Analysis of Blowup by Antonioni: Philosophical cinema

Transcription

1 Analysis of Blowup by Antonioni: Philosophical cinema Guy Kortsarz April 1, Michelangelo Antonioni 1.1 His films The list of films of Michelangelo Antonioni is: 1. Story of a Love Affair (Cronaca di un amore, 1950) 2. I Vinti (The Vanquished, 1952) 3. The Lady Without Camelias (La signora senza camelie, 1953) 4. Le Amiche (The Girl Friends, 1955) 5. Il Grido (The scream, 1957) L Avventura (The Adventure, 1960) 8. La Notte (The Night, 1961) 9. L Eclisse (Eclipse, 1962) 10. Red Desert (1964) 1

2 11. Blowup (1966) 12. Zabriskie Point (1970) 13. Chung Kuo, Cina (documentary, 1972) 14. The Passenger (1975) 15. The Mystery of Oberwald (Il mistero di Oberwald, 1981) 16. Identification of a Woman (Identificazione di una donna, 1982) 17. Beyond the Clouds (Al di l delle nuvole, 1995) with Wim Wenders 1.2 Why so many including critics hate Antonioni His earliest film I saw is Le Amiche. But I have seen all films after that. In Le Amiche he directs very unconventional film. No usual narrative. An episode after another. Events that seem disconnected. Fellini and him basically did scenes. The notion of a developing script such as in Chinatown. does not exist in the films of both these directors. Just one episode after the other (with the same heroes). In some films of Fellini and Antonioni if you changed the order of episodes, it would not matter. In The easy life, an Italian comedy by Dino Risi the following funny sarcastic discussion of the films of Antonioni appears. Vittorio Gassman plays a man that knows his way in the social circles, and his partner in the film is a clueless young man. They talks about the films of Antonioni. Vittorio Gassman says that his films are important. He asks his young friend: have you seen L Eclisse The young man starts to talk in favor of the film, trying to impress Gassman. Gassman answers: I slept all during the movie. What a genius director! The easy life speaks on simple people. A comic extension of the neorealistic films. Italian films are not intellectual films. The easy life is such a comedy. What is special to Italian comedies is how sad they are. The heroes in Italian films are funny losers. In The easy life the young man dies at the end of the film. In any case, the simple people from the neo-realism or Italian comedies will not be interested, and will not understand the films of Antonioni. The above is a small revenge by Risi shows what Risi thinks on Antonioni. Ettore Scola agrees and so does the important director and critic Francois Truffaut 2

3 that said about Antonioni: Antonioni is the only important director I have nothing good to say about. He bores me. Hes so solemn and humorless. Indeed when the films of Antonioni came, there was this funny game of people that hated his films but were afraid to say something bad as they thought they will look stupid. The challenge that Antonioni and Godard gave us, what really like nothing we have ever seen. Its hard to watch the films of someone that has with no emotions, in his films and certainly no humor. and certainly with no humor. A casual person will leave a film of Antonioni angry. Clearly such a person will think that the films are way too ambitious. Too much set to be art and innovation in advance. This rarely works. The days we were charmed by the novelty of the narratives in the films of Antonioni are long gone for me. However, I simply can not dismiss the films of Antonioni. The old films were important for its time. And the few later films he did, I like. 1.3 What can you expect in a film by Antonioni Antonioni does only films for intellectuals. Only unusual films. Three important words describe the films of Antonioni Modernism, Alienation, and Existentialism. The modernism of Antonioni is not to be confused (at least in my opinion) with Modernistic-post-modernistic cinema. For Antonioni modernism means industrial. Mechanical. Emotion less. He first became famous for his trilogy The first films in the trilogy was L avventura (1960) (The adventure). The film got cheers at the Cannes Film festival but also a lot of boos. I think the boos were by people that said to themselves: this is not like any film before He is showing off. He trying to be different for difference sake. The film became accepted for intellectuals and was a typical art house movie. However one can get angry for several reasons. First he talks about rich people with problems. At the time in which there is still poverty around. On the other hand, one can see his films as satire against the rich. Their quest for for material wealth, does not fill their emptiness. Second things that may irritate people is the plot (if you can call it like that). The plot was completely different than any film before. There are long scenes in which seemingly nothing happens. Of course these scenes are based on looks inability to communicate, short lines. About people feeling lost and alienated in the modern world. The lack of communication in the films of Antonioni only leads to empty sex that does not solve anything. L Avventura talks on an impulsive girl: Anna. She is seen in a memorable scene jumping into the ocean without any warning, to swim. For no apparent reason she claims to see a shark. Maybe to get the attention of her boy-friend 3

4 Sandro. Anna and Sandro talk about their relationship. Generally speaking men have no emotions in films by Antonioni. Anna is angry: you take long business trips. Sandro dismisses her complaints and after that ignores her. What Anna feels at that moment is the second word above: Alienation which is the lack of ability to form a human connection. Thus its symbolic that all of a sudden Anna vanishes without any trace. Her friend Claudia and her friend-lover Sandro look for her. However Sandro and Claudia are attracted to each other. This does not mean that they can establish an emotional connection. Empty sex is not emotions. Or like Sonya Tells Boris in Love and death. Sex without emotion is an empty experience. Boris answers: Yes abut among empty experiences its one of the best! Sandro very fast seems to no longer care for finding Anna. Nor does he have any emotional connection to Claudia. He is just sexually attracted to Claudia and wants to act on it. Nobody (say the police) seem to be too interested in finding Anna. Note that the original script, b did /b contained a scene in which they find the dead Anna. But Antonioni removed this from the film. By deleting this scene, the film became even less understood. If you bother to look, this directors depicts amazing architectural formations in his films. Crumbling mountains. Clean white spaces (reminding of some of the shots of Kubrick). Or complex modern architecture. A beautiful use of colors. All to create a world that nobody fits in. Its not an architecture that humans should live in. This reminds me a bit of the films of Tati. But Tati was funny. And indeed Sandro talks about his disappointments with his work, far removed from his youthful ambitions as an architect. Like Antonioni is? I guess. Sandro has little feeling. Anna is gone, but he does not care. He wants to make love to Claudia. She resists. Sandro goes to a party now looking at a beautiful call girl. Claudia is unable to sleep and feels alienation like Anna, because Sandro stays for the longest time in the party. At this stage Claudia has real feeling to Sandro but not vise-versa. Claudia catches Sandro having sex with the beautiful prostitute. The last scene is somewhat famous because Sandro seats on a stool. Half the frame is blocked by a house to the right. In the left part of the frame, we see the ocean. Claudia comes and outs her hand on Sandro s shoulder. And the film ends. The angry people must have said to themselves: Whats with Anna? How can the director finish the film without us knowing anything on Anna? It sure looks vain! 4

5 But the symbolic disappearance of Anna represents the problem: Alienation. She well represents the idea of existential anxiety. These films have no god in them. We should be authentic to our true self and act in a way consistent with our true self. Except for the last second of L Avventura everybody in the film fails to be authentic. Some critics called the film ground breaking. Simple people that were lured by critics to see the film. All of them cursed the film after seeing it, and erased Antonioni from their minds. Antonioni, like many others was doomed to make only films for intellectuals, or critics. While better directors such as Hitchcock and Kubrick did box office hits, that were also a works or art. Today, in cables I never see films by Fellini for example, not to mention Antonioni. But Hitchcock and Kubrick (especially Kubrick) have their films circulating like regular films in cable TV. Hitchcock does films with tension. Kubrick does much more but one thing that he has and Antonioni never had, is that many films of Kubrick are amazingly funny. The second film in the trilogy is called La Notte (in English: The night). It looks like another variant on the three important three words defined above. The film is on Giovanni, a writer and his beautiful wife Lidia The alienation comes at the beginning. They visit a dying friend but cant stand his condition because they lack real feelings. When his wife cries Giovanni does not comfort her. So again rich people that feel alienated in a too industrial world with strange architecture. The couple separates while Giovanni signs books. His wife walks in the place they use to live, many years ago. But Giovanni as usual has no emotions for this place, when he picks his wife by car. The films of Antonioni and Godard feel like the first words in the book The stranger. Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can t be sure. This man is a character of Antonioni. Cant feel. So cant remember when did his mother died which is a bit extreme. The author of the book was one of the heroes of the time Albert Camus a leading author on existential depression and anxiety. Coming back to La Notte, we see the couple separate again in a party (recurring themes, one may say). Later Lidia watches from above how her husband kisses another woman. The film continues with a lack of ability to communicate scene after the other. Lidia can not even tell her husband that their sick friend died. Giovanni seems to have a writer block. Lidia is even worse. She feels her life is empty and wants to die. Lidia to her husband: I want to die because I dont love you anymore. Then Giovanni looks for the only thing men see as 5

6 a solution in the films of Antonioni. He tries to initiate sex His wife resists. The third films in the trilogy is L Eclisse. The film starts with Vittoria breaking up her relationship with Ricardo She later meets a stockbroker named Piero. Vittoria also can not communicate with her mother. Her mother works in the stock exchange and worries about money. Not surprisingly, Vittoria says that she is depressed, disgusted, and confused. A typical Antonioni scene happens later. Her mother looses a huge amount of money. She meets up with Piero and he drives her to her mother s apartment. Now an important Antonioni motive: She shows him a framed family picture. Antonioni loves frames. Piero resorts to the only thing men know: empty sex. But Vittoria resists. While the film is on rich people Antonioni shows hate for those who work as brokers. Piero only seems to care for his stolen car. The one who stole it had an accident and is dead in the car. But Piero seems to only care about the dents in his car. Vittoria looks at that disgusted. Here comes a typical Antonioni final scene. They agree to meet that evening at 8:00 PM at the usual place near her apartment. But neither show to the appointment The ending is a total anti climax of shots of the empty streets around their meeting place. A story without ending. This was his style. Preparing and preparing for something, that never happens. At this stage I cant blame you if Antonioni looks to you like a one trick pony. Women and men cant connect. Men do not have feeling. The world is too industrial and mechanic. Men only try to solve problems by initiating sex. Yada, yada, yada. Maybe it was time for Antonioni to move to another subject? Indeed, Antonioni made his first color film The red desert. This film imposes alienation by placing the film in a factory. Smoke covers them. A lot of tubes and mechanical objects. They feel lost. They are in a strange industrial structures. A lot of debris. And especially strange noises (which is the main new trick for Antonioni in the film, apart of his great use of colors). All of this create inhuman image. The rest of the films shows various forms of alienation. Its time to bring Woody Allen to critic the films of Antonioni so far. I myself like his initial films much less now, than twenty years ago. Here is how Allen summarizes intellectuals. From the film Annie Hall by Allen. Alvi Singer (Allen) throws a party for intellectuals. He cant stand them, and goes to do something that humans do. Watch the Nicks game. His wife comes to the side room he is at. Alvi tries to initiate sex. His wife is amazed by the timing. Alvi says: It will be great. It will be great. Those Ph. D. will discuss modes of alienation and, we ll be here quietly humping. Of course the critic of Allen (that cant stand Antonioni) is more than valid. I myself thought I will stop watching his films. after Red desert. 6

7 But then Antonioni uncorked a surprise. He directed his first great film (in my opinion) Blowup. Today I like much better Antonioni s later films, Blowup, Zabriskie Point and The Passenger. At least much better than his trilogy. With The passenger being his masterpiece. I still love one of his early films: The scream. But this film is not related enough to this essay. Directing Philosophical cinema is much harder than it seems because philosophical films are not films on a bunch of people that talk on philosophy. Rather the films should use cinema language to convey an idea. And Antonioni does. 1.4 The main part: Analysis of Blowup The word blowup means developing of a picture. Not to be confused with blowout that means explosion. In Israel this films was called Emotions which is absurd (see later). This film was the only box office hit of Antonioni. Audience will show up when it is promised to them that they will see an orgy. The first in the history of mainstream cinema. This film wanted to convey a philosophical idea: What we accepts as true via our senses, may be completely false. Films such as Rashomon, The conversation and Blow out, deal with this subject as well. From the start of philosophy they asked How can I know something for sure? Hume, a British philosopher did not accept the cause and affect assumption. And even said, that, the fact that the sun rose up all days before this day, does not make sure it will rise again today. Of course Hume does not expects that the sun will not rise. He is just saying that we can not know for sure that this will happen. So Antonioni attacks the so called objective reality. He does so both by the plot but also by a large collection of cinema tricks, which are the things needed in a good film. At least technically, he was a good director, like him or not. It may look stupid to write an essay on such suspect film. We can say: we know the difference between dream and reality. We know when we are awake. But people accepted the film The Matrix such a success? This film said that there is an objective reality. But its terrible. In real life is that we are being used as an energy source. We do not object because message are sent to our mind to fool us to think that our life is great. How can we know that we are not in the matrix? This did not seem absurd to the many So we 7

8 should talk on such film. The film (first English film of Antonioni) starts at a very sunny day in London. Thomas is a fashion photographer. Note that his work is one of the most shallow of occupation. A shallow modernistic occupation. Thus Thomas is already a result of modernism. Antonioni may do pompous films, but he dislikes pompous people. Thomas thinks he is an artist, and therefore any photo he takes is important. Clearly, this is not the case. Antonioni looks on Thomas as a highly damaged person, lending social critic, to the film. Thomas is cynical and nihilistic. He has a very expensive camera. He shoots whatever he sees including the bums in the slums. But this is no way to make money. To make money, he goes into a studio where a lifeless marinet super model awaits. Talking about careful compositions this is done now by Thomas (not by Antonioni) that has a total control over the model. Uttering cliche lines such as Give it to me now, come on. That s good...now, now, yes, yes, yes! Give it to me now, come on. That s good...now, now, yes, yes, yes! Later Thomas attempts a careful composition with four models but cant get what he wants. He is quite contemptuous toward these models, saying I m fed up with those bloody bitches Thomas seems bored. Or alienated as we called it before. We are inside the the so called Swinging London of With party drugs and sex are all over. All of them, lacking emotions (a thing that makes the title of the film in in Israel, silly). The films starts and ends by a group of cheerful street mime. A mime is a metaphor here as the mime pretend to create a reality by acting but this reality does not really exists. This is why its important that the mimes both start and finish the film. This puts over the film something that Antonioni loved: A frame. Bored Thomas goes out of the house. Takes random shots in the park. All of a sudden he sees male and female that seem to intimate. At least know each other. He takes their pictures. Something strange happens to Thomas while casually shooting the intimate pair. He then enlarges ( blows-up ) some of the pictures to a very large size. He locates the big photo one after the other. He changes the order from time to time. All of a sudden he sees a man and a hand holding a gun in the shadows. Behind a fence. The gun man appears to be pointed toward another man. The revelation makes him excited, curing the boredom. Thomas thinks that pictures may have prevented a murder attempt. He has the fact helping him. The pictures are his evidence. There was a murder or a murder attempt. Then he blows up the photos even larger and uses a a magnifying glass. Now beyond the gun he he seems to spot a corpse. So there was a murder after 8

9 all. Thomas returns to the park. At night. Passing a neon sign that has the shape of a gun. He finds the man s body close to some bushes. The final real evidence for the murder Thomas made a critical mistake. He forgot to bring his camera. He returns and watches his married friend Patricia having sex with her husband Bill that is working with Thomas. It is rather clear that she does not enjoy the sex one bit. She seems to ignore this fact and backs her husband. And now the film starts to cancel itself. The facts become non-facts at all. All the blown-up pictures and negatives are stolen. As if to make fun of Thomas only one picture is left. When he gets back to the park, he sees that the body disappears. He is left with nothing. 1.5 The use of cinematic language 1. The shots are badly tilted to the right or the left in a way we are not used to, a thing that makes us (without our knowledge) feel that something is wrong. 2. The editing is not normal. Objects come from all directions. The editing could be describes as Chaotic editing. We can see Thomas driving in front of us and then a cut to Thomas and the car from behind and then from the side. The shoots do not connect. If you see an object moving right to left, the next time it may move from left to right. To us this feels like a collision course. 3. The editing is consistently bad by choice because it simply completely lacks the conventions we are used to. 4. The colors do not fit together. They are a clear mismatch and lead to a strange feeling. At times colors change when a cut occurs, a truly unconventional choice. 5. There are way to many details in most frames. Little objects abide. so much and so many that given our ability to remember up to seven objects at a time, implies that we can not remember a lot of what the shot contains. In this game, we loose. 6. The lighting is faulty and changes in a random way. 7. Random moving busses appear, making the object of our gaze invisible. They also make a huge noise. 8. Thomas has a friend named Bill, who is a painter. A large painting hangs in the house of Bill. Its highly unclear what this painting is about. Thomas enters the apartment of the friend and asks: What 9

10 did you paint Here? Bill: There is no meaning to a picture when I am painting it. Only after I br paint I find meaning. Thomas: So what does this particular painting means? Bill: I could not understand that yet. So, at least as of now, this painting has no meaning and it may be that a meaning will never be found. This painting only has a lot of black red and yellow spots organized in a random way Clearly its nearly impossible to make anything of this painting The lack of meaning of the painting prevails in modern art. This caused a lasting and bitter argument about the value of modern art. 9. Later a friend of Thomas comes to his house and looks some picture that Thomas took that day in the park. The girl says: It looks like a paining of Bill. Namely, the girl says that his pictures are meaningless. In any case, Thomas is never able to use the pictures as a basis for a murder claim. 10. Absurd conversations: When Thomas is in the park, shooting the the woman called Jane. She demands the negatives. You can t photograph people like that Thomas refuses: I m only doing my job. I m a photographer. Woman: This is a public place. Everyone has the right to be left in peace. Thomas: It s not my fault if there s no peace.. Say what? An unclear answer. The rather absurd dialogue continuous. Jane: I ll pay you. Thomas: I overcharge. There are other things I want on the reel. When the woman tries to grab the camera Thomas says: Don t let s spoil everything, we ve only just met. Jane: No, we haven t met you ve never seen me. Jane is defying reality. She says that something that surely happened did not happen Why did the woman panic? Did she know about the murder attempt? We have to remember that we are in a film of Antonioni. No question, even the simplest of which, will get an answer. Again the strategy of making a big buildup, and finishing with a total anti climax. 11. Things that need to happen, dont. The next scene shows a silly orgy with Thomas and two models. But again the main thing the two women wanted does not happen. Thomas refuses to shoot them. He says: I will shoot you tomorrow. 12. Cancelling yourself: Thomas enters before an antique store. Thomas buys a huge wooden airplane propeller. He says that he can not live 10

11 without it! When the propeller is brought to his house he has a hard time remembering what is this thing. In any case his previous statement was reversed. He has no interest in the propeller. Only void remains. 13. Cancelling yourself in the Rock concert: Thomas thinks he see s the woman from the park, he follows here just to arrive to some rock concert. The singers are breaking a guitar to pieces. People starts to fight for the broken piece. It seems that this is highly important for him. Absolutely crucial. He manages to get a hold of a broken neck of the guitar. Happy with his win he goes out to the street and immediately changes his mind. He discards the neck of the guitar, because all of a sudden he changes his mind and the piece of wood is clearly unimportant to him. The propeller and the guitar piece are just two silly objects that do not really exist. Or in other words Lack any objective importance. In his broken view of the world he finds some subjective importance in these two objects. But subjectively, or in reality these were non-objects. 14. Canceling yourself again: The dialogues are self canceling which is the style of this director. In the antique store he is asked: what do you look for? Thomas: pictures. Salesman: There are no pictures. But then adds What kind of pictures? Thomas: View of nature. The salesman: No view pictures. But then Thomas finds exactly what he wants. A picture of a view. The salesman: this is already sold. This dialogue does not advance the plot. absurdity of the film. It just adds to the basic Patricia (a friend of Thomas) entering the home of Thomas. Patricia: can you help me? I dont know what to do. Thomas: what is it? We get the full Antonioni. We will never know what Patricia wants from Thomas. Something else distracts the attention of Thomas and Patricia leaves. The subject is not discussed later When Jane enters his house to ask for the negatives Thomas gets a call. He talks but each line discards the previous. It was my Wife in the phone No she is not my wife we just have children together No we have no children its just easy to live with her No, she is not easy to live with. That is why I do not leave with her. Nothing real is left. Every line cancels the previous. 11

12 Or Thomas telling a model that he meets: I thought you were in Paris. Even though they are in London, the model answers with the absurd: I am in Paris. Another example: Thomas says: I wish I would have been rich so that.. Here he stops. We will never know what he would do if he was rich and why does he want to be rich. Thomas says that he has no human connection with other people. Not even with pretty girls. You look at them and them, that is it. That is why at the end they always... Always what? We cant know, Thomas ended the line in the middle. No information whatsoever was given to us in all those talks. Thomas talks to Ron and says he has no relation with other people (alienation?). Thomas: Not even with beautiful women. Everybody looks at them and at the end they always... Always what? We will never know. Thomas stops mid sentence. 15. Other things that self cancel. Thomas is excited to find the body. He tells tells his friend: Someone s been killed...those pictures I took in the park... I want you to see the corpse. We ve got to get a shot of it. Ron is uninterested and answers with the absurd: I m not a photographer, br Later Ron says: What did you see in that park? Thomas: Nothing. Again canceling the previous line. The final blow is that he returns to the park and the body is gone. He is left with no evidence whatsoever. Was there a body? Was it real? Were the pictures real? 16. Giving up: Thomas walks in the park and meets the mimes from the beginning of the film.. They run toward a tennis court. They mime play tennis. Using Tennis rackets. The other mimes look left and right as in any tennis match. We hear them hitting the ball. Boom, Boom Boom, we we hear the ball being hit. Then the ball goes outside the tennis court. The mime asks Thomas to bring it back. He takes the ball and throws it towards them. So what is wrong? There is no ball! In our reality there is no ball In the reality inside the film there seems to be one. Thomas cant ignore that sound. Maybe there is a ball but he cant see it for some reason? If there is no ball what accounts to the hitting noise? He gives up. No more searching for reality. It does not exists. Reality overcame Thomas. His failure is represented by him joining the game without the ball, as if the ball was real. In fact at this stage we can not know if the ball is real or not. So after the film, we do not only see that there is no objective reality. We feel that there is no reality because of the great use of cinematic tools. 12

13 In the last shoot the camera is holding very high making Thomas look like one of his blowup pictures. Just before The end comes, Thomas himself disappears. In the place he was, there is only grass now. Can we be sure that even Thomas existed? Maybe the film is just a dream of someone? Maybe Thomas is not real? 2 Doubting reality in other films 2.1 Blowout Blowout is a film by Brian De-Palma. He did films that were in part homages to Hitchcock. But in this film he presents a homage to Blowup. Blowout is an explosion and has nothing to do with blowup. The film is based on the real case. It came to be known as the Chappaquiddick incident. A car accident on Chappaquiddick Massachusetts, on Friday, July 18, Senator Ted Kennedy was driving. A girl that was in the car, 28-year-old passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. Ted Kennedy survived. Kennedy says that he accidentally drove his car off some bridge and into water. He did not not report the accident to the police for ten hours. The body of Kopechne was found next day. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash causing personal injury. He got a strangely easy verdict: a two-month suspended jail sentence. It looks like if it was not him, the punishment would have been much worse. It may be the case that due to this incident, he was never a president. Blowout starts with a nasty trick. It seems that we are watching some soft porn horror flick. The camera follows the point of view of what we suspect is a murderer of the likes of the Friday the 13 films. The evil person opens the shower curtain and a completely silly and weak scream is heard. The film stops. This was not reality. In reality the director and his sound man, were watching a soft porn flick and are not happy with the scream. Confusing reality. in a simple and efficient trick. Travolta plays Jack Terry, a sound man of B-Movies. He goes out at night to get some night sounds to use in future movies. He sees a car going off a bridge and plunging into a some river. The male driver is killed, but Jack manages to rescue a young woman, Sally and rushes her to an hospital. Jack learns that the driver of the car was Governor George McRyan. He was about to run for president. Sally is an escort. Those who worked for McRyan tried to cover up all relation of McRyan to Sally. 13

14 Jack listens to the audio tape he recorded, very carefully, and hears a gunshot just before the tire blow out. He learns a photographer took pictures of the accident. With a motion picture camera, no less. Jack matches the sound to the moving pictures creating a short movie. This scene was broadly looked at as a comment about film making. Jack thinks the politician was assassinated. Like in Blowup, nobody believes Garry. Especially not the police. Jack, has a cross to bear like Jake from Chinatown I wonder if the name is not chosen on purpose. The character in Chinatown is called Jake. And it is played by Jack Nicholson. Jack botched an investigation into police corruption and got a detective killed. Like Jake, he will fail again and cause the death of the girl he loves. The police will not take any ideas by him. It turns out that the pimp of Sally was black mailing the candidate. A rival candidate hires a crazed killer named Burke, to place Sally and McRyan together. At the time of the film (1981), such an affair would have ended the political career of McRyan. Burke decided that shooting the tire will bring the police that will catch McRyan on the record with Sally. The one shooting the incident was a man of Burke that wanted a filmed evidence. But, it turned out even better for Burke. McRyan dies. But Burke still has Sally to contend with. Burke is afraid that Sally will incriminate his client. He decides to create a fake serial killer. He begins murdering local women (that look similar to Sally). He is coined the Liberty Bell Strangler, because he carves such a symbol on the skin of the murdered women. Jack plans to contact a reporter. The reporter is to check the conspiracy theory by Jack. Sally is to make a contact with the press. Jack wires her to listen in from a distance. But Jack notices that Burke impersonates the reporter. Its Liberty Day celebration. A huge crowd slow Jack arrives with Sally in the time of her last scream, before she dies. He kills Burke. The murder is registered as on of the Liberty Bell Strangler murders. Nobody relates this to the political motivation. They mistake reality. If Burke was alive, if the police could have catched him and interrogated him, the conspiracy could have been revealed. But without Burke, the conspiracy theory is impossible to prove. The reality is lost on everybody but Jack in the film. The public mistakes the reality and thinks that Sally murder was done by the above mentioned serial killer, and not due to politics. The film that Jack made looks irrelevant to the police. The police denies reality. And then life invades art. They use the scream of Sally to replace the weak scream in the shower scene. The director says: What a great scream! Jack agrees and covers his ears when the scream of Sally is heard. This was 14

15 a huge trauma for him, and he cant tolerate the scream. The director of the film is impressed. This is because he confuses reality. He thinks its an actress screaming. In fact its Sally screaming while being murdered. Everybody in the movie but Jack, is lost in a wrong reality that does not match the true reality. 2.2 Persona: there word reality does not suit the film Persona (mask) according to Jung is an external, artificial personality used to hide the real self. It seems that the two lady leads in the film, are not comfortable with their personality. An actress stops talking. She is tended by a nurse that does not stop talking. A famous shot from Persona is a face composed of half of the face of Ullmann and half of the face of Andersson. Through some magical way during the film, both actresses exchange personalities. And this, I can say for sure, is a challenge on reality and a philosophical film. It may be a film about cinema. It begins with a highly strange visual poem. We see a projector starting up, and ends with a projector shutting down ending the poem. Persona breaks the fourth wall, even allowing us to see Bergman and his film crew at one point. Is Persona a much more interesting and way better looking version of a film like Last Year in Marienbad? The latter, is certainly a film that can not be understood. Did Tarkovsky had Persona in mind when he directed Mirror? Probably so. I have no theory on Persona because in my method of analysis you need to know what is a fact and what is a fantasy. Things need to make sense. This is clearly not true in Persona. You can read countless essays on the film. In one scene the actress watched quietly when the nurse and the husband of the actress, make love. Bergman in Persona and Tarkovsky in Mirror created two free willing films, that I can not analyzed. Just speculate. Speculation, a thing done often by those who analyze films, are ar=bitrary and worthless. The question is does it work. Persona works. Last Year in Marienbad does not. Persona feels mysterious. Contains great compositions. Superb monologue. On monologue is the most erotic monologue in cinema history. The superb photography is hard to resist. The acting is great. I did not understand the movie but I enjoyed it immensely. This may be the only film ever for which I can say that. 15

16 2.3 Cria Cuervos Cria Cuervos in Spanish means raising vultures. A vulture is a scavenging bird of prey. Birds that wait for animals to die and then eat them. This is part of an old saying Cra Cuervos y te sacarn los ojos. namely raise vultures and they will take off your eyes. Vultures can not be trusted. This saying is about parents that have evil children. The film mixed reality and fantasy constantly. We deal with a small girl Ana. that overhears a strange woman confessing to her father for her love to him. Then we see the mother of the girl. She appears near the fridge. But this is a fantasy of a grieving child. Her mother died long ago. One of her most beautiful visions is when she carries the wheelchair of her grandmother. She sees a girl in the roof. Ana notices that its her on the roof. She closes her eyes and opens it again, but Ana is still on the roof. Ana on the street looks at the other Ana while she takes a jump from the roof toward the city. Its hard to know what is fantasy and what is reality throughout the film. She actually blames her mother death on her father. But in fact, her mother died from cancer. Ana mixes unclear powder that she thinks is poison in a milk cup, served to her father. It is a murder attempt. The father dies, but of of a heart attack. Her mother had told her years ago to throw out this powder as it was poison. It turns out it is simply baking soda. The aunt of Ana gets custody of Ana. And she is harsh and evil. Harsh as her father was. He grandmother is also there. Paralyzed on a wheel chair. Anna keeps her lethal powder, in the basement. Then she goes to fantasy again. She imagines herself twenty years in the future. She looks exactly as her mother. The older Ana says I don t believe in childhood paradise, or in innocence, or the natural goodness of children. I remember my childhood as a long period of time, interminable, sad, full of fear, fear of the unknown. In this film Ana is the vulture. She tries to kill people. The reality of her harsh aunt is broken by constant fantasies of her dead mother. The only woman she loves is the maid, Rosa. She rebels against her aunt. Later the girl imagines her own suicide. She offers her grandmother a way out: take the poison and die. Your life is not worth it anyway. The grandmother refuses. Then she tries to kill her aunt with the powder. But her aunt does not die. Anna and her two sisters go out to the city. The city is so wonderful. The girls never saw it before. Its like getting out of prison. 16

17 Saura, the director, hated the dictator Franco. The aunt of Ana and her father, are like Franco, the dictator leading Spain at the time. Saura had the (probably unpopular) opinion that childhood is one of the most terrible parts in the life of a human being. A child does not know reality from fantasy. You are always controlled by people that take you places. Its quite a terrible time to live, when you are a child. To insert some tenderness the director inserts a beautiful song. Porque te vas. Because you are leaving. The words are sad as it talks about a separation. The songs says that: Today in the window the sun bright, and one heart, becomes sad when I contemplate the city. Because you are leaving. All the promises of love will leave with you. You will forget me. You will forget me. Near the window I cry like a baby, because you are leaving. Because you are leaving. That is the tragedy of a child. A child does not understand what death is. So when the mother dies, Ana thinks she just left her. For adult a death is not like the person who died left you of his/her own will. But to Anna it looks exactly like that. One of those unique films that show children life as hell, with 400 blows and Dangerous games. The grim message of the film is somewhat contrasted by a magical feeling it induces. 2.4 Rashomon I will describe this important film very as shortly as possible. Because it is too important to be written about in another context. In the middle of the jungle a bandit attacks a Samurai wife. We get various versions of the events. Each version is complementary to the one telling it. The woman says the the bandit raped her. But the bandit says that she gave herself to him willingly. The bandit says that he killed the husband in a fair fight. But the spirit of the dead husband (their raise it from the dead) says that he committed suicide because he could not see the bandit raping his wife. You can not tell what is the truth here. The film does not give any version an advantage. And the camera movements even try to depict the character of the one who speaks, making each scene and version quite convincing. Is there A reality? The film does not answer. 2.5 Citizen Kane In Citizen Kane that is analyzed in depth elsewhere, Five people tell the story of a news paper mogul Charles Foster Kane. But the reality of what they say, turns out completely dubious, because people are describing scenes that they never witnessed. Memory is not reliable. And the reality they 17

18 describe may be altered by their opinions. The entire film tries to understand what is the essence of this complex person Charles Foster Kane. And fails. The film starts and ends by the sign No trespassing that is hanging on the huge mansion of Kane. We could not penetrate this complex person. A failure to trespass inside the Kane persona. 2.6 The purple rose of Cairo This one is complex. Many layers. Allen: Hollywood makes silly film that are not real and just allow people to escape from the depression. The film itself is called The purple rose of Cairo. But this is the name of the escapistic film inside a film in Purple rose of Cairo. But does thins not mean that the film of Allen Purple rose of Cairo more real. New Jersey. The time of the great depression in Cecilia works hard as waitress. Her husband Monk is abusive. She tried to leave her husband many times The only consolation are the movies. Cecilia watches am RKO Radio Pictures film (this is a citation of Citizen Kane). Henry goes to an exotic vacation to Egypt with companions Jason and Rita. While in Egypt, They meet our hero an archaeologist named Tom Baxter. Wearing a silly archaeologist hat. They bring him to Manhaten for a weekend. Like Tarzan visiting NY, Tom spends a weekend in Manhaten and falls in love with Kitty Haynes that works at the Copacabana (another film citation. The club name in Casablanca.). Cecilia sits through the film several times, in the same week. Tom, the archaeologist in the film somehow noticing her. He makes one of the most spectacular breaking of the the fourth wall. Tom to Cecilia: You must love this film. Cecilia is in shock: Are you talking to me? Baxter says: Yes to you. Lets go to a place where we could talk. Cecilia: But you are in a film. Baxter goes out of the film into the so called reality. But in reality he cant fit. His money is worthless in the the real world. When he kisses Cecilia he is waiting for a fadeout. Fadeout? asks Cecilia. Baxter Yes after a kiss there is a fadeout. Cecilia: What happens after that? Baxter: We make love but away from the camera in some dark and pretty place. After Baxter fights some guys his hat is still on. His hair did not move an 18

19 inch and his face are not hurt. Baxter says that this is one of the advantages of an unreal character. In the meanwhile the character in the movie are stuck. The projector wants to turn the movie off, but the characters plead he would not do so. They say: You do not know what being terminated is. The spectators complain: What kind of a movie is this one? Where is the action? The actor that plays Baxter is in a real problem. He has a double raising havoc in the streets. He will be blamed by what his double does. Later more doubles step out of the screen. Gill says: This may give me a reputation of an irresponsible person. Nobody will want to do a film with me again! Tom Baxter that never had sex (not in the screen anyway) and is naive walks near a bunch of of prostitutes. Baxter tells them: I am sure you all will marry soon. You wear very stimulating cloth. The prostitutes laugh and Baxter asks: What kind of club is it? He is so naive that the prostitutes are immediately attracted to him. They tell him You are not real!. Well, how much is everybody real in cinema is hard to tell, but more so in this film of Allen. A prostitute says: I would sleep with him for free! They beg him to go up with him. Baxter finally understand what they are but says: ladies please do not think I do not appreciate the offer. But I am in love with a lady. And I can make love with her only. The prostitutes are amazed. Is there another one like him in the world? Cecilia step into the movie with Tom. When a girl character understands that Cecilia is real she faints. She can stay in the world of fiction, in the perfect world of the Hollywood escapism. Gill, the actor playing Baxter talks to Cecilia. He offers himself. Offers to marry her. Baxter says he is better. I am honest, reliable, romantic and a great kisser. Gil: but I am real (is he?). From the film they shout to Cecilia: Go with Gill. We are limited. No go with Baxter, he is perfect. Cecilia chooses Gill but he forgets about her a minute after she chooses him and Baxter is back into the movie. Cecilia in a tragic ending returns to her husband. 19

20 All films are a lie. Of course. All art is. Picasso said Art is a lie we tell ourselves so we can understand reality. Hollywood and its silly films is not real. The meeting of Cecilia and Baxter that was but an illusion. The meeting of Gill and Cecilia was one fake meeting. Further, Allen says The film of mine that you just saw is a work of fiction. So what is real after all. Allen certainly does not claim that the film he made is truth. But he has a message. Allen thinks (rightly or wrongly) that life is dark and sad and hopeless. This was claimed in a large part in the films of Allen. I agree with him. So what? Those who leave the movie should think about what the film claims. Is thee world so grim. Is our world hopeless? If two people saw that movie and disagree on this message, good. A film caused two people to argue in real life. More real than that you cant get. This is what art is for. 2.7 Breaking the forth wall, some examples Oliver Hardy was probably the first to break the fourth wall, in his movies with Stan Laurel, by staring at the camera to seek comprehension from the viewers. He gives us a look of Do you see what I have to deal with admitting that he is in a film. Reality is of course immediately broken. The reality of the film. Because a film that knows its a film can not be reality. Why: because a film is a work of art. What has this to do with reality? Graucho Marx spoke directly to the audience in Animal Crackers, 1930, and Horse Feathers, In Blazing Saddles we see the shooting of a musical in Hollywood of the 30 s. But then a Western from the 19 century breaks into the musical, and all hell breaks loose. In Annie Hall, Allen talks to us all the time. What was done here and there, happens throughout the film. When Alvi (Allen) stands in line to buy a ticket, a professor (and he hates professors) starts to talk on cinema, He critics Fellini, saying that La Strada is a good film but that Fellini is self indulgent and so are his films Juliet of the Spirits, and Satyricon are bad films (I must say that I cant stand Satyricon). He calls Fellini a technical director. If Alvi is anything like Woody Allen (people mistakenly see the movie as a autobiography), then Alvi admires Fellini, and resents what the professor says. Alvi complains: He is spitting on my neck. Then the professor starts talking in the same way on Samuel Beckett: I admire his technique but his plays do not grab me. 20

21 Then the professor wanders into TV. And in such an occasion (when talking on cinema and TV), trust me, you must bring the theories of Marshall McLuhan on a cold media versus a warm media and on the line : The medium is the message. So the professor does just that. Alvi starts complaining to the audience. What do you do when you get stuck with such a person behind you? The Professor is insulted and answers that he is an expert on Marshall McLuhan and teaches him in a course. Alvi says: Well as it happens I have Marshall McLuhan here. He brings Marshall McLuhan (playing himself) from a hidden place. Marshall McLuhan scolds the professor: You are saying that everything I said is a fallacy. How did you get to teach any course is a mystery for me. Then Alvi looks at as and says: If only life could be this way. There is no reality in the film because the film keeps reminding us that it is a film. Reality is broken when Alvi can just pull Marshall McLuhan in the moment he wants. Alvi even says: If only life could be like that, admitting that his film there is not reality. In real life after speaking with Annie she leaves him. He makes a play that contains the exact same dialogue but at the end the woman and the man stay together. Alvy looks at us and says What do you want? Its my first play. You know how in real life things turn bad, so in art, you make everything OK. Clearly, the film Annie Hall has much less reality then blowup. Not a single real moment that we say: well he is showing us something true from his life. No. The reality is broken at every moment. The fact that it works in such a superb way, is magic. Bates, the killer of Psycho looks directly at us near the end of the film. The character of John Belushi in Animal House looks directly at us just before the ladies he is watching take off their cloth, In Monty Python and the Holly Grail, the film talks at the time of Arthur and the knights of the round table. But we also have modern police of the 20 century trying to solve a murder. The film does not exactly ends. The police catches the knights and arrest them. Then a policeman notices the camera. As policeman some times do, the policeman puts his hand on the camera, hiding everything. Then the film ends. I better not say what is my opinion of such an ending. Ferris Bueller s Day Off is another well-known fourth-wall-breaking movie. Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, often turns to the camera and breaks character to tell his thought process or explain his reasoning Mike the hero of O Lucky Man is selected at the end to be the leading actor in the film O Luck Man. In Funny Games by Michael Handke two criminals torture a family. When the character of Naomi Watts manages to 21

22 shoot one of her terrorizers, his friend to the cruelty named Pitt, grabs a remote control, and rewinds the scene. When they get to this scene again, Pit is ready and avoids it. I know that the last scene makes no sense. But I am sure some critics will find something very deep in this disgustingly cruel film. 22