Ray’s Cinematic Meditation on the Modernity of Charulata

Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964) examines a woman’s assertion for love, while being fixed in a lonely marriage. From the opening credits we see a wife whose identity is not defined by her image, but that of her dutiful hands embroidering the letter “B” which identifies her husband’s name Bhupati, onto a handkerchief. The exposition marks Charu to be the outsider, who spies on the outdoor world through binocular opera glasses. Her British colonial home is made up of paintings and furniture that bear little relation to her own identity, making her an outsider even in her own gilded cage. Seemingly bored, Charu flips through books, plays piano and cards, eats kulfi, and spies on her work-distracted husband. It is the arrival of her husband’s cousin/ brother Amal who sweeps through the door like a monsoon storm and straight into Charu’s heart. Despite the simple premises, Satyajit Ray’s Charulata has more on its mind than a simple love triangle; Ray’s bigger concern is with female modernity.

Charu gazes upon her husband through opera glasses, as if waiting to be a participant in his world, where she is currently an observer. The first time we see Bhupati, he literally walks right past Charu as if she were invisible. This is emphasized even more, during their first dialogue, which occurs over a meal that only her husband enjoys. Charu sits passively, watching her husband eat by himself and discuss their lifestyle. This lack of unification emphasizes Charu’s relationship with her husband as a distant one. Yet at this time in India, the early 1900s, a woman’s position in marriage is what defined her. For example, Darius Cooper writes:

In India, a woman’s identity never belongs to her. It is wholly defined by her relationship to others. The patriarchal Indian tradition always forces her to play what it deems the appropriate role of daughter/ sister/ wife/ mistress/ daughter within the narrow confines of the Indian family structure. (Cooper, 40.)

Charu’s identity is solely defined by her relationship to her husband. Not only does Charu embroider, but she also supervises domestic chores, serves meals, and spends her idle time performing feminine pastimes. Though her husband is politically liberal, his perspective of women is still not fully progressive. Though he acknowledges that, “even a widow can hold her head up high” (in reference to the modern times), the word “even” suggests that “widow” is still viewed in society as a negative. The film was titled The Lonely Wife internationally, and the first quarter of the film supports this title as Charu lives out a pretty banal and disconnected existence. Her husband even picks up on this when he blatantly asks his wife if she is lonely; Charu honestly responds, “I have gotten used to it.” Bhupati, however, doesn’t provide advice or a cure for her loneliness…well, not intentionally.

Amal’s entrance into the film is not immediately a transformation of Charu’s modernity, for she continues to fulfill the wife role even with Amal. She mends his clothes, feeds him beetle leaves, and acts as a maternal host. This is not very surprising considering the traditional relationship between an Indian wife and her husband’s younger brother. According to Chidananda Das Gupta:

The word in Sanskrit for husband’s younger brother literally means ‘second husband’…Ritualistically, therefore, the husband’s younger brothers and cousins are vaguely placed in a sort of ‘second husband’ position, ready to take his place, as it were, but never actually doing so. Even today, it is an ambiguous relationship, made up of brotherly affection often overlaid with tinges of sexuality. (Das Gupta, 43.)

The brotherly affection that Charu initially has for Amal evolves into something greater as she is able to connect with him more than her own husband.

It is with Amal that Charu becomes more actively engaged, redefining her identity to be more than a mere observer and devotee of her husband’s world. After all, Amal and Charu share parallel interests and sensibilities; she finally has someone with whom she can express herself. Amal lives a relaxed and an uncomplicated existence, shares a similar fascination for the book Sharmulata, dabbles on the piano, loves to sing, write poetry, and expresses him self romantically. Both Charu and Amal also view Bhupati in similar ways. Just as the exposition of the film opens with Charu observing Bhupati through binoculars, when Amal fist reunites with his cousin, he too looks at him through a magnifying glass. Amal and Charu, parallel characters, are equally disconnected from their foil Bhupati and his world. While Bhupati prioritizes his work for his newspaper The Sentinel, Amal and Charu are more interested in the world of fiction and feeding the imagination. It is ironic however, that Bhupati prides himself on what he calls “living politics” because he doesn’t exactly practice modernity within his actual household.

Feminist scholarship has argued that the home in fact functioned in the 1870s and 1880s as the place where the difficulties faced by the middle-class male in an unequal and racist public life were compensated. This space of tradition was the realm over which he could reign supreme, even if, as in many other domains of colonial experience, concepts of the traditional had been reshaped in terms of modern codes, in this case those of house management and child rearing. But this home was a space subject to repression, and women had to shoulder the burden of representing a traditional identity protected from the inroads of hierarchical colonial culture. (Vasudevan, 19.)

The contrast of Bhupati’s essentially traditional perspective and Charu and Amal’s more modern point-of-view is emphasized during one scene in particular. Unable to comprehend lofty and romantic poetry, Bhupati humorously interrupts Amal’s reading of his poem, only to be fixated on his opening line concerning; “a moonless light.” Bhupati tells his younger brother that he is only interested in what is “real” and “scientific.” Amal responds by asserting that he is a student of literature, not science. After a moment of deliberation, Bhupati swiftly changes the subject to a more conservative and conventional topic, never allowing Amal to finish his poem. Frustrated by his younger brother’s literary and lackadaisical sensibility, Bhupati suggests, as a traditional patriarch, that Amal get married to a well-mannered and educated daughter of a lawyer. Understanding that Amal would need a more romantic motivation, Bhupati tries to seduce him into marriage with the potential traveling experiences that it would bring. For a moment, Amal and Bhupati are mesmerized by fantasies of Europe and the Mediterranean. Charu, meanwhile, who is eavesdropping, is anxious and disappointed by notions of Amal’s marriage and travels. However, Amal quickly snaps out of his daydream with three simple words, “Long live Bengal,” unintentionally putting a smile on Charu’s face. Her “second husband” would stick around for a little longer.

Charu doesn’t repress her desires but acts in subtly seductive ways with her newfound confidant, Amal. Although, in the opening scene of the film, she is seen embroidering a handkerchief for Bhupati, Charu transfers her affections to Amal, stitching a journal for him (with the promise that his writings will be exclusively for her). She longs for emotional intimacy with him, something that she has yet to find with her husband. Perhaps, the height of Charu and Amal’s romance occurs during Ray’s famous garden scene, which is significant, as it is the first time we see Charu outdoors- the perfect context for her to broaden her identity which has been limited within the confines of her colonial home. Interestingly enough, Charu’s first words in this scene to Amal are “Forget your brother”- advice that she intends on taking herself. Although Amal is a catalyst in Charu’s world, encouraging her to express herself in an unprecedented way, the onus of that initiation belongs to Charu. After all, it is Charu who asks Amal for a “push on the swing” and specifically says; “all I need is one.” Amal’s push symbolizes Charu’s transition into freedom of self-expression (which is later furthered by her literary achievements), for we see her soar into the air expressing an unbridled freedom. The audience feels Charu’s levity as the camera swings with her and captures her point-of-view as well as her euphoric facial expressions. Later, when Charu suffers from writer’s block, her creativity is restored only when she visits this swing, her symbolic place of liberation.

Amal’s symbolic push is furthered when he encourages Charu to continue writing and compliments her when she is published in a leading newspaper. However, things between Amal and Charu suddenly change when Amal leaves without warning. When Charu reads the letter of Amal’s abrupt departure, she falls to the ground and weeps. Though crying is most often associated with moments of weakness, Charu’s tears represent a determining strength.

But while the former [Bhupati] emerges as a liberal patriarch with little understanding of the deeper workings of the mind, the latter’s [Amal] sensitivity is compromised by an almost casual inability to cope either with the pressures of the ‘old’ or challenges of the ‘new’. Only Charu, the modern Bengali woman comes through as a figure carrying the strength to face the consequences of her actions. (Misra, 1053.)

Though she has compromised her marriage, Charu’s tears, signifies her independent struggle in expressing her heart’s desires.

In conclusion, Bhupati witnesses her passionate sorrow and finally comes to the realization that his wife and his cousin have feelings for one another. This epiphany leads him to a carriage ride through darkness during which time he cries and uses the very handkerchief that Charu has embroidered for him. For a moment, it appears as though he may be leaving his wife, but he eventually returns to her. When he arrives back home, his head hangs down in shame, and it is Charu that invites him in--- into her world. In the concluding scene of the film Bhupati reaches for Charu’s hand, and then the shot freezes. The terms of their union are not yet decided upon, but it does signify the hope that their marriage will be based on more equal terms. The last shot of the film is of the symbolic handkerchief, a motif of Charu’s domesticity and dutifulness. Though, Charu and Bupati’s union is cast in the background in a shadow of uncertainty, the high-lighted discarded handkerchief makes it clear that Charu’s role as wife has taken on new meaning, that of modernity.

Bibliography
Cooper, Darius. The Home and the World. Satyajit Ray, Film Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Winter, 1989-1990), pp. 40-43. University of California Press Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1212808: INTERNET
Das Gupta, Chidananda. Charulata. Satyajit Ray, Film Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1967), pp. 42-45. University of California Press; available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211031: INTERNET
Misra, Amaresh. Satyajit Ray's Films: Precarious Social-Individual Balance. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 27, No. 20/21 (May 16-23, 1992), pp. 1052-1054. Economic and Political Weekly; available from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4397887: INTERNET
Vasudevan, Ravi. Nationhood, Authenticity and Realism in Indian cinema: The Double Take of Modernism in the Work of Satyajit Ray. Moinak Biswas ed. Apu and After: Revisiting Ray’s Cinema, London: Seagull (2006), pp. 1-29.

Crash and the Sexual Fetish of Commodity Goods

“A tear of petrol is in your eye. The hand brake penetrates your thigh. Quick let’s make love before you die.”
-Warm Leatherette by the Normal

I first saw Crash on opening day, back on March 21st, 1997, in San Francisco, California. I went into the film only knowing that it came from a controversial book, it was directed by David Cronenberg and that it was rated NC-17 (a rarity amongst studio productions). The film presented a world of graphic sex and disturbing car crash images that made a liberal minded San Francisco audience uncomfortable enough, that quite a few walked out of the movie. Though after viewing the soft-porn film, something registered and puzzled me. Was our love so strong for commodity goods that we could derive sexual gratification from them?

David Cronenberg’s adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s existential novel, Crash, depicts a despotic and dehumanized world, where cars as commodities are fetishized and sexualized. Society’s obsession with car and celebrity culture is taken to an extreme, as characters reenact famous car crashes. The crashes result in the body taking on a new shape and a sexualized form, as the mind fetishizes the very trauma that reshaped its body. Unable to connect, characters participate in emotionally void sex, until through a metaphorical crash that these humans come alive. True sexual gratification is achieved through, reenactment of their own (or a celebrity’s crash), or the exploration of wounds. The wounds and scars of an accident become new sexual organs. Car manufacturing logos are tattooed on the body, and then fetishized in sexual practice. Cronenberg’s film is told with the act of sex that can be seen as pornographic, yet Crash is also a study of fetishism in our world. The fusion of modern technology with that of the human body creates a newer sexual awakening.

Crash, written in 1973 and made into a movie in 1997 by David Cronenberg, depicts characters who push their fascination with things like death of a celebrity in a car crash to an absurd limit, using such events as models for a new form of sexuality deriving not from nature and life but from technology and death. (Butterfield, 65.)

Cronenberg’s cinematic obsession of human body parts being trans-mutated by technology can be seen in much of his work. Rabid (1977) deals with a victim of a motorcycle crash who’s body become a deadly viral weapon after an operation from plastic surgery. Videodrome (1983) presents cable channels and videos, which when viewed, distorts and deforms the mind and body. The Fly (1986) uses a technological machine that breaks down the molecules of an object and transports them to a twin receiver. This machine will technologically alter the body of a human with that of an accompanying insect (fly), changing and (again) deforming the character’s body. Dead Ringers (1988) offers twin gynecologists who invent new technological tools to aide in mutilating and reshaping the female organ. eXistenZ (1999) (which foreshadows the Matrix trilogy) uses virtual reality as a theme to explore the deforming and reshaping of the mind and body. Crash is no exception, and follows the similar Cronenberg theme, which actually personalizes Ballard’s novel. Though Ballard’s the author of the book, Cronenberg is most definitely the auteur of the film. Cronenberg has presented this theme repeatedly in his previous films, though in Crash he metaphorically uses Freudian and Marxist theory to explain the neurosis of the characters involved.

Crash opens with Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger) laying her left breast against an airplane, as a man comes behind her and performs oral-anal sex. This cuts to James (James Spader) performing the same sexual act on a girl who he works with. The character’s name “James,” is based on the author of the novel James G. Ballard. Both Catherine and James discuss whether each had climaxed during their respective coitus, yet both were left unsatisfied. James is a director of a film that appears to be staging a car crash. The novelist Ballard wrote a film version of Crash (1971), before the book was written (I suspect Cronenberg is cinematically acknowledging this). In this early filmic proposal, the same themes would manifest itself into his novel. The author Ballard breaks down his observation of the modern man, who shares an emotional relationship with the automobile and its accompanying environment.

I think the key image of the 20th century is the man in the motor car (it sums up everything), the elements of speed, drama, aggression, the junction of advertising and consumer goods of the technological landscape, the sense of violence and desire, power and energy, the shared experience of moving together through an elaborately signaled landscape. (Ballard)

James is driving home one night, when he gets into a head-on collision. The victim of the wreck flies through his windshield dead. James can see that the victim’s hand is blistered, swollen with blood. The imprinting on his hand is in the shape of a triton, which is the car manufacturer’s medallion logo. James’ twisted front medallion suggests this exchange, as the victim has become the commodity in death.

Karl Marx states:
But not to anticipate we will content ourselves with yet another example relating to the commodity form. Could commodities themselves speak, they would say: Our use value may be a thing that interests men. It is no part of us as objects. What, however, does belong to us as objects, is our value. Our natural intercourse as commodities proves it. In the eyes of each other we are nothing but exchange values. (Marx, 7.)

When James’ witnesses the victim’s death, he sees him as a reflection of his own car ownership. The victim’s imprinting suggests his relation to the commodity form.

Through the metallic penetration, James has a sexual awakening. James new fetish has been realized through trauma and the visualization, of the human and commodity good fusing together. The victim’s wife Helen in the opposite car reveals her breast to James, as she too has the same sexual experience. James awakes in the hospital with a visit from Catherine, who informs him that Helen is a doctor. James’ encounters Helen in the hallway, with Vaughn. James’ is on crutches with his leg is in a metallic brace with pins. Helen walks with a cane, and is startled when she sees James. Catherine visits James and will masturbate him while describing a car accident. James climaxes quickly, and revolts back in shame. James fetishizes his own tragedy and is turned on by descriptions of the twisted debris of an accident. Sigmund Freud relates this with:

It seems rather that when the fetish is instituted some process occurs which reminds one of the stopping of memory in traumatic amnesia. As in this latter case, the subject’s interest comes to a halt half way, as it were; it is as though the last impression before the uncanny and traumatic one is retained as a fetish. (Freud, 155.)

James’ vision of a bodily transformation in death has produced a fetish in him, for an automobile penetration or a crash.

Throughout the film, James joins a group of likeminded fetishists. Vaughn (the horribly scarred leader), Helen, Gabriele (who’s leg is horribly mutilated and crippled), Colin (who desires to die as Jane Mansfield in a car crash), and Vera (Colin’s mentally damaged wife) all reside in a home called the “Nerve Center.” Though James is a member of the group, he exploits their wounds for his sexual gratification.

Throughout Crash, however, James tends to transgress boundaries through the penetration of the wounds of others while his own body remains largely intact. The boundaries of female bodies, of Vaughn’s body, and, by extension, those of the medium of film, often seem more porous and fluid than those of James’ body and perhaps of fiction itself. (Beckman, 109)

James’ wounds are never shown after his stay at the hospital, nor does he (or anyone else) use them for sexual pleasure. Yet, James will have sex with Gabriele’s (vaginal) leg wound, and worship Vaughn’s scarred/ tattooed (with a Lincoln Mercury logo) body. Both Vaughn and Colin give up their life experiencing a final fatal crash, but James remains a voyeur to his fetish.

Though the sexually initiated explore their newfound sexuality, James’ wife Catherine, is still uninitiated to their psychosis. James will have sex with all the accident victims, and is able to climax quickly, while he and his wife have sexual trouble. Catherine uses verbal descriptions of Vaughn to ejaculate him. James continuously tries to create a crash for Catherine, so that they can connect with this fetish. At the end of the film, James bumps his car into Catherine’s, and she drives off the side of the road. Her car is turned over sideways emitting smoke, as she lay on the grassy hill beaten and bruised. James checks on her and asks if she is okay; she responds with “yes, I think I’m alright.” He replies, “Maybe next time.” He begins to have sex with his car-battered wife, knowing that she has still not been fully initiated by the crash. Cronenberg’s conclusion establishes a metaphor of societal sexual disconnect, through our obsession of commodity goods.

Crash Bibliography
Beckman, Karen. Film Falls Apart: Crash, Semen, and Pop. Grey Room, No. 12 (Summer, 2003), pp. 94-115. The MIT Press; available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1262644: INTERNET
Butterfield, Bradley. Ethical Value and Negative Aesthetics: Reconsidering the Baudrillard-Ballard Connection. PMLA, Vol. 114, No. 1, Special Topic: Ethics and Literary Study (Jan., 1999), pp. 64-77. Modern Language Association; available from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/463427: INTERNET
Crash! Prod. and Dir. by Harley Cokliss, 18 min. BBC Four Prod., 1971, DVD.
Freud, Sigmund. Fetishism. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Translated by James Strachey. Vol. 21. London: Hogart Press, 1964, pp. 149-157.
Marx, Karl. Section 4: The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof. Capital Volume One, Part I: Commodities and Money, Chapter One: Commodities, available from
http://www.marxist.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4 INTERNET

Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo (1958) is a psychological thriller with themes that are preoccupied by necrophilia, the subjective gaze, obsessive desire and neurosis. Based on the book D’Entre les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, Vertigo is an uncanny look at investigation and murder through the eyes of John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson (James Stewart). Much criticism has been written of the male’s character having the controlling (male) gaze upon that of the female character. Writer Robin Wood has criticized that, “the spectator constructed by the film is clearly male.” Yet, if it is Scottie’s gaze, then his perspective transgresses from male desire to female construction. Though, I’m not fully convinced that it is purely Scottie’s subjective gaze. The audience views a morbid perception, which fluctuates between male and female throughout the film.

The one scene in particular that seems to never get full critical mention is the opening scene. We see a black and white shot (which is often an association with the past) of Vista Vision, and then a woman's face appears, and she turns to color (the present). The female looks right then left, and then the camera zooms in on her left eye. Through multiple viewings, I’m convinced that the woman in the credits is Carlotta Valdez. The black and white shot links the image to the past, as it fades to the present in artificial color. It's as if the camera is penetrating the gaze of the dead woman, as her eye (vision) turns into spirals, foreshadowing Scottie's psychosis. After Saul Bass’ visually stunning credits pass, her eye appears again, gazing upon the opening scene. A detective, Scottie, is in pursuit of a criminal across the rooftops of buildings. Scottie slips and falls from the roof hanging (for his life) from a drainpipe. Another police officer tries to save him, but falls. At this point I believe the gaze of Carlotta shifts to Scottie, as he watches the man plunge to his death. Scottie’s vision and subconscious becomes locked in trauma, for we never see him saved from the drainpipe.

If the gaze of the narrative has shifted to Scottie, it is definitely an uncanny one. For the first time we see Scottie, it is in association with a cane. Mentally crippled, his fear of heights lead to vertigo and early retirement. This crippling can be seen as a metaphor for impotency, for Scottie is unable to rise to elevated challenges. His best friend is a bespectacled and asexual woman named Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), who designs strapless bras for a living. This is where the film introduces Midge’s perspective of repressed sexuality, and Scottie’s inability to climb a stepladder.

Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) recruits Scottie to follow his (seemingly) possessed wife, Madeline, as she spends her days attending an art gallery and meditating on the painted image of Carlotta Valdez. Madeline (Kim Novak), visits the gravesite and hotel room of the dead woman, as well as wears the woman’s jewelry (locket) and replicates her hairstyle. When she eventually tries to commit suicide by throwing herself into the San Francisco Bay, Scottie jumps in and rescues her. Back at Scottie’s apartment, Madeline awakes to find herself in a bathrobe (having been stripped nude by Scottie), while her clothes are hung to dry. It is through this unveiling of Madeline’s clothes that sets of Scottie’s sexual desire. It is at this point, where the criticism of the male subjective gaze is relevant, though more through insinuation. It is also, important to know, that Scottie up to this point has been lead to these desires through Madeline’s perceived performance to lure Scottie in. She finally leads him to the Spanish Mission, where she abandons Scottie to run up the bell tower. Unable to complete the climb of the bell tower steps (due to his vertigo), Madeline jumps to her death.

The other extremely important scene that I want to mention is the dream sequence. Which begins with animated flowers unraveling to pieces, as we see an image of Gavin next to Carlotta. Scottie’s investigative nature leads him to walk towards Carlotta's grave. As he gets closer to look, the film cuts to Scottie's head (which exits without his body). In Scotti’s transgression he will inhabit the body of Madeline, as she falls from the tower. It appears as if Scottie’s perspective has fused with that of the dead Madeline, which I believe counters the exclusive male construction theory. When Midge visits Scottie at the hospital, he is as possessed as Madeline once was, and is unable to even register the visit.

Scottie eventually meets Judy Barton (Kim Novak again) and becomes obsessed with recreating Madeline out of her (just as Madeline was recreating herself out of Carlotta). Scottie appears to be forming a necrophilia fetish, in his need to rebuild Judy to match his sexual desire for a dead woman. At this point the gaze transfers to Judy, as the audience views what really happened at the bell tower. We see that Gavin set the whole thing up and murdered his own wife, with the help of Judy. Unaware of the truth, Scottie views Madeline’s doppelganger as a second chance. Yet, Scottie still suffers from vertigo (his metaphoric impotency) and now can only content himself with female reconstruction. Through the dress rehearsal, dye job, and overall reshaping, Judy appears to Scottie as an apparition in the finished state. When Judy/ Madeline approaches Scottie, she is lit with a green light, creating a translucent, ghost-like quality. Scottie’s haunted perception, transgresses from maleness into the realm of otherness, as he is absolutely consumed by feminine details. Modleski futhers my point:

My analyses of Hitchcock have been in part been meant to demonstrate that this male spectator is as much “deconstructed” as constructed by the films, which reveal a fascination with femininity that throws masculine identity into question and crisis. (Modleski, 87.)

Scottie’s masculine crisis has been constructed by Judy’s performance of Madeline. It is through her projection, that Scottie suffers in his haunted psychosis. Scottie’s transgression acts as a karmic lesson to Judy, who had no business impersonating (first) Gavin’s wife, and (secondly) the dead Carlotta.

Through Judy’s sentimentality for Carlotta’s locket, Scottie discovers the truth. He forces to Judy to relive the fateful night where Madeline was killed. Through reenactment, Scottie is finally able to ascend the stairs, curing his psychosis. But the fate of Judy is one claimed by death, for she frightfully jumps from the bell tower when hearing the approaching steps, of what she believes to be Gavin. Though her death is not delivered through Gavin, but that of the messenger of spirituality and redemption, as it was an approaching nun. The last shot is extremely significant in that we now see Scottie standing on the edge (rather than hanging from it), viewing the demise of his illness, obsession and desire. If the woman (in the opening scene) is indeed Carlotta Valdez, was the destination of the story her out-worldly design? I believe Hitchcock is warning us not to impersonate one who is dead, or we will share their fate.

Vertigo Bibliography:
Modleski, Tania. “The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory,” New York: Routledge, (1988), pg. 87-100.
Wood, Robin. "Fear of Spying," American Film (November 1982): 35.

The Revival of the Lost Metropolis

On Sunday, May 9th 2010 I attended Film Forum revival and unveiling of Fritz Lang’s science fiction masterpiece Metropolis (1927). The new version boasts twenty-five minutes of newly found footage that was discovered in Argentine, back in 2008. Not only has the film increased to a whopping 145 minutes, but the new structure of the film elevates it to much more of a thriller, in a science fiction setting. The new version has created a new character as well, known as “The Thin Man,” who acts as a henchman for Joh Fredersen. The film was presented by the Argentine woman who found the missing film, she told the audience that the film was actually from a 16 mm negative, struck from a now missing print. The transferring obviously cropped the image, which itself was an extremely scratched (beyond repair) print. The newly found footage was seamlessly edited within a beautiful print that was presented in the correct aspect ratio. Whatever imperfections exist today, there is still no denying that after 82 years, we can now see the film that Lang had intended.

The film Metropolis is set in a futuristic city, where planes, cars, and trains circulate around a modern Tower of Babel. The city’s lights are lit by the struggles of working-class families, who dwell in an underground housing community. The mother of all hope rests on the shoulders of the beautiful Maria (Brigitte Helm), herself a prophet, philosopher and guru for the workers. She leads the workers with peace, yet they are becoming restless and impatient for change. Freder, (Gustav Frohlich) is the son of the creator of the city, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). Freder falls hard for Maria, and immediately adopts her political ideology. After witnessing the slave-like treatment of the workers below, Freder works against his father to help his fellow “brothers.” Joh gets wind of his son’s affections and persuades the mad inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) to create a mechanical double of Maria, to lead the workers and Freder astray. Rotwang agrees, but has other plans concerning a workers revolt that will backfire on Joh.

One of the missing subplots of Metropolis concerns the relationship of Joh and Rotwang. Where previous prints presented a crazy inventor who seemed motivated by his maniacal madness, the new version includes a back-story concerning their parallel love for Freder’s mother Hel. Rotwang blames her death on Joh, who married and impregnated her. This piece of the film is important, because it creates a tension between Joh and Rotwang, while also giving reason to why Joh is so detached and heartless on matters concerning the worker’s plight. It’s as if Joh has buried himself in the creation of city, mourning the loss of his love. His missing heart becomes a part of the overall metaphor of Metropolis, which lays in the connectivity of hand to head, for the heart acts as a connection mediator. I’ve always thought of Metropolis as having a philosophical message, but it become more evident in the new print. The film also rewards the viewer with new footage of the cities’ flapper nightlife, where a worker (who was relieved of his shift by an incognito Freder) takes a luxurious cab ride. The surreal scene has money falling from the sky, as he lives out a moment of Freder’s spoiled life.

Lang’s Metropolis has been called the last of the German Expressionist films to come out of the silent era. Presenting the pinnacle of surrealist and futurist sets, Lang uses mirrors to create the illusion of a massive despotic city, which dwarfs the collected voice of the exploited workers. Lang has truly created his Tower of Babel, which hovers over the shadowed world. Lang’s use of shadows and machinery, fascist-futurist architecture, and abstract design, helps to create a desolate and inhuman world. If The Cabinet of Dr, Caligari (1919) introduced a German expressionist style, Metropolis realizes all its possible potentialities. Strangely, the world of Metropolis lacks a sense of law (policeman are never seen), or if there is a law it seems to be regulated by technology. When the worker falter the city fails, as if the city relies on the sweat and toil of the worker’s embodiment with technology, even the body is contorted into abstract motions of a clock. The transformation of Rotwang’s robot into Maria is still a stunning and thrilling achievement in science fiction effects. It’s as if German cinema had reached a futuristic expression, delivering a message of humanity in a mechanical world.

The introduction of “The Thin Man” in the new print is both comical (his arrogant and smarmy look received many laughs from the audience) and menacing (he bullies Joh’s ex-assistant Josaphat into revealing Freder’s plans and whereabouts). “The Thin Man” character acts as Joh’s oppressive means to control Freder, and his presence was reduced to the significance of an extra in previous prints. As the film continues though, “The Thin Man” character begins to gain a conscious, and cautions Joh of the worker’s revolt (as his loyalty begins to falter). One of the interesting aspects of Metropolis is Lang’s humanist view locked in an inhuman environment. No character is inheritably evil, as all (from creator to worker) is shown to have heart in the end. Only the incurably mad Rotwang meets a fatal demise without moral rehabilitation.

As the ending credits appeared and the theater lights opened up the Sunday afternoon, I felt as if I just saw Metropolis for the first time. Though an actuality I’ve seen the film too numerous to count, the newer version created an aura that I hadn’t previously experienced. With twenty-five additional minutes of scratched beauty inter-cut with a pristine two-hour version, we finally begin to put the Metropolis puzzle together. No longer speculating on the missing pieces, the world can finally witness Metropolis’ many complexities. As we forge into the future with newer technological and media advancements, Lang’s cautionary tale is ripe for revaluation and consideration. As films like Star Wars (1977), Bladerunner (1982), 1984 (1984), Dark City (1998), Gattaca (1997), The Matrix (1999), and V for Vendetta (2005) were to follow; Metropolis acts as a science fiction touchstone, for our imagining and predicting of the future. Fritz Lang was a true visionary, who continues to imagine a world we still might create.

Bonnie and Clyde

I must say that I really enjoyed Matthew Bernstein’s article, “Perfecting the New Gangster.” I’ve always really loved Bonnie and Clyde, yet I hadn’t really read much on the film, this was a great article. I knew that Truffaut had been interested in making Bonnie and Clyde, but I didn’t really know the story behind it. I’d always known Arthur Penn to have a very artistic style that seemed influenced by the New Wave, but it was nice to see it confirmed in this article. I’d previously seen the film Mickey One (1964), which was a sort of surreal noir film that deals with a stand up comics paranoia of feeling he is going to be assasinated at any time (which also starred Warren Beatty). But Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde takes on the generation, as something more defining. Like Bernstein’s article points out, both Bonnie and Clyde represent the 60s youth culture and flower children. In some ways, Bonnie and Clyde can be seen as a precursor to Easy Riders characters who meet a similar fatal end. Both evoke a similar spirit concerning America.

David Newton and Robert Benton created a timely script in the wake of the New Waves interest in the 30s and 40s gangster film. Previous films like Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player and Godard’s Band of Outsiders played with ideas about romance and crime, it makes a lot of sense that Bonnie and Clyde would appeal to them, yet Truffaut’s input in the script was a real surprise to me. Through all the massive re-writes it seems that they hit the perfect balance of an early gangster film mixed with a modern New Wave approach.

The films sexuality seems to be a curious one, with Clyde being impotent homosexual and Bonnie being the sexual aggressor. The film seems to be examining the changing sexual identities of the youth of the 60s, while crating anti-heroes out of criminals (the film the Harder They Come would do the same thing a few years later). The characters criminal exploits make them enemy outsiders of a bigger establishment (the banks), which American the youths of the 60s related to. Bonnie and Clyde’s pace can be seen as modernist in approach, as the editing crucially gives the film a hectic speediness right up to the bloody final. The ending was a real jaw dropper for me when I first saw it, for I was not prepared for the bloody shoot out.

New Waves and Young Cinemas, 1958- 1967

The New Wave period between 1958- 1967 is quite possibly the most exciting period of cinema for me. Modernist approach seemed to take over across the world, and the films released between this time were artistically and politically challenging. For the first time, many young directors emerged with either the benefit of film criticism or film school. Newer approaches in cinema style were being tested, either in editing (Godard’s jump cuts), cinematography (Raoul Coutard’s noir influenced photography), directing (Antonioni’s director’s gaze), storytelling (Truffaut’s autobiographical Antoine Doinel series), choreography (Demy’s poetic and lyrical musicals), and characterization (U.K.’s brooding social melodramas). This period defined artistic stylizations, that would pave the way as well as reshapening Hollywood in the 70s.

Film History’s Chapter 20 breaks down the different countries contributions to this period of filmmaking. The most written about directors of this period seem to stem from France, and quite a few of the directors got their start writing for Cahiers du cinema. Truffaut and Godard also tend to be the poster boys of this movement, yet I’ll add that it was Claude Chabrol who produced the first film of the bunch (subsequently he’s made the most films) and yet his strongest work tends to start at around 1967 and continued until the early 70s. Due to DVD releases, Eric Rohmer’s Moral Tales series has gained more admirers recently, yet Jacques Rivette’s work is curiously impossible to find (Rivette’s 1971, 773 minute “Out 1″ is an absolute Holy Grail for me). The wonderful Agnes Varda has been gaining newer admirers as well, as she continues to create ground breaking work.

One director that undeservedly gets little attention is Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski. Skolimowski’s Identification Marks: None, Walkover, Barriers, Le Depart, and Deep End are all amazing films that challenge sexuality, politics and obsession. Yet to this date none of his early films have had either VHS or DVD releases, leaving one to wait for a retrospective at an arthouse cinema (Anthology Film Archives finally had one a couple of years ago which was amazing!) Skolimowski’s first three films challenged Poland’s political state, which inadvertantly halted the release of one of his films (“Hand’s Up”) for nearly 10 years. He’s a director that should be evaluated a little bit more.

This is a really fascinating time for cinema that I urge everyone to check out.

Double Indemnity

James M. Cain’s bitter, melodrama, became a crime masterpiece under the guidance of Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler’s edgy screenplay. Yet it is Wilder’s brilliant direction that transforms Double Indemnity into a quintessential Noir film. With Fred MacMurray as the loser protagonist, Barbara Stanwyck as the cool femme fatale, and a cigar chewing Edward G. Robinson as MacMurray’s boss and amateur sleuth, all the essential elements of Noir conventions are in place. Double Indemnity would almost be a parody in Film Noir, had it not taken itself so seriously, which it does for there is very little humor to fill the dark shadows.


MacMurray is a cocky, self-assured life insurance sales man, who is first introduced to Stanwyck at her home. As Stanwyck’s feet descend down the stairs, salesman MacMurray is transfixed by her ankle bracelet, which cuts into her skin. She gives mention that she was out sunbathing, yet very little sunlight can be found in this film from here on out, for as her intentions to kill her husband and collect on the freshly written insurance plan, there can be no more sunny days as darkness engulfs the characters. Though Stanwyck represents a sort of spider woman who catches MacMurray in her web, I find it interesting that she refuses to glimpse at her husband when he is being murdered.


Wilder’s direction plays a lot with darkness and shadows, which can be seen as a form closely resembling German expressionism. Throughout the interiors, reflections of Venetian blinds are projected upon the characters, as well as other abstract shadowy patterns. The constant foreboding atmosphere is for-shadowed when MacMurray limps on to the train acting as Stanwyck’s injured husband (who is actually at this time dead). Just as MacMurray steps into the husband’s identity, he also steps into his fate. Not only does he embody a victim, he must ritually go through the motions of the victim’s death. Making conversation with a passenger and then jumping from the train, MacMurray, then places the dead husband on the tracks where he has just jumped. It’s interesting to note that an insurance salesman has not only stolen a man’s wife, but has stolen his very identity right on down to his actual fate.



It should be noted that director John Cassavetes’ last film Big Trouble parodied Double Indemnity in the 80s at around the same time that Lawrence Kasdan was paying serious homage to it with his film Body Heat.