Why Breaking Bad is My Great American Novel

What season is this from?

          People keep talking about this Great American Novel thing, and they keep asking if there will be "another" one.  It's a valid question, I suppose, as most people assume that the goal of any American writer is to write the Great American Novel, be endorsed by Oprah, and then have a movie adaptation made of his/her great work.

         Some people might say that Jonathan Franzen has come the closest to writing a modern Great American Novel, but of course, we all know that the very existence of such a thing is preposterous. There is no Great American Novel, and if there were, nobody would want to read it. Look at Ulysses, one of the most widely beloved novels of all time, and then try to find ten people you know who have read it and enjoyed it. Something of such monolithic artistry and beauty cannot be lowest common denominator. Nothing can be universally beloved, especially by a country as diverse and divided as this one.

        Heck, there are even some people who don't like Ryan Gosling, even if they only amount to an army of six. But if you're going to be a "reader," you have to play the game.

       Because, as we all know, people aren't actually asking about the Great American Novel. They're asking about the Good American Novel, which is something else entirely. The Good American Novel can be anything, really. For some people, that novel could be written by James Patterson. For others, that novel could be written by Danielewski.

      However, if people ever ask me what the modern Great American Novel is, I'm usually divided between two brilliant, collasal works of genius: Breaking Bad and Mad Men. I'm not being cheeky, either. These are seriously, in my opinion, the greatest works of American fiction in the modern era. Like Dickens before them, Matthew Weiner and Vince Gilligan are using serial narratives to weave portraits of modern-day existence. And I'm using modern loosely here, as we all know that Mad Men takes place in the past. But, of course, it is also extremely modern in its storytelling--especially in its most recent season.

     But nobody is satisfied with two answers to that question. They want the definitive greatness of one answer. So, I will give you a definitive answer, and my answer is that Breaking Bad is the best piece of modern American fiction.

What season is THIS from?

               This is not to say that Mad Men is without merit. In fact, on some days, I even convince myself that it is the better show. But I quickly snap out of that dream when I remember Walter White and his alter-ego, Heisenberg.

             In Mad Men, everybody is slowly turning into his/her mentor. Peggy is turning into Don, Don is turning into Sterling, etc, and part of my fascination with the show is watching the surprising, sometimes unsettling ways in which the characters parallel and play off of one another.

          In Breaking Bad, one might argue that Walt is also turning into his mentor/nemesis, Gus, but I would be quick to point out that almost everything Walt does is characteristically anti-Gus. Everything Walt strives to be is placed right in front of us in the fifth episode of the series. He shaves his head, puts on some sunglasses, and finds a fedora. He becomes Heisenberg--the coldhearted meth cook who doesn't mess around with idiots. Of course, the constant problem with Heisenberg is that he doesn't exist. He is merely Walter White in disguise, and Walter White is just a sad, arrogant, pathetic human being looking for success.

         Don Draper, on the other hand, has success. He has a ton of success. He may have hit rock bottom in season four, drinking so hard that he loses days at a time, but his rock bottom is still upper class and comfortable. He still finds ways to succeed because he is a machine of success. The great flaw of Don Draper is that he has succeeded so much, and so often, that he cannot handle a life without constant affirmation.

        Walter White is the exact opposite. He thrives in situations where there is no hope for him. However, any amount of success drains Heisenberg of his supernatural gift for level-headed and brainy solutions. Success is Walt's kryptonite, whereas Don's weakness is his inability to cope with a world filled with people who aren't as amazingly competent as he is. Don's protege is Peggy because she is also a machine of success who has no patience for the Walter Whites of the world.

       Walt's sidekick, Jesse Pinkman, is similar to Walt in more interesting ways. First off, it is technically Walt who is Jesse's protege, as Walt spends much of the first season learning how to be a criminal from Jesse. Their relationship works both ways, as Walt, the chemistry genius, has absolutely no concept of how the drug trade works, and vice versa. As Peggy spends much of Mad Men building her confidence and honing her craft, Don spends the majority of the series treating her like she should never be proud of herself. Don seems to go out of his way to act like he has never learned anything from her. His career, as far as I see it, would be the same with or without Peggy.

      Walt, without Jesse, would be nothing. He would have died in the first season, by Tuco's hands, in the middle of a junkyard (not a mall), and Walt knows this. He needs Jesse, as he repeats time and again to his various bosses, because they have a true partnership. When Walt is in trouble, Jesse sticks his neck out. When Peggy is in trouble, Don leaves her out to fend for herself and maybe learn a thing or two.

       And it's not that I mind Don treating Peggy the way he does, but I do mind that this seems to never change. With Walt and Jesse, their relationship is a roller coaster. In one episode, they are literally risking their own lives to save the other's, but in other episodes they are each other's worst enemies. The problem with Don and Peggy is that Peggy is the only dynamic character in this relationship. The Peggy we see in the pilot episode is very, very different from the one we see in the final episode of season 5, sitting in her hotel room smoking a Virginia Slim. The Don we see in that very same episode is absolutely no different from the one we see in the pilot. Of course, this is part of the tragedy of the fifth season finale, but it is also something that alarms me about the series. It is not taking any true risks with the character of Don. Just when we thought he would break from his pattern and really become a dynamic character, he shifted back to his normal self. Yes, it is an American tragedy, but it is also not very rewarding to the audience.

      On the other hand, Walt is the most dynamic television character I have ever seen. He is slowly transforming into the antagonist of the show, and with each episode, a little bit more of our sympathy moves from Walt to the people he is hurting. He is fundamentally changing throughout the show, until finally the audience realizes that Walt has become a sociopathic maniac who holds none of the values that got him into the drug trade in the first place.

      The status quo of Breaking Bad is to never have one. The stakes are different in each episode, and huge character and setting changes take place so often that it is easy to forget where we've come from. The pilot episode is almost unrecognizable when compared to the final episode of the fourth season, as so many monumental twists have taken place.

      The tragedy of Walt is more significant because it is one based on greed, destruction, arrogance, and false values. Walt is doing all of this for his family, as he says, but we can quickly surmise in later seasons that Walt is willing to sacrifice everything in order to be respected by his new peers. Walt is a failed chemist who has spent the last few years in a high school classroom, and he wants his last days on Earth spent becoming the best in the world at something. He strives for the success that he so narrowly missed out on decades ago. His rise to power mirrors that of America's, and his lust for domination is the most destructive force in the show.

      Don and Walt both live double lives, but Walt's is more immediate. Don is a deserter and a liar. His true identity is concealed by years of deception, but the Don that walks the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is the same one that goes home at night to Megan. Walt, on the other hand, deals with Heisenberg on a daily basis, and even when he does finally come clean to Skylar about his secret life, he never fully confesses. Walt and Heisenberg can never truly be reconciled because they are oil and water. Heisenberg is the monster that lives within Walt, and Walt is too greedy to stop him.

     Breaking Bad is on a huge scale, morally, politically, and artistically. The show excels on a dizzying number of levels, and when compared to Mad Men's slow-burn, perfectly choreographed pacing, it feels like a nuclear explosion. Mad Men might be the classiest, most beautifully shot piece of television ever produced, but Breaking Bad's kinetic, perfectly acted and scripted episodes are, in my opinion, turning into the Great American Novel.


EPISODES OF NOTE

SSN 1 EP 6     Crazy Handful of Nothin' 
SSN 2 EP 6     Peekaboo                          
SSN 2 EP 13   ABQ                                 
SSN 3 EP 7     One Minute  
SSN 3 EP 9     Kafkaesque               
SSN 3 EP 12   Half Measure  
SSN 4 EP 1     Box Cutter    
SSN 4 EP 10   Salud         
SSN 4 EP 11   Crawl Space   

Movie Review: Men in Black 3

          What has changed since 1997? Certainly the scope of what computer effects are able to accomplish has shifted. We've grown accustomed to the things that used to wow us. For instance, that final reveal at the end of Men in Black where the galaxy is all part of a game of marbles was immensely awe-inspiring when I saw that film in the theater. Today, that scene would not be enough to wow me. We've grown jaded, and this is not good for Men in Black. 


         The first film put a lot of stock in special effects wizardry and make-up. It is one of the rare occasions where a big-budget blockbuster's special effects were used to make jokes even funnier. It is, in my opinion, the first film to truly integrate computer effects in a way that served the film and made it better. And yes, I've seen Forrest Gump.

        Men in Black had a huge effect on me when I was younger. I was introduced to a world that was very similar to my own, yet it contained all of the nightmares and dreams that, at the age of seven, only I could see. I loved that aliens were real and living amongst us. I loved the idea of a disguise, of a secret agent, and of having gadgets that accomplish impossible, amazing things. The film played with the importance of size. The "midget cricket" serves as an excellent taste of foreshadowing, and is one of many clever, inventive storytelling devices used in the film.

       Will Smith's Agent J truly goes through a narrative arc in the film--beginning his story as a cocky and world-weary NYPD officer and ending the film as a man who knows there's always mystery left in the universe. He grows to truly care about his partner and the planet that he is saving. Tommy Lee Jones's Agent K is a delightful play on the classic Jones character, looking stone-faced into the absurd and asking it to follow arbitrary rules. He, too, follows a satisfying arc where he grows from being a jaded intergalactic detective to a happy, blissfully ignorant retiree. Men in Black is one of those great Hollywood blockbusters that just works. The chemistry between the actors, the visual effects, the world-building, and the story structure just seem to effortlessly click.

        So what went wrong with Men in Black II?

          Well, this poster sums up a lot of it. Look at Agents K and J sitting in those chairs and holding those guns. Those chairs are featured in a famous recruiting scene from the first film. The guns are featured from the finale of the first film. Neither of those things appear in the second film. However, approximately everything else does. The second film seems to exist for the sole purpose of retreating the first film. The coffee-pouring insects that worked so well as an element of world-building? Lets cast them as crucial, plot-progressing characters. The dog with a couple of lines that serves as comic relief during the most tense section of the first film? Lets improbably make him an agent and make him spout out hundreds of desperate attempts at catchphrases.

          Also, the first film had a fantastic, disgusting villain in Vincent D'Onofrio's cockroach. He was gross, manic, mean, offensive, and exactly the kind of villain these guys would have to fight on a weekly basis. He was a roach, he was vermin, and he wanted revenge on a planet that treated his family like scum. His motive is built into the audience's everyday life. It's a brilliant conceit. Lara Flynn Boyle's sexy plant-vine villain is...less brilliant. First of all, her minion is the instantly dated joke of Johnny Knoxville acting, and second of all, she's a lingerie model who doesn't seem to have any other motive that just being evil.

        The second film is sloppy. It resurrects Agent K because it needs to, it uses a sexy villain because marketing executives asked it to, it overindulges itself on previously used side-characters because it didn't trust the creative team to create new ones, and it seems to only exist because somebody out there liked the talking dog.

          So why even bother with Men in Black 3? If the second film was already desperately clinging onto its franchise roots for inspiration, how must the third film fare?

        Well, surprisingly, it's actually pretty good.

        What the third film carries with it is the wisdom gained from the dreadful sequel. Gone are the petty references to the first film. Gone is a distractingly over-sexualized villain (unless you find the man in the above picture hunky), and gone is all of the sloppy plotting that comes with bringing back an essentially killed-off character. Which is funny, because this film's plot is bringing back a killed-off character.

        I'll make it short, Jemaine Clement's hilariously cocky Boris The Animal escapes from Lunar Max prison and goes back in time. In 1969, Boris kills Agent K. Agent J, now a senior agent after 14 years of experience, is the only person who remembers Agent K from the present, so he too goes back in time to stop Boris from killing K. It's not a particularly creative premise, but the execution is fantastic.

       Before I go into the performances and the excellent plotting, I have to point out the time-travel scene in which Will Smith's Agent J jumps off the Chrysler building. It is one of the greatest, most imaginative special effects shots I've seen in quite some time. See the movie just for that shot alone.

      Anyway, Agent J makes it back to the sixties and the usual time-travel hilarity ensues. Andy Warhol is a bored, undercover MiB agent! Cops are racist! The Rolling Stones aren't old! I thought, for a few minutes into the sequence, that the film was going to roll over and just deliver cheap gags based around the time-travel conceit. But I was wrong. In fact, the film does very little in the form of cheap gags. When it tips its hat to the original film, it does so with background action. We see the site of the finale of the end of the first film deep in the background during a chase sequence, for instance. Nothing too forthright, nothing distracting. The film is just focused on the story it is telling, and it is focused on the characters who must make their arcs.

      Replacing Tommy Lee Jones this time around (Jones is in the film, but he probably only worked for a weekend) is Josh Brolin, who does an absolutely remarkable impression of Tommy Lee Jones. It almost transcends imitation and turns into downright brilliance. Brolin disappears into the role and adds an all new dimension to the character of Agent K. I was shocked by Brolin's performance, and it gave the film a whole new weight that I haven't seen in the other two films. Also joining the cast is a character named Griff who can see every possible future and past of any particular scenario. He is played with awe-shucks sincerity by A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlbarg. Griff too adds to the emotional spectrum of the film. He adds the whimsy that was absent in Men in Black II because Agent J was no longer new to the club.

     I hesitate to give you any more information than this, for fear I'll spoil some of the last act, which is a magnificently constructed set-piece that ends on an uncharacteristically emotional note for the series.

     Was Men in Black 3 necessary? Not really, but it certainly works much better as a direct sequel to the first film than the second, as if the filmmakers too are embarrassed by that half-hearted entry. This film is funny, engaging, and surprisingly poignant. If you didn't like the first film, this one won't convert you, but if you too were disappointed by the second film's sloppy handling of the characters, then I think you should check this one out. It is an excellent way to spend your afternoon.

I give Men in Black 3 7.5/10 grumpy Josh Brolins

The Essentials, Part 3: The Strange

          I've been asked over and over again what I find to be the strangest and darkest movies I've ever seen. Even though these sorts of lists will always be subjective, I find it even more subjective to list the weirdest movies I've ever seen. I mean, what I find strange could be something you find totally normal, and vice versa. So instead of just picking out movies that I find weird, I'm going to pull out, as I have before, films that I think used their bucking of trends and formulas to their advantages. These are the films that I would teach a class based around experimentation and a willingness to convey images and ideas not often associated with "the mainstream." In other words, this is probably the closest we're going to get to a list of my truly favorite films.

Un Chien Andalou (1929)

          Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's famously bewildering 1929 short film relied heavily on Freudian free-association for its screenwriting and also relied on nightmarish images for its shoot. The film is probably most famous for its eye-slitting scene (pictured above), but I admire this film for going out of its way to freak out its audience. I would even go so far as to call this the first truly successful horror film of all time. Perhaps I am cheating by including this film, seeing as its a short  and all, but I really can't think of a better way to introduce experimental and surrealist filmmaking without subjecting a class full of students to Buñuel's madness. 




Freaks (1932)

          Tod Browning's infamous 1932 film put actual circus "freaks" front and center in the cast. This film came out before the Hollywood morality code, and because of this you'll see much more disturbing imagery and ideas in this film than any Hollywood film made in the 1940's or 1950's. Upon its release, Freaks some serious controversy for its unusual subject matter and frank depictions of deformity and human suffering. And, for 1932, this was an astoundingly bleak and original vision. Over the years, Freaks has achieved a strong cult following for both its subject matter and for the novelty of the time in which it was made. 




Cat People (1942)

          Jacques Tourneur made Cat People because he was fascinated by America's fear of female sexuality. The film focuses on Irena, a woman who is terrified by her own animalistic desires. Animals constantly call out to her. Sometimes she blacks out and has no idea where she was. She is afraid to sleep with her husband because of what might happen. Before long, Irena is transforming into a wild animal and killing whatever gets in her way. She cannot control her body or her thoughts. Tourneur's film is not only a landmark horror film with its willingness to let the true scares happen offscreen, but it is also perfect for a college class with all of its (for its time) progessive themes and ideas.


Pickup on South Street (1953)

          Many mid-twentieth century cult films play with the subject of human sexuality in obscure and interesting ways. Pickup uses the imagery of a pickpocket on the prowl as a symbol for men who steal women's hearts. It's not a subtle bit of artistry, but the film uses this motif in interesting ways. Skip, the pickpocket, steals Candy's wallet -- a wallet which just happens to hold important communist information--and begins a complicated game of cat and mouse. This is one of Sam Fuller's Noir exercises, and he uses the genre's German Expressionistic roots to his advantage. A simple espionage film turns into a statement about human sexuality and sexual politics in the 1950's.



8½ (1963)

          Fellini's films are often surreal, but few of them are able to implement their surrealist elements as organically as this film. A filmmaker struggles with the weight of expectation as he tries to film a movie that he has not yet written. He is surrounded by critics, reporters, and fans who all want to be a part of his newest masterpiece, but he has no idea how the movie will end. Fellini's film is a huge influence for the Cate Blanchett section of Todd Haynes's I'm Not There, and for good reason--this film is one of the great, uncompromising works of fiction that describes just how hard it is to live the life of the artist. 




Persona (1966)

          Persona not only plays with ideas surrounding identity and fame and mental illness, but the film itself is unusual in the way it was written, shot, and edited. The film concerns a mentally ill movie star who moves to a secluded island with a nurse. Most of the first half of the movie is a monologue from the nurse, who is trying to cut the silence left by the movie star with stories of her past. However, at the halfway point, the film switches focus. The film literally breaks, the identities switch, and confusion ensues. This film was a huge influence on the production of Robert Altman's 3 Women and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.



Brazil (1985) 

          This film has nothing to do with Brazil, unless you count its soundtrack. Terry Gilliam's strange, surreal, and hilarious take on the future is one of the most unique film experiences that you can find. It is George Orwell seen through the lens of Franz Kafka. It is the nightmare of bureaucracy reaching its logical conclusion. The film concerns a case of mistaken identity that gets very, very out of hand. Gilliam's effects work mixed with his amazing ability to turn everything into a strange, dreamlike moment of surreality makes Brazil his crowning achievement.


Waking Life (2001)

          Richard Linklater has made his fair share conversation movies. These films are usually just focused on listening to people talk about interesting and strange things they've seen in their lives. Slacker and Before Sunrise are probably his most famous conversation movies. However, I find Slacker kind of tedious and annoying because it seems to only have on perspective and that perspective is quite young. With Waking Life, Linklater has matured a little bit and decided to let in all sorts of points-of-view. The subjects discussed range from talk about dreams and death to talk about cell regeneration and governmental ethics. It's all over the map, and it meanders with its deliberate pacing. Fortunately, on top of the engaging conversations is a fascinating rotoscope animation that keeps the visuals of the film fresh and dynamic.


Inland Empire (2006)

          If you've been keeping up with this blog for any amount of time, you'll know that I have a bit of a thing for David Lynch. And Inland Empire is, in my opinion, his greatest film. It is everything he has been working toward. He plays with identity, gender, fame, fiction, dreams, death, violence, betrayal, and love in this film with equal success. It is strange, scary, funny, and spellbinding. I believe there is no other film that could end a course on "weird" movies. This is the culmination of all the experiments that came before it.




What did I miss? What are some of your "strangest" films? 

The Essentials, Part 2: Screenwriting

          Since I'm trying to come up with a comprehensive list for beginning film studies students, I've decided that there will be no repeats on this list. If you think something from the classics list should be in this list, yet you don't see it, that's because you've already been told to watch it. I will be doing a full list of foreign films in the future, and so I am going to try to keep them at a minimum until I devote a post solely to them.

           For this list on screenwriting, I am going to focus on films where the writing is not only strong, but it is also successful in conveying the kinds of things you learn in a screenwriting course, such as character development, plotting, pacing, dialogue, moral and social issues, etc.


City Lights (1931)

          Just because there's no spoken dialogue, that doesn't mean a film didn't have a writer. Chaplin's City Lights is a beautiful, heartbreaking love story acting like a simple mistaken-identity comedy. The complexity of its writing sneaks up on you in the third act, when the poor tramp is finally recognized by the blind girl selling flowers on the side of the road. When she realizes the kind of sacrifice the tramp has really made, it's hard to keep your eyes dry. This is one of the best, and earliest, examples of the set-up/pay-off screenplay formula. Almost everything that happens in the first half of the movie is referenced again in the latter half, and Chaplin's tight pacing and structure makes this one of his most watchable films.

M (1931)

          M deals with moral ambiguities that even most modern films won't touch. Here we have a man who has a compulsion, a sick compulsion, to murder children. He is terrified of his own desires, and with each murder he commits, the more insane with guilt and anger he becomes. We see a courtroom scene unlike any other, presided over by the criminal underworld, where the guilty judge the guilty, and the moral ambiguities of this scene are constantly observed and understood by the characters. This is a triumphant film because it investigates the darkness inside all of us and passes no judgment. It merely watches these people interact with one another, and it is a bold vision.

Double Indemnity (1944)

          The frame narrative works in Double Indemnity because of the stylistic formula of the Noir. A dissociated voice, somewhere in the clouds, tells us what happens to the people we're watching with an unbelievable clarity. The voice knows where this story goes, he's seen it before, and we're just along for the ride. Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler's script is one of those classic three-act screenplays that delivers exactly as the formula requests, but delivers so well that we forget how many times we've seen the story.

High Noon (1952)

          Carl Foreman's screenplay for High Noon was written as a direct response to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Foreman was blacklisted in Hollywood as a communist, and this screenplay is his reaction to his persecution in the midst of the Cold War. Marshal Kane, played by Gary Cooper, is out against the world and there isn't anybody who can help him. The film takes place in real time, and we get a snapshot of Kane's existence, alone and scared and dark, and all of this is part of a bigger picture--the world, in 1952, was scared and desperate. Foreman writes from a place of fear, and Kane, cornered by the opposition, can do only what he knows how--kill.

The Graduate (1967)

          Benjamin Braddock is a product of the fifties trying to make sense of the changing times. He's just graduated college and he's looking for a place in the world. He holds on to his youth, to his need for a maternal figure, to a person who has already found success and comfort. He knows he can't love her, but he does. It takes the youth of her daughter and the unknown future that she represents for Braddock to grow up. He breaks through his youthful need for a security blanket with his young love, but, in that final, brilliant shot, Braddock remembers that the future is unknown. Where is he going now? Buck Henry's script perfectly encapsulates that feeling of unease that surrounds a time of great change. His movie is the late 1960s.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

 
          Scenes from a Marriage chronicles the slow disintegration of a marriage. It begins with the Marianne and Johan's friends announcing their divorce. Marianne says that'll never happen to her own marriage. Johan isn't so sure. This is the beginning of a decade-spanning conversation that covers the mountains and valleys of a long-term relationship. Bergman investigates marriage with an honesty that I've never seen before. These characters rip one another apart, but we are never exposed to melodrama or easy answers. There are no bad guys, just two people getting to know one another better than they know themselves.

Paris, Texas (1984)

          Sam Shepard wasn't done with the screenplay when production started on the Palm D'or winning Paris, Texas. The story follows Travis, an amnesiac wanderer who is picked up by his brother and slowly comes to remember who he is and what he cherishes the most. The screenplay is about family and memory and love and anger and guilt and, in the end, nobody quite gets exactly what they want. This movie contains, what I think, is the best monologue ever written. Watch it.

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

          Do our past actions define us, or are we defined by our promises of the future? What is guilt if it isn't our conscience trying desperately to define us as unworthy? Woody Allen's masterpiece, Crimes and Misdemeanors, addresses the big questions. What is true justice? In a world of murder and rape and disgust, what is true evil? Aren't all living things evil by default? Is there a spectrum of the crimes that we commit, or does everything we do rattle with equal significance? This film deals with guilt and anger and despair in a more mature and honest way than I have seen in any other film. A truly powerful piece of filmmaking.

Breaking the Waves (1996)

          Lars Von Trier has made a name for himself with his stories about women in dire circumstances. They often end tragically, and Breaking the Waves is no exception. However, unlike some of his later films, Breaking the Waves doesn't have some sort of film gimmick, like musical numbers or minimalist set design. No, this film is just pure story, pure writing, and it is devastating. Trier's recreation of the passion play is moving and tragic, but in its final moments, it is transcendent.

25th Hour (2002)

         
          David Benioff's 25th Hour is about post-9/11 New York. Of course, the plot surrounds Monty Brogan as he lives his final day before going to prison for felony drug trafficking, but this story is really about how America deals with difficult times. Monty is angry and frustrated that his life has ended up the way that it has, but he is also responsible. He got greedy, he took things that didn't belong to him, he made decisions, big decisions, for other people. He embraces everybody of every color and creed, but he doesn't love them equally. In fact, he equally despises them. Monty has dreams and ambitions that he'll never be able to achieve because of his charred past. He blew it, he knows it, and he's trying to pick up the pieces.

What are some of your favorite screenplays? 

Essential Viewing, Part 1: The Classics

         
            I've given a lot of thought recently to the films I would teach if I had control over a film studies department. What films are most indicative of greatness? What products stand out as the most innovative and original and important? The problem that some may have with academia is this idea that there are canonical works of art that all people must appreciate. You have James Joyce and William Shakespeare on one end of the spectrum, and then you've got Nicolas Sparks and Susanne Collins somewhere on the other end.

          What makes one side more important? What makes one end of the spectrum essential to literary studies? Of course it's subjective. What pleases me won't always please you. But we can certainly appreciate innovation and explosive creativity over formula. But, as happens so often in our culture, sometimes that formula is used so effectively that the product is every bit as good as that of the innovators'.

          Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this. Maybe I should just give it to you straight. If I were the head of a film studies program, these are the films I would require of my students. This is the first part of my Essential List, where I will be giving you some of the essential classics.
       

          What makes a classic movie a classic? I suppose it has to be old, perhaps made before 1960, and I suppose it has to be respected by critics and audiences. Moreover, a classic film needs to be innovative and timeless. Watching a classic film today needs to be every bit as riveting as it was at the time of its release (of course, this sometimes requires the context of the time to be understood by the viewer).  So, based on these criteria, here are some classic films that I would consider essential viewing for those who are interested in film studies.


The General (1926)

          Buster Keaton's The General is a marvel of filmmaking. Watching Keaton perform those stunts without any kind of safety is, in my opinion, even more impressive today than it was back in 1926. We no longer have Vaudeville acts in the city that perform these kinds of physically demanding stunts. Sure, there's Cirque Du Soleil, but there are still safety measures implemented into those routines. Keaton, when he runs up and down the train and narrowly escapes death, is doing it for real. He risked his life for his art and his comedy, and watching him on screen is endlessly fascinating. It's a tragedy that he died in poverty. He is one of the great early geniuses of cinema.


Metropolis (1927)

          This list isn't going to linger in the silent era for too long, but I do believe that this era has a lot to teach modern filmmakers. Now I'm not going to a rant about shaky-cam or formulaic action films, but I do think that the silent era, more than any other time, was completely devoted to the story of an image. The composition, the staging, the blocking of the actors--it is all so crucial in a silent film. I love how unbelievable Fritz Lang's world really is in his silent masterpiece Metropolis. I've not seen a single dystopian film that doesn't have some sort of nod to this film in its production design. Sure, the pacing is a bit wonky, and, yeah, the story is a bit silly by today's standards, but you don't see visuals like these very often. And when you do see them, they owe it all to Lang.


Grand Illusion (1937)

     
          Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game is often credited as his masterpiece, but I've always been more partial to Grand Illusion. There's just something about a great prison break narrative that gets my gears grinding. What I like most about Renoir's film is its excellent use of silence. The film begins as a straightforward narrative about soldiers who are captured and imprisoned behind enemy lines, but as the film goes on, it becomes more and more evident that the film is a beautiful love letter to those who sacrificed their lives in the war. We realize that there is no true honor in war, and that there is no real escape.


Bicycle Thieves (1948)

       
          Where would we be without the Italian Neo-Realists? For starters, the French New Wave wouldn't have happened nearly as fast as it did. Robert Bresson wouldn't have had much of a career, seeing as how Bicycle Theives was his inspiration to get into the business (and also gave him the idea to use non-professional actors). Vittorio De Sica's classic tale of desperation, greed, and mercy is about as timeless as it gets. In post-war Italy, a man has finally been given a job by the state. He is ordered to buy a bike in order to do his job. His bike is stolen almost immediately, and so the man and his son go searching for the bike. That's it. You may not believe me, but Bicycle Thieves is one of the most emotionally devastating films I've ever seen. It is so raw, so personal, and so honest that I can hardly breathe when the man decides to take his fate into his own hands. It is a powerful film, and the fact that it started a filmmaking revolution is just icing on the cake.


Rear Window (1954)

          One of the most written-about films of all time sort of needs no introduction, but I'll do it anyway. Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the most suspenseful movies I've ever seen. It's also, you know, infinitely interesting in its study of gender relations and surveillance. The entire film is shot from the point-of-view of a man looking through a bay window, and, somehow, it works. This is the film that proves Hitchcock's brilliance as a filmmaker and a master of suspense, and there is no way I could leave this film out.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

          A knight returning from the crusades is challenged to a game of chess by the Grim Reaper himself in Ingmar Bergman's classic film. This film is probably most responsible for the reputation that foreign films had in the mid-twentieth century. It's dark, introspective, moody, atmospheric, deliberately paced, and its ending is both confusing and disheartening. In other words, The Seventh Seal is an Ingmar Bergman film. What classics list is complete without Ingmar Bergman on it?


Touch of Evil (1958)

          That brilliant opening shot, the groundbreaking sound design, the excellent performances, the strange and surreal narrative. Everything works here in Orson Welles' (yes, I said it) best film. Working in a genre that many feared dead and cliche, and working with material that many felt to be sloppy and too controversial, Welles took the "maverick director" approach to filmmaking and did whatever he wanted to do with his money to make the best film he could make. The cinematography here is ambitious and unbelievable. You've never seen a movie shot quite like this. After the film was completed, the studio re-cut much of the footage and released the film in a, as Orson Welles put it, castrated state. Years later, the studio released the film as it was originally intended. Scary, dark, strange, and perfect.

The 400 Blows (1959)

          Some may call Breathless the French New Wave film that started it all, but it isn't. Francios Truffaut's 400 Blows is a fascinating, daring, and remarkable film. It doesn't self-consciously use the jump-cut to make a statement about French youth, or use its formalistic rule-breaking to try and change the way we see cinema. Instead, Truffaut's film is rugged and individualistic. The style folds over its protagonist. The protagonist is the film. The editing, the hurried camera-work, the quick pacing. This is all a part of the character as he struggles to get attention, to break out, to become his own man. Antoine breaks the rules because he hates them. The rules have made him unremarkable, and he has a statement to make. The film's final, haunting image reminds us of the unknown future in front of all of. It's a spellbinding work of cinema.




There are plenty of other classics that I love and cherish, but I find these to be the most essential for a beginning film studies student. What am I missing from the classics (per my criteria)? 

Misinterpreted: Wild At Heart

          Roger Ebert, before he decided that he liked David Lynch after all upon the release of Mulholland Drive, found Wild At Heart to be a wildly unbalanced, tonally confusing, and offensively violent failure of a film. Ten years later, Ebert praised Inland Empire for the exact same thing. He called the latter a bold, ambitious vision that few directors can achieve. I'm glad that Ebert appreciates Inland Empire for all of its idiosyncrasies, but it feels unfair that Ebert would wait until Lynch is almost universally loved in the world of film criticism before he started giving the director the benefit of the doubt.

           In his reviews for ERASERHEAD, Blue Velvet, and Wild At Heart, Ebert criticizes the way Lynch's movies don't explain themselves. He acts as if Lynch has no big plan for his films, and that they are just random moments of style that amount to an empty experience. He criticized Blue Velvet for its sexuality, ERASERHEAD for its dense imagery, and Wild At Heart for its violence. He said it was a director pushing buttons for the sake of controversy, and that Lynch's films are full of hate.

           Not to sound dramatic, but there are people who believe that Huck Finn is a racist novel because there's racism in it. Just because something depicts cruel acts of humanity, this does not mean that that product endorses cruel acts.

           Yeah, Wild At Heart is violent. It begins with Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) beating an African-American man to death in one of the most shockingly violent scenes I've ever seen. Sailor, our hero, committing such acts of violence so early in the film is indicative of the kind of journey Lynch is taking us on.

         
           Sailor is not a hero. He is young, impulsive, passionate, and free. He represents the dream of 1950's youth--the invincible, endlessly cool lover who will do anything "for [his] girl." He is Elvis and James Dean rolled into one. From his snakeskin jacket to his oiled hair, he is the epitome of style.

           In a sense, Sailor is the embodiment of what Ebert accused Lynch's films of being--good style, easy on the eyes, but, ultimately, empty. To call the characterization of Sailor broad-stroked and lacking of any subtlety is not a criticism, but an observation. His violence, his raw sexuality, his hatred--these are all elements used to describe an ideal. And, as the movie continues, the viewer should come to realize that the film does not like Sailor. The film wants Sailor to change, but he can't. How can he? He's an ideal. He isn't a real person.
       
          You could say that I'm reading the film this way because I love David Lynch. You're probably on to something. Once I commit to a filmmaker or painter or singer, I am fiercely committed to that artist and love what he or she does. However, with Wild At Heart, I think there's a good argument for my reading of the film.

         It becomes clear early on that the film is a loose (and I mean loose) adaptation of The Wizard Of Oz, complete with a good and bad witch and a road onto which the heroes must journey. Now, let's think about The Wizard of Oz for a second. What is Dorothy? Is she a character lovingly designed with subtlety and nuance? No, she's the ideal little girl. She is innocent and sweet and cannot stand when other people are hurt. Like Sailor, she is a representation of a dream. She must be read this way for us to invest in her story.

       Now look at Sailor. He is 1950's America (a subject Lynch never really seems to stray from), and he represents every ignorant, hateful, alienating aspect of the decade and what it represents. Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) is in love with his spirit. He is a go-getter, a fighter, a man who fully believes in his own convictions, and for the duration of the film, these convictions all center around her.

          Lula is the way people of Sailor's ideal view women. She is the pinup, the codependent, the passionate virgin looking for adventure. Her obsession with Sailor is poisonous. It infects her life and her relationship with the outside world. She very literally goes to the edge of the Earth to keep Sailor in love with her. You see that picture up there? Lula spends approximately 80% of the film in a position very similar to that one. Most of her dialogue is the exclamation "Sailor!" She is not a real person. She can't be. She is a type, just as Sailor is, and when Lynch puts both of these types into the same room, they explode.

        The rational world cannot handle these extreme examples of 1950's idealism. They are embroiled in a tragic romance not unlike Bonnie and Clyde, or the lovers in Terrence Malick's Badlands, or even Romeo and Juliet.

         What sets them apart from these other tragic love stories is that they are aware of their own story. From the earliest point, it becomes clear that Lula and Sailor are knowingly and willingly becoming entrenched in a tragic love affair. They are exhilarated by the knowledge of their own demise. Each time Sailor gets in a fight, or drives his car too fast and too dangerously, or lights up a cigarette, Lula smiles and screams with glee. Only true love can burn so bright. Only true life must be ejected from this world. Only true love can inspire the monsters to attack.

          As in The Wizard of Oz, the journey of the hero is tested. In the case of Wild At Heart, the hero is Sailor Ripley, and the journey is his path toward enlightenment. For Dorothy, her true test was a fight against the Wicked Witch--a woman who hates where she is from and what it represents. The witch represents, for Dorothy, the way that she may end up if she doesn't change her mind about her family and her home. She may end up alone in a tower, hating everything that's content.

         For Sailor, his Wicked Witch Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe). Peru is the end result of what Sailor is slowly becoming. He is impulsive to a fault--exploding into violence at the smallest whim, and his sexuality is so strong that it is hostile. Peru is mean and closed-minded. He is a dark example of arrogance and brute strength. He knows what he wants and he gets it with God on his side. Sailor sees himself in the man. He knows that, if he doesn't watch out, he will become Bobby Peru.

        Wild At Heart is a fable. This is not one of David Lynch's complex dissections of the human identity. It is a morality a tale, a pretty straightforward one at that, and it uses its Wizard of Oz imagery to guide viewer in his/her understanding of it. The film is often considered a misfire, despite the fact that it won the Palm D'or at the Cannes Film Festival, because of its unusual tone and bizarre sense of humor, but I find it to be one of the director's most enduring and interesting films of his career.


        If you've never seen it, definitely give it a look. If you've seen it before and you are shaking your head at the lengths I will go for my fanboy passions, then you should watch it again. Perhaps you'll change your mind.

How do you feel about this movie? Let me know in the comments. 

Underrated: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

          If you've been following this blog for any reasonable amount of time, you should know by now that I adore the films of David Lynch. Of course, this should come as no surprise, as a film lover obsessing over David Lynch is about as common as finding somebody who watched Seinfeld in the '90's. Even though my love of David Lynch is nothing special, I would say that my love of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is definitely something that turns heads.

        This is because a lot of David Lynch fans are really only allowed to like a handful of his movies. These are the movies that get written about endlessly by critics for peer-reviewed journals. You know the ones: Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man, and, to a lesser extent, Lost Highway and Eraserhead. Blue Velvet is especially well-liked amongst cinephiles. College professors like to crowd around and discuss the many sexual and psychological implications behind the movie. They argue over the intentions behind the film's soundtrack's juxtaposed qualities, that final image of the robin's manufactured esthetic, the performances, etc. Blue Velvet was released at the perfect time for a lot of the more highly-regarded film academics working today. They were my age, as it were, and when you're my age, you are very easily won over by style, creative invention, and artistic risk. Blue Velvet had all of this.

         It was no surprise that Twin Peaks, the "David Lynch TV show," became a huge critical hit upon its release in 1990. It was strange, funny, scary, dramatic. The "Lynchian" qualities of the show, you know, those strange things that nobody can really define, were mostly marginalized for the viewer. Yes, BOB is really scary. Yes, the owls ARE watching, but most of these absurd elements are treated with a tongue-in-cheek tone.

        The show works well on multiple levels, as a satire of late 20th century soaps, a murder mystery, a character study, and so on. And when something so original, so married to a particular style, becomes overwhelmingly famous, there is always going to be a certain resentment from the artist. All of a sudden, David Lynch was in a box.

          The show became so popular with audiences that huge groups of fans lashed out against Lynch for not revealing Laura Palmer's killer during the first season finale (Sound familiar The Killing fans?). He was under a huge amount of pressure from the studio to solve the murder and appease his fans. But, honestly, does Lynch ever do anything to please his fans? Does the man who gave us this scene really like to make his audience feel good?

No.

          Lynch has gone on record as saying that revealing the killer (which I won't do here) was the worst thing that could have ever happened to the show. Even though, one could argue, that revelatory episode is one of the single greatest hours to ever broadcast on television.

         Lynch began to feel caged by his own sensibilities. The show was a runaway hit, and the fans had expectations that Lynch could not meet. His films always focus on the ambiguities of life, on the nonexistence of true identity, on the evil and the good that war within us. He is not so much focused on following expectation.

        To confirm my point, I would like for you to see his output. One G-rated disney film. One huge-budget sci-fi adaptation. One biopic. Several undefinables. A 16-minute Lady Dior commercial. A music album.

       He left the show halfway through the second season to work on another project. That project would eventually turn into the Palm D'or winning film Wild At Heart. Another David Lynch film that is remarkably underrated (more on that next week).

      And, after a prolonged (and mostly rambling) second season, Twin Peaks left the air-ways with a finale that raised more questions than answers. Viewers were, once again, pissed at a show that continued to subvert expectations and take true risks. You know, those qualities that made the show so successful to begin with.

     The fans were so vocal about their complaints that David Lynch was able to fund a film set in the Twin Peaks universe. "Hooray!" the fans said in rejoice. "We finally get to know what was going on with Dale Cooper at the end of that finale!"

      Wrong again. Dale Cooper has a cameo in the film.

As does David Bowie!

          The film takes place during the week of Laura Palmer's murder. For the film, Lynch injected a bucket-load more of surrealism into the mix and removed much of the show's tongue-in-cheek humor. And, since there is almost no Dale Cooper, the film is mostly anchored by a performance from Sheryl Lee, who does all she can to hold the film together with her limited acting experience.

         Fire Walk With Me is a mean film. There are no more playful scenes between the characters, no more quirky, funny one-liners from zany small-town folks. In fact, this is probably Lynch's darkest, most atmospheric effort of his entire career (including Inland Empire, let us not forget "The Locomotion"). The surrealistic qualities of the film lend it an otherworldly feeling. Everybody seems to be in on something that the audience never fully understands. The Black Lodge has much more significance in the film, and its use is absolutely puzzling for those who have not recently (or ever) watched the show.

          Allegedly, there is enough footage of the film for Lynch to release a second part, but he prefers the jagged edges of the finished product. He prefers its truncated scenes and frustrating need to keep things from its viewer. And, honestly, so do I. The film has a certain power to it.

          From the moment Chris Isaak and Keifer Sutherland become surprise protagonists to the moment where the photograph of the door reveals itself within the plot, I am hooked on this movie. I am constantly amazed by its artistic risk. For a film based on a beloved franchise with a huge built-in audience, Fire Walk With Me is definitely a financial and artistic risk.

          But perhaps the word risk is giving Lynch's intentions too much credit. The word risk implies that financial success was possible. No, this film bombed. It was strange, scary, dark, violent, ambiguous, and mean. There is a violence in this movie that cannot be controlled.

          To go into exactly why this movie is so scary is to give away the identity of the killer, but let's just say this movie goes places you rarely see in any movie, let alone a movie based on a popular television show.

       Maybe Fire Walk With Me is a tad disjointed. Perhaps the performances are a little stilted. And, yes, maybe the movie is a little too weird. But I am in love with it. I am in love with the integrity Lynch brings to the product. I am in awe of the way he subverts expectations, and I cannot possibly imagine a more fitting way for Lynch to leave the series behind.


[Note: Strangely enough, this movie is hugely popular in Japan. I don't even...]