Monthly Archives: October 2009

Protecting One’s Own: Letterman and Polanski

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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Like I said in my lengthy Roman Polanski apologists’ post (here ), most of society feels that Hollywood directors, producers, and actors are in the wrong for petitioning the arrest of Polanski because – among the most repetitive of reasons – he is a talented director and has gone through a lot in life. But the biggest part of the defense of their beloved Chinatown director has to be the simple fact that Hollywood is Polanski and vice versa. Why wouldn’t they defend him? He is ONE of them. The rest of us outside of Hollywood wouldn’t “understand” that. (See, I’m still bitter about it.)

Then I read an article on Vanity Fair’s website by Nell Scovell – one of the few female writers to ever work for David Letterman. She writes that after Letterman announced on his show that he’d had sexual affairs in the workplace…:

Most media stars responded by defending one of their own.

That’s when it hit me.

Despite how Hollywood felt, all of us “ordinary” people in society became re-outraged by Polanski’s sexual crimes. But Letterman? We shrugged it off, appreciated that he “handled it so well,” and felt relieved that his sexual affairs with female staffers were not “as bad” as what Polanski did to an unwilling 13-year-old girl.

Then again, the timeliness of the two cases was undoubtedly convenient for Letterman. As Kate Harding parenthetically wrote in a Jezebel article on the subject, “Letterman should probably send Roman Polanski a big fruit basket for ensuring that this scandal came with built-in perspective.”

Don’t misunderstand me here: the two sexual cases between Letterman and Polanski are NOT – I repeat, NOT – in the same boat. Just as a reminder, Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and fled the country to escape charges in the U.S., and Letterman had affairs with some of his female staffers.

However, after reading the articles by Kate Harding and Nell Scovell, I’m starting to ask myself…Didn’t we end up doing the same thing for Letterman that Hollywood did for Polanski? After all the sympathizing we did, and after all the “let’s not jump to conclusions” kind of statements we made, I believe we let Letterman off the hook as a society. I mean, he still cheated on his life-long partner (and now wife), and created awkwardness and inappropriateness in the office with his affairs. And what did we say in his defense? You know, without REALLY saying it? Something like this: “Well, he’s funny, and we’ve always loved him, so…what’s the big deal really?”

As much as I love film, I think we relate more to television as a culture. We feel that it’s almost a part of us because we grew up with it and we spend time with it daily. Maybe that’s why we united with the media on the Letterman case and protected one of our own. Much like Hollywood did with their own.

Maybe I’m grasping at straws here too, but I’d like to think I’m on to some kind of connection, one that unconsciously happened within our society.

Favorites Revisited #2: Revamped Camp (or, Why You Hate ‘Marie Antoinette’)

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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marie-antoinette

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyaka/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Here’s why there are more people who hate Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” than those who love it – You don’t know what it is.

I’m not trying to be condescending here, but it’s the truth. Whenever I hear someone go on about why they didn’t like the film, it’s along the lines of: “What is this movie, with no story and bare minimum dialogue and 80s post-punk music over an 18th century setting and cakes and macrons everywhere? It must just be a movie aching for a Costume Design Oscar.”

I’m writing this post to tell you that the movie is none of those things. Well, I mean, those things are definitely big parts in the movie, but that’s not what it is. I’ll tell you what “Marie Antoinette” is – Camp. It might be obvious to some, but more often than not, I think people are confused about what the film is trying to do or be. But trust me, it’s easier to like it when you look at it for what it is: aesthetic-centered, revamped Camp set in 18th century Versailles.

Don’t believe me? To keep things brief and avoid long-winded-ness, I’ll list some points from the Encyclopedia of Camp – Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp”:

1. To start very generally: Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism. It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp, is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice, of stylization.

5. Camp taste has an affinity for certain arts rather than others. Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of Camp. For Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface, and style at the expense of content. Concert music, though, because it is contentless, is rarely Camp. It offers no opportunity, say, for a contrast between silly or extravagant content and rich form. . .

38. Camp is the consistently aesthetic experience of the world. It incarnates a victory of “style” over “content,” “aesthetics” over “morality,” of irony over tragedy.

And finally…

13. The dividing line seems to fall in the 18th century; there the origins of Camp taste are to be found (Gothic novels, Chinoiserie, caricature, artificial ruins, and so forth.) But the relation to nature was quite different then. In the 18th century, people of taste either patronized nature (Strawberry Hill) or attempted to remake it into something artificial (Versailles). They also indefatigably patronized the past. Today’s Camp taste effaces nature, or else contradicts it outright. And the relation of Camp taste to the past is extremely sentimental.

I would like to let these definitions speak for themselves and draw their own connections. I believe Coppola’s portrayal of Marie Antoinette as a 1980s post-punk rock Material Girl is the essence of modern Campiness drawing on the past – as Camp tends to do (see #13). And the past of Versailles was almost too perfect to serve as the Camp backdrop.

That’s not to say that Coppola’s film is cinematically irrelevant. (And for me, this is where it gets touchy.) Of course one of the main purposes of the film is to be pretty. That’s Coppola’s whole film outlook – prettiness, shots through blades of grass, and Kirsten Dunsts lying outdoors in rustic white nightgowns. That’s what Coppola does. She cares about the beauty aesthetic. She chose film over the practical digital camera for Lost in Translation because digital wasn’t “romantic” enough. She wants to portray beauty and pretty things. Sorry, not to generalize here, but the men I’ve talked to don’t necessarily love this because they’re not used to it. Because 98% of the films we see are and have been made by men, not “girly” women like Sofia Coppola. Hell, who are we kidding? They’re hardly made by women period. But this aesthetic outlook should not be undermined in terms of art. Coppola said it best herself in her own defense: “You’re considered superficial and silly if you are interested in fashion, but I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity.”

But back to Camp in particular – I think this whole explanation of what the film’s going to do is laid out right in front of us from the very opening shot. A French maid puts on Marie Antoinette’s shoes while the Queen sits amongst tables of cakes. The last we see of this shot is Kirsten Dunst licking cake off her finger and looking straight into the camera – breaking the fourth wall – with a devilish schoolgirl smirk. There it is. Right there. The whole film’s purpose revealed to us in one moment, and we missed it or forgot about it.  “The joke’s on you,” Sofia Coppola seems to say. The joke’s on you.

Down to the Roots of ‘Good Hair’

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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good_hair_ver2Anyone who lives in Chicago and takes public transportation knows that the Red Line is full of smells. Just today I walked onto the Red Line only to be taken aback by a strong but familiar one – the smell of relaxer. Or, I guess as white people call it, “chemical straightener.” I had this (or some version of it) put in my hair twice as a pre-teen, and I knew the smell immediately. Even after this young girl walked off the train – with much confidence – it lingered. This is some serious stuff. And it’s one of the focuses of Chris Rock’s funny but illuminating documentary, Good Hair.

Let me start off by clarifying one thing: I know this is about Black women’s hair. I also know I will never personally understand the stress and maintenance that many Black women go through with their hair. While I learned some things I didn’t know before the film, I found that – just by being a woman with hair – I was able to relate to a lot of what this doc portrayed. And for everyone else…I think you’ll definitely be entertained and informed.

Rock was inspired to make the documentary after one of his (adorable) young daughters asked him, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” The doc explores the topic of what it means to have “good” hair, largely through interviews with a diverse range of Black men and women – everyone from Ice-T to dermatologists to music video stars. (Yeah, apparently Ice-T gets his own category.) Oh, and did I mention Maya Angelou? She provides some brief insight on the topic as well.

There are a multitude of topics explored under the umbrella subject of “good hair.” Rock uses the diverse interviews for perspective, a hair convention performance contest for entertainment, and a trip to India for the back story of many African-American weaves.

Most interesting, perhaps, are the permeating themes that come up frequently at various points of the doc. One being the understanding or orientation that Black men already have to Black women’s hair. One interviewee commented on how Black men get this because they grew up with their mothers and sisters doing the same things every day. Actor Nia Long talked about how other men, such as white men, don’t understand her hair maintenance at all, and might even be scared of it as something unfamiliar to them.

On the other hand, another theme popped up – the notion that, as KRS-One says outright, ALL women strive to have long, straight “European” (a word frequently used in the film) hair. Ice-T says something to the effect of, “Let’s talk to all those famous white girls and see if THEIR long hair is real”…as a cutaway reveals Paris Hilton and her obvious blonde hair “extensions.”

This all comes to the realization that, no matter your ethnicity, hair is very important for most women. Whether it’s using chemical relaxer on what people offensively call “nappy” locks, or dying your hair bleach blonde regardless of your natural features, or refusing to cut your hair because its length has become a protective shield to you – hair has meaning for us females. As a completely bald woman with alopecia poignantly said in the doc:

I think hair is so important because our self-esteem is wrapped up in it.

From a white woman’s point of view, I know I’ve always been told that my hair looks better curly – in its natural state. I think a lot of white women hear that same thing, actually. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like enough people are telling Black women and girls that their hair is beautiful just the way it is. This is portrayed by the 3-year-olds getting their hair relaxed. Or the scene where one high school girl with a cute short Afro sits awkwardly as relaxed-haired women say they don’t think any woman can be taken seriously as a professional unless her hair is straightened.

One thing that’s brushed over in the film but comes up a lot when people talk about the film is the WHY. Why do Black women want straight hair? Why did people freak out when Solange Knowles cut off her hair? Why doesn’t the rest of the world accept Black hair in its natural state? These questions went largely unanswered, but the assumed answer that Chris Rock and his interviewees seemed to give is simply that Black hair is not understood by non-Black people.

The film offers not only humor, but empathy towards the subject of Black hair. However, I’m struggling to decide what the documentary does more – empathize and explain, or ridicule? I hope that – once more people see the film – the whole point of Chris Rock’s endeavor doesn’t become counterproductive.

What I’m saying is: While this is a movie about Black women’s hair, I think it’s important to remember that we shouldn’t go see this doc and then come out of it saying, “Wow, those women are CRAZY and spend SO much money on all this hair stuff! How ridiculous!” Instead, why don’t we take a step back, get past the laughs, learn a thing or two that we never thought about before, and also recognize that many women – regardless of race – do crap to their hair. Most of us women, let’s face it, abuse our hair for years and years, just to force it to be something that it’s not. And thank you, Chris Rock, for caring enough to take on that issue and portray it in a well-balanced light.

Favorites Revisited #1: ‘Eternal’ Dream Film

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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After a 4 AM conversation with friends about the creepiness and wonder of dreams, I’ve been thinking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all day.

esotsm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/willfc/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Though Gondry’s masterpiece (yes, I’m saying that) is not about dreams – but rather, memory – it’s a very dream-like film. I also have to credit Charlie Kaufman, of course. Those impeccably erratic flashbacks are worthy of envy…and ultimately frustration, as one attempts to accomplish a similar thing in one’s own script and can’t seem to find the same success (Ahem.)

Regardless of how the film might seem over-enthused by now (but definitely not overrated), I have to say that if you haven’t seen it – you need to. But chances are, you have seen it. In that case, I think you should watch it again. Seriously, you’ll love it even more each time.

For me, there are a few scenes that really get me whenever I watch it. Scenes that don’t seem as important or as powerful to anyone else. Like when Joel (Jim Carrey) forces his memory back to his childhood on a rainy day. His adult world and his childhood collide in one instant, and it starts pouring rain in their living room. Cue the Jon Brion piano music and I’m overwhelmed with emotion in an instant. I can’t place why, exactly, but it’s kind of like the strangeness of dreams. Like the feeling that you’ve had this dream before but you don’t remember actually having it. Or the way you know a person in your dream even though they look completely different or have no distinguishable face at all. It’s that kind of a feeling with Eternal Sunshine. An unexplainable dream-like connection. Gondry and Kaufman – how did you ever pull it off?

‘Capitalism’: A Long Story?

Posted on by Colleen Claes
Reply

capitalism_love_story_posterCapitalism. It’s a large subject to tackle in one documentary. My boyfriend pointed this out to me as I shared some complaints I had with Michael Moore’s new documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. I see the point there, but I still can’t help but wonder how the director could have done things a little differently.

After some overly heavy analogies of the Roman Empire, the doc opens with a gripping home video of a family’s house being foreclosed. Foreclosure is the one subject in the documentary that Moore spends ample time on, and it proves to be effective and heart-wrenching.

It becomes apparent though how many subjects are brought up in such a short amount of time – everything from airline pilots making an astonishingly low annual income to the Republic Windows and Doors workers’ protest in Chicago last year. The result is usually a too-brief coverage of most issues. Oddly enough, the topic choices also felt sporadic and out of place, even though they all fit under the massive umbrella subject that is “the drawbacks of capitalism.” And yet, there were still issues he didn’t bring up at all.

I expected Moore to address the unemployment rates nationwide that happened due to the economic crisis. Instead, he focused here and there on Flint, Michigan (his hometown, a subject he’s been passionate about since the beginning of his career as a documentarian.) I also thought that surely Capitalism would address the issue that college students are facing now because of the crisis.  But aside from asking a few pilots about their massive college loans still to be paid off, Moore didn’t address this at all.

Ultimately, I felt like he left me hanging. Every story that he touched on briefly, I wanted to know more about it within the context of the documentary.

I don’t think it was a bad film, but I think it would’ve benefited from focusing on only a few topics expansively, as opposed to tiny snippets. Something like Hurricane Katrina, for instance, is too painful and socially critical to just brush over of at the very end of the film.

I’m not saying you won’t be interested in Capitalism: A Love Story – because you will be, for the most part. Though at times it might drone on during the least interesting parts (like a section dedicated to FDR), and feel rushed during the most captivating, Moore’s new documentary is worth watching. At least it’ll get you wanting to know more about the subjects he briefly introduces. And whether or not you’re a recent college graduate like I am, it will also piss you off. Really, really piss you off.

Polanski’s Friends Tut-tut at Rape Crime

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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PolanskiIFFKV

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

The more directors and actors that sign the Polanski apologist petition, the more I want to forget I ever studied film and go into sales.

For anyone who hasn’t read the actual petition word for word, it reads as follows (and no, I’m not kidding):

Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.

He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.

Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.

We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.

Obviously, I’ve bolded the phrases that stand out as most ridiculous to me, mostly due to their elitist and pompous nature. But please note especially that the rape of a 13-year-old child has been belittled to a mere “episode.” Wait, you mean to tell me he was arrested after 32 years for fleeing the country in escape of punishment for a MERE episode?! What absurdity!

Replace “an episode” with “unlawful sex with a minor” (as the law calls it), or more realistically (given the survivor’s account): “the drugging and raping of a 13-year-old girl,” and it doesn’t sound as petty somehow.

These are the things that seem to be trending mentions in Polanski’s defense: the fact that he survived Nazi-occupied Poland and an Austrian concentration camp, the murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate by the Manson family (as indescribably horrid as those events must have been – there’s no arguing that), and the fact that he is one of our most celebrated directors of contemporary film. I’m sorry, but none of these excuse Roman Polanski from pleading guilty to charges of unlawful sex with a minor (whom he also drugged and intoxicated, mind you) and fleeing the U.S. in order to escape punishment. Do we bring up a painful past – and so adamantly – for other men who have plead guilty to the same crime?

Oh, but then there’s Harvey Weinstein. (Of The Weinstein Company and co-founder of Miramax, for anyone who doesn’t know.) He released a statement saying, amongst other astonishing things, “Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time.”

SO-CALLED crime? So now Harvey Weinstein is more apt than the law to determine what’s a REAL crime and what’s a SO-CALLED crime? God help us that he ever goes into law, because then, apparently, raping a minor would only be a SO-CALLED crime. But see, by calling it a “so-called crime,” again, Hollywood elitist assholes can trick themselves and their peers into thinking that no justice need be served, because there’s nothing of real importance or legitimacy to serve justice for.

Way to go, gang. Just keep telling yourselves that. Oh, and by the way, I’m pretty sure Polanski has NOT “served his time” by prancing around Europe freely, remarrying (to a woman 30 years his junior, of course) and having children, while making and releasing films and even winning an Oscar for one of them. Actually, on second thought, that does sound awful. Like, pure torture.

Weinstein also added:

It is a shocking way to treat such a man. Polanski went through the Holocaust and the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson family. How do you go from the Holocaust to the Manson family with any sort of dignity? In those circumstances, most people could not contribute to art and make the kind of beautiful movies he continues to make.

See, in Hollywood, making “beautiful movies” should excuse a fugitive of 30 years.

I’m at a point where I think I am more disgusted with Polanski’s supporters than Polanski himself. That said, we actually have no recent statements from Polanski to go off of. But the words of his supporters say it all. Too much, actually. All of these film festival directors, studio execs, actors, and of course, directors, have proven once and for all that they live in their own little world, with their own little euphemisms to belittle words like “rape” and “crime.” For those who live in this world – the one I’m writing from, the one that everyone else who’s outraged by this lives in – Hollywood has never looked so despicable.

There are two questions for Polanski apologists to consider: 1) What if it was YOUR daughter 30 years ago? and 2) In the words of Joy Behar, “What if Polanski was a plumber?” Would you still support him fiercely then?

Bottom line: Roman Polanski and his allies should feel lucky that he was able to “continue” to make “beautiful movies” all these years, instead of doing what he SHOULD have done – which is, serve time for the crime he pleaded guilty to over 30 years ago.

What’s not to understand about this, I ask you? ALL of you, listed below, who have (thus far) signed the “Free Polanski” petition? What’s NOT to understand?

Fatih Akin, Stephane Allagnon, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Wes Anderson, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Alexandre Arcady, Fanny Ardant, Asia Argento, Darren Aronofsky, Olivier Assayas, Alexander Astruc, Gabriel Auer, Luc Barnier , Christophe Barratier, Xavier Beauvois , Liria Begeja , Gilles Behat, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Marco Bellochio, Monica Bellucci, Djamel Bennecib, Giuseppe Bertolucci , Patrick Bouchitey, Paul Boujenah, Jacques Bral, Patrick Braoudé, André Buytaers, Christian Carion, Henning Carlsen, Jean-michel Carre, Mathieu Celary, Patrice Chéreau, Elie Chouraqui, Souleymane Cissé, Alain Corneau, Jérôme Cornuau, Miguel Courtois, Dominique Crevecoeur, Alfonso Cuaron, Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jonathan Demme, Alexandre Desplat, Rosalinde et Michel Deville, Georges Dybman, Jacques Fansten, Joël Farges, Gianluca Farinelli (Cinémathèque de de Bologne), Etienne Faure, Michel Ferry, Scott Foundas, Stephen Frears, Thierry Frémaux, Sam Gabarski, René Gainville, Tony Gatlif, Costa Gavras, Jean-Marc Ghanassia, Terry Gilliam, Christian Gion, Marc Guidoni, Buck Henry, David Heyman, Laurent Heynemann, Robert Hossein, Jean-Loup Hubert, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gilles Jacob, Just Jaeckin, Alain Jessua, Pierre Jolivet, Kent Jones (World Cinema Foundation), Roger Kahane, Nelly Kaplan, Wong Kar Waï, Ladislas Kijno, Harmony Korinne, Jan Kounen, Diane Kurys, Emir Kusturica, John Landis, Claude Lanzmann, André Larquié, Vinciane Lecocq, Patrice Leconte, Claude Lelouch, Gérard Lenne, David Lynch, Michael Mann, François Margolin, Jean-PierreMarois, Tonie Marshall, Mario Martone, Nicolas Mauvernay, Radu Mihaileanu, Claude Miller, Mario Monicelli, Jeanne Moreau, Sandra Nicolier, Michel Ocelot, Alexander Payne, Richard Pena (Directeur Festival de NY), Michele Placido, Philippe Radault, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Raphael Rebibo, Yasmina Reza, Jacques Richard, Laurence Roulet, Walter Salles, Jean-Paul Salomé, Marc Sandberg, Jerry Schatzberg, Julian Schnabel, Barbet Schroeder, Ettore Scola, Martin Scorsese, Charlotte Silvera, Abderrahmane Sissako, Paolo Sorrentino, Guillaume Stirn, Tilda Swinton, Jean-Charles Tacchella, Radovan Tadic, Danis Tanovic, Bertrand Tavernier, Cécile Telerman, Alain Terzian, Pascal Thomas, Giuseppe Tornatore, Serge Toubiana, Nadine Trintignant, Tom Tykwer, Alexandre Tylski, Betrand Van Effenterre, Wim Wenders.‡