Politicizing Film and Mass Media: Been There, Seen That.

Is Triumph of the Will a truly dangerous film? I don’t think that anyone in my film class would disagree when I say that, in its modern context, this film would not sway anyone into joining the neo-Nazi party or bring them to tears of pride. That being said, regardless of historical or geographical context, is aestheticizing politics--turning politics into “art"-- a loaded process?
Marxist critic Walter Benjamin seems to think so. According to Benjamin in his essay “ The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” modern cinema absorbs the spectator and subverts their identity to that of the mass audience. Films are, according to him, impersonal “works of art” that construct a crowd mentality and thus are authoritative tools of mass political movements.

I do not disagree with Benjamin—the politicized film does bring viewers together into a dangerous mass identity where individualism is threatened. Many references have been made to Obama because of his ability to rally a diverse group of people to a single party/cause—an ability attributed to Hitler in “Triumph of the Will” through the use of montage that combined shots of Germans of all ages and (regional) backgrounds to one nationalistic cause symbolized by his person. Obama’s eloquence at the Democratic national convention, combined with the inspiring usage of the “Remember the Titans” film score, had everyone glued to the screen, committing to the idea of One Nation. So yes, unity and nationalism forwarded by film and media is a dangerous tool (but thankfully here and now, dissidence is obviously allowed). However, Benjamin forwards the idea that this is a new phenomenon, stemming from modern digital technologies that remove the unique “aura” of original artwork and causes the “liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage.” (668)

But is this really a new phenomenon? I argue that turning politics into “art” embodies the inherent nature of politics itself. Politics is an art. If it weren’t, the varnish from the politicians’ rhetoric and media spin would wear off, and the idea of citizens would become moot. We have to be appealed to—our aesthetic senses must be stimulated, in order for us to commit to ideas (however false) and support the political agenda. Whether it is a democracy full of biased media stations, or a monarchy that needs to ensure the support of people to prevent a coup, mass-producing aestheticized politics has been around since the first nation state. Isn’t rhetoric an art of speech? And what about mass-produced propaganda posters posted throughout towns and cities during WWI? Taking it even further back, Shakespearean plays during Elizabethan England appealed to Brits of all classes and ages, and many of the Bard’s were politically loaded and censored by the queen. Therefore, historically art and politics have always been inseparable, and have played a role in bringing a mass audience together and presenting an aestheticized view of politics.

In a modern context, how was this achieved with “Triumph of Will”? In class we discussed filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s ability to portray the universal appeal of Hitler through her use of camera angles and montage. After doing the close reading of a specific segment, I realized how powerful the use of montage is. This film therefore supports Eisenstein, and many other formalists’, theory that meaning arises from the contextual relationship between shots; for example, the juxtaposition of the smiling girl, the boys straining to get a glimpse of something, and the final shot being Hitler, all construct an aura of magnetism of all sexes and ages towards Hitler. The almost manic light in Riefenstahl’s eyes when she points out the aesthetic fluidity of the editing during the marching shows just how powerful this artistic view of Nazi is. If it had just been a mere “reproduction” of reality, as realists argue, with the camera lens acting as an objective observer, then the same meaning would not have manifested. The combination of disparate close ups and medium shots combined to forward the idea of parts making up a whole—a central ideology of the Nazi party.

Therefore, through the use of montage and the adroit manipulation of shot composition, the aesthetization of politics is made possible with the mass medium of film, as we see in “Triumph of Will.” This is a loaded process able to subvert the individual identity to that of the crowd, yet this is not a new process, as is evident in the use of art to present politics throughout history.

"How Do You Like Them Apples?" Film Noir's Timeless Appeal

To put it delicately, I was not waiting with baited breath to see Out of the Past. I considered film noir to be a dated, often- parodied genre than one to be enjoyed seriously and/or academically. In the context of Rick Altman's article "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre," the semantics of noir offered me a fragmented and fuzzy idea of what I was getting myself into: fedoras, check. cigarettes, check. femme fatale, check. All the elements were there and ready, but would any engaging whole arise from the parts? Suprisingly, I found the "syntax" of the genre to be the engaging factor. The standard themes including moral ambiguity of character, oscillating loyalty, and the role rotten luck and fate all appealed to some part of my character--maybe the seedier side. Thus, as this class progresses, I have discovered an affinity for classic movies that previously risked my prejudiced vote of "boring," such as Out of the Past by Jacques Tourneur and Roman Polansky's Chinatown. You could say that I have come to appreciate those of the film noir persuasion.

Firstly, I dig film noir's style. It elegantly manipulates light and shadow, lending a richer visual subtext to the mise-en-scene that underscores the thematic interaction between good and evil permeating the narrative. Out of the Past, in the black-and-white film typical of noir, masters this elegance, such as the scene between Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) and Ann Miller (Virginia Huston) where the moonlight masterfully casts shadows from the tangled branches onto the faces of both actors, illustrating the ambiguity of their future together. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, called "a master of shadow but also of light" by Roger Ebert, actually illuminates the space between the actors so that when they exhale from the omnipresent Cigarette, the smoke is a vivid miasma that adds mystery and some classic Hollywood glamour to the mise-en-scene. I tend to associate the faces of film-noir actors with either encasement/fragmentation by a clever play of shadow and light, or partial obscurity by a cloud of cigarette smoke. Either way, the effect helps construct the quintessential noir character. However, I will say that the lighting of some of the scenes indoors, such as Kathie's (Jane Greer) Mexican villa, seem to expose the seams of production by seeming more unnatural and garish than usual in order to cast hard shadows onto the walls. Yet I accepted this as a stylistic aspect, and given the great shadows it produced, didn't let it bother me too much during those scenes.

Secondly, after reading John G. Cawelti's article "Chinatown and Generic Transformation in Recent American FIlms," I realised that although I thoroughly enjoy this genre, I do so in a qualified way. I viewed Out of the Past in a specific historical context, a modern context, coloured by a retrospective tone and a bit of self-imposed parody. My background of film noir is based in parody, and while viewing Out of the Past, these past experiences informed my perspective--probably digesting the film in a different way than a viewer from the 1950's would. For one, I laughed more because the parodic elements seemed to present themselves more readily. For example, the one liners were humorously glib, such as Bailey's response to Kathie's plea that she doesn't want to die: "Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I'm going to die last." Pure genius. I also love that Bailey (Mitchum) didn't break a sweat the entire time, or raise his voice. Yet I was inevitably removed, a constant (but amiable) smirk playing on my lips. My enjoyment of Tourneur's film seems to stem from what Cawelti calls "the burlesque," or the "breaking of convention by the intrusion of reality and the inversion of expected implications." Although the film itself is not a parody, the intrusion of my own modern reality and expectation coloured my viewing of the film. Therefore, an interaction of removed amusement and engagement in the narrative, for me, produced a dynamic that I really enjoyed; a dynamic similar to my favourite subtle parody films such as Shaun of the Dead (zombie movies) or Hot Fuzz (cop movies).




Polansky's Chinatown is a bit of a different story, literally. Cawelti states that this film deviates from the typical film noir genre structure, through the less-glib Jack Nicholson, the less-independent Faye Dunaway, and a resolution that doesn't culminate in vigilante justice. Chinatown instead places the noir tradition in a nostalgic context, against issues whose evils permeate a society and surpass the fathomability or solvability by one vigilante individual. While the movie was well-produced and engaging, its obvious deviation from noir --the use of colour, kind of threw me off after just viewing the quintessential noir in class the previous day. The classic glamour was just not there (although the cigarettes were), and the parodic elements not as readily available. The narrative itself was engaging, and the mysterious female character a nod to the genre, yet overall I felt it was a modern film consciously masquerading as a film noir via zoot suits and fedoras. Yet the more profound themes still appealed to me, such as the web of deceit and the plight of a man on the edge of the law to seek justice while balancing the love of a potentially dangerous woman.

In both films, the generic aspects of film noir that I mention above appealed to me in a way that I never would have expected of any movie created before 1981. Yet, the 1947 Out of the Past with its wonderful cinematography and classic-Hollywood smoothness and the 1974 Chinatown with its modern spin on the genre both expanded my perspective of time and genre and have me waiting, with baited breath, for the Coen Brothers to create the next great neo- noir film.

Cache: Lost In Translation

This past Wednesday we screened the film Cache in our film studies class. I braced myself for disappointment, because Professor Mottahedeh had forewarned us of its disaffecting style of editing. I however, enjoyed the film and found myself utterly absorbed by director Michael Haneke's vision--more so than many Hollywood blockbusters.

In what ways, exactly, was this film unconventional? And why was I so absorbed despite it all? First,Cache disregards the shot/reverse shot system and thus, does not attempt to reconstruct off-camera space. The "absent one," as film theorist Daniel Dayan calls it, remains concealed, an identity to which we are not privy. Second, as our eyes and ears, the camera never identifies with a character who is engaging in dialogue, and thus we remain suspended and excluded from any subjective meaning arising from the montage of shots. Lastly, many of the shots are long, static and uninterrupted, with a minimalist mise-en-scene that re-emphasizes our position as viewer instead of participant. The combination of these unusual methods positions us as an objective observer, to the point of intrusion, of the lives' of these characters. Thus, it is easy to see how the film could get lost in translation vis-a-vis the standard "language" of film, leaving the viewer alienated and un-"sutured."

So yes, Cache's persistence of off-screen space excludes us from the typical movie-going identification with narrative . Yes, the shot composition is jarring. Yet I argue that the film's meaning manifests not from the relationship between shots, as is classically argued by Sergei Einstein and other formalists, but through the very absence of inter-shot discourse and the eery, omni-presence of off-screen space. In a paradoxical dynamic similar to that of Fight Club, Cache's isolating effect actually "sutures" us completely and discreetly into the narrative for us to construct a meaning that parallels the characters' emotional states of mind.

Let me elaborate on this dynamic. I mention above that the specific editing methods used position us, through the vehicle of the camera, as intruders. Fittingly enough, the central conflict of the film centers on the presence of an intruder in the lives of Georges and Anne Laurent. He (or she) sends anonymous and videotapes (vaguely threatening in their omnipresence) to the Laurents house. The videos turn the family's life upside down by opening a Pandora's box full of tension, isolation, guilt, and paranoia. If Haneke had utilized the standard "grammar" of filmic language, such as shot/reverse shot, Cache would have constructed a moderately entertaining and engaging reality--but one that was typical. However, by maintaining a jarringly static camera and maintaining an intangible off-screen space , the film constructed its own meaning. Not only do we further identify with the emotions of the characters, but we are also reminded of our position behind the lens of the camera (in this case, video). Thus, we also identify with the omnipresent, yet anonymous, stalker of the Laurents whose disembodied character develops the narrative.

For example, throughout the initial scene of this film in which Georges and Annes watch the anonymous surveillance tape of their house, I found myself embodying emotions empathetic to those of the characters. As a viewer I felt tense, isolated and paranoid of what of what lurked in the off-screen space, and what was to come. In this way, I connected with the characters and the narrative on a more profound level.


In another example, we watch Georges eat his dinner and converse with his wife from just one objective, static establishing shot of the dining room. We never see his wife's face, even when she engages in dialogue with her husband. When watching this scene, I felt like an outsider, aware of the lens through which this scene was taking place. Again, I assumed the identity of an intruder, who, in his or her absence, comprises the signifying role in the film.


A final poignant example of this occurs when "Georges" and "Anne Laurent" get into their car following their visit to the police station. If operating within the standard grammatical framework, the camera view would shift to either the back seat, or a shot-reverse-shot between passenger and driver seat. As viewers, we would be part of the conversation, identifying with either character or an actively subjective listener in the back. However, the camera remains outside of the car and the sound is muffled, and this position reinforces the fact that we are notpart of their lives.

Thus, through its rejection of the shot/reverse shot method and the absence of physical character identification, Cache's meaning is generated not despite, but because of, the disconnect between shots. As viewers we experience similar emotions of discomfort and disconnect, and we also assume the identity of the elusive character from whom the plot develops. This film stands as a rebuttal to to the argument of Dayan, who in his article, "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema,"posits that a film's meaning manifests through the "suturing" effect of the shot/reverse shot. According to Dayan, the first shot opens a hole in our ideological relationship with the film through the presence of the unknown, a hole that the reverse shot "sutures" by replacing the "glance of a nobody" into a glance of a somebody. (116) In this way, film "speaks" and creates meaning through the ideological relationship between these shots---a meaning that we as viewers "actively interpret." (92) However, Cachestands as an exception to Dayan's theory. The long, uninterrupted shots, in their re-enforcement of the "nobody," in fact sutures us further into the film's central theme of alienation and intrusion that the film explores. The peripheral entity functions as character in itself, a paradox whose presence arises from its absence.


Dayan isn't the only theorist that this film counters. Graeme Turner, is his book "Film as Social Practice," presents film as a cultural agent with its own language, in which we can combine certain standards and codes in order to generate meaning. In addition to Dayan, Turner states that meaning arises from the relationship within and between shots. In general, this is an accurate statement. For example, in a Hitchcock clip we watched in class, he spoke of the importance of editing in generating meeting, specifically with the insert shot. An older man stares of into the distance, and his lips slowly curl into a smile. Cut to a baby, then back to the man. What Sergei Einstein calls the "montage," the juxtaposition of these two shots presents the potential meaning of an amiable old man. Now switch the baby shot with that of a scantily-clad young woman, and an entirely new meaning is generated. In this way, according to both Turner and Dayan the language of film is generated.

However, Cache, in an engaging stroke of risky technical genius, constructed meaning through the very persistence of the unknown.

Cinema Paradiso: A Typical Hollywood Narrative?

Bordwell introduces two significant concepts integral to the narrative structure of classical Hollywood cinema, concepts that I would like to discuss in contrast to the film Cinema Paradiso. Both Russian formalist concepts, fabula refers to narrative events that occur in “causal chronological sequence,” and syuzhet refers to the “systematic presentation of fabula events in the film;” both terms have been translated respectively as the “story” and the “plot.”(18). Cinema Paradiso’s narrative structure and character development do not fit perfectly with this classical Hollywood form and its reliance on these two concepts to construct a linear narrative. The film uses a retrospective narrative form, which reconstructs a story that has already occurred, and where the events do not occur in a traditional causal pattern. In the case of this film, the story of how the main character Toto meets and learns from his mentor Alfredo has already occurred, and is told from the retrospective view of an older, middle aged Toto in a different spatial time and condition.

Despite the retrospective structure of the narrative that alternates between temporal locales, certain images and characters throughout the film establish continuity between the narrative. Because the narrative is Toto’s life, this allows Toto to re-connect between past and present, and on a formalist level allows the narrative to re-connect amidst a retrospectively punctuated causal structure. In one case, when young Toto loses Elena after she leaves for college, he sits on the steps of his town square in a tormented pose of loss, his head in his hands, the sky a dark and intense blue. The scene then cuts to the older Toto, in his metropolitan and modern Roman flat, sitting in the exact same position, in the dark on the side of his bed. This paralleled posture and state of mind serves to symbolically and physical connect these two scenes although they span two different spaces and times.

Just as similar postures and expressions connect this narrative, the presence of familiar faces evoke the same continuity, such as the character of the crazy man in the square. He remains a constant peripheral presence in many of the scene’s of Toto’s youth, and is still present as an older man maneuvering around the cars when the older Toto returns home for the funeral. In addition to the crazy man, the presence of other familiar faces at Alfredo’s funeral, such as the theater owner and usher, serve to re-connect Toto to his past, just as they re-connect the temporal discontinuity of the narrative without relying on the classical Hollywood linear structure.


In addition to the previous two examples, the most apparent to me was the connection between the first shot of the film, which shows an idyllic scene of the azure Mediterranean Sea through the breezy window of a house. The camera pans out to reveal a bowl of lemons sitting on an austere wooden table, and then to reveal Toto’s mom who is, as we soon learn, on the telephone calling him in Rome. Then, in the first retrospective scene of Toto’s home as a boy, the camera focuses the beginning of its shot on a bowl of lemons sitting on the seemingly same wooden table, with a few of the peels skinned this time. The omnipresence of the bowl of lemons in the present and past cleverly connect the two scenes, and convey to the audience that these two locations are both Toto’s home—or at least, his mother’s home. Because if home truly is where the heart is, both as a boy and as an adult Toto’s true home is the Cinema Paradiso. But I digress. The consistent image of the lemon bowl in both of these scenes, despite the different temporal contexts, lends continuity to the narrative without embracing the prototypical linear structure.

In addition to the retrospective narrative style, the character development in Cinema Paradiso differs from the classic Hollywood style. According to Bordwell, the classic paradigm of character development presents characters as “psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear-cut problem or attain specific goals.” (18) This goal-oriented character fleshes out a “rough prototype” by embracing underlying themes, habits, and behaviors that remain consistent throughout the film. (18) Toto does not completely fit this paradigm. In his precocious youth, he does strongly pursue the goal to help his mentor Alfredo run the projector in the local Cinema Paradiso. However, once he has achieved this goal, he is content, causing Alfredo to insist that he not settle for mediocrity and be content as an “imbecile”. He also has a goal to woo his love, and stands outside of her door for days, and achieves that goal. But both of these are intermediate goals, and neither result in the climax or resolution of the film. Instead, Toto loses his love, and is told to “forget the past.”

Contrary to the goal-driven Hollywood prototype, he does not initiate a quest to find her. He is then “pushed” out by Alfredo, who tells him never to return. The film does not center on Toto’s rise to success and wealth, instead focusing nostalgically on his life in the Cinema Paradiso and how it shaped his youth. Every scene, except the present ones, is seen as a memory. We as an audience must trust Toto’s objectivity, and commit to his eyes and ears in living through his memory.

In the present, Toto is a middle aged wealthy filmmaker, floundering, with no real goal or objective in life but to forget his lost love. He is not trying to find her, nor is he introspecting to find himself. He seems lost, yet complacent about his place in life. However, when he gets the call about Alfredo’s death, the initiating factor of the film, he is not the classical Hollywood character driven forward by a goal that is to be achieve or failed, but is instead is driven regressively towards a nostalgic retrospection of his life in the Cinema Paradiso, and the qualities and passion of his youth that lay latent in his mind.

A significant aspect of Cinema Paradiso that actually conformed with the classical Hollywood structure, however, was its conclusion. Toto’s screening of Alfredo’s gift creates a cathartic crescendo that elegantly brings the film back full circle. According to Bordwell, the classic Hollywood ending functions as “the crowning of the structure, the logical conclusion of the string of events, the final effect of the initial cause.” (21) This is fundamentally what the last scene accomplishes. The initial cause of Toto’s narrative (his life),was the draw of Cinema Paradiso and the passion of film and love that it invoked in him as a young boy and adolescent. The frames of forbidden love scenes spliced out form the basis of Toto and Alfredo’s relationship. This film effectively collects all of the pieces of Toto's narrative, culminating in a unifying montage of images that re-connect Toto, and thus the audience, fully and comprehendingly to his past. In this way, Cinema Paradiso, an untraditional film relative to the classical Hollywood narrative structure, uses the traditional ending, the “final effect of the initial cause,” to lend a satisfying and emotional conclusion. (21)

Fight Club: Challenging Reality

What makes "Fight Club" such a rewarding movie-going experience? To me the film's success stems from its ability to engage the audience in an artificial reality while reinforcing our "natural distance" from the character's story; the film simultaneously blurs and defines the line between artificiality and reality(Benjamin, 678). Like a snail's unique movement, the viewers both invest in the film and retract into the comfortable boundary between what  is  and what seems. Direct David Fincher achieves this dynamic through subtle and clever shifts in the camera's perspective, rapid splices of the lead character's alter-ego at seemingly arbitrary times, and the "disruption" of the film loop in a later scene that re-affirms its artificiality. 

The medium of film expands our  limited perspective to include a world that explores richer nuances of  human experience and emotion. Walter Benjamin, in his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," calls film a mode of reception in which the public stands as an "absent-minded examiner" (683). While this is often the case, "Fight Club" breaks the norm by forcing the audience to explore  the same questions of reality that plague the lead character, and therefore invest themselves more completely into the film. Fincher's insertion of single-frame images of Tyler Durden initiate this exploration. Suddenly we, like the narrator, are no longer absent-minder examiners of the film and its presentation of reality; we now are subjects of it. You see the fleeting image of something in the corner of the screen, and you ask yourself: did I really just see that? Perhaps you turn to a companion to verify that they also noticed the blip. In this way you begin to question what is real and what is illusion, and your anxieties and questions mirror those of the narrator. The genius of this effect is that while the audience engages more actively in the film and its theme of actual reality vs. artificial reality, they are simultaneously reminded that "Fight Club" is in fact a constructed reproduction subject to hiccups in the reel, thus reinforcing our distance and objectivity from the film. 

The film operates on two levels; one based on the storyline, and a subtextual level questioning the nature of film itself. Film portrays reality in a context of artificiality, drawing the audience into a world where situations and perception that seem real are in fact a carefully planned fabrication that selectively presents the nuances of the human experience. According to Benjamin, "the cameraman penetrates deeply into [reality's] web" (678). The images we see on screen are the shadows on the cave---selective representations of what truly is. The strategic use of colours in the mis-en-scene, for example, visually represents two worlds and the characteristics that saturate each one. The reality of the narrator is one of bland, washed-out whites and mint greens, mirroring the monotony of his quotidian life. In his alternative reality, he becomes Tyler Durden, a colorful character who wears vibrant reds and yellows. Durden's world is one of lurid grittiness, and the colours in these scenes are brighter, the lights and darks contrasted more dramatically. This heightened contrast awakens our visual sense in the same way the alternate reality awakens the narrator from his mediocrity. 

Benjamin, who wrote his essay during the nascence of film culture in 1936, states that with the medium of film, "the audience takes the position of the camera," identifying with it instead of the actors (674). This dynamic is true of my experience when viewing "Fight Club." As the story climbs towards its climax, the narrator converges with his alter-ego who claims that Tyler was "starting to make sense." He changes from a passive observer into an active participant, and so do we through the strategic set-up of camera shots. The camera, originally a passive observer of the fights, becomes a participant, mirroring the narrator's descent into his dystopian alternate reality.  Fincher, by shifting the point of view of the camera, commits the audience to Fight Club just as the narrator has committed himself. 

When the narrator begins to lose his intimacy with his other world, he stars to question his place in it. To bring us to this similar place of detachment ,Fincher returns us to the position of spectator in the pivotal scene where Tyler addresses an unseen audience on film, stating "You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet." you're not you're fucking khakis. You are the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world." These lines are first delivered as if the camera were a passive bystander, yet when he delivers the final line, he looks directly into the camera. As he looks directly into the lens, or our eyes, the film frames shake, exposing the bright white of the projector light and  presenting the effect of a corrupted loop.  By addressing us, Durden breaks the natural spacial plane between film and audience, and we temporarily lose our place in between reality and artificiality. The exposure of the film's side perforations and the white projector light, however, ultimately  ground us in the reality that we are mere observers of something artificially constructed. 

The paradoxical dynamic of "Fight Club" alters how we perceive reality within and outside the movie theater. What is real, and what seems real? Through strategic shifts in camera perspective, we related closely to the anxieties of the narrator and engaged in the story line, to the point of becoming the character. At the same time, the blips and discrepancies in the film re-enforced our role as passive observers occupying the "real" world. In this way, we further invest ourselves  in the character and his anxieties  that explore this convoluted line between "real" reality and "artificial" reality.