essay will question that assumption. [...] Although the term is used again and again in discussions of Hollywood, it is startling to realise that the cinematic ‘happy ending’ has received barely any sustained critical attention, nor has an adequate definition of it ever been agreed upon. [...] It is my belief that most film studies discussions of the ‘happy ending’ reflect less a wish to meaningfully discuss the feature than a widely-discernable desire to construct it as a critical ‘bad object’."<br /><br />Many thanks to the editors for giving me permission to reprint the piece online.<br /><br />MacDowell, James. 'Does the Hollywood Happy Ending Exist?' <span style="font-style:italic;">Happy Endings and Films</span>. Eds. Armelle Parey, Isabelle Roblin & Dominque Sipière. Paris: Michel Houdiard, 2010. 15-27.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-67573397119310818052011-05-17T04:37:00.000-07:002011-05-17T04:58:35.651-07:00Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism - Issue 2.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXnD03k5hdesPLnG2aFk2k25RRVj2tFEPZx9-tBPc5QS3Qh228p_ltfL7fCmPHNM6EKPBbXDV1_NnGwMcVcnqVVCDTFJ0Jf5PadWrFthLssui2j3UCAImi2JPLt08dqisE-XpJ_NaCaU/s1600/Picture+1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 354px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXnD03k5hdesPLnG2aFk2k25RRVj2tFEPZx9-tBPc5QS3Qh228p_ltfL7fCmPHNM6EKPBbXDV1_NnGwMcVcnqVVCDTFJ0Jf5PadWrFthLssui2j3UCAImi2JPLt08dqisE-XpJ_NaCaU/s400/Picture+1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607647884151390930" /></a><br /><br />For anyone who may not have come across the news elsewhere, I'm very pleased to announce that <span style="font-style:italic;">Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism</span>, of whose editorial board I am a member, has published its second issue (available <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie">here</a>). <br /><br />One thing I find particularly exciting about this issue is the form of our tribute to the late Robin Wood: several rare pieces by Wood, including his first published article - on <span style="font-style:italic;">Psycho</span> (from <span style="font-style:italic;">Cahiers du Cinema</span>, published here both in its original French and in English) - as well as several pieces he wrote for the <span style="font-style:italic;">Times Educational Supplement</span> during the 70s. <br /><br />The contents of Issue 2 are below; I hope you enjoy it.<br /><br />.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Contents:</span><br /><br />Susan Hayward in the 50s - by Edward Gallafent<br /><br />Madame Bovary, C’est Moi – Signed, Vincente Minnelli - by Mark Rappaport<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Fritz Lang Dossier, Part 1</span> - by the editorial board<br /><br />Notes on <span style="font-style:italic;">Metropolis</span> - by Michael Walker<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">M</span>: Leading the Blind - by Douglas Pye & Iris Luppa<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Das Testament des Dr Mabuse</span> - by Michael Walker<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Robin Wood: A Tribute</span> - by the editorial board<br /><br />Psychoanalyse de <span style="font-style:italic;">Psycho</span> / Psychoanalysis of <span style="font-style:italic;">Psycho</span> - Robin Wood<br /><br />Attitudes in <span style="font-style:italic;">Advise and Consent</span> - Robin Wood<br /><br />In Memoriam Michael Reeves - Robin Wood<br /><br />Sense of Dislocation - Robin Wood (about <span style="font-style:italic;">Last Tango in Paris</span>)<br /><br />Signs and Motifs - Robin Wood (about <span style="font-style:italic;">High Plains Drifter</span>)<br /><br />Moments of Release - Robin Wood (about <span style="font-style:italic;">Cries and Whispers</span>)<br /><br />Call Me Ishmael - Robin Wood (about <span style="font-style:italic;">Fanny and Alexander</span>)<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-83918749338141644132011-03-30T07:53:00.000-07:002011-03-30T09:07:47.761-07:00Thumbsucker and the Quirky.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO7KWJJ5ruszMFDHXZcHY5YU-rIas7X_jhofxNf03Z18fKgeP6NQsqKxqGaF1I5D7idCnqY6A2syk96vxhPGGc8q7dc1pT0H7RMpoxoSkRaSc7FO5MBBJhFZvVtFG6OycURhRPF1ejT70/s1600/thumbsucker5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO7KWJJ5ruszMFDHXZcHY5YU-rIas7X_jhofxNf03Z18fKgeP6NQsqKxqGaF1I5D7idCnqY6A2syk96vxhPGGc8q7dc1pT0H7RMpoxoSkRaSc7FO5MBBJhFZvVtFG6OycURhRPF1ejT70/s400/thumbsucker5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589899047433660786" /></a><br />Apologies for the lack of updates recently. Two main reasons for the drought are that I have been busy with helping prepare the new issue of <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/"><em>Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism</em></a> (which should be appearing before too long!), and managing/contributing to <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/"><i>Alternate Takes</i></a>.<br /><br />Given this, allow me to indulge myself by pointing to a piece which addresses a subject I've written on in both these places: 'quirky' American indies. I first attempted to tackle this concept with <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2005,7,7">this </a>rather informal piece over half a decade ago (yikes...), then approached the matter far more extensively and academically in <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/contents/notes_on_quirky.pdf">this </a>article for <em>Movie</em>. I have now written <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,3,250">another piece</a> for Alternate Takes which strikes a tonal balance somewhere between these other two.<br /><br />There's something fitting about this, and not only because I myself am <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,3,240">interested in</a> such balance in criticism, but also because the quirky itself - as I define it - is a mode of filmmaking defined by balance; as I put it in the most recent article:<br /><br /><blockquote>this is surely a sensibility made up of tensions: between indie and mainstream, comedy and drama, naturalism and artificiality, innocence and experience, and - perhaps above all - ‘irony’ and ‘sincerity’.</blockquote><br />I recently rewatched a movie that seems to me to reflect this fact particularly clearly: Mike Mills' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbsucker_(film)"><em>Thumbsucker</em></a> (2005). This film follows Justin (Lou Taylor Pucci), a suburban Oregonian teenager living with his parents (addressed only by their first names, Audrey [Tilda Swinton] and Mike [Vincent D'Onofrio]). Putatively structured around Justin's struggle to let go of the titular childhood habit, the film is part <em>bildungsroman</em>, part a modest tapestry of unsatisfied American lives. In their own way, each character in the movie struggles with the pains of either growing up or growing old, and with questions of at what point goals transform into fantasies, coping mechanisms into crutches. <br /><br />The movie can usefully be seen as expressing many of the productive tensions often found within the 'quirky' sensibility. Firstly, as a semi-independent film (produced independently, distributed by major subsidiary Sony Pictures Classics), the film unsurprisingly indulges both commercial and more niche impulses: starring an unknown actor, yet also populated by major players; handling drug use and addiction fairly lightly, but concerned to wean its characters off the lifestyles they encourage; dealing primarily in disillusionment, yet offering the possibility of redemption. The movie lives a million miles from, say, the wholly bleak teenage wasteland of a film like <em>Gummo </em>(1997), but also far from the milieu of mainstream teen pictures. Narratively, <em>Thumbsucker </em>emerges as an amalgam between a meandering patchwork piece and a more goal-oriented mode of storytelling - an approach in fact entirely appropriate to depicting the lives of purposeless characters refusing to give up entirely on the search for 'purpose'.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZwtmFLwotAmHDnOfLwwNb7av201KjPnjCgjwX0qI3YL_8JhU1L2b6034CddYzXAvm4TMFOAj9bBfmxJp-nib5bXzMSLhoEoWCIiMdwSO5z62W30tEsp2u1ktAIdXTyk4Hmu5h2gCKCI/s1600/thumbsuckerpic.bmp"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZwtmFLwotAmHDnOfLwwNb7av201KjPnjCgjwX0qI3YL_8JhU1L2b6034CddYzXAvm4TMFOAj9bBfmxJp-nib5bXzMSLhoEoWCIiMdwSO5z62W30tEsp2u1ktAIdXTyk4Hmu5h2gCKCI/s400/thumbsuckerpic.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589899844400020882" /></a><br /><em>Thumbsucker</em>'s use of the tonal possibilities common to movies of its ilk locates it in a similarly ambivalent middle ground. This comic drama is nowhere near so whimsical as, for instance, <em>Napoleon Dynamite </em>(2004), nor so comparatively naturalistic as, for example, <em>The Squid and the Whale</em> (2005), though contains elements of both. One measure of this is that it can encompass both a vignette about anal drug-smuggling gone gorily awry, and pretty, pink-tinged dream sequences set in something like a candy-floss Heaven. This is very much a movie struggling to temper grounded reality with the liberating possibilities of fantasy, something which again reflects a central thematic concern. <br /><br />Virtually all the characters pursue artificial solutions to their problems: prescribed medication, corny psychological mysticism, dreams of a lost career, desire for a beautiful star from “out there in 'picture land'” (as Mike puts it), and so on. In their stymied dreams of greatness, these people in a sense feel like indie characters striving to achieve the eminence of Hollywood heroes - a predicament familiar from the work of Wes Anderson, but one that feels slightly less safe when taking place in a less fanciful and hermetic context than Wes's worlds. The film may contain escapist dream sequences, but we never forget that they are indeed dreams - temporary flights from a far more disappointing reality.<br /><br />Yet, this being a 'quirky' movie, it does not finally encourage us to despair. All the characters are subject to a degree of criticism from the film - Justin himself often appears misguidedly petulant towards, rather than unfairly wronged by, those around him - but we are ultimately nudged towards sincere empathy rather than ironic disengagement. The tension between pessimism and optimism at the film's heart is neatly conveyed by the songs which punctuate it - half of them having been written by the wistful Elliott Smith (who committed suicide before completing the project), the remainder by Tim DeLaughter of the notoriously joyful Polyphonic Spree. Were Smith to have scored the film in its entirety, it would undoubtedly have a different feel than it does. As it is, somberness coexists here with a quixotic triumphalism, and we are permitted to leave the film's world with a characteristically quirky sense of qualified, but nonetheless enveloping, hope, as Justin runs excitedly towards an uncertain future.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-33416863552777821412011-03-17T13:54:00.000-07:002011-03-17T18:44:21.180-07:00Alternate Takes.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyScf2Ch8PRV8orVMychEoD5hItyaF5uFoUWut3veAnQGHKnocRhwv1bvFsl_p73lpAeIGvQqffTWsmootLjlsmitpsOKRYuvuisO5sZnqCcCWtgBagbSs5fdxki_WcKQfvZw2ysPQNXM/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 317px; height: 60px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyScf2Ch8PRV8orVMychEoD5hItyaF5uFoUWut3veAnQGHKnocRhwv1bvFsl_p73lpAeIGvQqffTWsmootLjlsmitpsOKRYuvuisO5sZnqCcCWtgBagbSs5fdxki_WcKQfvZw2ysPQNXM/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585226981640754930" /></a><br />A <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/">site</a> that I set up six years ago, but which has been on a long hiatus for the last two, has just relaunched. It is edited by me, and written by myself and an assortment of excellent film critics, most of whom have studied the subject at university, but who also desire a less purely academic outlet for their cinematic musings.<br /><br />I offer a few extracts from <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,3,240">'The Alternate Takes Approach'</a>, an article that offers some thoughts about the ethos and methods of the site...<br /><br />-<br /><br />While obviously recognising that both popular film reviewing and academia can serve very valuable functions, Alternate Takes seeks to contribute to this intriguing space that exists somewhere between the two. [...]<br /><br />A problem for much movie reviewing is the issue of ‘spoliers’. Arguing for the fundamental need to ‘spoil’ aspects of a film in order to discuss it properly, Jonathan Rosenbaum <a href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2006/11/14/defense-spoilers/">has said</a>, “it’s impossible to function as a critic if one can’t describe anything in a movie or a book in advance. So if I’m expected to write a review of something, am I also expected not to analyze it?” We might say that this speaks to a basic distinction between reviewing and criticism: film reviewers have to assume that their readers haven’t seen the film under discussion, while film critics can assume that they have. To this extent, Alternate Takes practises both reviewing and criticism. [...]<br /><br />The most obvious way by which we bridge the gap between reviewing and criticism is that we write about new films twice. First there is a short, evaluative piece that ‘spoils’ as little as possible about a film, but still grants a sense of the sorts of pleasures, or otherwise, that it offers; this is a review to read before you see a film. After you return from the cinema, you can read our Alternate Take - a longer, more in-depth critical analysis that discusses whatever the writer found to be most interesting about the movie. [...]<br /><br />Speaking very broadly, film journalism tends often to write to the taste of its presumed readership. A film fan or movie geek might read, say, Empire, whose focus is skewed towards mainstream pictures, while a self-defined cinephile might read a more ‘high-end’ publication like <span style="font-style:italic;">Sight and Sound</span> or <span style="font-style:italic;">Film Comment</span> for its coverage of arthouse or festival films. Concerned first and foremost with evaluation, both these kinds of writing usually share and encourage assumptions with their readers about what sorts of films are worth discussing. Film studies, on the other hand, while certainly not immune from issues of taste, isn’t nearly so often interested in passing judgment upon a film’s value - at least not overtly. This in turn opens up the option of writing about a film for a multitude of other reasons - what it might tell us about a social issue, for instance, or an industry, or a genre’s history, or a philosophical problem - and thus means that any film can be treated as interesting for reasons other than whether or not it might be up the critic or reader’s alley.<br /><br />One problem with writing overtly to a particular taste is simply that it can mean that - due to pressures of space - films which lie outside the taste bracket become sidelined. Thus, Empire gives a film like I Am Love (2010) a positive <a href="http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=118516">review</a> that nonetheless runs to a mere 107 words, while the usually more loquacious Sight and Sound grants a movie such as No Strings Attached (2011) just two paragraphs (see the April ’11 issue). This, surely, is because both publications assume that their core readership just won’t be interested in reading lengthy pieces on these sorts of movies. [...]<br /><br />Of course, it would be foolish to claim that any of our critical judgments can ever be free from personal taste (something acknowledged in our scoring system [...]). But it would be equally foolish to deny that there are degrees to which taste dictates the focus and tone of a discourse. Alternate Takes tries to adopt something akin to film studies’ more democratic attitude towards cinema, but without abandoning the evaluative dimension of journalistic film reviewing. The result, hopefully, is an approach that considers any kind of film worthy of detailed discussion, but which assesses that film on its own terms rather than chastising or ignoring it because it isn’t something that it never attempted to be. We may not always be successful in this aim, but it seems an ideal to strive towards.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-63789997447584495872011-03-08T02:29:00.000-08:002011-05-09T01:37:43.028-07:00Kiss. Fade Out. The End: Embracing the Happy Ending.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqP6HzqLgkcDhyphenhyphensCsaPjxIQOVG0bUP2nlIwYR0Gq_zsfMiAPeAN0AVaTDMULhP3MQApnIn3U79djVktliB3dscE-DlRZsIzihF3hW1yvhF1NGWKONBcWuA1EDTY2FpkY9UQ9bE6bhPNoQ/s1600/vlcsnap-880167.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 222px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqP6HzqLgkcDhyphenhyphensCsaPjxIQOVG0bUP2nlIwYR0Gq_zsfMiAPeAN0AVaTDMULhP3MQApnIn3U79djVktliB3dscE-DlRZsIzihF3hW1yvhF1NGWKONBcWuA1EDTY2FpkY9UQ9bE6bhPNoQ/s400/vlcsnap-880167.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581656018346754258" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />The following is a conference paper delivered at </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rom Com Actually: A Two Day International Conference on Romantic Comedy in Film and Television</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, held at De Montfort University, Leicester, 2 – 3 March, 2011.<br /><br />-<br /><br />In the 1964 romantic comedy </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Paris When it Sizzles</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> Richard (William Holden), a screenwriter, tells Gabrielle (Audrey Hepburn), his secretary, that a Hollywood film necessarily ends in the following manner:<br /><br /></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The climax. The music soars, and there, totally oblivious to the torrential rain pouring down upon them, the two fall happily and tenderly into each other’s arms. And as the audience drools with sublimated sexual pleasure, the two enormous and highly-paid heads come together for that ultimate and inevitable moment: the final, earth-moving, studio-rent-paying, theatre-filling, popcorn-selling kiss. Fade out. The end.<br /></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />Accordingly, this film, which is dedicated throughout to sending-up various cinematic clichés while simultaneously enacting them, does itself end in precisely this way. Speaking of the new script Richard is writing, Gabrielle asks, “It will have a happy ending, won’t it?” The couple then intone Richard’s earlier words to one another (him: “Theatre-filling…”/ her: “Popcorn selling…”) before falling into a passionate embrace as the words, “Kiss. Fade out. The End.” are typed onto the screen; we fade to black.<br /><br />David Bordwell has said that “few conventions of the Hollywood cinema are as noticeable to its producers, to its audiences, and to its critics as that of the happy ending”. Robin Wood calls the happy ending the “most striking and persistent of all classical Hollywood phenomena”. Assumptions like these are widespread. It’s exceedingly common for critics to precede the term happy ending with words like “standard” (Dolar, 1991: 38), “standardised” (Mulvey, 1977: 54), “typical” (Booker, 2007: 42), “usual” (Žižek, 2001: 7), “traditional” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2004: 61), “formulaic” (Umphlett, 2006: 38), “conventional” (Dunne, 2004: 78), “clichéd” (Orr, 1991: 380), “expected” (Rowe & Wells, 2003: 59), “predictable” (Schatz, 1991: 152), “customary” (Sterrit, 1993: 10), “inevitable” (Kracauer, 1960: 65), “necessary” (Mayne, 1990: 363), “required” (Sharrett, 2007: 60), “requisite” (Tally, 2007: 129), “statutory” (Brownlow, 1987: 122), “mandatory” (Kapsis, 1990: 39), or “obligatory” (Shapiro, 1995: 197).<br /><br />Despite being viewed in this way, the 'happy ending' has received barely any in-depth attention from film studies. This paper is an extension of my doctoral work, which is dedicated in part to dispelling some myths about the convention. In particular, today I want to discuss the kind of happy ending familiar from so many romantic comedies: the kind in which ‘boy gets girl’, which for convenience’s sake I call the final couple.<br /><br />In a sense I feel that this conference may actually be one of the few places where I’ll be preaching to the choir, since romantic comedy criticism has produced probably the best work on happy endings thus far. Nevertheless, I hope you’ll bear with me.<br /><br />In a 1947 article called ‘Happily Ever After’, Fritz Lang wrote:<br /><br /></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The traditional happy-ending story is a story of problems solved by an invincible hero, who achieved with miraculous ease all that his heart desired. [...] Boy will get girl, [...] dreams will come true as though at the touch of a wand.<br /></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />I think we can see something like this description as charting the basic discursive field surrounding the ‘happy ending’. Of course Lang isn’t right when he calls this ‘happy ending’ “traditional”; instead it is prototypical. This is the abstract </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">idea</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> of a happy ending – exaggerated and hyperbolic. Because it has never been unpacked or interrogated, I think that this image has also tended to control film studies’ own attitudes toward happy endings, causing us to construct it as a critical ‘bad object’ rather than engage with it in detail.<br /><br />That is to say: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> ‘happy ending’ is an amalgamation of the kinds of exaggerated images conjured up here, or presented in a film like </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Paris When it Sizzles</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. Rather like the way in which genres are sometimes treated, it is essentially a Platonic ideal, existing in the minds of critics, filmmakers, and audiences, and often exerting its influence most forcefully by what it represents <span style="font-style:italic;">as an ideal</span>. Just as Hollywood cinema has plainly produced a great many of what we call Westerns, but never </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> prototypical Western, so has it produced a great many of what we call ‘happy endings’, but never </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> ‘happy ending’. Yet, unlike the case with genre, this oversimplified conception of the ‘happy ending’ is still rife in film studies, and is what has allowed the convention’s reputation as a whole to become what it is today. It’s what permits critics to speak of “the Hollywood happy-ending convention” (Buckland, 2006: 219), or “the Hollywood convention of the always-happy ending” (Bratu-Hansen, 1997: 101).<br /><br />It seems to me that in any happy ending there are two happy endings at play: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> 'happy ending' – this clichéd, perfected ideal – and the actual happy ending we are watching, which will almost always be more ambivalent, or at least in some way distinguishable from its Platonic counterpart. I think we need to always to be aware of which we're talking about at any given moment: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> 'happy ending' (which requires quotation marks), or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">a</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> happy ending?<br /><br />I’m also interested in the interplay between these two endings – the imagined and the real, and I’ll talk today about some assumptions about the former that are complicated if we pay proper attention to the latter – in particular, assumptions about the clichéd, ‘closed’, and ideological character of happy endings.<br /><br />First though, we need to ask: why does the happy ending have such a negative critical reputation?<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBMi0uGtl1TfwRcrj_pUjlo97KNkSk9GJWzIJPN2jtkuK6bQot4o77fyxdiQ32fyVaC1omE6aGgCNvkQ0E7OmoUOF8TkIA9cSMSjjFbJlnfxMzwBtmlIhiOn3VKuioo7nu8j-Rbrvr2X8/s1600/vlcsnap-879269.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBMi0uGtl1TfwRcrj_pUjlo97KNkSk9GJWzIJPN2jtkuK6bQot4o77fyxdiQ32fyVaC1omE6aGgCNvkQ0E7OmoUOF8TkIA9cSMSjjFbJlnfxMzwBtmlIhiOn3VKuioo7nu8j-Rbrvr2X8/s400/vlcsnap-879269.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581680068176091634" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /><br /></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Happy Ending in Film Theory</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In 1967 Frank Kermode wrote in his seminal book </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Sense of Ending</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> that there had developed “a modern degree of clerical skepticism” towards narrative in general, and endings in particular. This skepticism has only increased and diversified within critical and theoretical discourse since.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />Perhaps the most central reason for film studies’ hostility towards the ‘happy ending’ is its perceived links with narrative closure. Since the 1960s various theoretical approaches to both film and literature have managed to draw metaphorical parallels between narrative closure and virtually every ‘conservative’ impulse in Western culture: capitalism, patriarchy, masculinity, the Oedipal trajectory, bourgeois ideology, and so on.<br /><br />It was a central tenet of '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Screen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> theory' in particular that a Hollywood movie usually strives to be what Commoli and Narboni called “a closed circuit, endlessly repeating the same illusion”. Theoretical models like Colin MacCabe’s ‘classic realist text’ regularly described Hollywood aesthetics using terms such as a “heavily ‘closed’ discourse”, and so on.<br /><br />Of course, the excesses of '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Screen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> theory' – such as the concept of the classic realist text – have now received decades of critical drubbing, and its shortcomings on this particular matter of closure are easily diagnosed. The convention of closure, in-and-of-itself, conveys no ideology whatsoever. It is merely a formal device that can be used in the telling of a radical story as easily as a conservative one. This is because, a Andrew Britton says, a film’s ideology can “be gauged not by the fact that it uses certain conventions but </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">by its use of them</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">”.<br /><br />Yet the critical enmity towards narrative closure </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">per se</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> on ideological grounds certainly outlived the '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Screen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> theory' boom, and can be seen to have continued through psychoanalytic approaches of various stripes, feminist film theory, postmodern theory, and still persists today.<br /><br />One measure of this is the survival of a concept that was central to 70s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Screen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">'s dealings with Hollywood closure. <br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The 'Self-Consciously Artificial Happy Ending'</span></span></i></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i></i>The theoretical climate that abounded in film studies' early years essentially made it necessary that, if one wishes to make positive claims for a ‘closed’ happy ending, one needs to argue that it doesn’t in fact convincingly ‘close’ the film. This produced a very prevalent – and resilient – category: the “happy ending in which the mechanics of cinema are exposed” (Geraghty, 2009: 106), because it seems “unmotivated” (Neupert, 1995: 72), “ironic” (Grant, 2007: 79) or “forced” (Pollock, 1977: 109). We can call this overarching critical category what Shingler and Mercer dub the “self-consciously artificial” ‘happy ending’. This model was very useful for the development of ‘Screen theory’ as a whole, playing a key role in the development of a concept that Barbra Klinger has dubbed “the formally subversive ‘progressive’ text”.<br /><br />But the model is by no means confined to this period or theoretical tradition. For instance, in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Classical Hollywood Cinema</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> – which is still one of the most influential of film studies books, and is critical of much '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Screen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> theory' – David Bordwell writes that an “unmotivated happy ending” can “break down the ideological unity of the classical Hollywood film”. And today we can still regularly see readings which suggest that an individual happy ending is either tacitly ironic or unintentionally unconvincing, thus counteracting closure, and thus containing some sort of progressive potential, or at least additional interest.<br /><br />An important point to make about this argument is that it is based on the assumption that, unless it’s being subverted, a happy ending is likely to merely conform to the standardized Platonic happy ending of our imagination. A second point is that ‘open’ and ‘closed’ aren’t static categories which endings simply are or are not – there are infinite shadings of closure. We can see this by looking even very briefly at a handful of individual final couples.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkoSCevraXnVWp2gadaGyTO_nEOHlRKnXzLsWFmr9fyoJSYxJ_JvbAWGs7BKmiNaQn_fv9hH7jmtDI1y83heayAl-ggUr_XiRFiiV7s60keKB_wx93S736fJovWcsTJu8QiJUVfZnB48/s1600/Picture+1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkoSCevraXnVWp2gadaGyTO_nEOHlRKnXzLsWFmr9fyoJSYxJ_JvbAWGs7BKmiNaQn_fv9hH7jmtDI1y83heayAl-ggUr_XiRFiiV7s60keKB_wx93S736fJovWcsTJu8QiJUVfZnB48/s400/Picture+1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581680901493534290" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Variation and 'Closure'</span></span></i></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The final couple is regularly assumed to guarantee complete closure – the resolution of all crises and contradictions through romantic union. Sometimes it does, but it needn’t.<br /><br />The uncertainty of the future may be literalised openly. In </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Double Wedding </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1937), Margit and Charles ultimately lie knocked out on the floor after a brawl at a misfired nuptial, a wreath reading “Good Luck!” strewn over their unconscious bodies. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1938)</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">sees its couple on the verge of restarting their marriage but with Gary Cooper in a straightjacket and rendered virtually mute by rage and sexual frustration. More recently, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I Could Never be your Woman</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (2007) has its heroine admit of her new relationship “So, it might not last...”<br /><br />Equally, the lovers might not finally know each others’ true identity. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Lady Eve</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1941) famously ends with Hopsy still not having realized that Jean has been pretending to be two different people. In </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Bachelor Mother</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1939) David finally remains under the illusion that Polly is the mother of the abandoned baby; </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Charade</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1963) ends with the line "I love you, Adam, Alex, Peter, Brian – whatever your name is…”; </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Housesitter</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">’s (1992) last words are “I love you, Gwen.” / “Actually, it’s Jessica…”<br /><br />As an aside, it’s also worth briefly drawing attention to a very common strategy of romantic comedy of all eras, which is to use an epilogue, not to shore-up closure, but to follow a final couple with a dissonant gag. This may perhaps refer back to an earlier issue between the couple – say, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Ugly Truth</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">’s (2009) final faked-orgasm gag – or it might bring back a secondary figure of fun – in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Ninotchka</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1939) we finally cut to the protesting Russian envoy. Equally, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Four’s a Crowd</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1938) has Errol Flynn accidentally kiss the wrong new bride before switching to his actual wife, while their car is being pursued by hunting dogs, dispatched by an angry father . As Kathrina Glitre points out, “far from reinforcing the return of the status quo, [...] the Hollywood romantic comedy epilogue tends to destabilise the final union by the return of a source of conflict”.<br /><br />My point isn’t that these films necessarily encourage us to envision </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">pessimistic</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> futures, but only that the problems of the narrative need by no means be unilaterally closed by a final couple. Furthermore: it is crucial that no ‘subversion’ of a prototypical model is required in order to create these happy endings which are equivocal, ambiguous, or in some other way simply distinctive. Celestino Deleyto is in my view absolutely correct when he says that “a closer look at this [...] convention proves that ambiguity and variety are relatively frequent”; more to the point, he is virtually revolutionary when he goes on to suggest what no other critic has ever acknowledged: that such ambiguity and variety are “even part of the convention itself”.<br /><br />And indeed, we should probably admit that this ambiguity is unsurprising, given that the final couple is simultaneously the most familiar of endings and also manifestly a moment of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">beginning </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">– the beginning of a romantic relationship. This is something that particular happy endings acknowledge to varying to degrees, but it’s always central to the convention, and can be one reason for the relative ‘openness’ of particular final couples.<br /><br />Another reason it’s unsurprising that we should find moments of equivocation in many final couples is because of the overbearing weight of the clichéd, Platonic image of the 'happy ending'.<br /><br />This is something that has often been acknowledged about contemporary rom coms, or New Romances, which often display, as Frank Krutnik puts it, a “knowing embrace of the artifice of convention” – with the 'happy ending' high on the list of conventions regularly considered artificial. A famous example of this is </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Pretty Woman </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1990), which ends with a modern version of the fairytale-style rescue of a princess by a prince, followed by a chorus-like figure announcing “this is Hollywood, land of dreams!” I would agree with the numerous critics of romantic comedy who argue that this trend needs to be explained at least partly in relation to the rise of postmodernism.<br /><br />But it also needs to be seen on a continuum with the far older convention of drawing attention to the clichéd nature of the final couple. We’ve already seen </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Paris When it Sizzles</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> parodying the 'happy ending' back in 1964. We might go back to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Platinum Blonde</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> in 1931, which finishes with the hero talking to the heroine, telling her about the happy ending of a play he’s writing, whilst acting out that ending with her. Or we could look at </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Sherlock, Jr.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> in 1924, which shows Buster Keaton taking romantic advice from a movie playing onscreen...<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOLDUh6mlbM3GoGKoT6yRZYtmjkehmKu0sEyZEGyjhFVoouW46XZYtuTAqJuMZLkdBvbCNGZBCNk6s7dU0HHvCB4H7gP3T22tFGIYJlXmvfCUQWOnug_-XZYByilXIGxstc24L8ovtUA/s1600/Picture+1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaOLDUh6mlbM3GoGKoT6yRZYtmjkehmKu0sEyZEGyjhFVoouW46XZYtuTAqJuMZLkdBvbCNGZBCNk6s7dU0HHvCB4H7gP3T22tFGIYJlXmvfCUQWOnug_-XZYByilXIGxstc24L8ovtUA/s400/Picture+1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581678721412190914" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsaXrvXtnoGd3ij3uNYytR1fi2Q-_eHYwLc_uLSn4S_nQxsU-uS06_yHECJEWayO01NQ4-UBU1OkmAn5sKH0xIHo8luEua8V-xy3W78hPEi7QR3tO5Nd6waGGQPdISf4SNAD2OtWTuE8/s1600/Picture+4.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsaXrvXtnoGd3ij3uNYytR1fi2Q-_eHYwLc_uLSn4S_nQxsU-uS06_yHECJEWayO01NQ4-UBU1OkmAn5sKH0xIHo8luEua8V-xy3W78hPEi7QR3tO5Nd6waGGQPdISf4SNAD2OtWTuE8/s400/Picture+4.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581678731611071890" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />...until the film-within-a-film shows its onscreen couple kiss, then dissolves immediately to a shot of hero and heroine holding several babies; Buster is left looking confused.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAKfviRSCzzuyHld8IAkTzweWDF0ER1Z8N2aBUtKISggucD3s5VEIGe0nOtn69ubltKFOgvlKZaVUFwTyU0XD-QGe8faqvX_y2SovMpSNUFFpCLQeARhJZl7gANeaCCvu-4dkBqbRurts/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAKfviRSCzzuyHld8IAkTzweWDF0ER1Z8N2aBUtKISggucD3s5VEIGe0nOtn69ubltKFOgvlKZaVUFwTyU0XD-QGe8faqvX_y2SovMpSNUFFpCLQeARhJZl7gANeaCCvu-4dkBqbRurts/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581679169922108162" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPkSkQvcDry5MwzGawpR5Q76YkD3Dvt6rsNm3UwPeLVXzAKI9ZGsNCMBQv1RnVl-Ho-T2uzWsgqAa_i_UaEt3SWT-QQPvul034Ci70HBRhVlOlNplXkL6iKwViYAPHvRuKAjCv7AVh2Ks/s1600/Picture+3.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPkSkQvcDry5MwzGawpR5Q76YkD3Dvt6rsNm3UwPeLVXzAKI9ZGsNCMBQv1RnVl-Ho-T2uzWsgqAa_i_UaEt3SWT-QQPvul034Ci70HBRhVlOlNplXkL6iKwViYAPHvRuKAjCv7AVh2Ks/s400/Picture+3.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581678728081003362" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />In fact, as far back as Shakespeare we can see the final couple being treated as a hackneyed convention – towards the end of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Love’s Labour’s Lost</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> Berowne comments on the interruption of the play’s courtship plots by observing that “our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill”.<br /><br />This is because for hundreds of years it has been true that, as David Shumway puts it, “‘Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back’ is exhibit A of standard plots in all fictional media”. Given this, while postmodernism might have caused what was once, in Jameson’s terms, ‘residual’ to have became a ‘cultural dominant’, the clichéd reputation of the final couple has long been one of its defining features. This in turn would seem to mean that, just like many film scholars, most romantic comedies are </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">themselves</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> suspicious of this prototypical image, and thus tend to find ways of avoiding conforming to it uncomplicatedly – either via the kinds of minor dissonance mentioned earlier, or by, as Kruntnik puts it, presenting “the fulfilment fantasy of heterosexual union, while underscoring that it is only wish fulfilment after all”.<br /><br />Of course though, it isn’t just its clichéd nature that regularly causes anxiety about the final couple, but also its perceived politics. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Variation and Ideology</span></span></i></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Other than perhaps somewhat outdated </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">de facto </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">associations of closure with a reactionary ideology, the main reason for political suspicion of the final couple is because to end in this way both sets up marriage as an ultimate goal, and necessarily consigns it to a narrative afterlife that remains unrepresented, and thus unchallenged .<br /><br />Yet the fact that this genre often ends with marriage (or more broadly monogamy) doesn’t mean it always seeks to relegitimize it, nor that it is unable to represent anxieties about the institution. While of course usually framed within a comic mode, marriage can be criticised in romantic comedies for many reasons.<br /><br />For Gillian in </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Bell, Book and Candle</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1958) marriage “would mean giving up a whole way of thinking, behaving – a whole existence”, while Tira in </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I’m No Angel</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1936) sees marriage “only as a last resort”. Following the fall of the Production Code the critiques have only tended to become more overt: “You want a happy marriage?” Mac asks Eddie in </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Heartbreak Kid</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (2007), “Do what I do: plaster on a fake smile, plough through the next half century, sit back, relax, and wait for the sweet embrace of death.” Marriage is described in contemporary romantic comedies variously as “something that’s got about a fifty-fifty shot of making it out of the gate” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">27 Dresses</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [2007]), a “patriarchal” form of “ritualised property transfer” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Bachelor</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [1999]), “a prison” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Forces of Nature</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [1998]), “a form of institutionalised rape” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Forget Paris</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [1994]), “not natural” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">What Happens in Vegas</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [2008]), “filled with loneliness and sadness” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Bride Wars</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [2006]), and accused of being based upon “a bourgeois desire to fulfill an ideal that society embeds in us from an early age to promote a consumer-capitalist agenda” (</span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Definitely Maybe</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> [2008]). Even the assumed ideological link between marriage and the 'happy ending’ can be explicitly called into question: “Then what happens?” medical student Paige asks of a burgeoning relationship in </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Prince and Me</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (2005), “We get married and live happily ever after? Then all my hard work goes down the drain because I’m too busy shopping for groceries and picking my kids up at soccer.”<br /><br />Of course, though, these dissenting voices tend not to have the ‘last word’, since the narrative does indeed usually culminate in the beginnings of a romantic relationship. But it has too often been assumed that, whatever progressive potential a romance narrative may possess, the final couple which </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">ends</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> it will always signal a return to conservative values. Of course, I don’t wish to suggest that final couples </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">can’t</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> serve to, say, ‘tame’ strong women, and it is certainly valid and necessary to pay attention to what Laura Mulvey calls “the amount of dust the story raises along the road”. This should not, however, come at the expense of asking how much “dust” can </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">also</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> be raised by a final couple. We’re free to view as equally conservative all endorsements of any monogamous heterosexual couple if we wish. However, this view will logically leave us entirely unable to differentiate between the ideological meanings of one couple and another.<br /><br />I think it necessary to adjust our thinking and recognise that the final couple, while always dealing with similar ideological concerns, will nevertheless have different meanings depending on its specific treatment. As Kathrina Glitre puts it,<br /><br /></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It is not enough to claim that [...] simply by ending with the union of the heterosexual couple, romantic comedy is about the traditional institutions of patriarchal society and must be inherently conservative. The context of The End must be taken into account.<br /></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />It is true that romantic comedies usually encourage us to endorse their ultimately united romantic couples. But that couple will be different in each case, which will in turn change the implications of our endorsement of it. More important than the fact of the final couple is the kind of future a final couple invites us to imagine – as well as </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">who</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> the people getting married are, and how </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">equal</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> their relationship is. Two final kisses shared by the very same stars within a couple of years of one another can have extremely different ideological overtones depending on - to take one blatant example - who has been pursuing and educating whom. We can see this in the huge gulf separating the sexual politics of, say, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Philadelphia Story </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1940) and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Bringing Up Baby </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1938).<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjzp9i5VVzVZlEcS6zS60rMm8SF162zWtEFwJxNyAhKgsH3crp-4HCmvD0a6qmk5N6uPWMXU4tksEP4JIg7-hKiMt218HShdyXU2GyutsXiqPnKQzN5wxshJUs4LkL_UaO94dJt5018-g/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 297px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjzp9i5VVzVZlEcS6zS60rMm8SF162zWtEFwJxNyAhKgsH3crp-4HCmvD0a6qmk5N6uPWMXU4tksEP4JIg7-hKiMt218HShdyXU2GyutsXiqPnKQzN5wxshJUs4LkL_UaO94dJt5018-g/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581681597370700658" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj96duVK_HEviaPMgn8rPlcNcf12aChkx1sZKFm0BlPb8YMakrrCMYHguOx8xKozO38CfLbk99JfXW8EyfDS5ZUlcSkLNs5oBloQuhqLj1VDK3aXEu006mQWrGZb4oS073zUzcIewI3XCI/s1600/Picture+5.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 303px; height: 227px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj96duVK_HEviaPMgn8rPlcNcf12aChkx1sZKFm0BlPb8YMakrrCMYHguOx8xKozO38CfLbk99JfXW8EyfDS5ZUlcSkLNs5oBloQuhqLj1VDK3aXEu006mQWrGZb4oS073zUzcIewI3XCI/s400/Picture+5.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581681703613614898" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br />The first of these final kisses has been arrived at after two hours of male characters paternalistically putting Tracy in her place; the latter is the end result of the couple's joyous escape from virtually all traces of patriarchal dominance in their relationship.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">There are lots of questions we must ask of individual final couples if we wish to move beyond a view which accuses every romantic comedy ending of conveying the same ideological message.<br /><br />For instance: is the final couple predicated on the woman having to give up a career opportunity, as in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(2003), or is it founded explicitly on her professional success, as in something like </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">His Girl Friday </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1940)?<br /><br />Is the woman desperate to be a wife, as in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Every Girl Should be Married </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1948), or is she finally reluctant to wed and has to be talked into it by the man, like in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Indiscreet</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1958)?<br /><br />Is the final marriage presented as the fulfilment of all the woman’s dreams, as in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">27 Dresses </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(2007), or does it seem strangely threatening, as in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">She Done Him Wrong </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1933), which ends with Cary Grant telling Mae West “you’re my prisoner and I’m going to be your jailer for a long time...”<br /><br />Whereas the final couple under the Production Code tended to be synonymous with marriage, now it need only constitute a committed relationship. Given this, if a contemporary film wants to marry its couple off, does it make this seem logical by structuring its entire narrative around weddings, as in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Wedding Planner </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(2001), or does marriage seem a strangely anachronistic tacked-on addendum, as in <span style="font-style:italic;">Blind Date</span> (1987)?<br /><br />If the couple is already married by the start of the film, does the movie flirt with but finally steer clear of adultery, as </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Wife vs. Secretary</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1936) does? Does it suggest that an infidelity can actually save a marriage, like </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Kiss Me Stupid</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1964)? Or is the final couple itself adulterous, as in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Same Time Next Year</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1978)?<br /><br />What age is the couple? Teen romances can often make their final couples feel tentative and provisional. The teenage heroine of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">A Cinderella Story</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (2004) says in voiceover at the end of her film “and we lived happily ever after. At least for now – hey: I’m only a freshman!” In </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Clueless</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">’ (1995) final scene we cut to a wedding that we expect to be that of the main couple, only to be told “as if!”<br /><br />While the marriage can seem to be all about the couple, it can also focus far more on the friendship between two women, with the husbands cast as merely incidental, as in, say, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Gentlemen Prefer Blondes </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1953), or more recently, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Bride Wars </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(2008).<br /><br />All these things will have distinct significance for the politics of particular final couples. And this is before we even start talking about happy endings which don’t feature a final couple at all, like </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Roman Holiday </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1953), </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">My Best Friend’s Wedding </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(1997), </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Prime</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (2005), and so on.<br /><br />So – to wind things up...<br /><br />The assumption that a happy ending fundamentally requires irony or subversion in order to avoid being monolithic and conservative is a damaging one. While film studies may have largely left categories like the standardised classic realist text firmly behind, those surrounding the standardised ‘happy ending’ tend to continue unabated. Though it certainly does have its uses, the model of the self-consciously artificial 'happy ending' is a rather anachronistic remnant of an earlier critical climate, and deserves to be rethought.<br /><br />Because the final couple </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">is</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> so widespread a feature of Hollywood conclusions, it can be tempting to assume that it will always be the same and mean the same thing. Yet I would suggest that its very prevalence should in fact encourage a contrary assumption: that this convention will be bound to serve many varied functions depending upon the needs of varied films. If we recognise this, it will allow us to see </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> 'happy ending' for what it is: a tenacious Platonic ideal whose influence is important for our understanding, but which can by no means tell us all we need to know about what can be conveyed by 'Kiss. Fade Out. The End'.<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">.</span></div></span>James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-68260447314196758092011-02-13T03:13:00.000-08:002011-02-15T03:54:07.510-08:00Sex, Rom Coms, and Final Couples, Part 2.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Ahp8K1dpwBPCu0tiB2KS7xV6IeSLS8QYQ2WdFWCsE3Wy1wdGmm6r00nc8iMMYlTgBzaIFPBRsl02IsHr75AFHn_MNc1wg-cmUC0jj8RCmAgO6QIU27oM2u0ad5IaIf9-NHmLx1xdWkQ/s1600/No_Strings_Attached_Poster.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Ahp8K1dpwBPCu0tiB2KS7xV6IeSLS8QYQ2WdFWCsE3Wy1wdGmm6r00nc8iMMYlTgBzaIFPBRsl02IsHr75AFHn_MNc1wg-cmUC0jj8RCmAgO6QIU27oM2u0ad5IaIf9-NHmLx1xdWkQ/s400/No_Strings_Attached_Poster.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573141180777282690" /></a><br />It has come to my attention that there are, not just one, but two 'casual sex' romantic comedies on the horizon: <span style="font-style:italic;">No Strings Attached</span> (trailer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubfcfs98MBw">here</a>), and the even more literal-mindedly titled <span style="font-style:italic;">Friends With Benefits</span> (trailer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoKigdXnJzU">here</a>). This is on top of last year's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKtrLiQTSM8"><span style="font-style:italic;">Love and Other Drugs</span></a>, the raunchiest mainstream rom com for some time (even if it does develop, not entirely convincingly, into something of a melodrama).<br /><br />As I've <a href="http://thelesserfeat.blogspot.com/2011/01/sex-rom-coms-and-final-couples.html">said before</a>, many (academic) critics like to characterise contemporary romantic comedy as perversely chaste, suggesting that these movies usually find some reason or other to keep couples out of each others' beds. This just isn't true, however, as the appearance of films like these makes all the more obvious. <br /><br />The final couple happy ending has long been seen as a standardised, conservative end to a genre that is concerned in virtually every instance to repeat the same mantra regarding marriage and monogamy. Yet I'm more in agreement with Celestino Deleyto when he says that the main purpose of romantic comedy is<br /><br /><blockquote>the artistic articulation of current discourses on love, sex and marriage - discourses that [are] multiple and contradictory. The apparent universality of the happy ending and its obvious conventionality have led many to defend a homology between the genre’s narrative structure and a stern defence of monogamy and heterosexuality, distorting what, in my view, is its main discursive space: the exploration of love and human sexuality and its complex and fluid relationships with the social context.</blockquote><br />There have certainly already been plenty of romantic comedies in which casual sex or one-night stands have taken place between final couples (only to lead to something more), but these two films - taking, as they do, the parlance of our times in their very titles - make it very clear that they are concerned to explore this particular aspect of their "social context". <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=friends%20with%20benefits">Urban Dictionary's</a> first entry for the phrase 'friends with benefits' seems to have appeared in 2003. Well, better eight years later than never.<br /><br />Of course, it is almost certain that these movies will end with their final couples deciding that they want to try for a monogamous relationship; but meaning doesn't just reside in the ending - it's also conveyed by the beginning and middle. Equally, one final couple can mean something very different to another depending on what has come before it. For instance, once it has been demonstrated that sex can be separated from emotions outside a relationship, it follows that they can also be severed inside one. I predict tentative conclusions.<br /><br />Regardless of how they turn out, though, what could make more clear the rom coms' desire to wrestle with changing sexual politics than the appearance of films with titles like these? How long until we see a movie called <span style="font-style:italic;">Fuck Buddies</span>?<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-57101539817400569452011-01-30T02:09:00.000-08:002011-01-30T05:42:38.033-08:00Ellipsis and Occlusion in Rear Window.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2_YOXRaJ2utA2qbAzmNjmp2k8gfkbGzC8Yh-bvtrlggSWD5H5-vuCm5rOjOtlhoFodFlKHI8lpKZw-4naN3c0v5gg399mW0fSNOuSMgmyhUSEkJEAdjZ6GiKDcjnBRHBDd2f1z9Aaxo/s1600/vlcsnap-11902035.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2_YOXRaJ2utA2qbAzmNjmp2k8gfkbGzC8Yh-bvtrlggSWD5H5-vuCm5rOjOtlhoFodFlKHI8lpKZw-4naN3c0v5gg399mW0fSNOuSMgmyhUSEkJEAdjZ6GiKDcjnBRHBDd2f1z9Aaxo/s400/vlcsnap-11902035.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567958327785213906" /></a><br />I provide here a link to my first academic article to appear in print,<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/47777361/What-We-Don-t-See-and-What-We-Think-it-Means-Ellipsis-and-Occlusion-in-Rear-Window-By-James-MacDowell"> 'What We Don't See, and What We Think it Means: Ellipsis and Occlusion in <span style="font-style:italic;">Rear Window</span>' </a>(<span style="font-style:italic;">The Hitchcock Annual</span>, Vol. 16. New York: Columbia University Press. 2010: pp.77-101). Thank you to the editors of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Hitchcock Annual</span>, Sidney Gottlieb and Richard Allen, for their permission to republish the piece online.<br /><br />An extract from the article to give a sense of what it's about:<br /><br />In the line from<span style="font-style:italic;"> Rear Window</span> that inspired this essay’s title, Lisa instructs Jeff to “tell me everything you saw, and what you think it means.” David Bordwell has said that this line “concisely reiterates the film’s strategy of supplying sensory information [...] and then forcing Jeff (and us) to interpret it,” and furthermore that, in this sense, “every fiction film does what <span style="font-style:italic;">Rear Window</span> does.” The line is similarly cited by Richard Maltby to help make the point that “when we remember a film we [...] tell ourselves what we saw, and interpret it. The result is a story.” It is easy to see why these words might be alluded to in illustrations of the processes by which we understand film, given that they combine the visual, narrated, and interpretive aspects of filmic storytelling and viewing in a pleasingly economical way. If we are serious about using the line as a metaphor for the spectator’s activity, however, it is worth pointing out that what it does not include is any acknowledgement that what we <span style="font-style:italic;">don’t</span> see in a film also plays a very important role in our sense of what we “think it means”.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-15890223907111331402011-01-26T15:49:00.000-08:002011-01-27T10:14:42.847-08:00Encounters With Moments: Before Sunrise.<br />Partly because I'm currently reading the fascinating <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-Moments-Criticism-History-Theory/dp/1844573354"><span style="font-style:italic;">Film Moments: Criticism, History, Theory</span></a>, it has occurred to me that one nice ongoing project for this blog might be to occasionally point to some particularly striking critical attempts to describe cinematic moments, along with an image or two which evokes them. Sometimes I may offer my own description of these moments, at other times not. Either way, I intend the series to stand as a tribute to one of the prime tasks of the film critic - as Victor Perkins put it: "to articulate in the medium of prose some aspects of what artists have made perfectly and precisely clear in the medium of film". As any film critic knows, this process constitutes an always challenging, and often exhilarating, experience (as Girish, with the help of Stanley Cavell and Christian Keathley, begins a discussion about <a href="http://girishshambu.blogspot.com/2010/04/small-striking-moments.html">here</a>).<br /><br />It seems strangely fitting to begin with an instance of a critic finding that words in fact fail him when faced with a moment he especially prizes: Robin Wood, speaking of a scene from Richard Linklater's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Sunrise"><span style="font-style:italic;">Before Sunrise</span></a> (1995) in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Politics-Narrative-Film-Robin/dp/0231076053"><span style="font-style:italic;">Sexual Politics and Narrative Film</span></a>. Wood's admittance of failure here is a touchingly honest reminder of the difficulty of our endeavour when we try to put into words the ineffable.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSef5l-huVy-hG4wKvIqqi5D8dQOCP99jW6JUAnOjpJPjErdgHAXczg5NZNucWDSoi5jgx0xP5_tXy96oQwGTtJnoAVZ48N14ln0MmbqaldHfoV0clORpYKdW1_LwhU8qTDCPRz-9JKog/s1600/vlcsnap-8851504.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSef5l-huVy-hG4wKvIqqi5D8dQOCP99jW6JUAnOjpJPjErdgHAXczg5NZNucWDSoi5jgx0xP5_tXy96oQwGTtJnoAVZ48N14ln0MmbqaldHfoV0clORpYKdW1_LwhU8qTDCPRz-9JKog/s400/vlcsnap-8851504.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566659385012294370" /></a><br />Wood writes,<br /><br />"I have to confess, at this point, to a failure: even on first viewing I told myself that I would 'one day' analyze in detail the scene in the listening booth of the record store, in which nothing happens except that Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy either do or don't look at each other, their eyes never quite meeting. After a dozen viewings I abandoned the project. I suppose one might try an elaborate system of charts and timings, annotating 'direction of the gaze', when and how long each looks (or doesn't)... which would demonstrate nothing of the least importance. With no camera-movement, no editing, no movement within the frame except for the slight movements of the actors' heads, nothing on the soundtrack but a not-very-distinguished song that may vaguely suggest what is going on in the characters' minds and seems sometimes to motivate their 'looks' ("Though I'm not impossible to touch / I have never wanted you so much / Come here"), the shot seems to me a model of 'pure cinema' in ways Hitchcock never dreamed of (not merely 'photographs of people talking', but photographs of them <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> talking), precisely because it completely resists analysis, defies verbal description. All one can say is that it is the cinema's most perfect depiction, in just over one minute of 'real' time, at once concrete and intangible, of two people beginning to realize that they are falling in love."<br /><br />A number of years ago I attempted my own partial account of this moment, focusing on one aspect of it in particular, in <a href="http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2008,1,194">this piece</a> comparing Linklater's movie with Minnelli's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clock_(film)"><span style="font-style:italic;">The Clock</span></a> (1945). Yet neither Wood nor I have captured its essence; both despite and because of its simplicity, it remains elusive, "at once concrete and intangible". <br /><br />I look forward to revisiting other instances of critics trying to do justice to their encounters with moments. The amazing thing is that, sometimes, we almost succeed.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9202238991546339943.post-9489272880782586112011-01-20T05:05:00.000-08:002011-01-21T07:14:09.945-08:00Sex, Rom Coms, and Final Couples.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNuLIXYu3F2TsGUND8wxmiVlB7Pjbwf7eacFpkrlmjENc4IjkGk2-R_Ae6XK2L_B3a1jwGuKeJHnRNxtdA4w24OWMVZ_apu5pN1tuxeCnnK98EnzTh_utFuwRnGdZePaCEwpy8J6GQ2Tk/s1600/vlcsnap-2868750.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNuLIXYu3F2TsGUND8wxmiVlB7Pjbwf7eacFpkrlmjENc4IjkGk2-R_Ae6XK2L_B3a1jwGuKeJHnRNxtdA4w24OWMVZ_apu5pN1tuxeCnnK98EnzTh_utFuwRnGdZePaCEwpy8J6GQ2Tk/s400/vlcsnap-2868750.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255139839657282" /></a><br />In a 1948 article called ‘The Argument of Comedy’, Northrop Frye made a playful aside suggesting that “the average movie of today is a rigidly conventionalized New Comedy proceeding towards and act which, like death in Greek tragedy, takes place offstage, and is symbolized by a final embrace.” It is certainly true that, thanks to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code">Hays Code</a>, Hollywood movies made between approximately 1934 and 1967 were generally required to abstain from sex in order that “pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing”. Thus, since marriage in narrative so often comes at the end rather than the beginning or middle – if, that is, we’re talking about <span style="font-style:italic;">happy</span> marriages (it’s so hard for actual depictions of wedlock not to become melodramas!) – a final couple happy ending did indeed very often serve the function Frye suggests. Film critic James Harvey has a blunter way of describing this narrative pattern: “the delayed fuck”.<br /><br />Of course, this didn’t stop classical films from letting our imaginations wander, with ellipses between scenes sometimes offering tantalising hints of hank panky. In the excellently-titled article ‘A Brief Romantic Interlude: Dick and Jane go to 3 ½ Seconds of the Classical Hollywood Cinema’, Richard Maltby spends a great deal of time explaining that a single shot of an airport tower in <span style="font-style:italic;">Casablanca</span> (1942) intentionally left contemporary audiences the option of constructing two opposed interpretations of what exactly Rick and Ilsa get up to in Rick’s room.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJoC0earNUlPmqtGXopVwuvjQ8KvBUnbT5zRHEQSTVFQRROPVvxrLoPomoLyVTyw2t4TbaY40XxmI7Wv7-1ecH_MTDzd6XZCV7U7NdOrKy8iGx8pr11SzLwaZiMAyxfTQVp-uYy1bALA/s1600/vlcsnap-2855790.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJoC0earNUlPmqtGXopVwuvjQ8KvBUnbT5zRHEQSTVFQRROPVvxrLoPomoLyVTyw2t4TbaY40XxmI7Wv7-1ecH_MTDzd6XZCV7U7NdOrKy8iGx8pr11SzLwaZiMAyxfTQVp-uYy1bALA/s400/vlcsnap-2855790.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255465785882146" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAuotFtOAOKyFcySizQgNszdIEgCIKMHOcDplH1xtXdc3gehKmQpr23DXhMx7I-NXZOr884-0eYz25lgMMW7cbehQrsFUZie7DoO5HlWtkwRshx8DylvQ5WwEvN_pqHRZdnimIKZx58ss/s1600/vlcsnap-2855264.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAuotFtOAOKyFcySizQgNszdIEgCIKMHOcDplH1xtXdc3gehKmQpr23DXhMx7I-NXZOr884-0eYz25lgMMW7cbehQrsFUZie7DoO5HlWtkwRshx8DylvQ5WwEvN_pqHRZdnimIKZx58ss/s400/vlcsnap-2855264.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255471190458306" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxzaEU5KSY1iwmwjxv8vWAiU4Zj7VyRHTxdmWUJqaTb10v7jVuuVU6P4OwkCXwLYvWggqKoF3tdSwkdODvSvev4oQWyWFhwEDfXhWrHnYK293-PUB1uWjGqYiEiDaYCq64DBkG2ymwDQ/s1600/vlcsnap-2855451.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxzaEU5KSY1iwmwjxv8vWAiU4Zj7VyRHTxdmWUJqaTb10v7jVuuVU6P4OwkCXwLYvWggqKoF3tdSwkdODvSvev4oQWyWFhwEDfXhWrHnYK293-PUB1uWjGqYiEiDaYCq64DBkG2ymwDQ/s400/vlcsnap-2855451.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255476080436130" /></a><br />However, regardless of the extent to which a studio-era movie might flirt with its possibility, the eschewing of sex was nevertheless for the most part necessarily maintained (at least as far as the final couple is concerned: heroes and heroines were frequently suggested to have had sexual relationships with ‘unsuitable’ partners). This meant that what a final kiss often symbolised was indeed, to a significant extent, activities proper to the marriage bed, which could only take place after the camera stopped rolling. I’ve always felt that Teresa Wright’s hat falling from her head in the final shot of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Best Years of Our Lives</span> (1946) gives a particularly nice indication of this. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGkhttkH0RFSMfd0S1aENdB3ut2HZu2QcQ4kbK3KMrJnDrEIk_2ffEWRbGII9t_EmJzGUoUEY__4P5_iGS8UBwFs1dw6HGahPWxQYh6r3G1I_O4mqeDe7wabbPDJh7KmBlaW4ov61HC2g/s1600/vlcsnap-2861207.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGkhttkH0RFSMfd0S1aENdB3ut2HZu2QcQ4kbK3KMrJnDrEIk_2ffEWRbGII9t_EmJzGUoUEY__4P5_iGS8UBwFs1dw6HGahPWxQYh6r3G1I_O4mqeDe7wabbPDJh7KmBlaW4ov61HC2g/s400/vlcsnap-2861207.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255746643292850" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqApQwCGkyM_PhrelBJ_9HSkLrdUGJ2FZhx4Rg87StYV3MOtrZkqbLwXCo_PB6mXFvElUU_yMvTwZX24rq0YMOG0gF8qz934x7tErj68oqisuIgIb3N6HxoQMwX6NWQRNYoSy-EMn9E7U/s1600/vlcsnap-2863202.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqApQwCGkyM_PhrelBJ_9HSkLrdUGJ2FZhx4Rg87StYV3MOtrZkqbLwXCo_PB6mXFvElUU_yMvTwZX24rq0YMOG0gF8qz934x7tErj68oqisuIgIb3N6HxoQMwX6NWQRNYoSy-EMn9E7U/s400/vlcsnap-2863202.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255749983750562" /></a><br />More subtle at least than, say, <span style="font-style:italic;">North by Northwest</span>’s infamous concluding images.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAlRA6iiRt7eSSrG0zYTNWEtr3-YUhwVewbqi5JPvrnVGrHGuCj3m1XZvZMtavWPeuapHdcU0B2ZLjwzwGBMj_BQblNXQYaERR9nJr4f5opEiFwmK6qPUdlV2CouMUy2AOjIbndtQWph8/s1600/202.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 221px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAlRA6iiRt7eSSrG0zYTNWEtr3-YUhwVewbqi5JPvrnVGrHGuCj3m1XZvZMtavWPeuapHdcU0B2ZLjwzwGBMj_BQblNXQYaERR9nJr4f5opEiFwmK6qPUdlV2CouMUy2AOjIbndtQWph8/s400/202.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564255999906231346" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEL0bQGZwTQQZcVfDFFLqJhxCNXQzBgkRmDDNE5lWgG9K4OJUnb_chCgL486RZwxt0p-lU7R9ah2KnWisOvXlxe_BsoFzgmiIBz20uPo7yA_3c2rpRXLHE6dSpbiSnhCCRnQZZ75vbo6Q/s1600/17.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 221px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEL0bQGZwTQQZcVfDFFLqJhxCNXQzBgkRmDDNE5lWgG9K4OJUnb_chCgL486RZwxt0p-lU7R9ah2KnWisOvXlxe_BsoFzgmiIBz20uPo7yA_3c2rpRXLHE6dSpbiSnhCCRnQZZ75vbo6Q/s400/17.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564256004234700402" /></a><br />Of course, the absence of sex is particularly important for genres such as the romantic comedy, which are so much <span style="font-style:italic;">about</span> sex. As well as knowingly nudging audiences in the ribs in the manner of <span style="font-style:italic;">North by Northwest</span> (1959), classical rom coms could also make jokes about the narrative structures that the Code’s moral prescriptions so often led to. For instance: <span style="font-style:italic;">I Married a Male War Bride</span> (1949) sees its couple wed about two-thirds of the way into the film, only to continually frustrate their attempts to consummate the marriage until the very last seconds. Meanwhile, <span style="font-style:italic;">Lover Come Back</span> (1961) marries its couple in order to allow them to have sex, then divorces them, then has them remarry once again in the final scene whilst Carol (Doris Day) is in labour with their child; “Now that’s what I call cutting it <span style="font-style:italic;">close</span>!” comments an onlooker.<br /><br />But what of romantic comedies made after the fall of the Code in 1968? Some commentators predicted an explosion of sexual activity that would effectively put the genre out of business by ridding it of the sense of frustrated desire that so often served as its central motivation. And for a while during the 1970s the genre did indeed seem to be in bad health, with only a few movies by directors such as Woody Allen keeping the comic battle of the sexes waging. Of course, this changed in the 1980s when there began appearing a trickle, and then ultimately a flood, of comedies that have come to be called the ‘New Romances’; by the 1990s and 2000s the genre was back to the level of popularity it enjoyed during the height of the studio period.<br /><br />Yet many critics have suggested that these new romantic comedies are peculiar precisely for the fact that – despite the lack of moral censorship, the centrality of sexual desire to the genre, and the rise of post-60s permissiveness – they feature barely any sex. <a href="http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=9&id=957§ion=article&q=fear">Pat Kirkland</a> for instance asserts that in modern films “sex is an activity indulged in only by non-central characters”, and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9Bk-mkvdPYcC&pg=PA97&dq=%22have+to+find+ways+to+explain+why+sex+is+not+happening%22&hl=en&ei=2TA4TYnNJsaXhQf8j5XqCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">Tamar Jeffers McDonald</a> suggests that such rom coms “have to find ways to explain why sex is not happening”.<br /><br />It is certainly true that there exist films like, say, <span style="font-style:italic;">Sleepless in Seattle</span> (1993) or <span style="font-style:italic;">Serendipity</span> (2001) which ensure the sexlessness of their central relationships by keeping their couple far apart for most of the film’s running time, and, in the process, imbue their endings once again with the kind of meanings Frye identified. This pattern has, however, been greatly overstated, as I have discovered whilst watching copious contemporary romantic comedies over the course of my research. Though it is true that we seldom actually <span style="font-style:italic;">see</span> couples having sex (the ellipsis once again becoming handy in this respect), sexual relationships are nevertheless extremely common between modern (unmarried) romantic comedy heroes and heroines, meaning that sex is by no means something reserved until after a final fade-out.<br /><br />Thus, for prurient posterity – and in the style of something a pre-internet 12-year-old might construct – I offer a brief list of the times at which some contemporary romantic comedy final couples have sex:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Lot Like Love </span>– 4 minutes in<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Fools Rush In</span> – 12 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Speechless</span> – 13 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Housesitter</span> – 15 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">What Happens in Vegas</span> – 17 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Pretty Woman</span> – 29 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Down to You</span> – 30 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Splash</span> – 35 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Failure to Launch</span> – 40 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Back-Up Plan</span> – 42 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Lucky You</span> – 44 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Along Came Polly</span> – 47 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Shakespeare in Love</span> – 47 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Sliding Doors </span>– 50 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Happy Together</span> – 53 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I Could Never be Your Woman</span> – 55 mins <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Head Over Heels</span> – 56 mins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Something’s Gotta Give</span> – 1 hour<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The American President</span> – 1 hour<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">America’s Sweethearts</span> – 1.05<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Mannequin</span> – 1.07 <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">When Harry Met Sally</span> – 1:07<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Overboard</span> – 1:16<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days</span> – 1:23<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Chasing Liberty</span> – 1:24<br /><br />Needless to say, there are infinitely more examples than these – the above list consists merely of moments about which I happened to remember to make notes during viewings. <br /><br />While it’s convenient for critics to speak of the perverse chastity of modern rom coms (it helps reinforce the sense of the genre as a whole as conservative), such assertions don’t actually stand up to scrutiny. Now severed from its earlier function of symbolising “an act which [...] occurs offstage”, this, then, is one unambiguous way in which the final couple has changed its ideological meaning over time.<br />.James MacDowellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13453421137457762591noreply@blogger.com3