Emanuela's Blog

Tag: film

  • The Fabelmans

    The Fabelmans

    Unlike most of Steven Spielberg’s films, The Fabelmans has a pronounced autobiographical tone (the script was written by Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner). The film closely mirrors Spielberg’s own childhood from the ages of 5 to 18. Key scenes in the movie are grounded in the life of his family, portraying his relationships with his parents, their marriage and subsequent divorce, the family’s relocation to Arizona and California, and his experiences with anti-Semitism. The heart of the film is the mental process which ultimately makes Spielberg a filmmaker. However, it also explores the complexities of Jewish self-image during the 1950s and 1960s.

    The film opens with a scene that later seems quite telling. Sammy, the main character, is a five-year-old boy going to the cinema with his parents for the first time. He is anxious about sitting in the theater and watching the movie. When his father asks him why he is scared, Sammy responds, “The characters are gigantic…you said they are gigantic.” His father attempts to reassure him, explaining that the characters only appear gigantic because they are on the cinema screen.

    The unsuspecting viewer does not realize how illuminating this scene is in foreshadowing a side of Sammy’s life that will develop in a fascinating way: Sammy is aware of the physical gap between himself as a young child and the “gigantic” characters he fears. Although his father assures him that they are only an illusion created by the projector, at the age of five, Sammy already senses that they represent a reality external to the cinema, with clear physical advantage over him. When the family returns home after the movie, it becomes evident that their house, the only home of a Jewish family on the street, is not adorned with Christmas lights. Sammy’s mother asks him what he wants for Hanukkah, and he quickly answers, “Christmas lights.” For the young boy, being Jewish means not only being different from his environment but also lacking something others have—in this case, the developed aesthetics that add beauty to his Christian neighbors’ homes.

    Sammy’s mother lets him use his father’s 8mm camera, which opens up a new perspective for him. He recreates a violent scene he witnessed in a movie to overcome his fear. He documents his family’s move to Arizona, accompanied by a close friend. Through the lens, Sammy uncovers his mother’s affair with the friend, which she has carried out unbeknownst to his father. The camera is also a way to find his place among his peers as they join in his filmmaking projects, which he showcases at school.

    When the family relocates to California, Sammy is confronted with overt anti-Semitism. First, we observe that he is surrounded by very tall and strong boys who are physically different from him. He tells his sisters, “It’s like we got parachuted into the land of the giant sequoia people.” At school, he faces bullying from two boys because he is Jewish. Chad is openly anti-Semitic and physically assaults Sammy in front of everyone. Logan, a handsome and muscular boy and a leader, embodies a more subdued form of anti-Semitism. Although he tells Sammy that no one likes Jews except other Jews, he still intervenes to stop Chad from beating Sammy. Spielberg’s indictment of the anti-Semitic environment is clear and unequivocal: Sammy lies beaten in the schoolyard, and no one steps in to help. However, a fascinating aspect of the film is Sammy’s psychological and spiritual struggle with anti-Semitism. Near the end of high school, he is given an opportunity to get back at his anti-Semitic classmates by filming a social event, “ditch day,” which is then shown at the school’s prom. The film, however, contains some surprising elements. Chad, as expected, is portrayed unfavorably and is laughed at by his peers. Feeling humiliated, he attempts to hit Sammy again. Logan, on the other hand, is depicted as physically impressive—handsome and muscular. Sammy strays from a strictly accurate physical portrayal, and it is evident that he views Logan with admiration, even if only as a director, despite Logan having embarrassed and humiliated him.

    Sammy’s feeling of physical inferiority to Logan can be interpreted in various ways. Firstly, the phenomenon of a victim admiring their abuser comes to mind. This is a well-known psychological defense mechanism, where victims internalize the negative image imposed on them, and view their abuser as admirable. It’s easier to handle the humiliations this way. This mechanism can easily be applied to Logan since, in certain situations, he also defended Sammy.

    On another register, Sammy’s portrayal of Logan may echo the Nazi ideal of the Aryan as a superior human. The weak Jewish character looks with admiration at the non-Jewish young man, who resembles an image from a Nazi pamphlet: fair-skinned with straight facial features and a muscular body. The film highlights Logan’s athletic prowess—we see him winning a running competition, in contrast to Sammy, who struggles with sports. Although the Nazi ideal of a superior human has been widely rejected, arguably this image has nonetheless permeated Jewish consciousness and perhaps become part of it. Even though Sammy was born and raised after World War II, these masculine ideals have become an unavoidable point of reference. It is possible that Jews, against their conscious will, have collectively internalized the belief that they are physically inferior to other groups.

    Another interpretation of this scene derives from Sammy’s evolution into a filmmaker. The artist within him perceives beauty and seeks to capture it on film. This age-old artistic inclination to depict human perfection runs as a consistent theme throughout Western art. Sammy’s admiration for Logan’s beauty is, in a way, conceptual rather than personal. The artist in him is drawn to physical beauty and wishes to display it in all its splendor. Interestingly, Logan feels hurt by his portrayal because he feels it is unrealistic. He thinks he is not as handsome as Sammy made him out to be, interpreting this as a subtle attempt at revenge by the Jewish boy, who he thinks aims to embarrass him now that Logan has been depicted almost as an idol, any real-life encounter with him will inevitably be disappointing.

    Sammy’s interaction with the Christian world which explicitly identifies Jews also has an entirely different dimension: he has a romantic relationship with Monica, a devout Christian girl. While Spielberg has stated that most events in the film are based on real-life experiences, he has not commented on the romance with Monica. The viewer observes two teenagers drawn to each other—Sammy is anxious, and Monica is giggling. However, their relationship reflects a fundamental insight about anti-Semitism.

    Monica’s room is adorned with pictures of Jesus, whom she describes as “sexy,” alongside images of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Pat Boone. She is surprised that Sammy doesn’t believe in Christ and suggests that they pray together to Jesus. Once it is clear that Monica sees Jesus as an attractive and appealing man, her attraction to Sammy makes perfect sense. She admits that she likes him because she thinks he looks like how Jesus looked; like “a handsome Jewish boy, just like you [Sammy].” She then turns to an image of Jesus and says, “Jesus, I’m here with my good friend Sam, who’s Jewish. He’s a nice boy, Lord. He’s good, brave, and funny, and I like him.”

    The film depicts various Christian attitudes towards Sammy: alongside a physical threat, there is also an attraction to the Jewish boy. His peers perceive him as a Jew living in the first century. This facet of the film provides a fundamental insight into the roots of anti-Semitism: the shared origin of Judaism and Christianity is the source of the distorted attitude towards Jews. For Sammy’s classmates, there is almost no historical distance between the events believed to have taken place in the first century and their current reality; the Jewish boy is expected to apologize for crucifying Jesus and is also desirable because he resembles Jesus. Sammy is acutely aware of this historical misconception—he points out that he is not two thousand years old and that no one knows what Jesus looked like. Yet, he realizes that to them, he is a representative of the Jewish people. This perception can be threatening, frightening, and sometimes rewarding.

    The final scene, captivating and enigmatic, relates to the beginning of the film. Sammy meets the renowned director John Ford in Hollywood. Ford asks him to describe two pictures hanging in his office. As Sammy starts to describe them, Ford abruptly interrupts, telling him he is wrong and explaining that in one picture, the horizon is at the bottom, and in the other, it is at the top. Before sending Sammy off, he offers him this piece of advice: “Now remember this! When the horizon’s at the bottom, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s at the top, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s in the middle, it’s boring as shit! Now good luck to you.” Sammy exits the office, and the camera follows him. He briefly turns around before we see him from behind, walking into the distance (perhaps a subtle nod to the final scene of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus?). Then, the camera angle shifts, placing the horizon at the bottom of the frame instead of the center. In this final scene, Spielberg himself becomes an invisible actor in the film, adjusting the camera angle. The scene is an illustration of the importance of perspective.

    If the film begins with a Jewish boy feeling threatened by the characters on the movie screen because they seem to represent a real-world threat, then the final scene reflects Spielberg’s development as a person and an artist: he realizes the importance of perspective in understanding the world. Anything can be seen—and presented—from different angles, including the experience of a Jewish boy in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. Sammy’s childish anxiety, which is somewhat amorphic, and his sense of deprivation gradually transform into an understanding that reality, including anti-Semitism, is complex and multi-faceted and can be viewed and portrayed in various ways. Dealing with anti-Semitism involves changing one’s perspective; it means replacing the basic and intuitive feeling of being weak and disadvantaged with a clear and sharp view of the diverse attitudes toward Jews.

  • Moonlight – an Old Fashion Love Story

    Moonlight – an Old Fashion Love Story

    Moonlight, the winner of the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of 2016,  depicts the lives of Black people in Florida: economic hardship, violence, drugs, a life of misery with almost no escape. The film presents three stages in the life of Chiron, its main character: as a child, an adolescent, and an adult. We witness him mature from a frightened boy into a threatening drug dealer.

    Chiron is raised by a drug-addicted single mother who sometimes turns to prostitution for survival.  Children bully him, and he comes under the protection of Juan, a drug dealer. Juan takes him to his home, where he lives with his girlfriend, and there Chiron finds the shelter and warmth that he lacks at home. But after he finds Juan sell drugs to his mother he leaves, returning to this home only after Juan’s death.

    In the second part Chiron is a teenager, still being bullied by his classmates and living with his drug-addict mother. Only one boy, Kevin, become his friend. In a moment of emotional intimacy a certain sexual encounter develops.  But later, his classmates forces Kevin to hit Chiron, who is left bleeding and crying on the floor. This part ends with Chiron returning to his classroom — his face revealing that can’t take the misery any more — grabbing a chair and breaking it on the back of one of his abusers.

    In the third part of the movie, Chiron is a muscular young man, a scary drug dealer in Atlanta. His mother has gone into rehab. To his utter surprise Kevin, who he hasn’t seen for years, calls him. Chiron decided to drive to Florida to meet him. The encounter between them is the climax of the film. We find that Chiron had been in love with Kevin for years, and since their sexual encounter he had not been with anyone else. In Kevin’s house by the sea, Chiron gently rests his head on his lover’s shoulder.

    The film was highly praised for a complex presentation of life of poverty and the development of homosexual identity. Slums are imbued with violence – but also with grace and generosity. And the discovery of a homosexual identity is a complicated process of self-acknowledgement.

    But if we examine the story from a universal perspective, we find an old-fashioned love story – one that is rarely seen in fiction and in cinema today. For the sake of argument, let’s try to describe the story as a relationship between a man and a woman: the male protagonist falls in love with a woman in his youth and has a limited sexual encounter with her. She leaves, but the memory of the happy moment a prevents him from engaging with other women for years. As they meet again he gently confesses his love and rests his head on her shoulder. Would the spectators believe such a story?

    The absolute link between feelings and sexual attraction, time that stops after an encounter with the loved one, years of yearning for him, the tender sexual relations – the great love stories of the nineteenth and twentieth century were made of such materials. Moonlight is a story about profound love, lacking any skepticism, almost anachronistic. A story more typical of our days would present Chiron having sex without love, perceiving the connection with Kevin in a different light as time goes by, and developing meaningful emotional relations with another man.

    But Moonlight is a monumental love story – like Anna Karenina or Casablanca, and perhaps mostly like Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. But unlike these love stories, it takes place in the lowest social layer, among people whose lives are almost entirely determined by their being born into poverty; very few – like Kevin – manage to break out of violence and drugs.

    The poor social circumstances emphasize Chiron’s unique character, making his love even more astonishing. But isn’t this a distorted perception of poverty? A romanticization of deprivation and violence? A similar argument had been put forwards against Dostoevsky’s writing. It has been suggested that his portrayal of love and generosity emerging especially in hardship justifies poverty, makes it valuable, and undermines any efforts to eradicate it.

    Kevin, unlike Chiron, leaves the criminal life. He works as a cook, and he fathers a child. He states that though his life is not perfect, he is happy. Here, again, the film agrees with the spirit of monumental love stories: they drive the protagonist to outstanding pinnacles and disheartening falls – but not to a happy life.

  • Toy Story – an American Ambivalence

    Toy Story – an American Ambivalence

    Most children’s stories are educational. The characters, the plot, the happy ending serve as vehicles to convey a message: encourage moral behavior, promote consideration, develop sensitivity—the lessons are usually rather straightforward and simple, so children can easily follow them. This also goes for children’s films and animations. Some of the most well-known cartoon figures are both funny and instructional. A couple of weeks ago, tired and bored on a long flight, I decided I would watch Toy Story. The more I saw, the more puzzled I became. What, exactly, was the moral of the story?

    Released in 1995, Toy Story was the first feature-length, computer-animated film. It revived an old idea prevalent in folk stories: when hidden from human eyes, toys come to life. At night, these inanimate objects move, talk, think and feel. Perhaps this was derived from the urge to further develop the toys as an imitation of their human counterparts, as means of preparing the child viewer for real life. In the film, a cowboy doll named Woody is Andy’s favorite toy. Woody becomes anxious as Andy receives Buzz Lightyear, a modern space ranger, for his birthday. The old toys are all excited as new birthday toys join them, both expecting new friends and fearing rivals that may take their place. The story revolves around the relations between Woody and Buzz; the first wants to keep his place as the favorite toy and the latter can’t accept the fact that he is a toy. On top of this, Andy’s family is moving, and the toys go through all sorts of adventures. Together they are lost and then find their way to Andy’s new home.

    Andy is a “good boy”, well-behaved and nice. He loves his toys and takes care of them. He is sad when Woody and Buzz disappear and thrilled when they return. Unlike Andy, his next door neighbor, Sid Phillips, is the “bad boy”, a disturbed and aggressive child who makes scary experiments with toys. Playing doctor, he cuts them, mutilates them, and then puts together parts of different toys, creating revolting, monster-like creatures: a baby’s head with a spider’s body, a frog with wheels for legs, a woman’s legs attached to a fishing rod, a fly’s head stuck on a Combat Carl’s body—the victims are just as horrified at what they have become as we are upon seeing them emerge from the shadows of Sid’s room.

    Naturally, the young spectators are led to like Andy and dislike Sid. The explicit message of the story is clear: children are encouraged to respect others, human or toy, and accept them for who they are. The film conveys a purely progressive message. But certain aspects of the film do not agree with this message. For example, the “bad boy” is physically unattractive, with a most repellent set of braces. The correlation between morality and appearance stands in sharp contrast to the progressive spirit of the work. Are ugly people bad? The mutilated toys are good-hearted, but this isn’t always true for ugly humans. Also, though Sid lives next door to Andy, his environment seems different, not at all cozy and loving. Andy’s mom is always in the background, and Phil’s parents are never seen; Andy sleeps in a nice, clean bed, covered with a pleasant duvet, while Phil’s bed is messy and lacks a homely appearance; Andy’s mom drives him to the Pizza place, as Phil returns alone on his skateboard. And despite of his disturbed way of playing, there are no parents in sight to help him. Is the film suggesting that children from good, loving families are simply better from those coming from neglectful homes?

    The mutilation of the toys is another ambivalent aspect of the film. Of course it is shocking to see a bird’s head attached to a girl’s body, or a baby’s head to a spider’s body. But it should be pointed out that Andy’s toys, the nice, clean ones purchased at a toy store, are not exact replicas of natural forms, either. Mr. Potato Head’s facial features keep falling off and are sometimes placed “wrongly”, eyes where the nose and mouth should be. The dog has a Slinky for a body. The piggy bank has a cork in his belly.

    So, what’s actually wrong with Sid’s mutilation of his toys? Seen from an alternate perspective, one could present an entirely new interpretation to Toy Story: the only difference between good and evil is that good is prettier, more refined, and not as extreme as evil. But there is no fundamental difference between the two. Evil actions are fine as long as you don’t do them yourself. And the problem with brutality is that it’s not graceful and appealing, not that it causes pain.

    Strangely, the two conflicting interpretations are possible. Two mutually exclusive sets of values—one exemplifying morality and compassion, the other only aesthetic values—lie at the heart of the story. One wonders if this isn’t what we see in the United States these days, so deeply embedded in American culture: two sets of values coexisting, and we are constantly wondering if people are judged by their morality and compassion or only by their appearance.

  • Million Dollar Baby – a Greek Tragedy

    Million Dollar Baby – a Greek Tragedy

    When Clint Eastwood, an actor, producer and director of Million Dollar Baby (released in 2004) was asked what the film was about, his answer was: “the American Dream”.

    Maggie Fitzgerald, a 31-year-old woman from a poor and backward part of America, is determined to train as a boxer. She manages to convince Frankie, a talented trainer, to coach her. He teaches her various techniques, constantly stressing that the first rule is always, absolutely always, to protect yourself.  After she wins many fights he arranges for a million-dollar match. She almost wins, but as the round ends she carelessly turns her back to her rival, who then punches her from behind. She falls on her stool, breaking her neck, and is left a quadriplegic. Frankie, now deeply attached to Maggie, is devastated. He stays by her side, trying to rehabilitate her. But after her foot is amputated she asks him to help her commit suicide. Horrified, he at first refuses, but later accepts her wish and kills her. After her death he disappears.

    In the second part of the film, after Maggie’s unexpected fall, it is useless to struggle with the tears. The spectators are swept up by sorrow as they see the strong, free-spirited female boxer turn into a complete invalid; it is almost impossible to imagine how she feels. Exactly as Aristotle defines tragedy, “arousing pity and fear”, the viewers are overwhelmed with compassion and horror, thinking that this could happen to them too. When the film ends, the effect of the cathartic moment is apparent: “Thank god I am not paralyzed!”

    In the making of this film, Clint Eastwood follows closely most of the principles of ancient Greek tragedy. First, it deals with comprehensive themes – love, pride, loss. The protagonist, a tragic hero, commits either a crime or a mistake, often without acknowledging how foolish and arrogant he has been. The nature of his crime is often related to hubris, to vanity. He then slowly understands his mistake, as his world crumbles around him. And also – the tragic hero is essentially a good man. The downfall of a villain would not produce the desired effect of horror and pity. But witnessing the complete destruction of a good man is heartrending and terrifying.

    In Million Dollar Baby, Maggie, the protagonist, totally wins our hearts. Her determination and courage, together with her honesty and devotion to her family, make her utterly lovable. She convinces Frankie (himself also a tragic hero) to coach her. He makes her repeat over and over again that the first rule of boxing is to always protect yourself! Her ongoing success, the tough opponents she overcomes, the cheering crowd, all make her self-confident, to a point where she becomes careless. In a single moment of hubris, she makes the hamartia, the critical mistake: she turns her back to her opponent, who then strikes her and she falls.

    As in every Greek tragedy, fate plays a crucial part. Maggie could have fallen in the ring; but as she falls, her head bumps into her stool and she breaks her neck. This peripateia – the unexpected turn of events – reroutes the plot to an altogether different direction.  Lying paralyzed in bed, she acknowledges her mistake: I didn’t protect myself, this was my mistake, I didn’t follow Frankie’s orders. The audience reaches a full catharsis in the moving final dialogue between her and Frankie and the last kiss before he takes her life.

    There is, however, one central feature of Greek tragedy that Eastwood completely ignores. The vast majority of Greek tragic protagonists are people of the upper class. Million Dollar Baby is a film about lower-class Americans. The boxing club is a run-down gym in Los Angeles; Maggie lives in a shabby room and works as a waitress in a diner, from which she takes left-over food to eat at home. She has come to Los Angeles from a god-forsaken town. Her overweight mother makes a living from deceiving the social security; her brother is in jail. There is absolutely nothing noble about poverty in this film; it is ugly, vulgar, and callous.

    So for what sin is Maggie punished? From a modern perspective, she is trying to fulfill the American dream: to overcome her poor background, to surmount the pettiness of her family and a sense of purposelessness, to achieve the impossible: to become a successful boxer at the age of 31. In simple, everyday words: she wants to make it.

    But she fails.

    Her depiction in the context of a Greek tragedy illuminates her character in heroic tones, making her comparable to classic protagonists. According to Eastwood, the exhaustive, back-breaking – and yes, valiant — efforts of lower-class Americans to succeed are bound to fail.  They can either accept their poor condition or end in self–destruction.

    The American dream is, indeed, only a dream.