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"The Car Horns That Knew Too Much"

On Sound Design in Hitchcock’s 1934 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”

Written while Attending Tisch School of the Arts Cinema Studies Program 2010

     A wholesome family vacation in Switzerland, who could ask for anything more? The Man Who Knew Too Much is the story of a family vacation gone wrong when Betty, the daughter of the Lawrence’s is kidnapped by the evil Abbot and his gang after Mr. Lawrence accidentally discovers information about their assassination plans.  In this paper I will attempt to dissect the sound design used beautifully by Hitchcock to quite literally, orchestrate this film.

    The film opens with epic sweeping orchestrated music and images of exiting travel brochures for Switzerland. This is one of many examples of great usage of sound to set up a location or scene, which is present all throughout the film. Now that we know we are in store for an exiting trip to Switzerland, we find the Lawrence family watching their friend Louis in an exiting downhill skiing match. Unfortunately, Peggy’s little dog runs into the path of Louis causing him to fall. The sound design in this scene is interesting because we only hear the crowd’s muffled reaction to the fall and nothing else. Something seems unnatural right off the bat, and we get the idea that Louis may suffer even more bad luck, especially after he gets a strange greeting by a man who we later discover to be Abbot, the main villain in the film.

    In the next scene Mrs. Lawrence is participating in a clay pigeon shooting contest with a man named Ramon.  While trying to make the winning shot, Abbot tries to show his pocket watch to Betty, the chime sounds and causes Mrs. Lawrence to miss her shot and lose the contest. The sound of this chime is heard multiple times throughout the film and becomes a trademark of Abbots deadly presence. This seemingly innocent chime is the first auditory forewarning to the Lawrence family of Abbot’s evil power over their fate.

    Later that night at a lively party at the lodge, romantic music fills the air. As a mild act of jealousy, Mr. Lawrence hooks his wife’s knitting to Louis’s coat as they are dancing. At first we think it’s a fun little prank, but as the knitting unravels, tangling the feet of the many dancers, the mood begins to dampen. We hear the sound of Abbot’s boisterous laugh and then a gunshot. The music continues to play at first while Louis examines his wound, but soon he collapses to the ground and the music is replaced by nervous mutterings of the crowd.

     The next two scenes have no music or non-diagetic sound of any kind, which is a common theme throughout the film. As Mr. Lawrence searches for the secret note, deals with the police, and hands his wife the threatening message about their daughter, the absence of music heightens the tension greatly. This use of diagetic silence is especially potent in the moment where Mrs. Lawrence reads the note and realizes her daughter is missing. This silence paired with her performance and the longer than usual reaction is so dizzying in itself, that the shot of the room spinning that follows is almost unnecessary.

     The next image we see is that of the broach that Mrs. Lawrence has purchased for her daughter. We hear strange, scraping, almost mechanical sounds corresponding with the sound of horses galloping. This is one of many times when we hear sounds mechanical in nature as an indicator of the evil forces in the film. A serene shot of the quiet mountain changes into a bleak shot of the city where we hear the first blare of the foreboding car horns. We know we are not on a carefree vacation anymore; we are now in a place of chaos and darkness.

    Back at the Lawrence residence, the man of the house is being drilled by the police, while Mrs. Lawrence is upstairs in Betty’s room with their friend, Clive. The absence of any kind of musical score continues to amplify the drama of the situation. Some interesting diagetic sound cues cleverly interrupt the false sense of calm the Lawrence’s try to embody. Firstly, when the police boldly tell Mr. Lawrence that they know Betty has been kidnapped, we are completely de-railed by an intrusive cut to Betty’s toy train barreling down it’s track with the whistle screaming. Similarly, when Gibson, the secret service agent suggests that Betty may not be alive, the conversation is interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing. This sound cue ends up being a somewhat comforting one when we discover that Betty is alive, but still in great danger.

     Next we find Mr. Lawrence and Clive in the town where they think they may find Betty. The setting is accentuated by many car horns, indiscernible crowd sounds, and some unsophisticated ragtime music. We take from these sound cues that this is a place of sin and anarchy even more so than the regular city. As we approach the dentist who Mr. Lawrence suspects may be who they are looking for, the music fades away and leaves us again with silence. Throughout the next scene the silence is often punctuated with the familiar sound of horns, always as a forewarning of danger. We hear them often but they are especially prominent right as the dentist menacingly grabs his first tool to work on Mr. Lawrence. At this moment we also hear the chime of Abbot’s pocket watch, letting us know that Mr. Lawrence is in serious danger.  Luckily, he is able to disguise himself while Abbot and Ramon have a conversation about their plans and about Betty. During this conversation the horns come to a stop briefly but start again just as soon as they have left the room. We can tell by these aural cues that Mr. Lawrence is the only one in peril at the moment.

    Clive and Mr. Lawrence follow their foes into the Tabernacle of the Sun where dreary choir and organ music fills the air. Mr. Lawrence and Clive comically make up their own lyrics about their observations of the chapel and the trouble soon to come. Clive is beckoned to the altar by Nurse Agnes who hypnotizes him with her robotic, morose voice. The gothic organ music, combined with the awkward centered framed close-ups of Clive and Nurse Agnes, we definitely get the feeling something is very wrong with this congregation. After the group has been mostly cleared out, we once again hear the menacing chime of Abbot’s watch just as a padlock is placed on the gates of the church, trapping them inside. Once it is discovered that Betty is being held there, a brawl breaks out where chairs are being thrown left and right. To cover up the noise, Nurse Agnes begs that the organ be played. This is a genius idea by Hitchcock that gives an amazing diagetic orchestration to this battle. We begin to see how carefully and thoughtfully music is being used. It is also a precursor to the way orchestration plays a part in the remainder of the film. Once the secret about Albert Hall is discovered and the fight and organ playing have subsided, we again hear the call of the car horns, only this time everyone is in danger.

    While Abbot and his men are holding Mr. Lawrence in the church, an especially prominent car horn is heard. When Abbot and Nurse Agnes answer the door, Clive is there, accompanied by a policeman. Horns continue to sound as each man tries to make his case, before it is decided who is guilty we cut back upstairs where one of Abbot’s men holds a gun towards the door in uncertainty. A loud whistle sounds and we don’t know who is in danger. Abbot smugly comes through the door letting us know he has won yet again.  Finally Betty is brought into the room and Abbot plays a recording of an orchestrated piece describing the exact moment in the arrangement where the assassination will take place that night at Albert Hall, and he explains the importance of the moment he has chosen. We consider now Hitchcock’s choice of using music so sparsely in this film. The potency of the few pieces he has chosen increase greatly, and we know that the use of orchestrated music in the upcoming scene is going to be outstanding.

     At the concert Hall, horns sound loudly as an overture to the night’s dangerous events. The murmurings of the crowd are interrupted by a harsh cut to the intrusive sound of applause. The music begins, and the intense connection with the plot of the film is unshakable. We are given the sweeping musical score we’ve been missing throughout the rest of the film and it was worth the wait. Editing builds the tension as the music crescendos, the lethal moment approaches and Mrs. Lawrence rises to her feet and screams just as the shot is fired.

    Back at Abbot’s home base, we discover the scream has foiled the assassination attempt. Silence occurs once again as Abbot and his men discover the presence of the police force at their doorstep. The police try to prepare themselves as the first shot is fired by their foes. The intensity of the gunfire rises and falls much like the music of the symphony. The sound tells the story of the battle, breaking vases, windows being shattered act as the cymbals crashing. The symphony of fire continues until at last Mrs. Lawrence delivers the final note as a gunshot to Ramon as he traverses the rooftop with Betty in tow.  She has finally beaten him in a shooting contest. In the final moments of the film Betty is safely reunited with her mother and father, the music swells in typical fashion to bookend the sweeping adventurous tone of the opening of the film.  The car horn and gunshot symphony that Hitchcock has cleverly orchestrated has finally come to a close, and we can’t help but ask for an encore.

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"Documentaries You Will Like": The Films of Rick Sebak

An Exploration of the Films of Pittsburgh Documentation, Rick Sebak

Written while attending Tisch School of the Art’s Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2010

    Let’s face it, for most people documentaries are hard to want to watch. We let the boring threat of having to learn something or be swayed or guilted politically let us stray away from choosing a documentary as our night’s festivities. In this day and age of educational propaganda or shock-filled, depressing portraits of events we should care about, there is little room for something fun, silly, and positive in the world of documentaries. Rick Sebak is a documentary filmmaker for WQED, the public broadcasting network in Pittsburgh, PA. Since 1988 he has been making documentaries that people actually enjoy watching. They are fun little films, usually only about an hour long about topics such as theme parks, or hot dogs that you can come across while surfing though the channels. You could watch all of, or just a little part, and always walk away feeling light, happy, and informed about some little secret that makes you proud to be either from Pittsburgh, or proud to be from anywhere in America. “Rick Sebak makes unusual television programs. His slightly wacky documentaries celebrate overlooked, quirky aspects of modern American life and the unexpected charms of Pittsburgh. Audiences have learned to recognize his friendly narrative style and the unusual topics that he obviously loves. He has a way of quickly capturing the essence of a place and it’s people.” (WQED promotional card) Because of his unique style, I believe that Rick Sebak is a documentarian that should not be overlooked in documentary history. In this paper I will do my best to highlight the history, strategies and qualities that make his films something a little different that anyone else is doing. Starting with some background information about his process as a filmmaker, and then on to more in-depth observations that I have made about a selection of his films. If you’re looking for hard-hitting journalistic documentaries, you’re barking up the wrong tree, but if you’re looking for a leisurely way to learn a little and have some fun, spend the hour to sit down and watch any one of his many films, I can promise you won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time.

    In the spirit of Rick’s films, I’d like to start with a just little bit of history. I met with Sebak and discuss his origins as a documentary filmmaker, and he told me he once saw a movie about food in New Orleans that really inspired him to want to make similar films. He started out by making short segments for the nightly news station where he worked in South Carolina, and went on to make his first full-length documentary about the state dance, The Shag. In 1987 he interviewed for a job at PBS in Pittsburgh and the rest was history. He has been making films for 23 years and says he never regretted it for a second.

    Now, on to the ingredients that make his films as unique as they are. The first thing I spoke with him about is how he chooses a topic for one of his films. He explained, “I want the topic to be big enough so that I can do a lot of things. Almost so big that I can do whatever I want.” This is clear in his films, although you’d never really notice because everything he discusses, even if loosely related, seem to come together perfectly. He tells me that he calls the shows, “necklace films,” which he describes are lots of little segments pieced together. Some like to call him the inventor of the “scrapbook documentary.” He also describes that in choosing a subject, he tends to stray away from controversial ones, “There’s so many people doing the serious topics, I can find other things that people really like.” In choosing such, mild topics he creates films that anyone can relate to. “His programs cover culture for it’s own sake, not to launch a political issue or pick up on a current affair, and people love them. They’re part of a small pub TV niche, a genre of ‘regular people’ documentaries.” (June-Friesen 12)

      Another big part of the charm of all of these programs is the diverse array of everyday people featured as experts on the topics. I spoke with him about the secret to capturing such great interactions with these people; he says the key is that they all seem happy. “I know that I am blessed with a face that looks like I’m always smiling and that helps a ton. In an interview, what you put out is what you get back, and if you’re up and excited and energetic, that’s what you get back. People will adapt to your energy level, and I know that because it looks like I’m smiling, the people in my interviews do that too. The people in my shows look like they’re happy.” The mood of his films is always just that, happy, and this is essential is making them the successes they are. “Rick’s productions are more than a “fly-on-the-wall” eavesdropping of events, they are more like company dropping in to spend some time to visit and catch up on what’s happening around town. On camera, his subjects appear to be having a good time because they are having a good time. His enthusiasm is contagious and brings out the best from the people he interviews.” (Vennare 43)

Rick’s influence on the people he interviews is obvious, but we can’t downplay the genuine love his subjects have for the topics, and how that can make all the difference. Rick explains,  “I love on the national scale, ice cream, breakfast, hot dogs because everyone considers themselves an expert on that, and you just tap into that. People who go out to eat breakfast love to eat breakfast and have really strong feelings about it, have thought about it, and are willing to philosophize about it. If you can catch the person at the right moment you can usually get them to talk.” The fact that everyone featured gets a moment to shine is paramount, it’s clearly one of the things that makes these films so relatable and fun to watch. The people shown are not people who are usually on TV, they are just regular people talking about stuff they enjoy. In the world of the modern documentary this is a rare thing to find, especially with how dangerous a tool the editing room can be, “Documenting the lives of everything people can be tricky, particularly without the parameters of a political issue. It can appear to mock its subjects or smother them with preciousness. When you’re talking to people, you’re inevitably in a situation where you can very easy take advantage of them. They’re vulnerable to you—we used to call it stealing souls. You have to be really careful about it. With Rick, he just has a very familiar touch. Obviously, people take to him very easily.” (June-Friesen 18)

    The last thing I would like to discuss before I dive into the world of Rick’s extensive library of films, is the educational tid-bits baked into the goodness of each of his films. We can’t forget that he does work for PBS, a network aimed mostly at public education, “His work has a humanist elements to it that I think is largely and too often absent from what else we see on TV. The thing that’s really nice about Rick’s shows is they really are a mix of entertainment and education. Whether it’s true and deserves or not…there’s certainly a reputation of PBS being stuffy and not a lot of fun. Rick’s shows prove that isn’t always the case.” (June-Friesen 17) Rick doesn’t let the restraints of being “educational” hold him down, he thrives off of learning himself, and loves to be able to teach people something with his films, “I have a job that comes with a built-in educational component. My job forces me to learn new things constantly. It’s a job that changes all the time, and a job that lets me meet and talk with new people in ever-changing environments: from Kennywood to coal mines, hot dog shops to cemeteries.” (Seton Hill Commencement speech) PBS is undoubtedly lucky to have Rick on their payroll since the addition of his films has had a huge effect during pledge time, so much so that public broadcasting stations in other cities have copied his model and applied it to their cities, but nothing can beat the genuine article. “When you peel away the intricate layers of a memorable PBS documentary, what you often find is a simple concept. A great story, well told.” (Vennare 42) This is exactly what Rick’s films are, simple, great stories about real people.

          When talking about the specific elements in his films, I would like to start with his Pittsburgh oriented films, and branch off into his national ones. Sebak’s Pittsburgh films are something really special. To the locals, they are a deeply touching portrayal of the historical and the current things that make our city great. Even when showing us a place or a tradition we may have already been familiar with, he always adds a little behind the scenes tour, or interesting outlook that we would never have seen otherwise. “Twenty years and counting and there are countless stories to tell, after all, Pittsburgh’s surprises are some of the best and most valuable things about this city.” (Martinelli 146) It is always exciting to see a place we know and love (I actually found myself applauding or tearing up when some of my favorite places appeared) He always knows how to make us feel good about our city and ourselves. In the interview, I asked him what makes Pittsburghers different, he said, “I think what I love about Pittsburger’s commonality is, while some might call it an inferiority complex, I think it’s a total lack of pretention. We don’t think we’re that special, which makes us really special.” To an outsider, you can still be amazed and endeared by the things the city has to offer. “Each one of us has a memory tucked inside one of Rick’s endearing testaments to all the things we have come to love about Pittsburgh. And you don’t have to be a native to be touched by the stories.” (Martinelli 146) His films show so many great quirks and charms of the city, it’s the kind of advertising that doesn’t exist in other places. He described to me one the reasons he enjoys making the local shows, “In general I like the local shows better because they’re more unusual. I don’t think there are many places that have such a thing such as 20 years of documentaries about a city. Without ever being too chamber of commerce-y, I think they let you in on the quiet, goofy charms of Pittsburgh.” If you ever find yourself moving to Pittsburgh, Sebak’s films could be an invaluable resource for everything from choosing a neighborhood, to finding good places to eat.

          Without further ado, I’d like to jump into some of the commonalities that make Sebak’s local films something really special. Many of these elements continue in his national films, which I will expand upon later. The first way he makes Pittsburgh seem extraordinary is by always putting an emphasis on the quality of the people. In the tradition of Mr. Roger’s, neighborliness is key. He often highlights the deep connections people have with others in their communities and this is always expressly verbalized by the people he interviews. He often shows community events run by volunteers, who are passionate about what they’re doing. A man from London who participates in the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix every year said, “It’s the atmosphere that comes from the organization. It just makes it special.” (Something About Oakland) We get a glimpse of why people stay in one place for their entire lives, and the idea of being “nebby” (a slang word for in your neighbor’s business) becomes a wonderful trait that makes Pittsburghers some of the most tight-knit strangers you’ll ever meet. Even when Sebak talks about Pittsburgh he uses a tone of familiarity. Being a Pittsburgh native, I hope you’ll excuse me if I occasionally refer to the city as though we are all a part of it.

    In addition to being a good neighbor, the idea of the working man and the fulfillment of the American dream is never far from reach. Some direct examples of Pittsburghers verbalizing this in his films: “I worked hard all my life and now I got a piece of the American Pie,” (It’s the Neighborhoods) said by a local business owner in Bloomfield, and “A river is not a job, it’s your life really.” (The Mon, the Al, and the O) said by a barge worker on the Monongahela river, and the owner of Betsey Ann Chocolates said, “You don’t have to be big to be the best, you just have to do a good job.” (Things We’ve Made) There is also always a great amount of value placed in family-run businesses that keep old traditions alive. One of my favorite interviewee’s, Mr. Page, owner of my personal favorite local ice cream shop said, “There’s a pride in it. There’s really only a handful of businesses that have lasted that long, same family… quality at a fair price and that’s what we still try to do. It’s a very happy business.” (South Side) Although there is a certain amount of stock in longevity, whether the business has been there since 1893 or 1993, Sebak talks about them like they’ve been there for ages. Sebak always glorifies people who make something of their own and continue the tradition through the generations.  A man who builds toy versions of steam engines in a garage in South Side said it best,” When you make something, there is something there to at least potentially build a legacy on.” (Things We’ve Made)

    The next major trait in Sebak’s local films is the pride in local history. This is significant to making Sebak’s work relevant because it is where we get the educational tid-bits in his films. Teaching it’s citizens about the history of the city is essentially the name of the game for PBS, but Sebak does it in such a way that it goes down easy and doesn’t make us reach for the remote. For instance, in his first film for PBS, The Mon, the Al, and the O, there is a segment on riverboats. We see a lot of neat old footage and talk to the former owner of one of the boats built and operated in Pittsburgh. Sebak wraps up the segment beautifully by saying, “The romantic days of the river packet are over, but they’re great fun to hear about, elegant in their own way, and being on board must have been great.” (The Mon, the Al, and the O) The way he handles history is always informative, but the way he presents it and the people he chooses to talk to always make it interesting and enjoyable to watch. Even when it comes to possibly negative or touchy subjects, such as the history of steel mills, he is always able to handle the subject with grace and admiration. In South Side, he speaks with a former mill worker at the sight where the mills once stood. He talks a bit about the hardships they endured, but in retrospect, is proud he was able to be a part of history, “This place was really as much a part of the community as the churches and bars, or your friend’s house. Being a part of something that is no longer there is something I take pride in.” (South Side)Sebak also makes a point to showcase the great old buildings in the city, and talk to the people who have fought to restore them. In It’s the Neighborhoods,he talks to a librarian at the Homewood library, (which was once featured onMr. Roger’s Neighborhood) about what keeping the building alive means to her and the community, “You respect the building and the people that make this a great environment.” (It’s the Neighborhoods) When watching one of these films, you hardly notice you are learning something, but you always come away a little more informed than you once were.

    Another way Sebak succeeds in creating unique portraits of a city is through the way he highlights the many different ethnic heritages that make up Pittsburgh. He shows us a gaggle of little old Italian ladies at the Columbus day parade in Bloomfield (Pittsburgh’s Little Italy) in It’s the Neighborhoods, who tell us, “We have to feed you. If you eat, we like you.” In that film we also get to meet the little old man on Polish Hill who tells us how everyone still speaks German and Polish in his community, every week he can hear mass in his own language at his local church, and then just hop across the street to an all-Polish goods grocery store. We see many examples of Pittsburgh’s rich cultural heritage from all over the area. It’s interesting to see places where many ethnic groups still exist and are free to practice their traditions, but when highlighting each one of these areas, Sebak is always sure to stress that newcomers are always a welcome anywhere in Pittsburgh. Everyone is Italian on Italian day at Kennywood Park. Cultural traditions are celebrated, but everyone is welcome to participate and learn more about different ethnicities and help keep these great traditions alive.

    The idea of blending the old with the new is another strong theme in Sebak’s work. I’ve already talked a little bit about those people who have lived here forever and make up a big part of Pittsburgh’s core, but Sebak always squeezes in a little bit of the new and hip to show that such things do exist in our city. We get to see the old timers who keep our roots strong and our traditions alive, and the youngsters that help revitalize the community. In South Side, one of the shop owners comments on serving, “Both kinds of blue-haired people.” We see a lot of this in South Side, in the form of converted lofts for artists who use traditional “made in Pittsburgh” materials, such as steel and glass in their work. We also get to meet the men who still make the steel right around the corner, who are never too busy or too big to help out the little guy. Another interesting example would be in It’s the Neighborhoods, where we learn about a foundation that funds murals for communities around the city. These murals, painted by hip young artists in various places around the city, are decided upon by the community beforehand in order to represent what they are about. Kennywood park is also displayed as a great way to blend the old and the new in Kennywood Memories. Sebak shows us all the extra special old wooden coasters, as well as the new sleek steel coasters that get everyone so excited. We also see the section of the park known as “Lost Kennywood”, a re-creation of many old rides and elements from days long since past. This combination of old and new is shown as the glue that makes Pittsburgh a great place for anyone. We can see how deeply Sebak cares for the city through these films; they stand as a testament to what kind of city Pittsburgh really is. If you sat down and watched a few of these films, knowing nothing about Pittsburgh, I don’t think you could dispute that it’s a pretty great place. Since he is such a herald for the city, Sebak has become a well respected and well-known member of the city. People value and take pride in his contribution to the community, and that is something that could not be said for most documentary filmmakers.

    In 1993 it became clear that Rick’s films appealed to more than just Pittsburghers. Pennsylvania Diners and other Roadside Restaurants was originally made as a local show, but ended up being his first nationally aired program. He told me how things played out, “We make these local programs and we always wanted to see if we could do things nationally and it was actually the diner program that caught PBS’s eye and said they’d run it nationally. We had no money for promotion, there was no promotion for the show but it got great ratings. I say I owe my career to people who click through channels because at that time that was very popular, and if they stumbled on the diner program apparently they stayed because the ratings just kept climbing over the hour.” The segmented, but not detached nature of these programs lends itself well to TV because of this channel flipping phenomenon. Sure, you can sit down and watch a program from start to finish to get the whole effect, but if you just catch a bit of it you can still get a nifty little glimpse of something. “His local and national shows trade in the humor and back stories you only hear on the street. They go down easy and repeatedly…programmers find an audience again and again.” (June-Friesen 17) The diner program was a success because of all of Sebak’s classic ingredients, but applying his recipe for personal appeal to a larger audience. The ratings make it clear that his films can capture the hearts and minds of those who don’t live anywhere near Pennsylvania. I think the owner of one of the diners said it best, “The secret is to make everybody feel like they’re part of it.” (Pennsylvania Diners) He concludes the program with one of his famous wrap-up soliloquies that I think is very telling of his goals as a filmmaker, “Friends and talk, food and a comfortable, all-American familiarity. We hope that now when you’re hungry on the road you might be more tempted to pull in when you see a diner sign. There’s a good chance it’ll be memorable and warm, and the home cooked food might be better than what you get at home.” (Pennsylvania Diners) He exposes us to these little-known treasures and gives a deeper meaning to the small things in life through a good meal and a warm environment. These elements of neighborliness and tradition carry over from his local programs, and effect a national audience in an equally profound way.

          His other national programs were just as successful. It is astonishing that this little filmmaker from WQED in Pittsburgh got a chance to touch the entire nation with his warm message of down-home cooking and Americana. One of the ways he extends his personal message to the nation so successfully, is by making sure that his films are accessible to everyone. In his interviews, all around the country, no one is ever treated unequally or shown in a condescending light. He talks to everyone, regardless of race, age, or class, which makes it so anyone watching can feel easily connected. The topics he chooses also appeal to everyone. He mentions the uniting quality of beloved food in his wrap-up of A Hot Dog Program, “Hot dogs everywhere help define a sense of place. They give us unique, informal, classless meeting places, and no matter what you put on top of these sausages, they seem to satisfy more than mere hunger. They’re juicy snacks, guilty pleasures and maybe as close as we’ll ever get to a national dish.” He often uses a common passion as a way to unite everyone in a way you wouldn’t think the topic could. Sebak also uses our love for these things to unite us as Americans. In Sandwiches You Will Like, he opens by saying, “Everyone loves sandwiches, it’s part of America.” A sense of national pride comes naturally from all of his programs without shoving it in your face. As a young, leftist who doesn’t usually take much pride in this country, I can safely say that these films make me proud to be an American in their own subtle way. You can find so much goodness in the wide array of regular people, amazing little family-run places, and weird, quirky traditions only possible in America.

          The sense of tradition is also very important in Sebak’s national films.  The fact that something is family owned or has been around for a long time holds some major weight. It’s great to see the little guy as a hero for upholding great traditions against the changing of the times. Rick shows us how great and important these little places are all over the country. A critic explains, “It’s about places that don’t fit into a big-box, cookie-cutter commercial market. Sometimes it’s like being in on a big cultural secret.” (June-Friesen 17) We do feel special to have been let in on the secret, and that’s one of the factors that makes us keep watching a program, and has us looking forward to others. When talking about these traditions, he always incorporates moments of personal nostalgia that everyone can relate to. In Great Old Amusement Parks,he talks about various dark rides and the romantic mood theme parks can create. Someone recalls, “Everyone remembers getting their first kiss on the boat chute and the thrill of riding that ride.” Even though this memory is coming from one specific person, about one specific boat ride, it’s doesn’t matter; what matters is the effect this technique has on us. We immediately think back to our first romantic dark ride, and instantly, a strong connection is made to the film. This is an effect that all of his films make. It doesn’t matter if they are yourmemories or traditions, they tap into our nostalgic nerves system, and become something really special to us. It’s about more than just showing us out-of-the-way restaurants and great old roller-coasters, it’s about putting a focus on a unique little something that can be so meaningful in our lives that we wouldn’t normally think about. With the specific nature of many of today’s documentaries, it is very rare to find a film that can produce this pure of an effect without having ulterior motives for it’s viewers.

          Another way that Sebak’s films are very unique to other documentaries is his respect for his subjects. As I mentioned earlier, he always talks to anyone who will talk to him and gets a wide array of viewpoints in his films but another breed that he showcases so nicely, is a type of person who I will call the everyday scholar. Sebak is careful to make everyone seem like an expert, but in his films he also goes out of his way to find people who specialize in knowledge about his quirky topics. We see this phenomenon is many of his films, from the lawyer/merry go round enthusiast in Kennywood Memories who has tons of memorabilia and historical documents in his basement, to the man in Thing’s We’ve Made who has an entire collection of vintage toys. These figures pop up often to shed a little deeper and more factual insight about the history of Sebak’s topics, and they are always shown as incredibly passionate people who have made a hobby of being historians of their own accord. This is something that should be celebrated, and it’s great to see these people get showcased and rewarded for their curiosity and desire to always keep learning.

          Beyond the everyday scholar, Sebak does an incredible job to bring out the hero in everyone he talks to. When speaking to workers, he always uses their full name and makes it sound like you’d be extra lucky if you came on a day they were working. Every short-order cook is a chef, and every college kid working at a theme park is an important part of the tradition. Take, Keith Fortune for instance, an organist featured in Great Old Amusement Parks. If you come to this particular park’s beautiful wood-floor roller-rink, you might be lucky enough to get to hear Keith’s wonderfully musical stylings that play on the old Wurliziter with it’s pipes positioned right over the rink. Now who wouldn’t want to experience that? Even the slightly disgruntled girl trapped in a booth all summer making corn dogs in Kennywood Memories exclaims, “You haven’t lived until you’ve made a corn dog.” Whether you’re the owner of a theme park who takes joy in seeing people happy in your establishment, or a lowly corn-dog-dipper, in one of Rick Sebak’s films, you are always shown as a star.

          By now, it’s obvious that there is a fair amount of positive spin used in order to make these films what they are. But I would honestly view it more as bringing out the best in people and situations. Throughout his films there are times perhaps, when the subject matter verges on the brink of a touchy or negative subject, but we never teeter too close to the edge. A good example of an overall topic that could have easily been taken in a negative direction is A Cemetery Special. Any way you slice it, this is a film largely about death. This is not generally something we think of as a happy-go-lucky subject for a documentary, but somehow, in his infinitely positive way, Rick Sebak makes it one. He begins the film by saying, “We’re all going to die. There’s no way around it.”(A Cemetery Special) Right from the start he lays it all out on the table, but quickly changes our focus to the beauty of the cemeteries and the warmth and comfort the traditions around them create for people. In the film we get to experience many different rituals surrounding this culture, but there is always a hint of humor in the mix. We get to see the tombstone of a hypochondriac that reads, “I told you I was sick,” and many other quirky and fun elements that do so much in keeping us from getting dragged down into more serious thoughts about death. He ends the program with one of his famous soliloquies, “Walking through a cemetery can remind you of your inevitable end and thinking about that can make you appreciate a little more, all the beauty, wonderfulness, and even the other people all around you. Just helps to keep you on your toes.” (A Cemetery Special)  There are lots of other more subtle examples of Sebak dodging anything too serious, such as protestors at the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest, people desperately stuck continuously riding a roller-coaster for months while trying to win a $50,000 who all end up winners, with money in their pockets and trips to Hawaii. Things are always happily resolved before our brows get too furrowed. Another matter that is gladly breezed over is the unhealthy factor that could occupy our minds during all of his delicious food specials. Obviously a peanut butter sandwich with bacon on it is not going to do much for our health, but the matter of the food being bad for you is only joked about. It is made clear to us that this is more about just comfort food, “Let’s face it, a hot dog will make you happy. It’s about more than just nutrition and calories.” (A Hot Dog Program) This food is about love and traditions so much so, that it makes us feel not only less guilty, but actually good about participating in the tradition of American overeating.

     The last factor that I would like to talk about is the idea of the Americana/Kitsch factor at play in all of these films. In my interview, I asked Rick how he would describe his films to someone who had never seem one, he responded, “…slightly wacky’, not totally wacky, good natured celebratory documentaries.” I believe that the “slightly wacky” factor is very important in making these films so accessible, and therefore imperative in their success in the documentary world. By always keeping the subject matter light-hearted, fun, and quirky, the audience gets to learn, but are always entertained. Many documentarians would be criticized for putting too much entertainment in their films, but with Sebak, the films’ integrity are never harmed by this, in fact they become more honest. His films are always completely straightforward with what they are about and what they want to accomplish. Because his goals are simple and positive, he never misleads his viewers.

     On top of helping make his films enjoyable and accessible to his viewers, the “slightly wacky” factor also does a great job highlighting a wonderful aspect of America. In A Program about Unusual Building and Other Roadside Stuff, the owner of a fish shaped museum comments, “It takes us out of everyday life into the world of what’s possible.” These silly and seemingly weird buildings remind us that the American dream tells us that anything is possible here, no matter how crazy. The owner of a house shaped like a big shoe commented, “It’s very typical American, and it goes back I think to our innate optimism for the future and for our country, and hopefully for our economy.” (…Roadside Stuff) This idea is one of the things this country was built on. In the film a woman tells us the story of her father who built a house shaped like a duck, “He wanted to see if he could do it, and he did.” (…Roadside Stuff) It’s not only about our ability to do anything we put our minds to, but also about indulging in the silly and just enjoying it. “It’s a good, happy feelings, there’s nothing rational about it.” (…Roadside Stuff) In A Hot Dog Program we get a look at the festivities surrounding the Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest, Rick describes it as, “overblown, outrageous, and silly. It’s all-American.” (A Hot Dog Program) The quaint little places we see in his films may not be million-dollar businesses, or world famous, but to me, they embody the realized American dream more so than anything else.

     There are many reasons why Rick Sebak is a documentarian who should not be overlooked. He has created a formula to make documentary films that even my dad likes to watch, and that is a feat to be celebrated.  He lets us in on the secret little wonderful places to get a great sandwich, while reminding us of all the things that make our country still pretty great, leaving politics at the door.  We get to hear people just like us talk about things we are all passionate about, but don’t usually give much thought to. We get to feeling endlessly nostalgic while watching segments about places we’ve never even been, and when we get to see places we have been, we feel like a genuine part of something really special. There are not many documentaries that actually make you dosomething. Even if that something is walking down the street to a little restaurant you’ve never been to before because you need a cheese steak after watching Sandwiches You Will Like, or making sure you take the time out to go to your favorite amusement park this summer, Rick Sebak’s films will motivate you to take action. “Sebak’s work—a mix of factual tidbits and individuals’ experiences—cultivates a desire to experience the less-traveled places…In what he seeks out, there’s a conscious desire to showcase, highlight, or celebrate a parallel universe.” (June-Friesen 17) So the next time you’re channel surfing and you come across one of his films, stay and watch, because you might not only learn something about hot dogs, you could learn something about yourself.

   Bilbliography

A Cemetary Special. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 2005.

A Hot Dog Program. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 1999.

A Program About Unusual Buildings and Other Roadside Stuff. Dir. Rick Sebak.DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 2004.

Great Old Amusement Parks. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 1999.

It’s the Neighborhoods. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh,2004.

June-Friesen, Katy. “Every Place is not the same: Sebak revels in differences, Finds plenty along the Lincoln Highway.” Pittsburgh Post Gazette. 17 Sept. 2007.

Kennywood Memories. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 1988.

Martinelli, Rosemary. “What’s Happening.” On Q Magazine. March 2007 issue.

Pennsylvania Diners and Other Roadside Restaurants. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD             WQED Pittsburgh, 1993.

Sandwiches You Will Like. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 2002.

Sebak, Rick. Personal Interview. 21 Nov. 2010.

Sebak, Rick. “Order the Special.” Forward: The Magazine of Seton Hill University. Commencement speech. Fall/Winter 2007 edition.

Something About Oakland. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 2000.

South Side. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 1998.

The Mon, the Al, and the O. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 1988.

Thing’s We’ve Made. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 2003.

To Market, To Market, To Buy a Fat Pig. Dir. Rick Sebak. DVD WQED Pittsburgh, 2007.

Vennare, Cally. “A Great Story Well Told.” Larrimor’s. Spring 2010 issue.

[analreading]

Nicktoons: Paving the Way for Creator-Driven Animation on TV

"I have this theory about what humans need to be truly human. They need food, they need shelter, they need companionship — but what sets them apart from animals? Cartoons!”   -John Kricfalusi, creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show

          Since it’s initial launch in April of 1979 Nickelodeon has strived to provide a new brand of entertainment for children. With shows featuring kids starring in their own non-patronizing programs, it was clear from the start that this would become the kind of network that kids actually felt something for. By 1991, the network had acquired enough success that they could finally afford to fund the production of their own brand of cartoons, and with the green light given to three lucky shows, “Nicktoons” were born. Unlike many other cartoons popular at this time, each show was put largely in the hands of the creators, which made “Nicktoons” some of the most innovative pieces of animation ever seen on cable. “From storyboard to cel, the characters and their antics were determined by the artist and the writers, rather than such outside forces as comic book and toy companies…it was obvious to viewers that Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy were products of individuals who loved, enjoyed, and cared about cartoons, rather than a team of jaded executives who saw animation as merely a means to a selling end.” (Erickson 42) In this paper I would like to discuss the impact of Nickelodeon’s choice to give creative control to the visionary animators that birthed some of the most beloved cartoons of the 1990s, as well as examine the elements used to make each show a success.

      August 11, 1991…the day that Nicktoons first graced our TV sets. Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy all stand out as extraordinary works of animation, so I would like to tackle them one at a time, starting with Jim Jenkin’s tale of the most above-average, average boy the cartoon world has ever known, Doug. “The character was an eleven-and-a-half-year-old boy named Doug Funnie, who felt painfully average and unsure of himself. The comedic stories were told from Doug’s perspective and showed how he, along with his overactive imagination, got through confusing or awkward situations.” (Hendershot 100) One of the traits that made Doug such a success was it’s use of pop-culture references throughout the show, but especially in Doug’s imagination. In order to escape from his everyday problems, he often imagined himself as such heroic characters as Smash Adams (James Bond type), Durango Doug (modeled after Indiana Jones), the quirky and memorable, Quail Man, and many others. Inspiration was also drawn from nostaligic TV icons, “…among his new foes were school bully and all-around jerk Roger Klotz (whose “Eddie Haskell” persona was not the only thing Doug borrowed from the old live action Leave it to Beaver series) and Vice Principal Bone, a Don Knotts clone whose strict adherence to rules and regulations was guarantee to cause agony for Doug and his friend, an ultimately to backfire on the pompous Mr. Bone.” (Erickson 172) These references worked on two different levels, the classic characters were fun and entertaining to kids who may not have know what they were based off of, and also enjoyable to parents watching the show with their kids.

           Like all of the other Nicktoons, Doug had it’s own unique style of character design and animation. Each character was drawn in a different color and the overall look of the show had it’s a very loosely drawn look that was simple and endearing. “The design had the feel of an Ink Tank ad, with simple shapes, wavy lines, and water-colored backgrounds.” (Hendershot 100) Each of these elements was carefully crafted by the show’s creator, Jim Jenkins, whose involvement with the show was no doubt integral to the series, “What helped make Doug work was that the creator…Jenkins and Doug were in many ways the same person, and the cartoon was the creator’s story. We found that the creator’s connection to the character was crucial to making the show a success.” (Hendershot 101) Without the heartfelt infusion of it’s creator’s personal ideas and experiences, Doug wouldn’t have been half the success that it proved to be. When you watch Doug, you feel connected to the characters and instantly sympathize with Doug’s weekly plight since the same thing may have happened to you. “Doug was the smart, nice kid we all wanted to be…” (Erickson 172) In the world of product-driven animation, a show like this was not possible, until Nickelodeon broke the conventions of mainstream animation.

          The next Nicktoon I would like to address is the brain-child of Paul Germain, Arlene Klasky, and Gabor Csupo, Rugrats. Sick of the constrictions of working on The Simpsons, the shows creators wanted to make a show where they had free-reign to mold it as they saw fit. Germain pitched the show as, “…this little baby who talks when nobody’s looking, and gets into mischief, and unlocks his crib with a screwdriver and gets out…the two parents are oblivious—they’re yuppies, always worried about their yuppie things; they think they’re being good parents but they’re oblivious. Which is, incidentally, kind of a Nickelodeon theme; generally your parents are stupid, they don’t know what they’re doing; you’re the one who knows.” (Neuwirth 202) During their hijinks, the babies often ended up solving the problems (and only sometimes created them) such as fixing Stu’s inventions or reuniting a lost bride with her husband. Always ended up on top in the end, and rarely getting scolded for the trouble they caused.

      The show was the biggest financial commitment Nickelodeon had ever made, and each episode went through a rigorous process before it aired. In keeping with Nick’s kid-empowered ideals, the writers aimed to create stories that showed the babies as real people, not just devices to tell a generic story. “Rugrats, at least in the first season, refused to play ‘cute’ with its kids. The viewers genuinely felt as though they were assimilating information by way of a brightly innocent one-year-olds mentality, rather than witnessing some clever adult writer’s patronizing slant on babyhood.” (Erickson 425) Six drafts were refined for three months before episodes were shot and Germain, Klasky and Csupo were deeply involved in every step of production. All the hard work paid off however, when the show earned Nickelodeon it’s first Emmy award in 1992 with others to follow, and it also became in the highest rated cartoon by 1994. Stephen Spielberg described it as, “…a TV Peanuts of our time.” (Desowitz)

          The show’s unique visual style is no doubt also a contributor to it’s success. Germain was always cautious of making the show “too cute,” “Look babies are cute as it is. Let’s fight the cuteness and try to work away from it. Which, I think, is why the show works.” (Neuwirth 205) Germain’s counter-intuitive thought process was applied strongly not only to the stories, but to the character design and general art direction of the show. The fact that the characters weren’t as conventionally adorable as other programs, gave the show an edge that made it all the more noteworthy. “The babies had a homely look that made them hipper than their smooth, glossy counterparts.” (Hendershot 110)

      Even though they did push the envelope away, it never went so far as to take away from the accessibility of the show, “Klasky-Csupo’s visual schematics helped to de-sensitize the proceedings with squashed, lightly grotesque character design, though the Rugrats’ essential lovability was never sacrificed.” (Erickson 425) The show’s environment was just as revolutionary and artistic, “Visually, the series was a cartoon buff’s dream, with ever-moving multiple perspective backgrounds and intricate point of view traveling shots (almost always from floor level just like the kids) Adding to the enjoyment was the carefully monitored color-scheme, the scribbly R.O. Blechman-like inklines around the characters, and the overall seemingly effortless flow of movement.” (Erickson 426)

       Even though the advanced visual techniques and character design played a part in legitimizing the show, it was the spirit of the show that made it so beloved. Klasky, Csupo, and Germain’s goal was to create a show that would appeal to children even after they had grown up. “Fortunately, they were given complete artistic freedom from the fledgling Nickelodeon cable network, which could afford to take a chance on such a revolutionary concept. ‘We grew up together,’ says Marjorie Cohn, Nickelodeon’s Sr. VP, Current Series. ‘How deeply it’s touched kids’ lives. It’s very personal. It’s not a squash and stretch animation where the emphasis is on physical gags and explosions. Rugratshelped us see just how much kids like to see themselves on the air. Even though they are babies, their situations are believable. It’s part of the adventure of growing up.” (Desowitz)

       After a long successful run, the show stopped production in 1994, but the show’s popularity continued to grow when Nick’s president decided to re-run the show during dinnertime. As the adult audience expanded, Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo were praised as geniuses, and their studio went on to create other shows such as The Wild Thornberries and produced multiple Rugrats movies, and eventually a spinoff movie and show, Rugrats: All Growed Up! In 2001. Rugrats open many doors allowing animators to control their own shows unlike the formulaic cartoons of the past. “It’s opened up a whole new genre: real life for kids. It proved we were not doomed to doing superheroes and cats and mice.” (Desowitz)

         The third, and most controversial of the original Nicktoons was John Kricfalusi’s unforgettable anthem, The Ren & Stimpy Show. Kricfalusi’s passion for his show was ever-present even before the show was in production. During every pitch he did, he is described to have yelled and jumped around in such a manic way that most of the network executives ended up calling security. Nickelodeon’s Vanessa Coffey (who discovered the talent for all three of these original Nicktoons) was the exception. With such a dangerous gamble, they wanted something no one had ever seen before, and Kricfalusi delivered just that. “Nickelodeon needed to draw attention to their commitment to exploring a new, creator-driven mode of production. ‘At all costs, we wanted to change the face of animation…These episodes are designed to be refreshingly outrageous for at least 15 years’ (Vanessa Coffey, Nickelodeon vice president 1992) To make such an impact, Ren & Stimpy played around with and subverted nearly every convention of the cartoon—beginning with the element that first captures the attention: its audiovisuality” (Harrison 157)

      Kricfalusi’s methods defied many conventions to make his show exactly what he envisioned. He even played the voice of Ren himself because he explains, “I cast a whole string of professional actors, and none of them could get the intensity that I wanted. They might be better actors, but they just couldn’t get the soul right, so I just did it myself.” (Dixon 86)  The portrayal of Ren and Stimpy themselves was always paramount to Kricfalusi, and he strived to make them different from any other characters seen before, “The influence on the acting in our cartoons is obviously not from other cartoons. It’s more from movies and real life. Our characters have real-life experiences thrown into a surreal world. Ren and Stimpy act like people. They don’t act like funny animals. They look like funny animals. But they act like human beings.” (Dixon 91)

         Another factor that made the characters so original was the innovative animation behind their character and environment’s art design, taking apart the image, opposed to the smooth factory produced look animation usually had. “Kricfalusi made full, exuberant use of animation’s ability to contort, disfigure, dismantle, and otherwise hilariously mistreat his characters. Besides being exhilarating to watch, this exploitation of its animatedness signals the show’s determination to literally disrupt other conventions of television animation.” (Harrison 157)  Beyond Kricfalusi’s involvement, many other animators worked on the show just as passionately. He insists that it is his talented staff of “real” animators that made the show a success, “The drawing is the most important part, the hardest part. Most cartoons today are run by writers…the drawing in animation should always take precedence…all our writers are artists. We know what you can and can’t do. The writing is actually the easiest part. We can write a story in an afternoon, and

        I think our stories fare with some of the best in animation. But the hard part is to make the stories work. That takes drawing skill. Real hard, sweating drawing skills that very few people have. That’s what makes our cartoons work.” (Dixon 94) It is obvious to anyone who sees the show how integrated the stories and characters are with the visual style of animation. Going way past the boundaries that Rugrats was putting forth, Ren & Stimpy took the anti-cute factor to a whole new level. “Perhaps the most obvious visual feature of Ren & Stimpy is the grossness and vulgarity of its design. Ren and Stimpy are spectacularly ugly. The practical function of this visual style was to stand out, glaringly, against the show’s smooth, curvy competitors such as Care Bearsand Captain Planet. But this visual style is also meaningful. If Disney’s ‘relentless striving for cuteness’ helped create and nurture the ‘family’ audience, the look of Ren & Stimpy literally signified its active disinterest in such an audience.” (Harrison 157)

        Kricfalusi’s rejection of all things conformist in the world of animation got him several things, a hit children’s cartoon, an unexpected adult following, and fired from his job. By the time the second season began, Nickelodeon started censoring episodes, and when he would not comply, they took Kricfalusi off of the show altogether and continued producing it at a different animation studio. This event was one of the most talked about media controversies of 1992. Nickelodeon tried to put the blame on non-creative elements, but it was clear that his off-the-wall antics had proved more than they bargained for. “The filmmaker allegedly missed production deadlines and exceeded budgets on a regular basis. Kricfalusi claimed that Nickelodeon did not understand the series. Confronted with something that was too innovative and creative for pedestrian minds, averred the filmmaker, the company chose to remove Kricfalusi in order to produce a more conventional and low-budget series.” (Hendershot 155)

        The show did continue without him, but the loss of Kricfalusi was devastatingly noticed by it’s fans, especially it’s adult audience. Richard Gehr ofThe Village Voice commented that, “Wrenching Ren and Stimpy away from Kricfalusi is like taking Twin Peaks away from David Lynch.” (Hendershot 155) Many critics blame Kricfalusi’s downfall on the same factor that made his show so popular with adults. Mark Langer describes him as a member of a group of young people who, “continually redefines itself outside the taste norms of mainstream society.” (Hendershot 174) The show’s off-color style visually and textually was something not usually seen by cartoon audience, at least not to the same degree. Kricfalusi’s contemporary spin was desirable by everyone but Nickelodeon’s network officials. Although his revolution was short run, Kricfalusi’s still-born Ren & Stimpy still made a huge impact on the world of animation. “Ren & Stimpy made two key contributions to extending the paradigms of TV animation. First, it flaunted the industrialized mode of production by stripping down limited animation to a highly stylized aesthetic which has since been imitated by (among others) Disney and Hanna-Barbera…Second, it demonstrated that the ‘gross look’ did not appeal exclusively to children but also attracted adults, a revelation exploited in the degraded aesthetic and content of shows such as Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, and Gogs.” (Harrison 159)

          In many ways, Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon had the same goal, to change the face of animation forever, and by making Ren & Stimpy, they did exactly that.  Unfortunately Kricfalusi’s vision of what animation should be, did not line up with Nick’s image exactly, but was no less ground-breaking. “The conspiratorial tone could well be Kricfalusi’s own. In The Ren & Stimpy Show, he saw a chance to reverse thirty years of an art form’s decline, to revitalize animation. The absurdist dialogue, the manic pace, and the absence of comfy moral bromides made his show subversive, dangerous, and funny.” (Smallbridge 46) Kricfalusi’s Ren & Stimpy did have a short resurrection on Spike TV (The network for men) in 2003, where it was perhaps a bit more TV appropriate, but the show will always be remembered as a part of Nickelodeon’s history. “’Part of the thrill was wondering how the Nickelodeon children’s network could have sanctioned such a giddily sick celebration of flatulence, shaving scum, mucal discharge, and mental cruelty.’ In short, these reviewers explicitly revel in Ren & Stimpy’s disruptive play.” (Harrison 157)

          These three shows, although very different from each other, all served as important inspirations to the kind of cartoons we know and love today. It is an incredible thing for me to watch these shows again as an adult and enjoy them on an entirely different level, somewhat nostalgic, but also just because they are great cartoons. Each put forth a message in it’s own voice that made them unforgettable parts of animation’s history.  Nickelodeon’s bold move to risk it all to give creator-driven animation a chance, not only paid off in the incredible success of each one of these shows, but also in creating a brand of animation all their own that has continued to be a renowned outlet for quality programming. On top of that, Nicktoons also inspired funding for other new shows on Nickelodeon and all throughout the TV world, “The success of these programs motivated Viacom to continue to fund animation studios, and Nickelodeon has since become as well known for it’s creator-driven cartoons as its live-action comedy sketches.” (Banet 182) It is clear the large-scale impact that Nicktoons caused on the world of children’s TV. If Nick hadn’t encouraged these talented and dedicated individuals to let their creativity run wild, executive-driven cartoons would probably still reign supreme. Thanks to Nicktoons, kids (and adults) can enjoy cartoons worthy of their time.

You want to learn? That’s what school’s for. You want people to have morals and ethics? That’s what parents are for. You want to have a good time? That’s what cartoons are for!” -John Kricfalusi

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Written while attending Tisch School of the Arts Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2011

Bibliography

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. Kid’s Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship. London:  Duke University Press, 2007.

Booker, Keith M. Drawn to Television: Prime Time Animation from The Flintstones to Family Guy. Connecticut: Praeger, 2006.

Desowitz, Bill. “Rugrats Celebrates 10th Anniversary”. Animation Magazine.

Dixon, Wheeler Winston. “Creating Ren and Stimpy” Collected Interviews: Voices From Twentieth-Century Cinema. Illinois: Carbondale, 2001.

Erickson, Hal. Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949-1993. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc, 1995.

Harrison, Mark. and Carol A. Stabile. Prime Time Animation. London, New York: Routledge, 2003.

Hendershot, Heather. Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economy of America’s Only TV Channel for Kids. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Neuwirth, Allan. Makin’ Toons: Inside the Most Popular Animated TV Shows and Movies. New York: Allworth Press, 2003.

Smallbridge, Justin. Saturday Night. Toronto: Apr 1994. Vol. 109, Iss. 3; pg 46

[analreading]

"Echoes of the War": Sounds of Capitalism in Fassbinder’s BRD Trilogy"

       In his unforgettable post-war BRD Trilogy, Rainer Werner Fassbinder delivers up a trio of female protagonists trying to survive in an irreversibly damaged environment. Each film tells a different story of trying to build an independent life in the post war landscape, and the difficulties (especially women) had in finding their way in a society in which gender roles were almost completely undefined post-war. To imply this chaos and confusion, Fassbinder uses various cinematic techniques to convey the muddled state of his characters, many which stem from satirizing melodramatic film conventions. “Fassbinder announces at the beginning of each of the three films his use of the spectacle as a strategic tool for the analysis of power relations in a German historical context; he seals his commitment to this methodology at the conclusion. He brackets the narrative with spectacular representations referring to concrete social (and generally overtly political) forces which extend the social relationships in the narrative into a larger and continuous historical process.” (Feinstein 45) In this paper I want to further articulate how the use of sound design in these films creates an atmosphere for the viewer that communicates the inner workings of the characters and the environment, and in tandem achieves, (in both subtle and extravagant ways) a strong social and political commentary.

       In the first film in this trilogy, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Fassbinder follows the immediate post war years to chronicle the effect it has on a young bride who lost her husband to the war before they could begin their life together. The film begins with the actual wedding ceremony where a picture of Hitler is seen being blown off a wall by gunfire signifying the downturn of the war effort. Maria and Hermann must beg the preacher to stay and finish their vows as gunfire and bombs fall down around them. This chaotic beginning is almost humorous in it’s violence and extravagance. As they become man and wife, we hear the loud sound of a baby crying louder than any other sound in the mix, perhaps articulating the idea of the post-war life being a completely new one in which one must be dragged into kicking and screaming.

       The next noticeable sound design element is the presence of the radio in Maria’s family home. This is a trend that continues throughout the film, and is a beacon of the public voice and agenda intruding into the private home that cannot be ignored. The great importance the state of the outside world has on the private sphere is made clear through this device. “The film’s primary level of narrative, that of the ‘private history’ of the everyday life of common people, implies a tradition of apoliticism. In Maria Braun, ‘public history’ regularly intrudes into the lives of the characters, usually in the form of radio speeches and announcements, but the characters remain oblivious to such intrusions. This narrative style, along with the large number of minor characters, allows the film to reproduce effectively the “microhistory” of the period, rendering it a valuable depiction of the early material deprivation and the later material plenty that submerged critical political, social, and historical consciousness.” (Cocks 1129) Although the radio is often playing in the background (often mixed loudly) to create a constant flow of information being afflicted on the private citizens, the actual broadcasts can become more important on a character level. For instance, one of the first times we understand the importance of the broadcast is when we see Maria listening desperately to the missing persons reports for a sign of her husband. The subtle manipulation of the voice of the radio is often used masterfully by Fassbinder on smaller occasions, like when Maria trades some cigarettes she received from an American GI to her mother in exchange for a brooch she can trade on the black market, the droning radio broadcast becomes louder, reminding us of the influence of the war and how it has changed the normal dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship.

       The use of the radio broadcast at Maria’s family home continues to punctuate the effect of the post-war situation on Maria and those around her. Later in the film when she returns home after receiving her job from Karl-Oswald, the sound of the radio is mixed louder than it previously was, becoming a very conscious nuisance that makes it difficult to hear or pay attention to what the characters are saying. In this scene her family comments on how much Maria has changed, the loudness of the radio reinforces the effect the state of the country has had on Maria’s personality. On another visit to her family home for her mother’s birthday, we are greeted by the familiar radio broadcast, but it is changed in exchange for music as a part of the birthday celebration. In this scene we notice how much her mother has changed, adopting new hairstyles and fashions along with a new boyfriend. It is obvious her mother has in a way turned a blind eye to her old life in exchange for a much more commercialized and ignorant existence. Maria speaks to her friend Betti at the party, who comments on how she feels as if she is already dead. Maria’s mother proclaims in stark constrast they should all, “dance until they drop,” indicating that the best way for her to survive the bleak post-war setting is to forget about the reality of the situation and blindly indulge in what pleasures are available.

        Maria herself becomes a prime example of trying to fill her empty life with consumerist pleasures in an attempt to reclaim or rebuild some part of her past. Maria sacrifices her innocence for financial success, and even after getting out of prison, Hermann sacrifices more time with Maria to lay claim the Karl-Oswald’s inheritance. In the end all the riches they have gathered do nothing in bringing them back together. “Emotional and spiritual decline, parallel commercial success. [Maria’s] behavior becomes more and more erratic…in Fassbinder’s world, the priority of the material necessarily results in apocalypse.” (Feinstein 48) The final use of the radio broadcast is famously in the form of the 1954 world cup broadcast. The presence of the broadcast begins with the pre-game show that is playing while Maria eats alone at a restaurant after discovering that Karl-Oswald has died, foregrounding the beginning of the end for Maria, and a larger new beginning for Germany itself. Maria returns home to be reunited with her husband, and the sound of the soccer broadcast accompanies Maria’s frantic preparation for the perfect reunion with her lost love. She does not actually come to him, but runs around the house changing her outfit and preparing everything nervously, further postponing the reunion that can never be worth all they have both sacrificed. The influence of the public state on the private sphere of Maria’s home life comes to head in this final scene. Even though Maria has succeeded in accomplishing everything she wanted, the influence of Germany’s history is something she cannot escape, and in the end it is her own attempt to rise from the ashes that turns her into ashes, and the audience is left shaked up with mixed feelings, “Having won the soccer championship that year Germany was embarking on a new era of confidence. The self-awareness of 1954 refers back to the war years…whether the past is remembered as an event of immense importance but still only of limited duration or what it is romanticized as Maria romanticized her marriage, can only be answered by the people directly.” (Reimer 142)

       In The Marriage of Maria Braun, Fassbinder also employs other sound cues as a symbol of the everyday influence and oppression of war that are perhaps overlooked in comparison to the importance of the presence of the radio broadcast. The nonchalant use of patriotic songs is also present throughout the film, as if imbedded into the subconscious of all German citizens. We first hear Grandpa Berger whistling a patriotic tune in his state of Alzheimer’s bliss. We also hear Germany’s national anthem being played in a back alleyway while black-market deals are being made. A man is playing the athem on an accordion that he is trying to sell. He insists the instrument is worthless without knowing how to play the song, but at the same time he is selling the instrument. This perhaps perfectly encapsulates the crisis of national identity at the time, meaning everything but being worthless at the same time to the people of Germany. The use of music overall in the film creates a satirical take on the state of the melodrama that is being portrayed. One device that is used throughout the film is the sudden dramatic blast of music when certain events occur. The reason this device is interesting to me is because it is not usually heard at the main dramatic moments of the film. Some examples of it’s use are when Maria walks inside a building after a date with Bill, her black GI suitor, or when she is visiting the doctor for an exam. It does not occur at seriously dramatic moments, such as Hermann’s return or Karl-Oswald’s death.

        I believe that Fassbinder chooses to subvert our expectations of melodramatic devices in order to downplay the drama of personal events within the shadow of the larger post-war situation. “Fassbinder brands his distinctive type of melodrama with a modernistic interpretation. By manipulating the formal elements of the melodrama, through which he makes reference to historical events, he undermines the logic of the narrative. He subverts many of the formal conventions of the genre while adhering to others.” (Feinstein 54) The oppression of the shadow of the war can never be escaped in this film. Even in the most subtle sound design elements portray echoes of the war, one of which struck me in particular was the background noise every time a scene is shown at Karl-Oswald’s factory/office. Perhaps it is just the sound of the factory’s machinery, but to me the noise in these scenes always sounded exactly like gunfire. Mixed louder than normal background ambience, I believe the reminder of being in battle every time we enter the office is not unintentional. The idea of not being able to escape the war, especially through exploiting capitalism, is consciously implemented in every track of the sound design. “The Marriage of Maria Braun offers significant insight not only into the social history of postwar western Germany but also into the radical critiques of the social and political system of the Federal Republic common during the 1960s and 1970s, critiques powerfully concerned not just with socioeconomic theory and practice but with the substance and consciousness of recent German history as a whole.” (Cocks 1130) Although Maria and Hermann perish in the end, we understand that Germany marches on without them, leaving them as mere casulaties of the war in the non-traditonal sense. This trend reoccurs in several instances in the next film in the trilogy, Veronika Voss.

       The second film in Fassbinder’s trilogy, Veronika Voss, is the story of an out of work Nazi-era actress struggling to even exist in the post-war world. The film opens with Veronika watching herself in a film which foreshadows her own demise. After leaving the movie theater she meets  Robert Krohn, a indiscriminate man who she intrigues with her sultry and manic personality. We initially think Veronika is a little crazy when she is afraid to have someone identify her on the trolley. We soon understand that these delusions of grandeur are hardly true anymore, and her shattered confidence and drug addiction cause her to behave very erratically. The sound design in Veronika Voss creates another multi-layered presence of the effects of the war on the characters in the film. The overall soundtrack is a somewhat typical melodramatic accompaniment, with what sources have called a “Bavarian” influence, which although was supposedly very at home in the film’s setting, gives a bit of a manic, circus-like feel to the soundtrack in my opinion. Similar to the melodramatic soundtrack used in Maria Braun, Fassbinder again creates a layered and satirical meaning behind while it also blends well with the mood. In this instance, other than merely toying with the meaning of melodramatic conventions for the sake of satire alone, Fassbinder’s use of this type of music also creates a level of meaning related to the character of Veronika, who obsesses throughout the movie over every moment in her life being more like the world of a film. Her outward obsession with lighting and mood create a perfect reason for the soundtrack to be as it is, and the Bavarian twist gives it a bit of a manic edge that goes perfectly with the world the film portrays. Beyond the film’s non-diagetic score, the music of the film also becomes a powerful social and political tool for Fassbinder’s commentary. Devices such as an ominous drum beat are used throughout the film to articulate the mania and urgency felt by the characters, specifically Veronika. There are moments  where the drum beats or the tempo of the music will change to accompany Veronika’s fast paced, manic speeches about her future work, or life situation in general. This catering of soundtrack elements to fit Veronika’s mental condition assist in further accentuating her frenzied and irreversible state of being, caused from being forced to live in this post-war environment with her baggage related to Nazism. Veronika’s film career becomes her ultimate flaw as it is the main thing that she defines herself by, and the one thing that holds her back from existing plainly withing society post-war. She is not able to let go of her film career and therefore cannot move forward, so she clings to any scrap she can of her past fame or possible bleak future movie prospects. Her relationship to the camera is interestingly defined in the scene where she actually goes to the studio to play a role for the first time in a long while. The sound design Fassbinder uses in the scene accentuates the loud buzzing of the lights and equipment, with the camera itself (which is forced to zoom in towards Veronika as she performs each take) sounds like a piece of surgical equipment coming closer and closer as Veronika falters. This to me, reveals the violence and intensity Fassbinder sees as a necessity for making powerful films, while also giving us insight to Veronika’s shattered personality and relation to the glamour and falsity of the world of film and the Germany of the Nazi era.

       Within one of the most powerful setting in the film, the diabolical Dr. Katz’s office, Fassbinder creates a surreal environment comprised of stark white decor and the never-ending presence of an American armed forces radio broadcast playing cowboy-Western music. This capitalistic influence as an overtone for the dirty dealings of Dr. Katz and her cohorts, (one of which is a black American GI) again remind us of the inevitable influence of greed in post-war life. Dr. Katz is a fascinating amalgamation of the horrors created by the influence of the war. “We can see how Fassbinder integrates his formal method of the spectacle with a sense of history as an on-going political process. Veronika displays herself most strikingly and vulnerably to Dr. Katz, who, is a signifier indicative of a signified (the society of a free market in post war Germany). It is implied that Dr. Katz functioned as a doctor in the concentration camps; this provides a link with an otherwise suppressed past.” (Feinstein 49)  Dr. Katz’s jewish affliation becomes an embodiment of the insanity  concerning the strong sense of victimhood that arose from the war. One of the couples she takes advantage of with her ploy is an elderly couple who have survived the concentration camps. They thank her unendingly for her help, and she repays them in kind by pushing them aside and allowing them to suffer when she decides it is time for them to die so she can inherit their possessions. After suffering from withdrawals, the couple proceeds to kill themselves by taking pills with tea and honey to mask their “bitter” taste, (which is often referenced by Veronika as well) mirroring quite literally the bitter taste of living in this post-war environment. The use of a ticking clock also creates a clearly defined ominous inevitability of death for certain types of people in the post-war world.

       The strange and stifling environment of Dr. Katz office, is also where Veronika meets her end. Similar to the situation with the elderly couple, Dr. Katz decides that it is time for Veronika to die. Before she comes to her end, the doctor throws a “going away” party for Veronika at her decedent mansion which is the doctor is about to inherit. At the party Veronika sings a song in English, “Memories are made of this,” making us inquire about the manipulation of history in the post-war climate, and the value of Veronika’s life work as an actress creating propaganda. “Fassbinder offers a stimulating counterpoint between sound and image tracks. (The American songs which constantly accompany the action in Veronika Voss function as an obsessive sub-text, providing a voice for the silent presence of American imperialism, the GI dealer who haunts the clinic and specifically ‘Memories are Made of This’ offers a concise verbal pointer to the fetishistic quality of Robert’s obsession, Veronika’s dilemma, and the viewers stake in the whole affair.” (Jenkins 4)

       In the final scene of the film, Veronika is locked in a room at the doctor’s office, essentially left to die. The sound design in this sequence combines the usual drone of the cowboy music, with such on the nose lyrics as, “They’re gonna get you, run boy run” and a variety of other distracting sounds such as church bells for a Good Friday service, the sound of a ticking clock, and a mass broadcast in Latin. These intersecting sound elements create a perfect landscape for Veronika’s final state of mania. When she finally meets her demise, we hear only the cowboy music, reminding us of the main reason for her death. The evil presence of capitalist greed exploiting the battered and bruised victims of post-war Germany shown through the state sanctioned drug trade, becomes a meaningful device for Fassbinder as it was something that affected his own life. His personal struggle with drug use, which lead to his early death, cannot be overlooked when understanding the potency of the world shown in this film. “…the ease at which [Fassbinder] could obtain and even publicly flaunt his use of [drugs] came to be seen by him as symptomatic of the State’s ability to find ways to wear down or eliminated any opposition, including his own. In this respect, is it mere coincidence that the most frequently heard song on the soundtrack, 16 Tons, contains the oft-repeated refrain (to which Fassbinder’s visual and aural editing gives prominence)…’I owe my soul to the company store’?” (Macbean 12)

       The final installment in Fassbinder’s trilogy, Lola has been described as, “a satiric tribute to capitalism.” Continuing in the “dance until you drop” fashion ofMaria Braun's mother, Lola takes on an altogether different viewpoint of the post-war lifestyle. Lola becomes in a way, a celebration of the ignorant bliss that arose during the time of the economic miracle. Similar to the previous two films, the non-diagetic soundtrack serves as both a genuine accompaniment to the action of the film, and a satire of the melodramatic form of music at the same time. He also emphasizes other melodramatic musical tropes in such devices as Von Bohm’s violin performances, which paint him as the over sentimentalized and unrealistic gentlemen he is, while at the same time showing the inner strength and genuine beauty of his character. He even comments at one point about Esslin’s anti-war movement, “I’m always intrigued by fruitless passions” indicating his romantic nature, yet down to earth and cut-throat personality. Unlike the downtrodden characters in the previous two films, Fassbinder creates characters that revel in their power, whether it be unjustly earned or not. Lola herself uses her sexuality and independence as a weapon and as a means of making a living. You can tell by the way she performs that her song is her currency, and she is confident in what she is selling. The popular songs Fassbinder chooses for her to perform also portray that same degree of pride even in their falsity, “Other auteurs have often used the device of popular songs from the past commenting on the present as memory in order to point up the false consciousness of such popular expressions. By contrast, Fassbinder’s use of these songs, though also acknowledging their falseness, retains the forceful emotional energy that they originally projected, so much so that they seem to be among the few genuine forms of emotional expression within the film’s aesthetic dynamic.” (Bergfelder 32) The use of song throughout the film becomes a window into the inner-workings of Lola as well. When we see her sing with Von Bohm in the church, she thanks him for singing with her, and comments how it’s been a long time since she’s been able to sing so beautifully. Lola’s passion and stregth always comes out through her songs, but here we see her doubt herself for a moment and lament her lost sense of purity. Wishing momentarily perhaps that she could start fresh with Von Bohm, she quickly realizes that she must be true to the product she has become in her own right, whether pure or not.

       We witness a similar faltering of Lola’s confidence and pride when Von Bohm finally discovers her secret and sees her performing at the salon. She stumbles momentarily, but after a moment remembers who she is and why she is there, and sings even more passionately, proclaiming herself to the world no matter what anyone thinks. In the end Lola uses her power to capture Von Bohm even as a whore, and at the same time gains the power of owning the salon, and freedom to continue to sleep with Schukert. Although in the end she is owned by Schukert in a way, she is also the only true owner of herself, and exploits her feminine power to get everything she is worth. “Overall, then, Lolais not a critique of the greed and corruption of West German society of the 1950s, but a gleeful, almost Sadean, celebration of the total corruptibility and amorality of its characters, whose ‘vitality’ Fassbinder explicitly admired,” (Bergfelder 27) It is obvious by the way these characters are portrayed that Fassbinder does not want us to feel bad for them. They revel in what they have created out of the remains of past Germany, and run into the future with it proudly.  Even Von Bohm, who in way gets shafted moreso than anyone else, makes the best attempt he can to take the tangible goods he is able to salvage and create from a wretched world and move forward. “Lola makes Von Bohm just the right man both for Lola’s ticket to respectability and for postwar Germany’s launching of the ‘economic miracle.’ In both cases, Fassbinder seems to be saying, the people directly involved prefer not to look too closely at the foundations on which their apparently solid and respectable lives are built.” (Macbean 14) At the end of the film we hear the presence of a soccer game broadcast yet again, and the powerful image/sound of a caged peacock loudly squawking, perhaps a metaphor for the newly married Lola. Despite the limitations of the reality of each characters situation, each ends up satisfied in the end, taking what they could salvage from the post-war world and churning out their own little economic and personal miracles. “While the former films end with the death of their main female protagonists, and are infused with a fatalistic mood of foreboding and gloom, the eponymous protagonist of Lola not only survives, but triumphantly achieves her social aspirations by the time of the supremely ironic ‘happy ending.’” ( Bergfelder 26)

       In each of these films Fassbinder manipulates melodramatic and general filmic conventions to subvert their meaning within the context of history. Each woman he portrays suffers and struggles immensely in an attempt to provide for herself and becoming a functioning human being in the undefined post-war environment. From Maria’s fruitless ladder climbing, to Veronika’s ill-fated manipulation into drug dependency, even to Lola’s necessity to be a prostitute, Fassbinder paints portraits of women who are forced to define themselves through the terms of their country’s history. “The use of framing devices provides a key to the films’ otherwise oblique references to social and political issues, as they place the narrative in a context expanding the narrative of the melodramatic format. In almost every instance, the lead characters accept unquestioningly and unconditionally the manifestations of the dominant ideology that entrap them… [the relationships] functions in microcosm as an indicator of the generally unperceived economic and historical forces which determine each relationship.” (Feinstein 47) Never using conventions in a conventional sense, Fassbinder brings forth a trio of fascinating films with an air of satire that never lets us, or his characters, escape from the deterministic history that surrounds them at every turn.

———-

Written while attending Tisch School of the Arts Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2011

Bibliography

Bergfelder, Tim. “Popular genres and cultural legitimacy: Fassbinder’s Lola and the legacy of 1950s West German cinema.” Screen 45:1 Spring 2004.University of Oxford Press, 2004.

Cocks, Geoffrey. “The Marriage of Maria Braun by Rainer Werner Fassbinder Review.” The American Historical Review. Vol. 96, No. 4. UP Chicago, 1991.

Feinstein, Howard. “BDR 1-2-3: Fassbinder’s Postwar Trilogy and the Spectacle.” Cinema Journal 23, No. 1, Fall 1983. UP Austin, 1983.

Jenkins, Steve. “Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (Veronika Voss) Monthy Film  Bulletin. 1983  Volume:  L  Issue:  588. British Film Institute, 1982.

Macbea, James Roy. “The Cinema as Self Portrait: The final films of R.W. Fassbinder.” Cineaste 1983, 12, 4. Proquest Direct Complete pg. 8.

Reimer, Robert C. “Memories from the Past: A Study of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun." The Journal of Popular Film and Television. Vol IX, Issue 3. Edinboro, 1981.

[analreading]

Why Women Watch: The Power of Korean Dramas

Written while attending Tisch School of the Arts Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2011

     This past summer while searching for something new to watch, I came across a goofy looking show called Lie to Me in the foreign TV section of Netflix and before long, I had watched over a hundred and twenty hours of Korean TV dramas.  I knew I had found something special when I became so addicted to these shows, and after learning about the crazed fan community I realized I was definitely not alone. K-dramas exploded all over East Asia after the strict limitations on Korea’s cultural imports and exports were lifted in the late 1980s. As the popularity of Japanese TV dramas waned, with the financial support of the government, Korean dramas were able to become a major cultural export which greatly helped the Asian financial crisis post 1997. “[Korean dramas] created a 1.4 billion won in added value. It is suggestion that [they are] responsible for raising Korea’s gross domestic product by 0.2 percent. In particular, South Korea amassed $1.87 billion in three sectors that are largely related to cultural contents and activities: products, tourism, and film/television programs…According to the ministry of culture and tourism, as of 2004, exports of Korean TV programs abroad brought in $71.5 million, twice as much as foreign TV imports.” (Lee 178) This phenomenon came to be  known as the “Korean wave” or Hallyu/Hanryu, and gained popularity quickly, first in the PRC, Hong-Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, followed shortly after by Japan and then stimulated interest in places such as Vietnam and the Philippines (who have even gone so far as to film re-makes of the same shows in their own language). Due to general unavailability in the United States (with the exception of certain cultural neighborhoods, the craze of k-dramas grew through mostly illegal internet downloads, but their popularity still continued to grow. Now, because of accessible internet streaming options, the Korean wave’s popularity can be better quantified. A website called DramaFever is the spearhead for bringing accessible streaming options to US fans. Their service has now expanded to work with Hulu, a top streaming site, and k-dramas are becoming even more widely visible among US viewers. While one might assume that this service would mostly be used by Asian fans living in the US, the results report that a surprisingly high 71% of viewers are non-Asian. Caucasians makes up 40%, followed by African-American 18%, and Hispanic 13%.  52% of viewers are female, and a shockingly high 48% are male. Made up of 39% falling in the 18-24 age bracket, followed by 25% 35-49-year olds, and 17% teenagers. (Garcia 2) Outside of the thriving online community, which relies largely on the participation of dedicated “fan-subbers,” fan clubs have popped up all over the US, everywhere from Hawaii, California, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, and the number of fans watching is growing everyday.

         Korean dramas are fascinating to me due to the fact that fan enthusiasm has crossed multiple oceans, defying, in many situations, the unlikely means to easily watch the shows. In this paper I would like to discuss why fans have such a passionate reaction to these shows and what women viewers get out of watching that creates such a passionate fan base, which I would also like to look at in terms of Lauren Berlant’s “intimate public sphere.” I want to examine the presence of this fan base by articulating the elements that make fans want to go as far as South Korea itself to get the utmost out of these shows. Through the implementation of Confucianist values, mixing of traditional and modern life, and the layered glorification of consumer culture, Korean dramas create a transnationally loved product that reminds us of the true power of melodrama.

          Typical to many melodramas, Korean dramas often deal with themes such as unrequited love, familial problems, and difficulties with money and status, but where I would like to begin my analysis is the portrayal of the female protagonists. The stars of these shows are more often than not, a woman at some kind of disadvantage, (such as being orphaned or at least missing one parent) and she often does not have a financially comfortable situation. Putting the protagonist at an initial disadvantage is a classic trope of melodrama and her eventual rise to glory brings to mind the power of the moral occult in these stories, which is something widely used in Korean dramas. Whatever disadvantage she might be put at however, the female stars are always plucky and resourceful, trying their best to make something of themselves and support their families where need be (which there often is). The idea of Confucianist values being infused into these shows is most strongly portrayed through it’s female protagonists, while the men are almost always spoiled, rich, uncaring individuals who must become transformed by the goodness of their newfound lady loves. It is precisely this infusion of Confucianist goodness that brings so many fans toward the Korean drama in particular, “Comparing TV dramas from different countries, most said they liked Korean dramas most, as they found them ‘more subtle’, with an emphasis on ‘qing’ (a Chinese word referring to compassion for family members, friends, spouses, colleagues and people of different relations). Some informants pointed out that Korean dramas tend to focus on a wide range of topics including love, friendship, family relationships, and moral values, issues…These informants seem to see these values are originating from Confucianism and see them to be at the heart of what they conceive to be the ‘Asian worldview’, which embraces these different aspects of life.” (Lin 98-99) Sexuality ethics also play a large role in the creation of this system of values. One of the tactics used in these shows is the frustrating, but always rewarding use of withholding. Unlike most dramas today, the protagonists in k-dramas do not sleep around. In fact, sex is almost always completely withheld by the female stars, unless it is after they have been married, or as good as married. In the few situations where they do indulge in sexually liberating acts, staying true to years of melodramatic traditions, they are usually punished in some way. Beyond withholding sex, k-dramas also withhold pretty much everything, keeping our characters from the most innocent of acts, such as kissing or handholding for as long as narratively possible. Because of this tactic, when these simple acts are finally presented to the viewers, the payoff if enormous. (I remember various account of squealing for joy when characters finally kiss for the first time) Despite any cultural boundaries, this strategy of putting an emphasis on love instead of sex in the form of traditional values held by the protagonists is one of the most powerful ingredients in the addictiveness of this powerhouse genre.

          The infusion of these type of values stems from many things, but the struggle and confusion of modern life, (especially in the wake of a completely economically transformed nation) creates a deep desire for a return to more fundamental values, may be the most significant. With that in mind, we could say that the original function of Korean dramas was to help the women of the rapidly modernizing South Korea to assimilate to all the change around them. The characters that we see in Korean dramas always value ‘qing’, but they also display many positive characteristics of modern women. K-dramas fill their protagonists with wholesome and traditional values, but also surround them with all of the exciting opportunities that come from living in the modern world. “…the representation of cosmopolitan city life, individual pursuit of free love, social justice and modern consumerist desires can go beyond national boundaries…creating a shared desire among [viewers]. This helps articulate a sense of cultural resonance as female viewers across Asian cities personalized these (modern) ideas of Korean dramas, to ‘consume’ both kinds of traditional (i.e. family values) and modern lifestyles.” (Lin 102) This idea of the perfect hybrid modern woman, who can be a free agent and still find true love, becomes something that all women can identify with on some level. Becoming this perfect woman is desired by all, but Korean drama fans are not delusional to the reality that this kind of woman scarcely ever exists in today’s world. “Our experience is more often how we would love it to be. The characters in Korean dramas seem to embody some idealistic femininities desired by the fans, even though they also explicitly acknowledge that these qualities are difficult to find in the ‘modern’ world. In our study, it is discovered that despite their ‘unrealistic’ nature of the ‘nearly perfect’, the female characters still constitute a kind of identifiable image of the female that many viewers long for.” (Lin 106)

          Although the women portrayed in k-dramas have many admirable qualities, what is great about shows that have come out in the past 5-10 years is that the protagonist doesn’t always have to look like or act like the perfect woman in all ways. In the show My Lovely Sam Soon (1995) starring actressKim Sun-ah, we see a lead who is not the typical young beauty queen. At age thirty and “overweight” (in comparison to other emaciated young starlets) Sam Soon is a promising pastry chef struggling to make ends meet and take care of her mother. After an unfortunate financial crisis in the form of an old family debt threatens to make them lose their beloved house, Sam gets wrapped up in the scheme of her spoiled rich boss. To help him get out of going on ‘marriage dates’, he decides to pretend he is in love with Sam Soon because he knows he could, “never fall for her.” Against all odds he does, he does fall for Sam, leaving behind his stunningly beautiful and kind long lost ex-girlfriend. Even though Sam drunkenly beats him over the head with a stuffed pig, and has to stop her mother from physically attacking him, in the end, she is the only one meant for her man. Although not completely perfect, Sam works hard at her career which she developed on her own, (her back story shows us how she worked so hard to send herself to Paris to learn the trade even coming from a poor family) and always goes out of her way to help her friends and family. Sam Soon is a good person who works hard throughout the show tries hard to find love and get marries even though she is at a disadvantage competing with younger, prettier girls. Even in her less than perfect form, Sam embodies the best qualities of old and new, and becomes a more relatable character that viewers can connect with, laugh with, and perhaps become a little more comfortable in their own skin. “One of the important interpretive practices of drama audiences is personalization: that is putting oneself in the drama scenario and identifying with the situation and characters. This process of identification, of personalization implies a sense of fantasy. This fantasy expresses the desire for fullness, which bridges the gap between fantasy and reality.” (Lin 105) Whether Sam snagging a hot young billionaire is realistic or not, is not the point at all, k-dramas are all about the fantastic journey, and the justice of the moral occult that makes fans always wanting more, “In the fantasyland created by these Korean dramas the ‘perfect prince’ is ultimately there for the virtuous ‘Cinderella’, and the female protagonist typically can achieve both career and family success, and despite much hardship they are invariably rewarded and pampered by a perfect man’s love in this drama/dream world.” (Lin 93)

          This fantasy world of Korean dramas no doubt provides an escape for it’s viewers, but what is truly amazing is the deep connection that fans come to feel for these shows, and how that can produce tangible changes in their lives. One of the first places the Korean wave showed it’s strength was Korea’s former occupier, Japan. The 2002 modern love tragedy, Winter Sonata, and the 2003 historical epic, Dae Jang Geum, (Jewel in the Palace) took Japanese housewives by storm. Ratings increased through the roof for each re-run, and fan communities sprung up all over Japan. In fan accounts I have read, some women actually learned to use the internet because of Winter Sonata. This early example of a thriving online fan community shows the passion and ownership k-drama fans feel for their shows. “It should be noted that most fans believe that the Winter Sonata phenomenon was created by fans, not by the media. As we have seen, the fans gather and exchange information though independent media, especially the internet. They are crucial of the mainstream media as they think that the latter only report what the fans already know.” (Mori 137) The fans reacted so strongly, that their negative preconceptions about Korea’s inferiority morphed into obsession and curiosity, which propelled many fans to go as far as learning the language and visiting Korea to see the sights from their favorite shows. The following statement was made in an interview with a middle-aged Japanese k-drama fan, “Are there such beautiful men and women in Korea? Are there such fashionable places in Korea? …Before watching the dramas and visiting Korea, my image of Korea was ‘anti-Japanese’ sentiment, inferior good, poverty, and filth, but I didn’t know anything about Korea.” (Hirata 150) The influx of Japanese tourists in Korea created a dually important effect; the tourism trade in Korea was given a significant boost, and, it also aided in creating a fantasy/reality experience for Japanese fans who got to visiting the places from their beloved TV shows, while also getting to know the real Korea. The thought of a pop drama having the power to improve relations between countries in a significant way seems like an impossibility, but the popularity of Korean dramas in Japan tangibly created a situation of improved relations and greater understanding among nations (at least among drama fans). “The changes in attitude and awareness of these women deserves analytic attention. The Japanese women audience-turned tourists gaze upon Korea ‘symbolically’ while visiting the scenes they had seen on television. Such audiences do not remain within the framework of the drama; rather, the boundaries of the drama, everyday life, and tourism are blurred. Moving transnationally because of Winter Sonata had caused changes not only in their gaze of Korea, but also in their everyday lives.” (Hirata 152) The Japanese are not the only ones who have been inspired to delve deeper in the k-drama fandom experience by visiting the country or learning the language. Although such a large and specific account cannot be sighted as of yet, fans being motivated to participate in the community beyond watching the shows is evident all over the internet on a truly transnational level. Although the viewing experience may take on slightly different meanings in each new culture, the overall fan reaction is similarly strong.

          Providing an escape for fans is all well and good, but we mustn’t forget that Korean dramas are first and foremost a commercial industry. These shows provide many different functions for women, but it all stems originally from governmental marketing strategies and financial support,”…the popularity of Korean dramas and movies is not only seen as the successful product of the government’s cultural policy but also as Koreans’ use of traditional culture to sell…around 1994, the Korean government and businesses began to engage in a process of understanding Korean culture through new narratives of ‘Korean-ness’ as a response to globalization. These narratives include the revival of Confucianism…” (Yang 200) The infusion of Confucianism into it’s cultural product created a commercial functionality that operates on several different levels; as a catalyst for changing the worldview of Korea, as an economic boost for cultural exports/the tourism trade, and as a band-aid for those feeling lost in the modern whirlpool of Korean society, all stemming from the very fabric of the Korean identity. “Confucianist tradition is constructed as a part of Korea’s roots…the rediscovery of Confucian tradition is seen as a ‘consumer need’ in a lost, modernized world where tradition and filial piety have lost their values. Hence, ‘qing’ and ‘filial piety’ are seen as Korea’s traditional philosophies that give Korean dramas an edge in the global economy. ‘Koreans have a lot of qing and they are not afraid to express it, they are willing to sacrifice for love and family without regret.’” (Yang 200) Beyond large scale economic stimulation, Korean dramas also operate by boosting smaller scale, generally consumption. Like almost all other melodramatic forms, k-dramas portray a life of modern luxury and consumer pleasure. Although the protagonist is often not well-off and steeped in Confucianist fundamentals, the romantic counterpart is always the portrait of wealth and luxury. This creates a situation where, by staying true to her fundamentals and being an independent and hardworking woman, the girl can find true love, and also rise to a much higher social status in the same breath, “…Asian idealized cultural modernity is associated with material affluence, consumerism, female emancipation and individualism.” (Lin 122) The world we see overall in Korean dramas is filled with the familiar desirable images of attractive people wearing the most fashionable clothing in the most extravagant homes, in the most breathtaking parts of South Korea. This type of visual masturbation is nothing new to the world of melodrama, but by offering wealth as a reward for values, k-dramas create a world where the guilt of consumer indulgence is alleviated, allowing us to enjoy the decedent pleasures of the modern world with no strings attached.

          The last matter I would like to further dissect is looking at the k-drama fan community in terms of Lauren Berlant’s idea of the intimate public sphere which is a place where the privacy of watching at home and the public experience intertwine, always with an emphasis on the consumer element as a catalyst for creating commonality. “A certain circularity structures an intimate public, therefore: its consumer participants are perceived to be marked by a commonly lived history; its narratives and things are deemed expressive of that history while also shaping its conventions of belongs; and, expressing the sensational, embodied experience of living as a certain kind of being in the world, it promises also to provide a better experience of social belonging— partly through participation in the relevant commodity culture, and partly because of its revelations about how people can live…what’s salient for consumers is that it is a place of recognition and reflection. In an intimate public sphere emotional contact, of a sort, is made.” (Berlant viii) We saw earlier how the common history/experience of the difficultly of being a modern woman has helped create the thriving audience now surrounding the world of k-dramas, and how infusing this commercial product with historical values has aided in it’s success. Where the k-drama fan community goes beyond Berlant’s idea of the intimate public, is that the deeply passionate fan reaction creates a more tangible and defined community that stems from a shared connection to these shows. The reality of fan clubs and internet communication removes the precariousness of connection. “…the Internet is a medium and instrument for the organizing of geographically dispersed consumers, especially for avid consumers who are looking for ways to intensify the pleasure of consumption through active engagements with other similarly disposed.” (Huat 86) The public arena that is created as a result of the involvement of the fan community surpasses the loose bond of Berlant’s intimate public, and although it may originally stem from capitalist goals, it goes beyond the constraints of the system. The internet has become a powerful tool for fans all over the world to not only consume these shows, but also to create their own community outside of official sanctions. The passionate community surrounding fan subtitling of shows is a great example,  ”The consumers/participants/members are initiated by the passionate involvement of a few multilingual and technologically savvy individuals, taking the lead in constantly doing the painstaking work of initiation and amending translation/subtitling of their favorite drama series. These are done for the benefit of other members of the fan community beyond the clutches of profit-oriented market players and the copyrights and censorship constraints of the nation-state.” (Huat 87)

          The amazing thing about k-dramas is that even though they are a consumer-oriented product made possible by the financial goals of the government, by drawing from the compassionate roots of Confucianism, Korea creates a product that neutralizes the negative aspects of capitalism by putting something fundamentally good at it’s core. This provides a product for women than can become more meaningful than just watching an entertaining TV show, while still enticing new viewers all over the world, to create a very profitable product. The concept of being the perfect modern hybrid woman, who wants to find perfect love in the sometimes cruel modern world, is something all women can identify with, and it provides a common ground that perfectly encapsulates the idea of the intimate public. “One of the main jobs of the minoritized arts that circulate through mass culture is to tell identifying consumers that, ‘you are not alone (in your struggles, desires, pleasures)’: this is something we know but never tier of hearing confirmed, because aloneness is one of the affective experiences of being collectively, structurally unprivileged.” (Berlant ix) Korean dramas provide women of all ages with the reminder that they are not alone, and the public sphere created by this concept has morphed into a tangible community where women can come together and interact. These shows provide an fantasy world that women can escape to, and the welcoming fan community creates an opportunity for real connection to occur as an extension for the love and excitement one feels for the characters of a show. “The intimate public provides anchors for realistic, critical assessment of the way things are and provides material that foments enduring, resisting, overcoming, and enjoying being an x." (Berlant viii) Korean dramas are a great example of the true power of melodrama and the shared human experience on a transnational basis. They put forth stories steeped in traditional values, as well as paint a positive picture of the modern world. The shows themselves, and the community of fans envision the world as it should be, where family values always matter, and the girl always gets the guy she deserves. These shows serve as a reminder of what the world should be like, "The TV drama is considered by some media scholars as the most powerful medium of proposing a framework for representing the world as a world with meaning and order, and redefining the context of the world." (Lin 94) Who knows, maybe if we wish it long enough, we will all end up rich, surrounded by family, madly in love, and still able to eat all the cake we want, just like Sam Soon, but if not, there will always be more k-dramas to watch.

———————-

Bibliography

Berlant, Lauren. The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture. Duke UP, London, 2008.

Chan, Felicia, Angelina Karpovich and Xin Zhang. Genre in Asian Film and Television: New Approaches. Palgrave Macmillan. New York, 2011.

Garcia, Cathy Rose A. “Korean ‘Drama Fever’ Spreads Among US Fans.”The Korea Times Website. 1/27/2010.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/06/242_59764.html

Haut Chua Beng and Koichi Iwabuchi. East Asian Pop Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong UP. Hong Kong, 2008.

Hirata, Yukie. “Touring ‘Dramatic Korea’: Japanese Women as Viewers of Hanyru Dramas and Tourists on Hanyru Tours.” East Asian Pop Culture Analyzing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong UP. Hong Kong, 2008.

Lee, Keehyeung. “Mapping Out the Cultural Politics of ‘the Korean Wave’ in       Contemporary South Korea.” East Asian Pop Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong UP. Hong Kong, 2008.

Lin, Angel and Avin Tong. “Re-Imagining a Cosmopolitan ‘Asian Us’: Korean Media Flows and Imaginaries of Asian Modern Femininities.” East Asian Pop Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong UP. Hong Kong, 2008.

Mori, Yoshitaka. “Winter Sonata and Cultural Practices of Active Fans in Japan: Considering Middle-Aged Women as Cultural Agents.” East Asian Pop    Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong UP. Hong Kong, 2008.

Yang, Fang-chih Irene. “Ra(p)ing Korean Wave: National Identity in Question.” East Asian Pop Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong UP. Hong Kong, 2008.

[analreading]

"Containers for Dead People" The Films of Tsai Ming-liang

Written while attending Tisch school of the Arts Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2011

           Visionary director Tsai Ming-liang forces us to watch the people of contemporary Taiwan struggle through their daily lives alone even when surrounded by people. His films help accentuate this tragically disconnected society by allowing us to become true voyeurs to the lives of his characters. We get to see a painfully realistic portrait of each of his characters’ quest for any kind of connection or fulfillment in the cruel environment in which they are trapped. In this essay I will try to articulate the specific outlets Tsai’s characters use in an attempt to reach this desired state of fulfillment: food, water, and the tangible world, the family and the home, and lastly, sex and love.

          When asked a question about the significance of water in his films, Tsai replied, “I always feel like on one level my characters are terribly alone and alienated; they are like dried-up plants in need of water—so I’m always sure to give them plenty of water in my films.” (Berry 364) It is this degree of tenderness that gives Tsai’s characters a connection to the physical world that becomes something very meaningful. “The narrative is of no consequence; the director firmly rejects the story as the foundation of his films. Instead, he is drawn to the tangle of palpable phenomena, simple incidents of the day and the endless recurrence of habitual behavior; the touch of objects, perception at the primary level, the nonchalant use of appliances, not unlike the fleeting, practical and aimless encounters of his characters, a young man with a woman or another man, an old woman with a faith-healer, or some-one fueled by desire in the embrace of a soft pillow.” (Biro 86) Tsai’s characters are so much in need of sustenance that we often see them trying to fulfill themselves with anything they can get their hands on. Whenever we see someone eating or drinking water, they are almost never shown consuming them in a normal fashion. We see the characters guzzling water as if they haven’t had a drink in days. Eating a piece of candy compulsively becomes the only happiness a character has. The access to tangible objects and the basic human consumption of food and water, is one of the only tools they have to try to fill an endless void, “Tsai's characters appear to be in control as if unaware of the emptiness, and oppression of time does not change the aura of his films. They never know how much longer the pressure may last, so they come and go, eat non-stop, and rush about.” (Biro 84)

          Since filling their stomachs does not have the same effect as filling their hearts, Tsai’s characters also attempt to create a degree of fulfillment by acquiring and associating with non-human objects within their worlds.  For example, in The Hole we see Lee Kang-sheng’s character form a loving bond with both a fire extinguisher and a stray cat. Long before he pulls his girl through the hole in his floor, this man’s only tenderness was given in feeding a stray cat. Having watched many of Tsai’s films in a short period of time, I was touched deeply by Lee’s tender interaction with the cat. Even in a post-apocalyptic world mostly devoid of human contact, Tsai still reminds us we have the ability to connect, even if it is by drunkenly caressing a fire extinguisher.

         Try as they might to fulfill themselves with the tangible world, the barren environment in which they live cannot provide Tsai’s characters with what they need. They can only begin to be fulfilled by making human connections, and the substitution of the tangible often creates a barrier between his characters. Many of the problems accompanying this idea are caused by empty promises made by the modern world, “…the motto of consumerism, “I shop therefore I am,” seems enticing with its false sense of secure identity by shifting the focus from the mind (“I think therefore I am”) to the body. No other director in Taiwan explores the issues of the body more insightfully, consistently, and even relentlessly, than Tsai Ming-Liang. Human bodies, houses, and urban spaces in the city are all metaphorically and metonymically linked to provide an understanding of urban life in the postmodern era on screen rare in Taiwan and World cinema.” (Lin 9) A preoccupation with the “pleasures” promised by the modern world is particularly ironic in The Hole when we see an old man in search of a particular brand of bean sauce which Lee’s character assures him has been discontinued for a long time, but offers him the same sauce in a different brand. This is unacceptable to him and he walks away empty-handed from the only place he could possibly get any kind of food. Tsai’s characters preoccupy themselves with futile elements of the bleak physical world around them to distract them from their general alienation and lack of a home.

        In Vive l’Amour we experience this idea in the form of the luxurious but empty apartment in which the three characters all reside but don’t really live. Each uses the apartment as a staging grounds for various methods of attempted fulfillment. Mei, a real estate agent uses it as a love nest where she brings Ah-jung who thereafter uses it as a place to crash, as does the unrelated key thief, Hsiao-Kang. We see all of these characters engage in very private moments under the same roof, but none are truly connected to each other, nor is the apartment a substitute for a real home. “It is in Amour that the idea of the jia (family home) and its apparent absence is most arrestingly present at a symbolic level, in the metaphor of the empty apartment.” (Berry/Farquhar 98) By accidentally living together, these characters form a loose bond that is hard to call a family, but even in their fleeting moments with each other, we see just as much, if not more interaction than blood-relatives living under the same roof. Although loosely connected, the characters in Vive l’Amour do hesitantly attempt to form a bond with one another, which may not bear the fruits they desire, but at least we see the attempt being made, “…the space of the apartment becomes a liminal one, somewhere in between the familial jia and a new kind of ‘post-jia’ social space that is as yet in the process of being imagined: a space, perhaps, where non-traditional forms of love and intimacy might be more fully elaborated.” (Martin 181)

          In his films Tsai also portrays characters who live under the roof of a traditional family home. These figures face the same kind of isolation and loneliness, if not moreso, than characters who live alone. Although present in many of his films, one of the more notable and poignant examples comes from his controversial film, The River. Detached almost completely from one another, Hsiao-Kang’s parents engage in various means of attempted fulfillment outside the family structure. His mother has a continued affair with an uninterested lover, and his father has a fetish of anonymous sex with young boys at bath houses. Hsiao himself also engages in an attempt to fulfill his sexual needs by having casual sex with an old friend, but afterwards he is stricken with a mysterious neck problem. Hsiao’s parents coldly attempt to assist him in various ways, but never attend to him with any warm affection. “The almost excessive representation of Hsiao-kang’s physical ordeal is in stark contrast to the emotional detachment of the characters.” (Lim 144) At the end of  a series of failed attempts to help Hsiao’s worsening condition, his father takes him to see a religious figure who unsuccessfully tries to heal him with incense. Tsai’s satire on religious rituals as a futile attempt to miraculously change a family’s fate is prominent in many of his films.   This is another example of trying to exploit a non-human force to fulfill a void without attempting to interact with others on an honest and genuine level. Somewhat ironically, on this religious pilgrimage, father and son end up connecting in an undesired way, “…by making the most comforting intimacy between two human beings also the forbidden relationship between a father and a son, the incestuous scene forces the audience to both “see” the human need of connection and question why that basic need cannot be more easily fulfilled.” (Lin 10) This sexual act between father and son shocks us into thinking about the problem of fulfillment within the vacant family home in an entirely new way. “All of the relationships, between father and son, husband and wife, all return to their most basic, primitive nature. Maybe they are nothing but one lonely person…It is only when you think of their identity and who they really are that you realize how sad it is. Because had they known who each other was, they never would have reached out to hold each other…” (Berry 385)

          The act of barricading oneself in an isolated world even within a family home is prominent in Tsai’s films. Reaching out to a family member who has so long been a disconnected element of one’s life, even in times of great need, is a tall hurdle to jump in these films. In What Time is it There? the death of the father gives literal meaning to the idea of the empty home. Instead of facing their grief together Hsiao-Kang and his mother each isolate themselves in a self-created fantasy to soften the blow of their loss. Hsiao meets a girl who is traveling to Paris and becomes obsessed with changing every clock he sees to Paris time. His mother emerges herself deeply in religious rituals and superstitions that allow her to believe that her husband has returned but is now on a different time schedule after Hsiao changes the clock in their apartment. Both characters become completely submerged into the separate fantasy worlds they have created and suffer deeply under the same roof, but worlds away from each other. From an outside point of view their behavior seems somewhat funny, but the humor only accents the sadness and mild insanity their grief has caused. It is when an outsider is let into their isolated worlds, that they must begrudgingly face the truth of reality. After a prostitute steals Hsiao’s watches, and his mother goes on a “date” with the deceased father, that he finally comes home in a real way and begins to set things back in order. He takes down the blankets his mother has put on the windows, and lays down next to her tenderly. After both fantasies have reached a climax the characters are forced to see the light of day and give up their fantasies in an attempt to come together again. Tsai comments,” My films show characters who keep trying to find their own identity. The films show the process of life, illuminating the characters in order to make some minute discovery of what has happened to them. But the result is the same [constructive] because the characters learn what to do, what can be done, to save their lives.” (Kraicer 583)

          The last way in which Tsai’s characters try to find fulfillment is through sex and an attempt at romantic love.  Love as the connection that can finally fulfill one’s life is something that often falls short of these character’s grasps. Luckily their hope never completely dies out. “Tsai’s poetics of desire is unequivocally bleak, yet the love he provides as hope cannot be dismissed as utopian.” (Lim 151) Although love is desired by all of his characters, the carnal need for sex is more often then not what fuels them to make any kind of connection with another human being. Through his unglamorous portrayal of sex in general, Tsai encourages us to cast aside preconceived ideas and look at sex as just another way his characters seek fulfillment, “Sex in my films is an extremely important element, just as important as eating. What I’m trying to say is that none of their behavior is shameful. These are private moments we don’t often have access to, like sex, masturbation, or eating alone, but sex is often looked at differently.” (Berry 383) Although often graphic, Tsai’s sex scenes are not meant for cheap audience arousal, but rather as an important tool to better understand the inner-workings of his characters and themes, “In this way, a concentration on human flesh is supposed to guide the devotee to the exact opposite of desire, a disgust that leads to distance and wisdom. Tsai’s cinematic practice stands on the thin line between pornography, in which images arouse desire, and meditation, in which images arouse piety and then detachment.” (Neri 393) Sex is prevalent in many of his films, but the outcome is usually unfulfilling. This trend starts with his first commercial film Rebels of the Neon God. In this film Ah Tze, a petty thief meets Ah-kuei, a promiscuous tease as she leaves his apartment after a night of sex with his brother. On the surface their relationship seems like a meaningless tryst, but it is clear there is an underlying desire for a deeper connection. They play games with one another, Ah-tze keeps her at a distance, and continually fights and questions feelings. He even looks to external forces for answers when goes to a fortune telling machine for guidance. Try as he might to keep his feelings out of the picture they come flooding back in just like the water in his apartment. In the end he tries once more to push her away, but after seeing her tenderly embrace his injured friend at his request, his overwhelming need for connection causes him to go after her as she is leaving. In this seemingly happy moment, they are clearly overwrought still since they are unable to escape their unfortunate lives. Ah-kuei suggests that they go away together, but neither knows where they could go. We are left with the couple united, but still unable to reach a state of happiness since they are bound to their environment. This brand of romance is a more direct than in his later films, but the idea of an inability to connect due to an infertile environment is ever present even from this first film, “…it is not the lack of love, but the fear of love and of loving that eats the soul, cripples the human, and accounts for the absence of affection.” (Lim 152)

          Similarly, in Vive l’Amour, Tsai creates an environment that is more obviously devoid of the possibility of love beyond sex. Starting with the way in which they wordlessly and indirectly initiate their hookup, it is clear that May Lin and Ah-jung are not on a path to falling madly in love. Throughout the film Ah-jung somewhat reaches out to her, but with partially ulterior motives. May Lin puts all her focus on the external world, and her job as a realtor, to try to fill her void and spends her days in an endless array of empty apartments. “…love is an emotion that has no conceivable future or room for growth in this society where everything is mechanized and where sex is a substitute for love.” (Neri 397) Although they do hookup again, in the end May Lin is left reminded of how far from an actual connection she really is and the final moments of the film are spent on her tears.  “[Vive l’Amour] ironically means, ‘long live love’ and in this case it’s more of a prayer than a vindication. The accidental relationship fulfills no longing for love and its byproduct, casual sex, generates more needs for desire replacements.” (Wu 80) Not only do the characters not allow themselves to connect, but May Lin realizes that she has lost the ability to even try. Beyond the realm of the tradition couple, we also see another example of detachment and longing for love portrayed by the awkward odd man out, watching the lover’s endeavor from afar, which is present in both Vive l’Amour and Rebels of the Neon God. This figure of the repressed and confused homosexual male also helps us understand the tangibility of isolation. I believe that Tsai uses the notion of homosexuality as another lens for us to experience the sadness and uncomfort that comes from not knowing how to address one’s own society. These figures try to fill their void through even more irrational methods, such as cutting themselves and vandalism all while observing the more traditional couples from a distance, never getting their own sexual desires met. “For man and woman of post sadness Taiwan, the replacement of alienation and depression brings forth nothing but another alienation and depression.” (Wu 80)

          Although Tsai exposes us to some difficult truths about humans inability to connect with one another, there is often a glimmer of hope in one way or another by the end of his films. Perhaps the best example of this is, my personal favorite, the post apocalyptic love story, The Hole. In this film, an unnamed man and woman are among the only residents that remain in an apartment building that has been quarantined due to the spread of a disease epidemic. Tsai goes to great lengths to set up this world as a horrifying place to live, rain and garbage fall from the sky non-stop and a happening Friday night consists of mopping up a flooded apartment or stumbling drunkenly and alone through an empty apartment building. We see these two characters interact with each other in the most indirect and strange ways, mostly surrounding a hole connecting their apartments. Direct communication between the two is sparse, and again, elements of the external world become distractions, “In a very abstract and symbolic but also graphical way, Tsai shows the divorce between sex and love: characters do not talk to each other, but to their rooms, ceilings, and walls. They do not make love to each other, but to their objects and fetish symbols.” (Neri 393) Eventually however, an element of the external world, the hole, is used as a conduit to connect them. The only allows subtle and indirect interactions as always, but they are accompanied by a series of dreamlike song and dance numbers that accentuate and exaggerate the progression of their courtship. “These songs are about love, feeling, and passion. So, while in the ‘real’ pre-apocalyptic world, people do not communicate with each other, there is nevertheless still a dreamlike world where they can play together, play the old game of seduction, express their mutual love, and, finally, dance together.” (Neri 394) It is with the addition of these sequences that I believe Tsai does the best job of illuminating the subtleties of his character’s interactions and inner-thoughts. He puts forth the same story as always; people unable to connect with each other in modern day Taiwan, but by placing them in a world where the conditions are truly horrible and allowing them (through whatever backwards means necessary) to actually come together in the end, Tsai sells his message louder and clearer than ever. The hole becomes an interesting metaphor for the willingness, or lack thereof to connect with another person. Throughout the film their desires often correspond with their actions towards the hole. In the end a human hand literally reaches through the hole to save us, and it is clear that the struggle to connect, no matter how awkward or difficult, is our best chance for salvation. “Developing the idea that ‘the story is cruel but the narrator is tender,’ Tsai the critic thinks that Tsai the filmmaker has provided a tender answer to a cruel question, and that answer is, ‘perhaps love.’” (Lim 151)

        With his films Tsai Ming-liang makes us meticulously examine the everyday sufferings of the modern human being. By totally isolating his characters we are forced to suffer alongside them and better grasp why they are so alone and the sadness that accompanies such a life. We are presented with families that are so disconnected that we don’t even realize they live in the same house until we recognize the use of the same rice cooker.  We see people who are completely naked, but with the strongest armor to keep others out. Tsai’s portrait of his characters goes much deeper than societal surface issues, “My films are not about dysfunctional families and they are not about gays, they are about human beings and the difficulties of being human. They are about the pain of not being able to control your body, your emotions, and your fate.” (Berry 385) From the motif of simple and confining living spaces, to his slow moving, slice of life filmmaking style, Tsai creates more than a story, he creates an environment for us to dwell in and experience what his characters do. It is only by creating this palpable mood that we can truly comprehend the inner-workings of a lonely human being in the modern world. “A feeble voice in a dark place, Tsai Ming-liang’s movies talk only to those who want to listen, [he makes it a] necessity to listen carefully, to never stop waiting, and to be open to the darkest side of the human sensibility, because it can unveil darkly enjoyable secrets.” (Neri 391)

------

Bibliography

Berry, Michael. Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. New York: Columbia UP, 2005.

Berry, Chris, and Mary Farquhar.  China on Screen: Cinema and Nation. New York: Columbia UP, 2006. Biro, Yvette. “Perhaps the Flood: The Fiery Torrent of Tsai Ming-liang’s Films.” PAJ: A Journal of Performing Art, Vol 26, No.3. MIT Press, 2004.

Kraicer, Shelly. “Interview with Tsai Ming-liang.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, Vol. 8 No. 2. Duke University Press, 2000. Lim, Song Hwee. Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.

Lin, Wenchi. “Taipei at the Turn of the Century in Taiwan Cinema.” UP Wisconsin.

Hong, Guo-Juin. Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Screen. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011. Martin, Fran. “Vive L’Amour: Eloquent Emptiness.” Chinese Films In Focus: 25 New Takes. Ed. Chris Berry. London: British Film Institute, 2003.

Neri, Corrado. “Tsai Ming-Liang and the Lost Emotions of the Flesh.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, Vol. 16 No. 2. Duke University Press, 2008.

Wu, Meiling. “Postsadness Taiwan New Cinema: Eat, Drink, Everyman, Everywoman.” Chinese Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics.

Ed. Sheldon H. Lu, Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh. Honolulu: UP of Hawaii, 2005.

Yeh, Emilie Yueh-yu, and Darrell Williams Davis. Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island. New York, Columbia UP, 2005.

[analreading]

"The Trouble With Harry" A Vacation from Woe

     After years of making films where trust is hard to come by, and murder reigns supreme, against the judgment of the studio, Hitchcock finally made a film where murder could not destroy and hardly disrupt the world around it. The Trouble With Harry is a curious film filled with odd characters and lots of British humor that could easily be viewed as completely satirical, but I disagree. My theory is that Hitchcock wanted to make a film where his romantic vision could shine through in a scenario free of the suspense he is known for, where things are as they should be, and murder is just a silly little problem that doesn’t ruin peoples lives, but actually helps bring them together. I think that Hitchcock the humor in the film as a way to let us know this could not possibly be a realistic situation. This is just his way of showing us the antithesis of the unfortunate murder-centric universe he usually portrays, and that we more or less live in.” The film thus becomes a parable of an unfallen world and the purest expression of Hitchcock's preoccupation with his two favorite themes: lost innocence and redemptive love." (Raubicheck 269)

     The film begins when Arnie, a young boy is adventuring through the beautiful autumn forest and encounters the very dead Harry. Right from the start of the film we see a picture of innocence encountering death as we often do in Hitchcock’s films, but instead of having life-ruining effects, it has nearly no effect at all on Arnie. He happily finds his dead rabbit treasure and is on his merry way back to his mother. Next, out on a jolly hunt for rabbits, the Captain encounters Harry and assumes that one of his bullets must have been the cause for his death. Although he is not exactly remorseful about his accidental murder, he is nervous about being caught by the police. As he is about to hide the body, Ms. Gravely comes upon the scene and like many of Hitchcock’s heroines, she is put in a situation where she has to choose whether or not to trust the plea of the stranger in trouble. Since this is Hitchcock’s anthem of how things should be, she not only trusts his word, but also warmly invites him to her home for blueberry muffins and coffee. Comforted completely by her kind act, the Captain tells her, “I’m glad that I met you today, I feel better to have told somebody who is as warm, tender, and understanding as yourself.” (The Trouble With Harry) It is undoubtedly strange to be glad someone caught you trying to bury a person you murdered. In viewing this opening, we are already shaken by the ease at which murder is dealt with, unlike in most of Hitchcock’s other films. We begin to see that the world of Harry isn’t a world where innocence can be so easily lost when unfortunate encounters with death occur, unlike so many of Hitchcock’s other films.

     After Ms. Gravely has left the scene, Arnie returns to the body with his mother, Jennifer, who is overjoyed to discover that Harry is dead. She tells Arnie not to think about it and joyously heads back to her picturesque little home. "Harry's body-which serves in this film as Hitchcock's famous "McGuffin"- susceptible of corrupting the Vermont idyll, is only a minor, marginal problem, not really all that important, indeed, almost petty. The social life of the village goes on, people continue to exchange pleasantries, they arrange to meet at the corpse, and the child in the film continues to pursue his interest in rabbits and tree toads. (Zizek 99)

     What we see next is exactly that, a lovely portrait of everyone in the town pleasantly going about their day, completely unshaken by the larger than life shot of the Harry’s colorfully clad feet hanging over their heads in the hills above. We see Ms. Gravely on her little porch with a sign that reads, “The Haven”, Jennifer on her porch getting some lemonade, the Captain asleep peacefully next to the unburied body, and our hero, Sam Marlowe, singing a happy tune as he approaches Mrs. Wigg’s stand advertising fresh apple cider, what could be more pleasant? “The ascendancy of the Edenic makes The Trouble With Harry unique among Hitchcock’s films. All his other works, whether finally dominated by romantic innocence or ironic cynicism, explicitly acknowledge the stained and vulnerable condition of humanity…such sources of conflict—whether tragic or comic—scarcely exist in The Trouble With Harry.” (Raubicheck 273)

     Marlowe, who I believe in many ways serves as a surrogate for Hitchcock, is first introduced to us talking with "Wiggy" (what he calls Mrs. Wiggs) about her not selling any of his paintings. Interrupted by the mooing of nearby cows, he ponders whether or not he would do better in a big city, but goes on to describe city dwellers with great distain as, “little people with hats on.” Marlowe obviously frowns upon the world of the city, which is home to many of Hitchcock’s scenarios. His cities are often depicted as a world of sin and chaos where it’s characters are often brought to their knees by the unfortunate situations city life puts them in. I believe that the fact the film is set in a small rural town is an integral part in making this perfect world devoid of the usual horrors we see in Hitchcock’s films. He discusses the differences he tried to portray in this film; “I’ve always been interested in establishing a contrast, in going against the traditional and in breaking away from clichés. With Harry I took melodrama out of the pitch-black and brought it out into the sunshine. It’s as if I had set up a murder alongside a rustling brook and spilled a drop of blood in the clear water. These contrasts establish a counterpoint; they elevate the commonplace in life to a higher level.” (Truffaut 227)

     Marlowe’s paintings are another possible window to what Hitchcock is trying to tell us. When Sam hands Wiggy his new painting, she says it’s beautiful, but Marlowe has to correct her, by turning it upside down so she can see it the way he meant. I think Hitchcock is subtly insisting, that maybe we don’t see his work the way he means for us to see it, or at least that there are always multiple ways to look at it. When Marlowe finally comes across Harry’s body. His instinct is immediately to sketch it. This further reinforces Hitchcock’s connection with him. “[Marlowe’s] art and his life as an artist are ultimately as ingenious as the movie in which he appears.” (Raubicheck 278) Turning death into art is what Hitchcock does best, and as Sam hears out the Captain’s tale of the unfortunate fate of Harry, Marlowe creates a beautiful pastel drawing of Harry’s dead face. “Picture and corpse are united in their common purpose, to provide a moral and artistic litmus test for all the characters. Morbidity certainly has no place here, because it is this sketch that soon helps bring Marlowe together with Jennifer Rogers. Art, Hitchcock seems to be saying, works in its own mysterious ways in the affairs of men.” (Strauss)

     Although he does bring the picture to Jennifer with righteous intentions of clearing up her feelings for Harry before he helps the captain bury him, he easily forgets all about Harry when he sees her for the first time. Sam is immediately smitten with Jennifer and listens intently as she tells the tale of her lost love. When later Sam asks her to marry him, she only wavers momentarily before she agrees. Even with her semi-tragic romantic past, she is able to easily let love back into her life, and Sam is obviously equally open. This is something very rare to find in Hitchcock’s work, where emotional hang-ups and masochistic affairs rule, only to sometimes result in a happy ending after a long struggle to get there.  The death of Harry results in nothing but positive consequences in these character’s lives, “No event or person…is allowed to cause or suffer real pain. Nor do they seriously threaten to do so. The comic mode of the film finally results from its obsessive repetition of the theme of rebirth; for if time and death have no power to injure, what terrors can remain?” (Raubicheck 279) Jennifer and Sam are only one of two pairs of new lovers to be brought together by Harry’s corpse. The perhaps unlikely pair of the Captain and Ms. Gravely is also connected through this supposed murder.

     “Love and death in The Trouble With Harry are treated straightforwardly, without shame, terror, or prudence.” (Raubicheck 276) The love story of Ms. Gravely and the Captain is an interesting one laden with some of Hitchcock’s famous acts of deception. Ms. Gravely invites the Captain over for coffee and muffins, we think at first out of the goodness of her heart, but later she confesses that it is perhaps she who killed Harry, and used the muffins as a strange repayment to the Captain for disposing of her corpse. This makes Ms. Gravely Hitchcock’s most quaint little femme fatale. In similar fashion, throughout the film the Captain constantly references exiting stories from his past adventures at sea, only to confess later that he was nothing but a tugboat captain. Despite their lies, both of these characters not only immediately forgive the other, but are even more endeared by coming clean. This is night and day in comparison to many of Hitchcock’s other characters, whose confessions are often met with disbelief at best. In this film however, these characters, who begin in complete isolation, are brought together despite the implementation of Hitchcock's usual trials, "…the comedy of The Trouble With Harry exists traditionally alongside its romance. It portrays the coming together of a group of strangely separate people whose only social bonds at the beginning of the movie seem to be legal ones…By the end of the film they are all united in typical New Comic fashion, with the freshly engaged lovers at the center of a reinvigorated and cohesive small society.” (Raubicheck 279) Their being brought together by the corpse is in stark contrast to the effect murder usually has on the community, but in this strange small town everything seems to work out somehow. "Hitchcock and Hayes were once more bringing together characters that had somehow isolated themselves…The characters in The Trouble With Harry also find themselves for one reason or another living alone. Where Rear Window or To Catch a Thief hinge on crime for their MacGuffins, The Trouble With Harry is perhaps the purest treatment of Hitchcock’s romantic vision.” (DeRosa 134)

     The next usual Hitchcock theme turned sunny-side-up is his distrust in the forces of authority present in the film. As far as we know for the duration of the film, someone has murdered Harry. Although the nonchalance towards the dead body in their town is almost always present, there are times where each of the characters gets a splash of the negative realities that could come about if the police were to find out about Harry. Jennifer's desire to be rid of her wretched husband, Sam desire to get rid of the husband of the woman he wants to marry or Ms. Gravely's private life exposed to the public. Perhaps the most worrisome about being caught is the Captain when he thinks he is responsible. Marlowe hears the Captain’s story, and not only believes him, but tries to comfort him by justifying his actions, “In a way you should be grateful that you were able to do your share in accomplishing the destiny of a fellow being.” (…Harry) Sam suggests that they tell the police because, “It stands to reason they can’t touch you.” But, in keeping with Hitchcock’s consistent distrust for the police, the Captain rebuts, “Nothing these days stands to reason,” and “I know the police and their suspicious ways. You’re guilty until you’re proven innocent.” The Captain clearly must have seen a few of Hitchcock’s “wrong man” films and knows how difficult it is to get the police to believe you. The unreliability of the police to do the right thing is ever-present in Hitchcock's films, the accused man often has his life turned upside down and must take the law into his own hands to clear his name. The Captain wants nothing to do with that nonsense, and truly, neither does Hitchcock.  He makes sure that authority figures aren’t a huge threat by making the town’s deputy sheriff, the bumbling hayseed, Calvin Wiggs.  From the first time we meet him, Calvin seems a bit shady and ill tempered in comparison to the other ever friendly and pleasant townsfolk. For the majority of the film they make their decisions to bury and exhume Harry free from the crushing forces of the law, but it is always in the back of their minds. Eventually, Calvin encounters a bum who has stolen Harry's shoes and reports the news of the dead man. His initial accusations could not come at a more inopportune time, when Sam has just selflessly exchanged his paintings to a convenient millionaire for a laundry list of various pleasurable items for each one of his friends. “The payment he asks for his paintings is the barter of an affectionate child.” (Raubicheck 278) It is in this moment, when Harry is buried once more and everyone is at their most joyous, and it is clear that Sam is a man of great character, that Calvin notices Sam’s drawing of Harry. It is exactly as the bum described the corpse and finally, the long arm of the law finds a way to interrupt our joyride.

     His investigation continues to put a damper on the celebration, when he shows up at Jennifer's house  (where the body of Harry is now tucked away in the bathroom) to point the finger at Sam. He shows Sam the drawing, but in his ever geniously manipulative, Hitchcockian way, Sam manages to destroy the evidence with an explanation of his artistic process. He speaks condescendingly to Calvin as he adapts the drawing to be the face of someone else, therefore destroying any evidence tying him to the murder. Again, we see Hitchcock’s nod to the power of manipulation in Sam’s art and his own. With just a few simple strokes added, the drawing changes from the face of death, to a much cheerier expression. This is a perfect metaphor for what Hitchcock does with The Trouble With Harry. “For all its superficial eccentricity, The Trouble With Harry does not adrift anomalously outside the mainstream of Hitchcock’s films…it may been seen as a compression of the essential dream that nourishes Hitchcock’s work as a whole. That dream, that Hitchcock shares with the greater part of all storytellers, envisions a life in which human beings are complete and fulfilled, justice prevails without the rigidity and inaccuracy of law, and the world and its inhabitants live in harmony retrieved from the corruptions of experience.”  (Raubicheck 279)

     As I have described up until now, with The Trouble With Harry, Hitchcock shows us his world through rose-colored goggles, and in many ways, this can help us better understand his overall artistic vision. "Set in a remote, pastoral hamlet in Vermont, Hitchcock's only pure comedy of his American period, The Trouble With Harry, gives viewers and critics an opportunity to study his art not only in an atypical Hitchcockian setting, but without the formal and narrative elements of the suspense genre." (Raubicheck 269) Although I believe this film to be a genuine portrayal of Hitchcock’s most picturesque romantic vision, it is important not to take these pleasantries too seriously. Hitchcock lets us know that this is not how things really are through a large infusion of his special brand of British comedy. Hitchcock wanted to let us know in his own smarmy way, that nothing this perfect can truly be taken seriously. He uses one of his favorite tools, understatement, as the glue that holds this film together. Truffaut describes the comedy in the film, “The whole humor of the picture hinges on a single device: an attitude of disconcerting nonchalance. The characters discuss the corpse as casually as if they were talking about a pack of cigarettes.” (Truffaut 227) The humor gives the film an almost surreal feeling throughout, what we experience though the strange behaviors of the characters makes us constantly curious and bracing ourselves for the catastrophic Hitchcockian twist that never comes. Hitchcock eliminates the suspense that has fueled his films in the past, we get instead, a full dose of the amazing sense of humor we usually only get a glance of, "… the film gives Hitchcock the opportunity to expand on the touches of grotesque humor that enlivens all his work, and his sense of the absurd dictates the film's themes and techniques. The result is therefore complex, since the comic tone of the film interacts with its ruminations on death and sexual relationships in the ways unique in the Hitchcock canon. (Raubicheck 269) Hitchcock was happy to be able to offer up a sincere showcase of British humor to the American audience, “…The Trouble With Harry is an approach to a strictly British genre, the humor of the macabre. I made that picture to prove that the American public could appreciate British humor, and it went over quite well whenever it reached an audience.” (Truffaut 77) Although Harry was not a commercial success, Hitchcock was always very fond of the film and referred to it as, "an expensive self-indulgence." I think the fact that he felt this way about the film is all the more evidence in favor of the film's hidden importance when studying the entirety of Hitchcock's work. He was accomplishing his fundamental messages with a different kind of twist this time in order to show us what's in the light opposed to the shadows.

     In each of his films, Hitchcock gets to play God. He gets to decide if the forces of good or the forces of evil are going to prevail. He gets to choose the roads we take to get there, and this time he chose a lovely autumn one. Throughout his career, we discover that there are certain integral themes that are included in most of his stories. Innocence is often lost, the good guy rarely catches a break, and love is a hard thing to come by. After years of making films where the trial and tribulations (although endlessly entertaining) have perhaps put Hitchcock in the mood to escape from it all and cut his characters a break, while still never straying too far. “When we watch The Trouble With Harry, we see a peculiarly radical, cheery rendition of the same central action. We see the filmmakers purest realization of uncorrupted identity, innocent love, and restorative time, the quest for all which in one way or another shaped Hitchcock’s movies for more than five decades.” (Raubicheck 281)

     My theory is that this film was Hitchcock’s vacation from suspense. Even though the studio did not entirely support his choice in making this film, with it he was able to conquer the demons that haunt many of his tales using his great sense of humor, “The bland tone of The Trouble With Harry constitutes more than comic technique; it results from a profound confidence that death lacks the power to destroy and that hope can scarcely help but prosper.” (Raubicheck 272) Harry’s corpse brings people together, and if we ever take the film too seriously, the joke is on us. In the end the creepy door that mysteriously opens, is just a closet door and murder is not even murder. This film is Hitchcock's playful rouse to give us, and perhaps himself, a breath of fresh air.

Bibliography

Written while attending Tisch School of the Arts Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2011

Brill, Lesley. The Hitchcock Romance: Love and Irony in Hitchcock’s Films.

Princeton: Priceton UP, 1988.

DeRosa, Steven. Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and

John Michael Hayes. New York: Faber and Faber,2001.

Raubicheck, Walter and Walter Srebnick eds. Hitchcock’s Rereleased Films:

From Rope to Vertigo. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1991.

Strauss, Marc. “The Painted Jester: Notes on the Visual Arts in Hitchcock’s Films.

The Journal of Popular Film and Television. 2007.

Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.

Zizek, Slavoj. “The Trouble With Harry: The Corpse that Wouldn’t Die.” Hitchcock.

Trans. Richard Miller. Ljublijana, DDU Univerzum collection Analecta, 1984.

[analreading]

Black and White and Orange All Over: Jenji Kohan's Unruly Opus

    Orange is the New Black is a show about many things, prison stereotypes, lesbian sex, NPR, long distance relationships, but more than anything it’s a show about women, and that’s a rarer thing these days than we’d like to admit. Beneath the nudity and topical references, this show comments on what a woman’s place is in the world today, and questions how much control she has over her own destiny. Some of these women landed themselves in jail through their own intentional disregard of the law, some by accident, and others by boldly living by their own codes no matter what the cost. At the end of the day, Orange is the New Black is a portrait of the literal and metaphorical factors that make modern women feel trapped, and the drastic measures one might try to set herself free again.

Although at times a bit uneven, the genius of this show is baked right into the premise. Women are brutal. We understand how to push each other’s buttons and get under each other’s skins. So it stands to reason that when you put a bunch of women in a cage with nothing at stake but their identity, the mind games and complicated relationships are all that you’re left with. And by god does it make for good TV.

The way the setting of the prison strips the concept of what it is to be a woman today down to the bone is really resonating with people in a way other shows (even those featuring female protagonists) cannot do. If we look at some of the most acclaimed strong female characters in today’s TV world through the lens of the Bechdel test (which asks whether a work of fiction features a conversation between two women not talking about a man,) we wouldn’t get very favorable results. However, Orange is the New Black has some advantages backed right into the premise that forcefully expand on the topics our female characters are talking to each other about. Gender is always omnipresent, making us constantly focused on the idea of how the nuances of one’s sex and sexuality play into every interaction. When male characters are featured in Orange is the New Black, it’s often in a way that at least rouses some interesting questions about the male to female dynamic. The way the male prison workers choose to wield their power in mostly feeble attempts to try to control the female prisoners creates a fascinating juxtaposition. We are constantly slapped in the face with how powerless they are in their current situation, but at the same time they seem larger than life. The way that Red has used her alpha personality to make the kitchen her own little empire and gain power even beyond the inner sanctum of prisoners, but still has to sit back and do nothing when one of the guards decides to take a piss in her carefully crafted thanksgiving gravy pot is enough to make you tear your hair out. We see nearly all these women as powerful in their own way, trapped by a system built to contain them in and outside of prison. It all nods at something much bigger.

Jenji Kohan is a fascinating voice emerging in today’s TV landscape, but I think she is still figuring out how to gain control of her voice. She has a lot of great characters and ideas that explode onto the screen in a somewhat untidy fashion. Like many people, I enjoyed the hell out of the first few seasons of Weeds, but the longevity of the show completely killed it. I am curious to see how Netflix decides to handle the quality vs. quantity conundrum of having a hit show on their hands. I really do hope they will take the high road and let the show run it’s course with dignity. The freedom to end a story in less than 8 seasons might be exactly what Kohan needs to reign in her characters in a way that can become a potent and complete story.

I’ve talked to many people about this show lately, and although most have raved about it overall, I’ve found some surprisingly conflicting opinions about certain characters, especially Piper, the show’s protagonist. Some people sympathize with her, others with her fiance. Some think of her as a strong hero, others as a horrible person. We are used to TV we can understand. Even when a tapestry of multi-dimensional characters is beautifully woven like in Mad Men or Game of Thrones, whether it was intentional or not, Orange is the New Black takes things in a new direction by showing us a world where things are not so straightforward. Each episode reveals to us, piece by piece, that no person can be taken at face value. Even the most despicable characters slowly become more human. The aforementioned horrible prison guard, “Pornstache” even becomes somewhat sympathetic when his misconstrued relationship with Daya cause him to rearrange his priorities, or when we begin to see the more complicated truth behind the seemingly deranged lesbian inmate known as “Crazy Eyes.”

The show constantly makes us see the deeper side to everyone, for better or for worse. Nothing is ever as clear as it seems. From the touching spectacle of the show’s intro, through the violent and unsettling end of the season, the conflicting forces of humor and emotional depth make it a bit overwhelming to swallow all in one bite, but that’s what makes it such a fascinating show. Everything we thought we knew about this world becomes grey. It doesn’t make for very straightforward viewing, but much like the wild landscape of a women’s prison, nothing is black or white, but orange is sure a more interesting color.

[analreading]

Gundams, Godzilla & Guillermo: Pacific Rim Sure was Weird.

I live in New York city and have very little expendable income, so when I actually go to see a movie in the theatre, I have to REALLY want to see it. I remember when I saw the first trailer for Pacific Rim and my inner Nerv agent told me I must see this film in the theater...for the sake of the human race. As an anime fan and as a Guillermo Del Toro enthusiast, I went into the movie with certain expectations, and I can honestly say that after seeing this movie in the flesh, I find it extremely hard to judge whether it is “good” or not.

I would not call this movie a comedy by any stretch of the imagination, yet sudden outbursts of laughter from myself and other random moviegoers peppered the entire film. Known comedians (Charlie Day, Burn Gorman) grace the screen awkwardly alongside much more serious performances (Idris Alba, Rinko Kikuchi.) What results is a strange blend of Monster movie of yesteryear (charming in their downright absurdity) and billion dollar action/sci-fi blockbuster of today. The tone of the film is really unlike any other film I have seen, (with the exception of maybe The FP, a semi serious while at the same time completely satirical story about professional Dance Dance Revolution competitors...which should have probably stayed a short film and is not really worth an hour and a half of your time, but I digress...

With all that being said, I can’t say I disliked this movie. Even with all my cinema studies mumbo jumbo swirling around the back of my head telling me this movie was inexcusable, at the end of the day, I still had fun watching Guillermo play with his toys (which is really the only way to explain the existence of  this movie.) The hodge-podge of actors and flashy graphics is clearly an amalgamation of this lovely man’s wildest fantasies as a director. I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about the rise of super creative and somehow also profitable directors of today, and how they choose to wield their power (i.e. budget) once they’ve earned it. Tarentino blows his load by regurgitating his favorite parts of cinema history into blockbusters, (and in his later years, to recreate his favorite parts of his own cinematic history only with a bigger budget.) Nolan used his budgetary freedom to express his intricate narrative fantasies with elaborate rotating sets and stunts in Inception (oh and also Batman. His toys include Batman.) Guillermo gathered up a bunch of actors he thought were neat (no matter how wildly unrelated,) and put them into giant robots that fight monsters in the ocean, and by God you have to love him for it.

Another disclaimer about why this movie ended up so ridiculous is: considering the standards people hold something like Evangelion up to, coming from that kind of fandom, there is really no way he could have ever lived up to our expectations and still made money, and this kind of big budget movie, unfortunately, is expected to make money. The problem I keep coming back to with Sci-fi as a fundamental genre is: you can’t have it both ways. There is the wise man’s sci-fi, with it’s ambiguous themes and it’s understated thematic depth, and there is balls to the wall, money making action sci-fi, and sadly the two cannot generally coexist as one. Take Promethus for example. This movie started out as an eerie portrait of a space mission gone wrong laden with intriguing character-driven struggles, and provoking shots of landscapes...the whole shebang, and in the last third of the movie it turned into an old fashioned action-y space romp. The fans who thought they were going to finally get the big budget, thought provoking movie promised by the short films about David released before the film were let down because the movie fell flat in the end by defining itself too concretely and becoming a standard-fare sci-fi action thriller. The people who came for the standard fare of explosions and CGI aliens that look like vaginas were also disappointed after spending the first hour and a half bored out of their minds. The moral of the story is, if you’re going to try to make an introspective, ambiguous sci-fi story, good for you, but don’t expect a blockbuster and do it right and go all the way. If you want to blow up some aliens with a rocket launcher, bully for you, that’s awesome in it’s own right and will make a shit ton of money, but you can’t have it both ways. Sorry, you just can’t.

Lucky for us, Guillermo did not try to have it both ways and went, (to quote Tropic Thunder) “full retard” with this movie. He must have known that there was no way he could have possibly satisfied everyone. You can’t make a live action Evangelion as a big budget American summer blockbuster, it wasn’t going to happen no matter how much we wanted it. Although we might not walk away from Pacific Rim intellectually enriched in any way, for the cost of our movie ticket, Guillermo does give us a lot of bang for our buck, including:

(don’t worry no important spoilers)

 -Charlie from It’s Always Sunny... as a Scientist!

-The most bro-dude protagonist imaginable!

-Ron Pearlman wearing gold tipped shoes!

-Kick-ass blue haired Asian chick kicking ass!

-Sexy martial arts battles!

-Horrifying Footage of a little asian girl screaming as she runs from a giant monster!

-Inspirational speeches about the apocalypse by Idris Elba!

(British version, much preferable to the Southern version)

-Giant Robot fist bumps!

...and much more! Please don’t confuse my sarcasm with distaste for any of these things, as my eyes were glued to the screen for the entire 131 minutes. The biggest let down of the movie is that they didn’t get the rights to Justice’s New Lands to play when the big third act robot ass kicking happens. Total missed opportunity. That and the fact that the bulldog didn’t use his spiral power, but you can’t win them all.

Overall, I can’t tell you if this movie is bad or good, because for perhaps the first time in my life, I honestly can’t make up my mind. Do I regret seeing it? No. Would I watch it again very soon? Probably not. If the things above sound like they are up your alley you will probably come away at the very least mildly entertained. If you want to see what kind of movie a Mexican guy who loves Japanese movies with a 190 million dollars looks like, then this is the film for you.