I Do Not Do Animal Acts: Body Double (1984)

I really do not have the time in my day to throw out to blogging, because I keep squandering any free time available watching movies, but it is also spring break around these parts so I am mastering the art of unproductively quite expertly, paired ever so dangerously with the recent change in time via daylight savings.  I really wanted to talk about The Lego Movie when I saw it two weeks ago but kept putting it off, so you are now forced to read as I wax poetic about what might be my new favorite Brian De Palma film in Body Double.  While I know that I have promoted my adoration for Blow Out in the past and, indeed, have been known to even outwardly defend that film, it cowers in comparison to this meta, post-modern film about making films.  I often find myself deeply frustrated when cinephiles or fans of De Palma point to works like Scarface as his crowning acheivement, because to me those are rather cursory works that are accessible, but do not truly possess the seedy, grotesque absurdity that makes something like Blow Out, or Body Double work.  What pushes Body Double to the next level is more than it simply being the better of the two film, indeed, it also involves what I see as an outright homage to the work of Alfred Hitchcock to a point of knowing satire.  There are sequences that are ripped wholly out of Rear Window, while others are expertly inserted from Vertigo and even lesser works by the master of suspense.  However, what should be cinematic remains disconcerting, because De Palma works in a medium that no longer holds the unknown attachment of viewer to subject that was classic cinema.  Between the humorous homage to the now long forgotten video rental store and enough point of view cinematography to make a found footage film seem derivative, Body Double taps into a moment of change in the genre film and absolutely revels in the ensuing nonsense.

Body Double focuses on Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) a struggling actor whose claustrophobic tendencies lead him to fail miserably when cast in a part as a vampire.  To make matters worse for Jake, he returns home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man.  Distraught and desperate, Jake begins drinking and perusing ads for a new job opportunity.  During a tryout for a part in a Shakespeare adaptation Jake meets Sam (Gregg Henry) another actor who is on a string of success.  After befriending Jake, Sam invites him to stay at a friends house while they are out of town.  While Jake is already grateful for the offer, since he has moved out of his apartment, the added benefit of having a neighbor, one Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton) who performs stripteases in the house across the street is purely added benefit.  While Jake's voyeurism is unchecked at first, when he is enjoying the spectacle one evening he notices that an electrician has also taken a liking to the show and the two are witness to a moment when Gloria's boyfriend beats her.  Attempting to help Gloria, Jake begins stalking her, only to have the electrician from earlier do the same, even going so far as to steal her bag on the beach.  Jake attempts to stop him, but is slowed down by his claustrophobia.  It is after this that the electrician breaks into Gloria's home and manages to kill her, leading to Jake becoming a suspect with the police, although he is able to evade guilt as he was clearly out of the space of the murder.  Suffering from insomnia, Jake takes to viewing pornography, wherein he notices a girl named Holly Body who looks and dances quite similarly to the now dead Gloria, leading to the curious and still infatuated Jake entering the world of pornography.  When it is revealed that Holly's similarities were not accidental the narrative takes a turn regarding deception and identity all the way till the closing shots of the film, which are followed by an equally mocking final sequence that suggests all cinematic endeavors are predicated on duplication and deception.

I mention that De Palma's film is an exstension of the work of Hitchcock, precisely because it is so heavily and blatantly invested in voyeurism.  In a previous post I discussed the manner with which a film like Friday the 13th, if wholly accidentally, reimagined the understanding of voyeurism and the viewers involvement in violence on screen.  If it was purely a sign of a changing relationship of gore cinema to the viewer, then one could certainly argue that De Palma is acknowledging such a binary and knowingly mocking it.  Indeed, the opening panning shot of the film undermines the viewer complacency tradition by going for a jump scare immediately.  Yet, in a doubling down of subversion, the scene quickly becomes less scary when it is revealed that the scary figure is Jake in makeup and that Jake is failing at his job.  This is repeatedly drawn attention to throughout, whether by the narrative jumping spatial and temporal bindings to show the fragile mental state of Jake, or by never clearly distinguishing a diegetic divide between the voyeuristic acts of Jake and those of the viewer.  Indeed, this comes to nearly perfect fruition during Gloria's murder where the camera shows the murder happening in a more traditional sense, while Jake's point of view is invaded by an attacking dog, as if to imply that the viewer is invested in seeing gore so much so that they are willing to negate the viewer/subject construct when it no longer fits this mold.  One might recall the work of Linda Williams in Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess wherein she suggest that voyeurism and masochism occur in three genres of film, the slasher, the melodrama and hardcore pornography.  The former and latter being rather distinct within the film and openly mocked for their fabrication.  However, the use of melodrama is also knowningly incorporated to subvert viewer ideologies, when Jake and Gloria kiss, almost wholly borrowing from the famous Stewart/Novak kiss in Vertigo, here with the same disjointed paranoia, one whose doubled body implications layer on as the narrative moves forward.  If anything, Body Double is the concerns of Williams at their most realized.

Key Scene: While there is so much to choose from, the sequence leading up to Gloria's murder is perhaps the most realized, particularly in terms of editing and its affects on narrative constructs.

This is a must see film and a gem from De Palma's ouevre.  While I would say get the bluray, it appears to have gone OOP immediately after release.  As such, the DVD will suffice accordingly.

Jason Was My Son, And Today Is His Birthday: Friday The 13th (1980)

If through this marathon I still chose Possession as the best viewing experience, it will be solely because the film proved a far more jarring and cinematically challenging work, one that caused me to reconsider the very nature of the genre and larger confines of cinema as a whole.  If it ends up getting relegated to second place it will be, almost certainly, in relation to Friday the 13th, which may well be one of the most fully realized works in the storied history of horror cinema, both in terms of how it choses to execute its scare tactics, as well as the ways in which it becomes very funny when considered in a post-modern context.  Knocking this off of my shame viewing list has proved quite rewarding and burst onto my screen, much like its title card with such force as to provide me an entirely new film with which to consider how I approach cinematic language both when needing to provide examples as well as in how I understand my own descriptions of cinematic tropes and tricks.  Indeed, the very nature of the camera within this film, much like Possession, proves not only integral to the feel and dread evident in the film, but very much exists as a second character within the plot, one that invades the narrative and changes the mood of scenes, indeed in a very physical manner in this film.  While the point of view shot in Halloween predates Friday the 13th by roughly two years, the use in this teen slasher pic, is so focused and deliberately disconcerting as to almost prove the sole influence on the found footage genre that did, and to a degree still is, sweep American genre film over the past five years.  I know much of the genuinely positive reaction to this film comes from the wonderful bluray upgrade the film has received, almost becoming an absurd simulacra of life in its glossy feel and dreary ethereal quality, yet the other factor that makes this movie work so wonderfully is quite certainly the ways in which it has seeped into the popular culture collective, whether it be through its now iconic soundtrack or for its understanding of the role sex and violence plays into a good slasher film, if not for this its final act, layered with various levels of scares, manages to provide for one of the most tense closing shots, despite choosing one of the most serene images imaginable.

The film begins in 1958 where two camp counselors of the presumably wholesome Camp Crystal Lake sneak away to engage in young teen sex, much as seems to be the case for all camp counseling scenarios.  However, before they can even engage in the act, an of screen presence attacks the man and depicts the screaming visage of the woman, before jumping to a present day depiction of Annie (Robbi Morgan) a young woman who has been hired to to cook at the newly reopened Camp Crystal Lake.  Lost and a bit confused as to why she is being warned about the camp, Annie, nonetheless, obtains a ride to about half way to the camp from a local, despite the warnings of doom that will befall her from the town crazy Ralph (Walt Groney).  The film then cuts to the counselors already present at the camp, including the semi-authoritative, but, ultimately, spineless Steve (Peter Brouwer), as well as the sex-crazed Jack Burrell (Kevin Bacon) and the wise-cracking and somewhat mean Ned (Mark Nelson).  The camp also includes a set of girl counselors, most notably Alice (Adrienne King).  While the camp preparations appear to be going off without a hitch, the failure of Annie to arrive at camp, a result of her being murdered as viewers are shown, doubled with a warning by a local police officer, make for a tense situation at the camp.  When various members of the group start disappearing things become more troublesome, despite varying degrees of ignorance by the other counselors who are either too engaged in games of strip Monopoly or drug induced sex to notice any thing going afoul.  This, however, excludes Alice who immediately becomes aware of the unusual situation and makes certain of her safety as she navigates about the now hyper-threatening space of Camp Crystal Lake, discovering the dead bodies of her friends along the way.  At this point she meets the seemingly innocuous Mrs. Vorhees (Betsy Palmer) only to discover that the elderly woman is indeed the one responsible for the murders, as it was her son Jason who was a victim of neglect in 1958 when the two camp counselors distracted by their own sexual desires, resulted in his drowning.  Mrs. Vorhees has thus taken upon revenge on the space of Camp Crystal Lake and attempts to kill Alice, who eventually evades her and incapacitates her with a frying pan, fleeing to the center of the lake to await the arrival of officers.  However, this sense of safety is quickly undermined as the closing moments suggest more than the vengeful Mrs. Vorhees preside over the space of the camp.

While I have already been made quite aware of the power of gaze and "to-be-looked-at-ness" in cinema through personal research and undergraduate courses in film studies, it has not been until this semester in a Feminism, Media and the Arts course that I have become somewhat hyperaware of how deeply this act goes in film, no more clearly than in this horror film from 1980.  In fact, I would even argue that director Sean S. Cunningham and cinematographer Barry Abrams are having a field day with the notion of the voyeur or looker in the space of genre film.  On more than one occasion in Friday the 13th the viewer is meant to be synonymous with the then unseen attacker, as though to suggest that it is their presence looking onward into the space of the film that is causing the destruction, perhaps were one to never view the film the murders would thus never occur.  I know it is a weird thing to say, considering it sounds as though one should not watch the movie, but it is indeed quite the opposite, it merely suggests on a very psychological and visceral level the ways in which a moviegoer is looking at a moving image with the hopes of consumption, even if such consumption has a high degree of violent destruction.  The thrill of cinema exists in its very fabrication, while also proving wildly realistic thus becoming a sort of reality detached from reality where desires and hopes can be projected on and upon the space of the cinema.  This is precisely what makes Friday the 13th such a post-modern work of cinema, because it is precisely in this projection that the film calls attention to itself, both in terms of the narrative it creates for viewers, as well as noting the ways in which viewers will project their notions onto the space of the film, even if on a cerebral or unconscious level.  We watch the young women run from the camera collectively and while most would agree that murder is wrong, given an awareness of its projected nature we, nonetheless, engage in the act by a complicit involvement in the cinematic experience.  The reversion of the traditional slasher identity adds a gendered component to the look as one assumes the violence to be enacted by a male, through traditional gaze theory, thus adding another layer of post-modern play.  Yet the most clever challenge to the act of looking at the film comes in the closing shot of a serene lake, wherein given previous reveals in the film manages to be so tense and disconcerting as to cause one to look away from the film, the reflective quality of the lake at play, is no less a point of coincidence in the larger consideration of the violent look.

Key Scene:  One of the best opening shots to title card in the history of cinema, without question.

Get this bluray, I accidentally ended up with two copies, so when I post mine to Amazon feel free t buy it and enjoy it in all its genius.

You Don't Know Me, But I Know You: The Lives of Others (2006)

The cinema of post-World War II Germany is bleak and desolate.  It displays its expressionist roots, without the faint promise of redemption.  Think most specifically of Fassbinder's nightmares that are often gritty, painfully distant and sparse in dialogue. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's directorial debut The Lives of Others adheres to this style of filmmaking, but manages to rekindle the glimpses of humanity that had long disappeared from German films.  She is Wim Wenders, but with a tighter focus on reality and a connection to human experience more indicative of Italian Realism.  The Lives of Others is a rather predictable film that still manages to suspend its viewers placing them into dueling worlds in which they are constantly confused about what group represents good and evil, a divide of ideals that is as thick as the wall that divided Germany in the era depicted within the film.

I am going to dance around the rather lengthy and multifaceted plot, because to explain it in too much depth would be to rob viewers of an intensely emotional movie that is almost entirely predicated on character evolution and regression.  With that being said, the film focuses the majority of the narrative on two individuals the GDP lieutenant Hauptmann Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) whose professional job entails him interrogating dissidents to the GDP, as well as planting and monitoring surveillance setups for possible political dissidents.  The other portion of the narrative focuses on Wiesler's current subject, the famous playwright and previously outspoken political rebel Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch).  After attending one of Dreyman's plays Wiesler suspects Dreyman of political subversiveness and demands to be allowed to monitor him.  Wiesler's higher up dismisses this claim at first, but agrees to allow him access after one of his superiors shows interest in Dreyman's girlfriend and main actress Christa (Martina Gedeck).  Dreyman shows much enthusiasm for his job and is determined to nail Dreyman with insubordination as soon as he finds evidence.  However, as Wiesler comes to discover Dreyman, and his associates are experience a rather unfair living because of the GDP and the simple act of living proves unbearable.  Without expanding further on the plot, Wiesler comes to realize that his actions are inhumane and that his spying is leading to the downfall of an arguably innocent man.  What follows is a both tragic and redemptive film about personal choice and being honest in the face of unseen judgment.

The Lives of Others is preoccupied with voyeurism.  It is both a film about watching those who are unaware of a gaze, as well as the ethical dilemna of enjoying a film about invading privacy.  What Von Donnersmarck does is creates a film where the viewer both condemns and partakes in voyeurism creating an ethical dilemma for the viewer.  We, as viewers,are appalled by the actions Wiesler and his men undertake, yet at no point did I feel as though I should stop watching the film, in fact I eagerly anticipated each of his discoveries and applauded him for using his infiltration to attempt to mend the problems that arose.  However, it raises the question as to whether or not such an invasion of privacy is appropriate, particularly in the wake of ever-increasing government infiltration into our daily lives (Think the PATRIOT Act).  The question than becomes whether Wiesler's good actions justify his voyeurism, because he is inevitably invading privacy to do so.  Or to make it more relative to daily life, is it justifiable for our government to tap are phone calls and hear our most intimate secrets, purely on the belief that one out of every thousand conversations could prove to be a national threat.  I by no means am attempting to provide and answer, but am simply applauding The Lives of Others for bringing the question about so eloquently.  It is a film that displays a quest for answers, but only provides the viewer with questions.

The Lives of Others is the reason blu-ray players exist, but a copy immediately.