Critical Film Reviews by J45views

Welcome!

I feel that all of us, yes including you, are film critics without realising. After ever movie we watch, we always critique the film, giving our opinions whether they’re good or bad. We’re all film critics in our own right.

I’ll be providing my opinions on various genre’s of films with brutally honest reviews.

(I also do Freelance Videography on the side. If you would like to see this then please click the button above labelled ‘Videography Page’ or check out my page on Instagram @j45films)

Toy Story 4 (2019): Was it needed to the film series…? [WARNING: SPOILERS]

I think we can all agree that the Toy Story series has been an important part to each of our lives. Ranging from the friendship that Woody and Buzz has built to walking across a busy street wearing a cone. Toy Story is one of the most successful film series’s within Disney’s collection of Award Winning Movies. Watching Toy Story 3 really pulled on the heartstrings for me. We all grew up with Andy, and Toy Story 3 captured a moment in his life that we all had to go through at some stage. Andy relinquished his toys to a little girl called Bonnie and Toy Story 4 is continued from there. But my question is, was it needed…?

When I first watched Toy Story 4, i’ll admit I absolutely loved the film. The nostalgic feeling of seeing Buzz and Woody, the iconic music used within the film and even the new additions to the character line-up. Nostalgia will always be a sales tactic in the film industry. With remakes of old films, to continuations of film saga’s, it’ll always be here. Fast and Furious have been milking their brand since the death of Paul Walker, and now have a spin off film (which was entertaining) called Hobbs and Shaw. Toy Story 4 was a film that was considered not necessary when fans were debating whether they wanted another film or not. The first three films could be ruined dependant on the plot for the 4th movie and the way the third film ended (with most of us in tears), Toy Story 3 was the perfect ending to our childhood friends. Andy passing on the torch to Bonnie, and giving away his best friends as a kid was something we have all experienced in our lives when growing up. But this all comes back to the question of was Toy Story 4 needed, and i believe it was.

Toy Story 4 answered all of our questions of “What happens to them now? How will they survive? Will Bonnie treat them right?” and after we met some new, important characters in Toy Story 3, i think all the fans wanted to see them return. Not only were we introduced to this animated world, which engulfed us during our childhoods, but we were met with some of life’s lessons and more of a deeper connection to the ideological thoughts of the characters. Loyalty is a massive part of the franchise, in which Woody is clearly extremely loyal to his owner, Andy but in this case it’s Bonnie. Woody isn’t seen as one of Bonnie’s favourite toys, to the point where he is casted to one side. However even when he’s not the favourite, he still has a loyalty to his owner where he hides in her backpack to keep her company/safe. He even goes beyond the call of duty to try and save her new creation/toy, Forky. He risks his safety and losing his other friends in order to save her new toy, in which Bonnie has a close connection with. Woody then finds his old love Bo Peep, which again fed our greedy, nostalgia addiction, who re-connect after being separated a long time ago. We don’t really see these toys as people, and never take into account their feelings. I guess it could be in reference to how we treated our toys growing up, and how neglectful we could be. Maybe i’m reading into this way too much, but what i will say is that i personally thought Toy Story 4 was brilliant. Again the nostalgia i experienced during that film made me question whether time travel was real, cause it shot me back to 2002 when i was playing with my Buzz Lightyear toy. The additions of Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom and Key and Peele as the carnival toys really added a lot to the film. This was probably their funniest Toy Story yet, and laughter can never go wrong (unless you laugh at a funeral). The whole idea of the film may have been a little repetitive to the other film plots, but the ending is what made this film what it was. Woody decides to leave his friends, and stay with Bo Peep, leaving Buzz, Jessie and most importantly Bullseye (i can’t lie to you, this made me shed a tear) behind. Woody relinquished the Sheriff badge, and gave it to Jessie and had one last embrace with his friends. The whole ending, from the characters hugging and having their last moments together, to the music which still gives me goosebumps to this day to when Rex says “Does that mean Woody is a lost toy now?” and Buzz replies “He’s not lost…not anymore”. This was potentially the true ending to the Toy Story franchise due to the main protagonist, Woody, leaving the gang. However i’m sure Pixar will find a way to create Toy Story 5, however this ending will forever be in my heart. So was it needed? Yes. Andy giving the gang to Bonnie may have been the ending in some people’s eyes, but for Woody to leave everyone, when he’s been so loyal is whole life, is the real ending for me.

To what extent is ‘Blade Runner’ a postmodern text, and to what extent is it a text about postmodernism and the postmodern condition? (Is Deckard a Replicant??)

Postmodernism is the integration of two different forms of media or styles into one. Blade Runner (1982) is well known as a piece of postmodern text by some but is argued by others whether this should be classed as a ‘postmodern’ film or not. Blade Runner integrates both the styles from ‘Film Noir’ genre and the sci-fi genre to create this artwork. Film Noir is, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is the genre of cinematographic film which is marked by the mood of pessimism, fatalism and menace. The genre was popularised during the 1950s where it’d focus mainly on narratives such as a ‘down on his luck Detective who would play the main protagonist. Things that are associated with Film Noir are things such as rain soaked streets, dark/moody environments, run down buildings or businesses, neon signs, narration, criminal underworld, hopelessness, characters having psychological conflict with themselves and of course the ‘femme fatale’. This is an example of Jean Baudrillard’s theory of ‘Simulation’. This is where we pretend to have something in which we don’t have, and in this case Blade Runner is a simulation of what Ridley Scott or Hampton Fancher believed 2019 would be like, in their idea of the future. As mentioned previously, film noir has certain types of characters within their genre of film. You would have the ‘down on his luck private detective’ who in this case was Deckard. Deckard was never described as ‘down on his luck’ within the movie. The closest we got to seeing this within the story was knowing that he was a retired Blade Runner, who reluctantly re-joined the bounty hunting task force. Through the movie we get the idea that the reason he was retired was because he didn’t enjoy being a part of the task force due to his own personal beliefs and how unethical it was to kill replicants. So that’s our first example of how the film is linked to ‘film noir’. The second type of character you’d find within the genre, is the femme fet-fatale character archetype who would be linked with the detective, and ultimately deviate him off his journey or goal. In the film, Rachael is the one who essentially disrupts his mission. Deckard was instructed to find and ‘retire’ FOUR replicants. During the film Deckard found one and retired them, and was then instructed by Bryant that Rachael needed to be retired also. Deckard then found Rachael, and as he was trying to capture her, one of the replicants he was supposed to find (Leon) tries to kill Deckard. Rachael then saves Deckard by killing Leon and Deckard takes Rachael back to his apartment. Rachael asks Deckard if he was going to retire her, and Deckard replies with no, saying he wouldn’t retire her but someone else would. This is where that example of ‘fem-fatale’ comes in. Deckard was instructed to retire Rachael, which was his goal, and because Rachael saved him and he falls in love with her, he decides to spare her life. Which deviates him from his ultimate goal.

Back to the hybridisation of the genre of Blade Runner, we see aspects of both the film noir genre and sci fi genre. After the first scene, we finally get to see the world of Las Angeles in ‘2019’. We’re introduced to some tall skyscrapers, an advertisement electronic billboard of a Chinese women and a flying spaceship type vehicle, giving us a taste of the sci-fi aspect of the world. We then see this sci-fi world juxtaposing the darker, moody, film noir feel of the world. The mise-en-scen especially emits a film noir feel by seeing rain pouring down, the neon lights adding a cheap and tacky feel to the city and the crowded nature of the city making it feel cramped and way too overcrowded in the city. There are multiple times within the film where we see different variations of this. Another example could be during a scene where we see Pris walking through the street…

As we can see here in this image, the world is dark and moody, especially due to the way the mise-en-scen wanted to give off connotations that the world on Earth is awful compared to the lovely ‘Hyper-reality’ of the overworld colonies. In this image we can see the dark lighting, the wet, moist streets of Los Angeles, ‘neon’ lighting of the electronic billboards to the right and it emits a feel of hopelessness. Especially for the character in the camera shot, Pris. But then this is matched with the technological advances of the world in 2019, showing a flying vehicle passing by in the sky, the electronic billboards and tall skyscrapers in the background. Both juxtaposing one another and therefore giving us this postmodern, ‘new’ style of film. Another thing that makes Blade runner a Postmodern movie, is the various types of clothing which was used. Blade Runner featured a variety of styles from different cultures and genres which made the world of Los Angeles in 2019. Although the film is set in a futuristic time, the styles used within the film took inspiration from various periods such as the 1940s, the Punk Rock period and even modern 80s pop styles too. There were also variations of styles coming from different cultures, such as England, Japan, China, Germany and Spain. The reason why this is important to point out is because the film may be a hybrid of two genres to create this new genre, but some of the narrative of the film and what’s seen through the mise-en-scen also play a major factor into this. Postmodernism is about creativity and breaking boundaries to be able to create something unique and refreshing, and the way Blade Runner did this was by mixing these various styles together to give us this unique setting. It’s unusual to see such a wide variety of styles and culture within a city based in ‘America’, and yet in order to make the world of Blade Runner seem different, they needed to deconstruct their world, and make something different for the audience to take in.

Lastly I would like to talk about the one questions many fans of the film have asked, Is Deckard a replicant? In my opinion, in an ideal world where a sequel wasn’t in the picture, then yes i would say that Deckard is a replicant. The films narrative and storyline is fairly simple. It’s a linear plot which is fairly easy to follow. With other films, we may sometimes see a plot twist, a betrayal, flashbacks etc. but in this film we didn’t get any of that. This leads me onto my first theory as to why Deckard is a replicant. This film does toy with the idea of a hyperreality in a sense where they have manufactured these human like ‘replicants’ who were made to be slaves to human-kind. They were made to be indistinguishable from others and non replicants. A replicant cannot be spotted through the naked eye, and instead will only be recognised as a replicant when they take part in the Voight Kampff Test. This test would try to provoke an emotional response from said participant, and if their response differed from a normal humans, then they would fail the test and be spotted as a replicant. Replicant’s have a life span of 4 years and wouldn’t have previous memories of their lives, due to them being man made, however the Nexus 7 model (Rachael) could have memories planted into them to make them almost identical to humans [Cooper. D. 2020. Replicant. www.bladerunner.fandom.com]. So where am i going with all of this? Deckard is introduced to us as a down on his luck Blade Runner, who is put back to action by the special police. Throughout the film he tries to retire the escaped replicantsm but there’s one piece of information that we were never given. We never found out anything about Deckard’s past. We never get to find out anything about his past or his history. We only build an idea or assumption of his character based on what we see in the film. This links to the idea that replicant’s don’t have a past, and this could toy with the theory that the special police created Deckard to work for them, as they needed someone that was expendable. My second theory as to why he may be a replicant has a bit more substance. In the directors cut of the film, we see a scene of where Deckard has a nightmare or vision of a Unicorn. Some may say that it could have connotations to how Deckard views Rachael, as a unique being. A Unicorn is a mythical creature which is seen as rare, and Rachael in a way is the same thing as she’s an experimental Replicant which has been given human memories to make her indistinguishable. However in my opinion, i feel that this links heavily to the final scene of the film. Gaff is seen in the film to create origami animals, and at the end of the film we see a Unicorn made from the origami technique on the ground. Deckard interacts with it and seems to smile with understanding about what it could symbolise. We hear Gaff say “It’s too bad she wont live, but then again who does?”. I believe that this links heavily to the Unicorn in Deckard’s dream, maybe having connotations to my theory that Deckard is in fact a special police Replicant, and Gaff knows about it due to him being the one who programmed Deckard. Even with the final quote, the line “…but then again who does?” has connotations to the idea that everyone will die, but does this mean that Deckard will eventually die due to his limited life span? I am aware that there is a sequel, which ruins the fun, but based on this film my theory is that Deckard is in fact a replicant.

What features of the ‘avant-garde‘ do the films Rubber and La Jetee exhibit? How are they different from classical Hollywood movies?

Avant-garde films are a genre of film i have only come accustomed to recently. Avantgarde is experimental and new in something that’s in art form/creative based. New ideas and concepts are hard to find now in film in the modern era. Most films follow the same idea of having a Protagonist vs Antagonist, the same act structures such as having a Beginning, Climax and Resolution. Most films follow each other and some films tend to copy the same idea as others. For example ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ and ‘White House Down’ not only have similar concepts, but also have similar names and both were released in the same year (2013). Both films follow the idea of the White House being attacked, and to save the US President and hostages. Then speaking of Olympus Has Fallen, the latest movie within that Trilogy (Angel Has Fallen) is very similar to ‘The Fugitive’, ‘Mission Impossible: Rogue” etc. What i’m trying to say is that film in general now can recycle a lot of past ideas. Avantgarde is the opposite of this, where the experimental and very ‘out there’ ideas are welcomed to create something different. It allows these indie filmmakers to veer away from the traditional, mainstream filmmaking ideology, to create their own.

Rubber was an Avant-garde film that i watched recently, and i must say that, for my first Avant-Garde film, it was amazing. The film features a tyre coming self aware/to life, then becoming obsessed with a woman, and then finally going on a killing spree. The concept in itself is probably the definition of Avant-garde. I personally loved the film due to the opening of the film. It features Lieutenant Chad getting out of the back of a car boot, walking up to the camera and says the following:

“In the Steven Spielberg movie E.T., why is the alien brown? No reason. In Love Story, why do the two characters fall madly in love with each other? No reason. In Oliver Stone’s JFK, why is the President suddenly assassinated by some stranger? No reason. In the excellent Chain Saw Massacre by Tobe Hooper, why don’t we ever see the characters go to the bathroom or wash their hands like people do in real life? Absolutely no reason. Worse, in The Pianist by Polanski, how come this guy has to hide and live like a bum when he plays the piano so well? Once again the answer is, no reason. I could go on for hours with more examples. The list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason. Why can’t we see the air all around us? No reason. Why are we always thinking? No reason. Why do some people love sausages and other people hate sausages? No fucking reason.”

This quote, for me, is what made, not only the film what it is, but also made it clear of how avant-garde distinguishes itself from mainstream Hollywood. This quote in summary was saying that whatever the audience see’s in Rubber, it doesn’t matter. There are no reasons to the film, and that the audience should just enjoy the journey they’re about to go on. The film is main for entertainment purposes, and that it is vital to watch the film with an open mind. Other factors within Rubber also distinguished it from mainstream film. For example the film features an active audience throughout the whole of the movie. We are watching an audience, watching the movie. The film immediately breaks the fourth wall, having Lieutenant Chad speaking to us and not only this but also having the characters who are a part of the film, they’re aware of the film happening for the audience within the film. The mise-en-scen in general is very similar to normal filmmaking, where the cinematography itself isn’t experimental. It follows the general rules of filmmaking. The main reason as to why this genre of film is different to the mainstream media is down to the content of the film itself. Rubber featured an active audience within the movie, where characters would be acting as part of a film within a film for an audience who are also within the film. Another example of an Avantgarde film could be ‘La Jetee’ (1962). La Jetee is known as a masterpiece for being influential in film and being way ahead of it’s time, being critically important to the sci-fi genre films such as 12 Monkeys. La Jetee follows a protagonist who see’s the past, present and future effects of World War 3 and consists of still imagery throughout the film. The idea of La Jetee, in my opinion, is to allow the audience to have their own perception on what’s going on within the film. The film doesn’t provide a lot of information to the audience, and we the audience tend to be spoon fed information when watching conventional mainstream film. La Jetee consists of 1-2 second images, which follows a story however within each image the audience needs to try and take as much information as possible and piece it together in order to gain an understanding to any connotations within said images. Just like Rubber, both these films allows the audience to make their own judgement on the films and to perceive it in their own way. For example at the end of Rubber, a group of tyres are seen to be heading towards Hollywood which could mean a lot of things. It could mean that the creators of Rubber felt like this film was a parody of mainstream film and that this was a message towards Hollywood. It could’ve meant that the genre of Avant Garde is either coming for mainstream media or that these ‘killer tyres’ are now about to murder mainstream Hollywood? Both films allow you to create your own perceptions. Classical Hollywood Movies such as ‘Fast & Furious 9’, ‘The Dark Knight’ etc. spoon feed us, the audience, the information within the film. For example in the Dark Knight we have our classic ‘Good guy vs Bad guy’ scenario where Batman takes on the Joker. In Fast & Furious 9, or any movie within this series, we have Protagonists vs Antagonists. In conclusion, the main difference between standard Avant Garde film and mainstream Hollywood film is that there is a lot more room for experimentation within Avant Garde, where the idea of ‘No Rules’ comes into play. It’s about channeling your creative side to come up with something unique and new, and to allow the audience to interpret your work in anyway they want. There are no rights or wrongs.

Challenges to the Auteur Canon (Quentin Tarantino vs Schreiber Theory vs Collaborative Theory)

In the modern era of filmmaking, there are many directors within the industry who are all trying to make their mark on the film world. A director’s style is very important. It allows them to distinguish their films from others, and can, sometimes, gain a certain audience to watch your films. Directors who have their own unique style are considered ‘Auteurs’. In many popular modern films, you may actually see Auteurs at work without realising. One massive example in the filmmaking world is Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino is well known for his blockbuster films such as ‘Django Unchained’, ‘Reservoir Dogs’, ‘Inglorious Basterds’ and ‘Kill Bill’. 

Firstly one reason I believe Quentin Tarantino is an auteur is because of his use of certain actors. Tarantino tends to use the same actors for multiple films. This is potentially because he has established his own unique style, and wants to implement that into his actors, using the same people for various film roles. For example Brad Pitt has appeared in three of his films (Inglorious Basterds, True Romance and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Samuel L Jackson has appeared in 7 of his films (True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight). [Lawrence, D.L. 2019. [29 October 2019]. https://ew.com ]. Tarantino works with the same actors for various films. This allows him to build rapport with said actors, and when it comes to working with them again, the filming most likely goes smoothly because of that relationship built. Samuel L Jackson said “There’s just something very natural in our connection in terms of his art and my talent that mesh in a beautiful and wonderful and creative, joyous, ecstatic, orgasmic kinda way” [Masterclass. 2019. [29 October 2019]. https://www.masterclass.com/] on working with Tarantino. 

Another common theme is the idea of revenge being a common theme in his films. In the likes of Django, Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds, the story and narrative is pushed through this idea of revenge. For example in Inglorious Basterds, because the film is based in World War 2, the story is about the French/Americans getting revenge on the Nazis for the damaging impact they had on millions of innocent people. A prime example of revenge from this movie was when the Jewish Girl had her entire family slaughtered in front of her, but she managed to escape.  Years later she gets her revenge by planning a mass murder of many of the Nazis top generals including Hitler.  Django is based on a African American slave getting revenge on a white slave trader who has his wife captive. 

Another aspect of Tarantino Auteurist style would be his use of postmodernist ideas. For example, he tends to do a Pastiche of films. He said in an interview, according to www.businessinsider.com, “I steal from every single movie ever made.”. In almost all his films, he has taken some form of inspiration from another film. For example in Kill Bill, the outfit Uma Therman is wearing honours the iconic outfit Bruce Lee wore in ‘Game of Death’ which could also be an example of intertextuality. Another example of Tarantino’s pastiche could be from Reservoir Dogs. The plot of the film is essentially the last 20 minutes of the film “City on Fire”. [Lee, N.L. 2019. Business Insider. [5 November 2019] https://www.businessinsider.com]. Another example of his postmodernism in film could be his use of Hybridity in some of his films. For example in Django Unchained, the film is based in the mid 1800s where Slavery was at it’s height. During this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFfDPc0JY38), the use of non-diegetic sound saw the scene be accompanied by Rick Ross – 100 Black Coffins which was released in 2012. Another example where Tarantino has done this was in Inglorious Basterds during the scene of ‘Shoshana’ getting ready for the big night, where she would set the cinema on fire in an attempt to kill many Nazi generals. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM5mTEavepU). The scene was accompanied by David Bowie – Cat People. The mixing of two different things, in this case being modern music or music that doesn’t match the timeline of the film, allows Tarantino to have his unique style for his films. Another auteur style Tarantino incorporates into his films is this idea of Fetishism, specifically on feet. In many of his films, there tends to be specific focus on either the subject of feet or just feet in general. For example in Death Proof, the opening scene for the movie featured Uma Thermans bare feet on the screen for around 40 seconds, which then was followed by a walking shot of bare feet. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe9J6KG4ok&t=113s). In Pulp Fiction there’s a scene of Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega dancing. Before they start dancing, both characters take off their shoes, in which Mia Wallace then becomes barefoot. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSLMN6g_Od4). One last example of Tarantino’s obsession with feet could come from Inglorious Basterds there’s a scene where Colonel Hans is suspicious of Bridget Von Hammersmark and gets her to try on a shoe, to see if she matches the size. It’s almost a whole scene based around feet. The use of Mise-en-scene at times show’s the feet barefoot, and even has close ups of said feet. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLdRYiio8eg). The use of feet this many times in Quentin Tarantino’s films proves his foot fetish. But foot fetishism is linked to sexual desire, in which the use of feet in Tarantinos films could have connotations to make the female characters more desirable. 

Although the Auteur theory solely focuses on the Director being the integral part of the quality of the final film, there are two other theories in which we can compare to the Auteur theory. The first is the Schreiber theory. The Schreiber theory believes that the person who has the final mark on a films style is the writer who created the screenplay, being very pro screenwriter instead of Director. In my opinion, the schreiber theory can be true but only in specific examples. The screenwriter is the person who creates the initial concept, plans and story. They’d be in charge to write down stage directions, dialogue etc. which would then be conveyed via physical form. However the screenwriting process now in the modern era can make it difficult for this theory to be true. The scriptwriting process would start off with a writer coming up with an idea. This idea, if accepted, would then move on to a script editor or doctor who would look at the script and make any changes where they’d seem fit. A script supervisor may be involved to ensure continuity is kept. For larger, Hollywood production companies or production companies in general, the script writing process can include more than one person. Therefore is this theory true? I’d still say yes, but only in very few scenarios, one of which includes Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino has written his films such as Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1/2, Death Proof, Inglorious Basterds, Django, The Hateful eight and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Jamie Foxx (Lead in Django) said in an interview on the Howard Stern Show “So he was again, a tyrant. (As Quentin Tarantino) Do not f*ck my film up.”. Howard Stern replied “Tyrant as in the sense of, does he insist on every word just being the way he wrote it?” and Jamie Foxx replied “That’s what you want, you want a director where even if you’re going off the cliff, you’re going off the cliff!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K8j55V3Lvw). Quentin Tarantino wants his films to finish exactly how he envisioned when writing the script. The difference between a normal scriptwriter and Tarantino is that Tarantino is the scriptwriter and the Director, in which he can ensure that his vision can come to life and doesn’t depend on another person’s opinion.

Lastly you have the collaborative theory, which believes that the product of the final film is accomplished by multiple roles being involved and all these roles having a part to play in this final film. Now this theory for me is the most realistic out of all three theories, partially because it’s the one theory which can be proven. Again i will be using Quentin Tarantino as an example for this. In the Auteur theory, it’s said that the Director is the sole reason as to whether the film is a success or not. Tarantino is one of the greatest film directors ever, that’s a fact, however this can’t be 100% proven. You can have the actors compliment him, in his role of a Director and how much he helped them, but you can’t say the Director is the sole reason when you have world class actors within these films such as Samuel L Jackson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Waltz etc. My argument to the auteur theory is that if Inglorious Basterds casted Mark Wahlberg as the main lead, would the film had been as much of a success than it is now? In my opinion no. Quentin Tarantino may provide information to the actors on how he wants them to conduct themselves within the film and how to read the lines, but he has been fortunate to work with some of the best actors of the past century. Another example for Quentin Tarantino could be his late editor, Sally Menke. Sally passed away in 2010, but she was a major part of Tarantino’s films before this tragic event. She edited Pulp Fiction, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill, Jackie Brown and Reservoir Dogs. Both her and Tarantino would work closely together at times when it came to the editing process, in which Tarantino said “I felt that a female editor would be more nurturing… they would be nurturing me through this process”. Sally worked with him for such a long time where she said in an interview “In the beginning he doesn’t really guide me, and i would put together what i think he wants. And pretty much we’ve worked together for so long i can judge what he wants”. Now you could say that Tarantino does have the final say when it comes to editing and therefore this does contradict the theory in itself. But Tarantino goes on to comment further regarding the Pulp Fiction scene where Uma Therman calls John Travolta a ‘Square’. “Initially i had (the scene) like really long, where it was like a date in real time. And it was Sally’s job to try and convince me to try and bring it more and more down, where you’d still have what i’m talking about but it wouldn’t be as painful (to watch).” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqhPWfOxMwA). This quote from an Interview Tarantino did kind of proves the Collaborative theory, where it’s not only Tarantino’s opinion that matters. Sally Menke had input on that, and if the scene was the way it was initially, it could’ve been completely different. This is why, unless the Director does every aspect of a film and the process, the Auteur theory can’t be completely true.

Does Sexism in 2020 still exist within the film industry? Is Hollywood racist?

This is a conversation, or debate, that’s been going on for many years. The short answer is yes, the film industry is sexist and yes, Hollywood is racist. These statements I have made may be bold, but they’re both my opinion, and i’m going to explain why.

Firstly regarding sexism in the industry, the film industry has adopted the idea of male domination for many generations. Even outside of the film industry, we are only starting to break down these barriers which stops equality within our society. For years, males have been given opportunity after opportunity to progress, and females have been there to ‘serve’ us. Molly Haskell is an author had is a strong Feminist Film Critic. She has been very vocal regarding how women are represented in the industry. In her book ‘From Reverence To Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (1974)’ she mentioned how the portrayal of women is poor. She said that women who are aged over 40 tend to be forced into being a mother figure role within film, which in my opinion is very ageist/sexist. Hollywood still have actors in the industry who play the protagonist with a lot of energy. For example you have Brad Pitt (51), Will Smith (51), Dwayne Johnson (48) and even Tom Cruise who is 57 year’s old, who can still manage to jump from building to building in the Mission Impossible franchise. We have many male actors, especially in the action genre, where they can play the energetic protagonist when in reality, people who are aged over 50 wouldn’t have as much energy as a 20 year old. The difference here is that Hollywood have this scopophilic image of what they want their female lead to look like. Dependant on the film, or the target market, cinema’s ultimate goal is to provide voyeuristic pleasure to the audience. For example one movie franchise that did this very well, was the Transformers Film Franchise. The first and second movie featured Shia La Boeuf as the male protagonist, and Megan Fox as the female protagonist. The film is very well known for it’s incredible storyline and entertainment factor, but one other thing it’s known for within the male community is how attractive Megan Fox looked. There was one particular scene where the cinematography focussed solely on Megan Fox’s body, doing a close up and panning up on her body. The scene lasted 1 minute long, in which 20 seconds focussed more on sexualising Megan Fox. Other examples could include Cameron Diaz in Knight and Day, Margot Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street and many more. Sexism is still ongoing within the industry, from how the actresses are portrayed in front of the camera to how they are treated off camera. Laura Mulvey, a female film critic, said in her book…

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” (Visual And Other Pleasures – https://www.goodreads.com/).

Unfortunately this idea that the female lead role needs to be the stereotypical attractive role within a film has been almost embedded into myself. When casting for a female role who will be the love of the male protagonists life, i will always find myself primarily looking for someone who is attractive, rather than going for someone with a better acting ability. Unfortunately because this idea is implemented into the mainstream Hollywood Studios, it then branches off into the lower income, indie scene where even College students will find themselves doing the same thing. Speaking of Directors, there’s a huge difference between the amount or popularity of Male directors and female directors. I for one can’t name one female director. Now is that due to female directors not being as good? No. It’s due to the female directors not being given more recognition for their art or work, and that male directors are the only ones who do get their work published. For example I can think of many male directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Micheal Bay, Todd Phillips etc. It just seems like female directors do not get given as much publicity as male directors, whom (who i’ve just mentioned) are all well known within the industry. For example Greta Gerwig’s ‘Little Women’ wasn’t nominated at the 2020 Best Director category, even though the film accumulated $260m from the Box Office. In all honesty, before doing my research I wasn’t even aware what ‘Little Women’ was, and yet i had heard about all the other films within the Best Directors Category, all from male Directors. Now the argument here could be that the films nominated were just better and in all fairness some of that could potentially be true. Two films (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Joker) are 2 of the best films we’ve seen in a long time, so it could’ve just been a tough break for Greta Gerwig. But at the same time of saying this, there have only been FIVE female directors that have been nominated for the ‘Best Director’ award at the Oscars. They are…

• Lina Wertmuller for ‘Seven Beauties’ (1976)
• Jane Campion for ‘The Piano’ (1993)
• Sofia Coppola for ‘Lost in Translation’ (2003)
• Kathryn Bigelow for ‘The Hurt Locker’ (2009) which was the ONLY WINNER
• Greta Gerwig for ‘Lady Bird’ (2017)

As i mentioned before, it could just be due to some of the films made by female directors may not be as good as films made by the more popular male directors. Any film made by Quentin Tarantino will win awards and will be nominated for awards. 2019 was a year which brought us many Blockbuster films such as ‘Joker’, Avengers Endgame, Spiderman Far From Home, 1917 etc. So the argument could be that recently, some of the films released have been at a higher level that the yesteryears. Another argument to whether there is sexism or inequality within the industry could be that, right now, we have more female roles in film than we ever have. According to The Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film, there has been a 9% increase in number of female lead roles in 2019’s highest grossing US Movies, rising to 40%. This is true due to films such as Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker etc. [Glynn. P. 2020. Record number of female film leads, US Study Suggests. bbc.co.uk.]. There still may be some inequality regarding gender within the industry, however we as an industry are making positive steps forward to eradicate said inequality. I still stand by my statement before about saying there is still sexism within the industry, however we are still breaking down barriers year by year and making positive steps forward. Film Critic Dr Rebecca Harrison spoke to the BBC and said that the representation of women in the industry is great for the white female actresses such as Brie Larson, Angelina Jolie, Renee Zellweger, Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie. But she then mentioned that the representation of “Women of colour” is still appalling [Glynn. P. 2020. Record number of female film leads, US Study Suggests. bbc.co.uk.]. This then leads onto my next point.

Within Hollywood or the film industry, there are always your common stereotypes for ethnic characters when it comes to film. For example the asian character in a comedy will most likely adopt a broken chinese ‘Engrish’ accent. Two prime examples where this has happened is firstly the Hangover with Mr Chow. Mr Chow in the film has this accent for ‘comedic’ effect. This same type of character has appeared in other films such as ‘Ted’ and more. I’m an avid viewer of comedic films and do enjoy watching them. I completely understand this idea of having overly stereotypical characters within some films, such as the indian corner store owner, the black gangsters, the mexican or hispanic butler etc. However my point out of all of this is that this is done so many times in the movie industry, that the idea of creating ethnic characters based on this racist idea of stereotypes has gone passed as being known as an idea and now is just inadvertent racism. My first example is Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder is one of my favourite comedies of all time. I love how it was as if they were breaking this fourth wall where we were watching a film being filmed inside a film. I personally am not offended at what i’m going to speak about, but at the same time I know that some people may find this offensive. Robert Downey Jr played a character within the film who was in Blackface (as a caucasian male, he had make up put on him to make him seem like an African American). People via social media have had their say on how they felt about the film’s use of Blackface. Their idea to use blackface was more because they wanted it to be shown in a negative light within the film, however some people felt that “we didnt need a white man covered in brown paint to remind us (that it’s bad to do it)” [@gyllenhalal]. I can understand both sides of this argument. From an avid fan of comedy, i can agree with the side of that sometimes it can be funny, and i can understand that Tropic Thunder used it in the right way (which is weird for me to say but it’s true). However as someone who comes from indian descent, it can be infuriating to see the Indian character in some movies always be the ‘Broken Indian English accent, wear a turban, has a beard etc.’ rather than just being another guy. This actually moves us on to my next point. There is such a lack of Asian actors within mainstream Hollywood, and it’s annoying to see considering there are some talented actors out there. We have (within Hollywood) Ben Kingsley, Irrfan Khan, Kunal Nayyar (Big Bang Theory), Jimi Mistry, Aasif Mandvi and Dev Patel. Utkarsh Ambudkar, who is known for playing Donald in ‘Pitch Perfect 1/2, actually commented on his own personal experience. “When I started working professionally, if there was a role that came out, everyone who was brown would go out for the role, whether it was right or not.”. He also mentioned that when it comes to South Asian actors looking for a role in a film, they almost have to sell the idea of their vision of the character to the casting director. In Pitch Perfect, his character ‘Donald’ was actually meant to be for Donald Glover (African American Actor and famous Music Artist Childish Gambino). He also had to pitch his idea of the character in other films such as Barbershop: The next cut. He said in his interview with http://www.vice.com, “I rarely go in and book a role for an Indian character, because Hollywood’s idea of Indian men is very nerdy, emasculated, and safe,”. When a dude comes in with diamond studs and has clearly had sex… I’m constantly having to prove something different.” [Rao. A. 2018. South Asian Actors Are Fighting Hollywood’s Racism. www.vice.com] and he isn’t wrong. He further mentioned how actors have to play the typical terrorists, stereotyped characters and half the time they have to do the accent. Amrou Al Kadhi was a young actor in a film by Steven Spielberg called ‘Munich’. He was given the role ‘Terrorists Son’ and that was his introduction to the industry. He is now 29 years old and has been given more than 30 scripts, asking him to play the role of ‘Suspicious Bearded Man on Tube’ or even ‘Man who hides his bombs in a deceptive burka.’. He even went on to say that a casting director gave him advice to “use your ethnicity as a playing card” [Al-Kadhi.A. 2017. I’m an Arab actor who’s been asked to audition for the role of terrorist more than 30 times. If La La Land cleans up at the Oscars, I’m done. www.independent.co.uk.], which disgusts me that in order for an Asian man to be successful, he must just submit to white Hollywood productions and be a ‘P*ki’ for their financial gain. So yes, Hollywood is racist. But i’m not done there…

My next point on how Hollywood is racist is the way they implement their own ‘Explicit ideology’ within their films. When watching film, me and my father always notice that in, especially American films, America always saves the day. For some reason, the country and the Hollywood studios/film industry have it implemented in their head that America are THE greatest country in the world. For example there are many examples of films, such as Independence Day, Armageddon, Last Samurai etc. where Americans or an American has saved someone or the world. An example of explicit ideology, for me, could be Miracle (2004) which is a Hockey film about the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team. It mainly focusses on their journey in the Olympics, where they go on to try and defeat the ‘invincible’ Russian team. In sports, only one team can win. However the film follows the USA side which immediately starts to embed that the USA team are the ‘good’ guys and the Russians are the ‘bad’ guys. It pushes that ideology onto the audience to persuade the way they think.

Passive vs Active Viewing (Audience Theory)

What is passive and active viewing? As an audience we tend to watch films, but the way in which we receive the information can vary, and they can fall into either category. Firstly Passive audience viewing is when we watch a film, and we accept the context of the film with no challenges to what is put on the screen. For example, the film ‘Brian Banks’ could be an example linked to this. The film is about Brian Banks, an NFL Prospect and is most likely going to be a big player in the future, is falsely accused of raping a girl who is 17 (Brian Banks is 18). This then ruins his chances of going into the NFL, he get’s put in jail and the film is about him clearing his name. A passive audience for this may be males of any ages who would resonate with the story and could relate to any of the messages. As males, we’re more likely to watch the film and accept the message of the story rather than challenging the narrative or ideology of the film. This then brings me onto ‘active viewing’. Active viewing is the idea that the audience chooses to watch something for a specific reason. This then puts the power in the audiences hands to dictate what they want to consume from the text. You have to choose to engage with it. David Miller and Greg Philo said, from their book ‘Market Killing. What the free market does and what social scientists can do about it‘, the following about active audience viewing…

“Different audiences can understand a media message but can have different responses to it. Some people believe and accept the message, others reject it using knowledge from their own experience or can use processes of logic or other rationales to criticize what is being said.” [Miller. D. Philo. G. 2001. Market Killing. What the Free Market Does And What Social Scientists Can Do About It.]

A good example of Active audience theory could be TV Adverts. We only accept the advertisements we want to watch. We actively ignore any advertisement we’re not interested in. For example, in my case, if an advert for Life Insurance comes on the TV, i would have zero interest in the advert due to it not being relevant to me. I therefore decide to not consume the information and i reject the context of the Advertisement. There’s other theories, one of which is the Uses and Gratifications Theory (abbreviated to UG). In 1948, Harold Lasswell came up with the idea of Functions Analysis. This is where some texts have the functions of surveillance, correlation, entertainment and cultural transmission [Theory. C. n.d. Functions of Mass Communication. www.communicationtheory.org]. However in 1974, Bulmer and Katz developed this idea further, saying that the audience play an important role when it comes to choosing the media. They believe that the audience choose what they want, and what suits their specific needs. The theory believes that there are 5 different reasons for why an audience wants to watch something [RevisionWorld. n.d. Uses and Gratification Theory. www.revisionworld.com]. They are:

• Information and Education – The audience or viewer wants to gain information for their own benefit or peace of mind. For example, programmes like the News on TV or even Documentaries are perfect examples of this. ‘The Last Dance’ could be an example of an Information or Educational ‘reason’, where the series documented Michael Jordan’s NBA/MLB career.
• Entertainment – The viewer watches a programme to be entertained.
• Personal identity – The viewer identifies themself with the character, person on screen.
• Integration and Social Interaction – Allows the audience to develop a topic of conversation based off the media products they’ve watched.
• Escapism – Computer games and Action films allows the audience to escape their reality and allow themselves to immerse into a false reality.

When it comes to the UG theory, there are some issues with it. First of all, we do sometimes consume text and media for a reason. From the 5 reasons above, i have found myself following one of them. For example, when it comes to gaming, the idea of gaming is to immerse yourself in this fake reality and pretend you’re in that setting. For example in GTA V, the game is based in a open world Los Angeles where you’re able to play as a character and essentially do whatever you want. You can steal cars, vehicles, use a tank, kill people, parachute off tall buildings etc. It’s the same with the other reasons. We don’t just accept anything we watch and be a passive audience. We do actively look for things to watch ourselves, as we are all self aware. But the issue with the theory is that we don’t always find ourselves wanting to consume the product as an active audience, where we choose to watch the product for a reason. What i mean by this, is that when we watch a programme or film, yes in some cases we may choose to watch said film, but we also find ourselves influenced by outside factors. For example, sometimes we are recommended films by people we know, which means that we aren’t actually choosing to watch the film or programme for a reason listed above. The reason we’re watching the film is based off a recommendation. We’re also sometimes affected by those we’re involved with. For example if a boy, aged 21 has a group of friends who are very ‘lad’ like, they may be unlikely to watch films such as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Rocketman’ due to them both having a homosexual protagonist. Those who we are involved with may affect what programmes or films we watch. Another thing which is an issue with this theory, and this is something linked to me in my experience, is that sometimes the text of a video may create a want for the audience to watch. Advertisements are a big example of this, where they may be an advert on TV of a product, and then that advert may make us want to buy said product. In my experience, the apple watch wasn’t something i was looking to get. But when i was on YouTube, actively watching content, an Advert came up promoting the apple watch. The advert grabbed my attention and later on i bought one. I didn’t actively look for the product, but the advert created a need for it, therefore i technically didn’t follow the UG theory due to me not looking to watch the advert.

The next theory is the ‘Reception Theory’. The reception theory comes from Stuart Hall who believed that what we watch or see are either encoded or decoded, and that ideology is a major influence on the text. He believed there are 3 responses and audience may have when it comes to this. You firstly have the ‘hegemonic reading’, which is when the audience are all complying with the producers ideology implemented into the text. The producer would encode their ideology into the context, meaning they would inject their ideology into the film or programme. So for the WWE, this could be when the company creates their ‘ideal good guy’. WWE are well known for wanting their ideal good guy to be the face of the company, and in this case they used ‘John Cena’ who was accepted by the fanbase for numerous years. You then have ‘negotiated reading’, which is when someone may agree with certain aspects of the text but will disagree with others. They accept part of the ideological thoughts from the producer, but then will also then decode the context of the film, which is in conjunction to ideology. Decoding may occur when the viewer, who does this subconsciously, during any film or text. It is a fact that there’s not one film in the world, where 100% of the audience have enjoyed the film. The audience will never have hegemony when it comes to watching a programme due to various factors, one being the different ideological thoughts we all have. Factors like our age, social groups, religion, gender and just life experience can have an affect on our responses. Based on these factors can play a part into how we decode a text, and what of our own ideology we implement into our perception of the film. Lastly we have the oppositional reading, where the audience rejects the context and ideology of the work, and instead they create their own idea or concept. This does happen at times, but mainly happens when the viewer has a different ideology to the producer. An example of this could be for ‘Triumph of the Will’ which is a film that was made as propaganda for the Nazi’s. General audiences now would disagree with this film, therefore being oppositional to the context of the film. In comparison to the UG theory, i’d say that the pros of having the Reception theory is that it covers all three aspects of ideology and film. In summary it says that we either accept the ideology of the film and watch it passively, we can be partially active where we accept some forms of the ideology but also implement some of our own or we decide to not accept it at all and create our own version in our head. It says that we do use our own upbringing and life experience when it comes to how we consume film. It’s just dependant on how our lives have panned out. The issue with this is that it’s way too vague, in my opinion, to measure what section of the reception theory we fall into. For example, when we watch film, we don’t always immediately enjoy the context of the film, nor dislike the film. In order for us to make our final judgement, we’d need to watch the entirety of the film in order to make our judgement on what section we fall under. For example, in ‘Hobbs and Shaw’, at first i did enjoy the film. I found it funny and witty, however as the film continued i started to dislike the film. You could argue that this would mean i could fall under the Negotiated reading, however when it got to the end of the film, the way it finished made me dislike it entirely as i felt i wasted 2 hours of my life. The issue is, it took me the entire film to come to the conclusion that i disliked the film and that i was part of the oppositional reading. Whereas with the UG model, it’s more specific as to why we’re watching the films. The argument for this film is that i watched the film for entertainment, and escapism. Which could be true, but the advantages of the reception theory is that i used my ideological thoughts to be realistic and realise that what was happening in the film was way too ridiculous to be real.

How does the Scopophilic narratives of ‘Blue Velvet’ exhibit complicit acts of voyeurism and how does David Lynch use cinematography to make the audience equally complicit?

The term ‘Scopophilia’ comes from Laura Mulvey’s text talking about the Visual pleasure and narrative in film. Scopophilia means that there is a pleasure in looking at someone or something. You enjoy looking. It tends to happen within erotic scenarios, where a male or female may be looking at someone through the male/female gaze. From doing this the voyeur, being you or I, feels a sense of power that we can watch someone with no issues. It gives us a feeling of dominance. An example of this could be in ‘Click’. Adam Sandler’s character decided to slow down a female running and the film slow motions the women emphasising her breasts bouncing to cater to the ‘male gaze’. Now the male gaze is the idea that the audience are male spectators, hence why the sexualisation of female characters is key to cater to them. One film which really represented scopophilia and voyeurism is Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet is about a college student who finds a severed ear in a field. He then teams up with the detectives daughter, and his friend, to try and solve where it’s come from. They suspect it’s a lounge singer who may be connected with it, and therefore Jeffrey (male lead) gets involved to solve the case. However as he get’s involved, he then gets tied up in Dorothys (Lounge Singer) complicated world, and this is where he meets the dark psychopath Frank. The film, according to director David Lynch, is about love and mystery. In order to experience both of these you, the audience, need to be taken into the scenario as a ‘detective’ and voyeur [Lam.S. 2009. David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. www.offscreen.com]. First of all, i’m going to touch on how scopophilia was used within Blue Velvet. It was weirdly used so that both the characters within the film and us, the audience, were both complicit with the action. As i mentioned previously, Jeffery found a severed ear which lead on to him investigating who it belonged to, and this finally got him the prime suspect Dorothy. When he and Sandy go to the club Dorothy is singing at, they both watch her perform ‘Blue Velvet – Bobby Vinton‘. Dorothy turns around just before she starts to sing, showing off her ‘back-less dress’ and holding herself in a sexualised manner (in my opinion) to make herself seem more irresistable. She then turns around and starts to sing ‘Blue Velvet’. However just before this we see Jeffery staring at Dorothy, as if he is the voyeur in the scene. Throughout this scene he continuously stares at Dorothy whilst she performs, which may not sound that weird, but it is when you compare his demeanour and concentration compared to Sandys who is sitting less that a meter away from him. She constantly looks back to Jeffery at times, and even her gaze isn’t as focussed as Jefferys. The funny thing about this scene is that you can tell that Jeffery is more in awe about her looks, completely due to the fact that Dorothys singing isn’t exactly “out of this world”. Shes above average when it comes to singing, so you know that Jeffery is staring at Dorothy through Scopophilia. He see’s her more as a sexual item or object rather than being impressed by her singing. The cinematography in this particular scene was equally done as well as the narrative of the scene. We firstly see, after Dorothy is announced to the stage, Jeffery clapping along just waiting in anticipation to see what happens. But then as soon as Dorothy comes into the spotlight the camera cuts straight back to Jeffery, and we see his motionless face, just staring at Dorothy. The camera shots first of all on Jeffery are done really well, as the establishing shot of him and Sandy really allows us to gauge what their attention is on or how they’re reacting to the show. Sandy seems uninterested and uncomfortable and Jeffery is locked on Dorothy throughout the performance. The close ups especially were done well as it allows us, the voyeurs, to watch his reaction but it also makes it uncomfortable for us to see how much he’s concentrating on the performance. Secondly another way the cinematography was used well was the shots of Dorothy when singing. The angle of the shot focussing on Dorothy is as if we’re looking at her through Jeffery’s point of view. It places us in Jeffery’s shoes where we watch Dorothy but when the camera goes from an Establishing shot of Dorothy to a mid shot, we notice that Dorothy is slightly more animated and we see her sexualising her performance more. She touches her body more, rubbing along her dress or arm, especially during the line “Softer than satin, was the light”. It’s as if when he ‘focusses’ more on Dorothy, we start to see more from what’s going on in his head where he is watching her through his own scopophilic mindset and through his male gaze. It’s also interesting how Sandy reacts to when Dorothy sings that line, as she becomes increasingly more uncomfortable. It has connotations to how the female voyeurs maybe feeling during this particular scene, where the males are more comfortable watching a women through a scopophilic lens, whereas most females may find this uncomfortable to watch as the scene is done through the male gaze.

There are two other key scenes in the movie which contain both the scopophilic narratives and voyeurism, but both are the opposite to each other in one aspect. Both examples feature a unique way in which David Lynch made us complicit with the idea of voyeurism, through the cinematography used. The first example was during the scene when Jeffery was searching through Dorothy’s apartment after he watched her show. He then hears the door open for said apartment and quickly hides inside a wardrobe. We then see a shot of him inside the wardrobe, peeking through the wardrobe slats. This is where the cinematography comes into play. The shot we then see is a point of view perspective of Jeffery, making us not only the voyeurs but it also makes us ‘Jeffery’ in a sense, as we see what he see’s. Dorothy walks into the room and gets undressed. This is where we see the voyeurism side of the scene, due to Jeffery being able to see Dorothy undress, whereas Dorothy is completely unaware he is in there. Jeffery seems to be locked in and focussed on Dorothy, and doesn’t once look away until Dorothy approaches him. This scene mainly focusses on the taboo idea of being able to watch someone with no consent, and that the idea of it is wrong, but because it’s wrong you subconsciously want to do it even more. In this case Jeffery continues to watch Dorothy as she undresses and when she has her phone call. As the scene continues and Dorothy continues with her phone call which later reveals to be with someone that has kidnapped her husband and son, Jeffery starts to listen a lot closer and focuses even more. Like i mentioned during the scene when he watched Dorothy perform Blue Velvet, the cinematography really focuses on making us equally the voyeur. When we see Jeffery in the wardrobe again, this time he is right up to the slats, staring with 100% focus. We then cut to an establishing mid shot which is then followed with a close mid shot of Dorothy. This then has connotations to our focus of the conversation and how we become more and more intrigued by listening to a conversation we shouldn’t be listening to in the first place. This stems from both being a voyeur and this idea of taboo circumstances. We then get a glimpse into the fetishism side of the scene, where at the end of the scene Dorothy says “I’ll be sweet. Mummy loves you. Ok Frank sir.”. This can come from Frank following the ‘Oedipus Complex’ theory which came from Sigmund Freud, which means that a child between the ages of 3 – 6 may at some stage have sexual feelings or a desire for their opposite sex parent and anger or hate towards their same sex parent [McLeod.S. 2018. Oedipal Complex. www.simplypsychology.org]. Frank in the film is clearly not sound minded. He seems to have some issues, but during this scene we do see glimpses to him either following this theory in which his fetishism is pretending that the female he desires is his mother, or he enjoys the idea of being a overpowering, dominant figure in a sexual relationship. He clearly likes to be the dominant character as we do hear Dorothy refer to him at times as ‘Sir’. This can come from the sexual act of ‘BDSM’ (don’t really want to go into that any further). Back to the scene, Dorothy finishes her phone call with Frank and starts to get dressed for him. As she is walking around her apartment getting dressed, we still see Jeffery inside the wardrobe watching her, without her knowing, all this time. There is a section where she get’s completely naked and yet we, the voyeurs, still watch her get undressed without looking away once. This can be commendable to the cinematography as in real life this may be the exact same thing. Realistically if we were in the same position as Jeffery, we’d be doing the exact same thing.

The second example of how David Lynch made us complicit with the idea of voyeurism through the cinematography used would be both further on during the scene i mentioned before and one of the last intense scenes of the film. We again get a similar taste of being a voyeur which seems very familiar during the film. But the different between this and the one previously is that, the scene previously mentioned focussed more on Scopophilia and Voyeurism, and this scene is the opposite of Scopophilia where we don’t in particularly enjoy watching but we continue to watch nevertheless due to how dark and twisted the situation is. Further on into the scene Frank arrives and meets Dorothy. He instructs Dorothy to do whatever he tells her, and does this in a demanding manner in which he is the powerful and dominant person out of the two. This is the scene where we start to see the theory of ‘Oedipal Complex’ come to fruition. As the scene progresses and we start to see the psychological unstable side of Frank, one thing i noticed with the cinematography is that it became a lot more intense. Before we only saw stable shots where we’d be able to see some emotions, however during this scene where Frank takes advantage of Dorothy, the camera pans from left to right as he uses a form of gas to inhale. This then follows him as he approaches Dorothy. Frank becomes a lot more intense and unstable, and this is where we see more close ups on Franks face. The use of close ups are to either show someones emotions more or to make the audience, and in our case the voyeurs, feel uncomfortable. In my opinion this was done extremely well as the close up really made me feel at unease, especially when Frank was referring to Dorothy as ‘Mommy’ in a sexual manner. As the scene becomes more and more intense, it’s as if we as an audience get a closer angle and ‘better’ view to what’s going on, compared to Jeffery. We do sometimes get Jeffery’s POV during the scene where instead of the camera shot’s being a close up, we see an establishing shot of the apartment from Jeffery’s POV. This scene mainly focussed on the more unappealing and taboo side of what was going on instead of focussing on sexualising Dorothy. The scene was horrific to watch, and what was essentially happening was rape. Things that are extremes in life tend to be what we want to subconsciously want to see due to it being outlawed. For example if there is a video of a street fight on the internet, people want to watch it due to it being illegal to technically watch, however we still want to watch it. It’s the same with anything that’s happened in recent news. I think that’s what this scene captured, and the same to one of the final scenes of the film. We as an audience, due to the cinematography used within the scenes, want to watch what’s going on as we are the voyeurs and that the people within the film won’t be aware that we’re watching them. There’s no consequences of us watching the dark and taboo side of the film. That other example would’ve been where Jeffery returns back to Dorothy’s apartment (where she fled from) to see a horrifying scene of her dead husband and another dead man standing there unaware due to brain damage. He hides away from Frank who is searching the apartment, looking for Jeffery. This again links to ‘Oedipal Complex’ as earlier on in the film Jeffery was caught by Frank as he was leaving Dorothy’s apartment. Oedipal Complex mentions that the ‘child’ and in this case it being Frank, will feel jealous or threatened by the other male ‘father figure’ and that’s exactly what’s happened here. Frank is looking for Jeffery to murder him, and it’s mainly because Jeffery is the ‘father’ (cause he’s been having sexual relations with Dorothy who is considered ‘Mommy’ to Frank). As the scene continues we again see similar shots as we have in the past where Jeffery was hiding in the wardrobe being the voyeur. But again this is not for his perverted pleasure, and instead it’s mainly because he”s hiding away from Frank. The difference with this scene and the others is that we finally see a cinematography shot that’s different to the rest. Frank realises Jeffery is there, and essentially has broken the ‘fourth wall’ for us as we are equally the voyeur in these scenes. Frank approaches him, staring directly at us, into the camera. He then takes one last gulp of some form of gas, opens the wardrobe door which has been a protective cover for us throughout this entire film, and he’s met with a revolver shot to the head which ultimately kills him. Like i said in this scenario, the reason it was different is because the cinematography really made us feel like we were the voyeur of the scene and that we were Jeffery. Especially during the close up of Frank looking directly into the camera lens, or equally us. It makes us feel involved with the scene, and it also feels like it’s a weight off our shoulders, where we no longer need to watch these taboo scenarios.

Ideological representation in the film ‘Apocalypse Now’

Ideology is an individual system of beliefs, where it’s about how we see the world and what context we see it in. It can be based on how we were brought up, our childhoods, how our lives have panned out and our own morals. There’s many forms of ideology, such as seen and unseen ideology. Seen ideology is when something is so obvious, so in my case that would be racism is bad. Unseen ideology would probably be something similar from a racists point of view, but instead would be worded “Racism isn’t that bad”. In a more obvious way, unseen ideology could be when someone doesn’t hold the door open for you as you’re approaching. It’s something not so obvious and not necessarily wrong. Apocalypse now is a great film to talk about in regards to ideology representation. Apocalypse Now is based in the 1970s, during the war between the USA and Vietnam. Captain Willard embarks on a journey to try and stop Colonel Kurtz, an officer gone rogue. This film, firstly is very patriotic in one sense, siding solely with the US and making it very biased. A scene within the film is very well known within the film world, and it’s the scene of when the helicopters approach the villages of Cambodia, blasting ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ raining havoc on the Filipino rebels. This scene especially is an example of Explicit ideology. Explicit ideology is when something is so obvious, where you actually see it. For example, if you see someone killed on camera, you know that person is dead. It’s made to persuade the audience’s thoughts so they think a certain way and that it pushes the ideology onto them. Films such as westerns and patriotic films are common examples of explicit ideological films. In this case, the film has made the Americans seem like the good guys in the war, and the Cambodians/Vietnamese people the bad guys.

Even when it comes to reactions to that particular scene, US Army Veterans love watching back that scene, saying how it’s very realistic and that it holds up well (e.g. 14:42 – https://youtu.be/4KQfShpa9CY). The whole feel of the scene, from the music to how easily the US army defeated the villages, it embeds that ideological thought that the US army are good and that there’s an Hegemony within America (Hegemony means that there’s a shared belief or viewpoint between a group of people). Between the US and Vietnam, there’s that Explicit ideology, however the main antagonist within the film is Colonel Kurtz, the rogue officer Willard is trying to stop. For this, it would be more an implicit ideology. Both characters are American, so the patriotic side of things wouldn’t come into play for this. Implicit ideology is when something is implied and not spoken out loud. So in this case it’s implied of what Kurtz has been doing to Willard and he’s been instructed to find and kill him. The Protagonist and Antagonist would most likely have conflicting ideologies, but the audience would automatically side with the protagonist due to him being the ‘good guy’. Kurtz is known in the film as the Officer who went rogue. Kurtz killed Vietnamese intelligence Agents, in which lead to him being forced to step down. Out of rage, Kurtz went on to creating his own Army, or cult, where he makes his followers believe he is a god [SparkNotes. 2020. Apocalypse Now. www.sparknotes.com]. Kurtz’s ideology here is that he shows no remorse for a weak target, that he killed the Vietnamese intelligence Agents, even though they were on the same side just because they were the same nationality as the ‘enemy’. He convinced himself that they were double agents, which in my opinion gives off that impression that he’s a psychopath. Willard on the other hand is the protagonist, who is very reserved in the film. He’s instructed to kill Kurtz, and Willard goes on a journey to defeat Kurtz, but he has to go through a war and see unimaginable things to get to him. Kurtz is painted as the bad guy, and Willard is sent to kill Kurtz which makes him the ‘good guy’ and we automatically side with Willard due to the realism of his character. They both seem to have different ideologies, but they’re also similar in a certain way. Like i mentioned before, there is a sense of realism to Willard’s character, but there’s also the same thing with Kurtz’s character too. The idea of ‘realism’ comes from theorists Cesare Zavattini [Editors of Britannica. n.a. Cesare Zavattini. www.britannica.com] and Siegfried Kracauer [Koch. G. 2018. Kracauer’s Theory of History and Film. www.film-history.org]. Their theories then led to the italian neorealist movement happening, which means that a film made with this ideological theory would be trying to create a realistic picture of the real world. Most films tend to create a hyperreality where the world is perfect, but this does the opposite where it wants to give the viewer a more realistic experience. So for apocalypse now, both the protagonist and antagonist had moral ambiguity, which is when the character in the film are flawed which ultimately makes them seem more realistic and relatable. For example, i’ll start with Kurtz. Kurtz’s biggest downfall into his descent of madness was when he murdered the Vietnamese Intelligence Agents. Lieutenant General Corman described Kurtz to Willard at one point in the film. He said…

“Well, you see Willard, in this war, things get confused out there: power, ideals, the old morality, practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be god, because there’s a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have one. Walter Kurtz has reached his, and very obviously, he has gone insane…” [www.en.wikipedia.org]

That line which says that Kurtz has reached his breaking point makes his character seem a lot more realistic, due to what war can actually do to a man mentally. Kurtz made some very valid and interesting points during the film. Some of his quotes, again, made his character seem a lot more realistic than the stereotypical antagonist who wants to take over the world or destroy the protagonist. Here are some of the quotes: (Source: www.rottentomatoes.com)

• “I worry that my son might not understand what I’ve tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard, I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything – everything I did, everything you saw – because there’s nothing that I detest more than the stench of lies. And if you understand me, Willard, you will do this for me.”
• “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene!”
• “I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream; that’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor… and surviving.”

There’s even a dialogue between Kurtz and Willard, where Kurtz asks “Are you an assassin?”, Willard replies “I’m a soldier” and Kurtz says “You’re neither. You’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill”. This line for me really made Kurtz seem realistic and that his ideologies wasn’t so different from ours, the audiences. I personally disagree with war, and i’ve always believed that no one wins from war. The point Kurtz makes here is that Willard was sent, on this dangerous task, by Officers who sit in an office safely behind a desk whilst they send their ‘Pawns’ to do their work for them. He’s right, and this would make sense to the audience as voyeurs but also Willard deepdown, because it’s true. Right now, in real life, there are soldiers who detest those they worked for and the ideologies of war. [Please see this video of Veterans talking about their experiences in this link – https://www.pbs.org/tpt/going-to-war/themes/combat-experience/]. Although the quote by Corman mentions about a soldiers breaking point, and that Kurtz has “gone insane”, any human being would most likely go insane if they were face to face with war. The same thing with Willard and realism. Willard is very subdued and quiet. He’s painted as the protagonist who is going on this mission for America, to save the day. But his character changes more and more as the film goes on. It makes us resonate with him more, due to him having a realistic demeanour about him in a war setting. Films where a protagonist is flamboyant and confident when in a war scenario is highly unrealistic and doesn’t give us the sense of realism at all. Willard is reserved and quiet, and as the film progresses more and more and he is starting to get closer to completing the mission, we see his character change. The dark side of war really becomes obvious to Willard. It comes to the point where he kills Kurtz, but at the end it leaves us wondering who actually was the protagonist and antagonist. Both characters had different takes on realism, where we see the various real impacts of war can have on soldiers. Both characters seem to be mentally broken in some sort of way, where Kurtz developed a God complex and Willard was scarred by some of the things he saw on the journey to find Kurtz. It does, for me, affect the ideological framework of the film. We watch the film thinking that Willard is the protagonist and Kurtz is the antagonist. But as i mentioned in war, no one wins. For me personally i feel that after Willard kills Kurtz, the antagonist of the film is the US Army for sending their troops to fight in this war. In an article by ‘History.com’, it says “By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won. The later years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration among American soldiers—both volunteers and draftees—including drug use, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mutinies and attacks by soldiers against officers and noncommissioned officers.” [History. n.a. Vietnam War. www.history.com]. There has been debate for years within the US whether the war was justified and whether it was a success. But judging by Veterans stories and the effects the war had on them, in my opinion the war was not successful and the US Army are in fact the antagonist of the film. This film was made during the later stages of the war, which completely has an effect on the ideological representation of the context of the film. ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’ was a behind the scenes film made about the difficulties of filming Apocalypse now. Many things went wrong when it came to the production of the film. The scene ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ didn’t go to plan as the Philippines Government took their Helicopters back that they lent them, a typhoon hit the country where they were filming which forced them to have to delay shooting for 2 months and there was some issues with Marlon Brando who played Kurtz. I believe that, what Francis Ford Coppola saw during his time in Vietnam, really had a partial effect on the films ideology. He said in a press conference, “My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam” [Hinson. H. 1992. ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’. www.washingtonpost.com]. This makes me believe that what he portrayed on camera, was to give, again, a sense of realism of the world the film is set in. What he experienced during this long, stressful process would’ve had an effect on what was shot in front of the camera’s. He said himself that he didn’t want to create a ’embarrassing, pompous’ film. He took those experiences and allowed them to be implemented into the films ideology and narrative of the story.