Girls Night with Parasite: Three academics unravel genre and class in Bong Joon-ho’s historic film

What’s the rumpus?

 Miller’s Crossing is Ethan and Joel Coens’s third film—and like all of their other work, the film takes on a Hollywood genre, in this case the gangster film.  Set in the 1920s, it features a convoluted plot full of twists and turns, cross and double-cross that examines loyalty, love, and power.  However, in typical Coen Brothers fashion, genre is always convoluted and disrupted.  Miller’s Crossing presents a classic gangster motif, but one that turns around two conflicting love triangles: one heterosexual, one homosexual.  Borrowing from both film noir and the detective novel, the film’s production notes acknowledge Dashielle Hammett’s Red Harvest (1929) and it has been compared his The Glass Key (1931), whose protagonist is the aide de camp of a crime boss. Like noir, the dialogue here is literate and the banter is comic. Gabriel Byrne’s Tom is sly and subdued, evoking Bogart’s Sam Spade, while Marsha Gay Harden’s femme fatale, Verna, like all Coen Brothers female leads is strong, savvy, and punches back.

Atmosphere in Miller’s Crossing is created by its darkly lit interiors and Carter Burwell’s original score, which references traditional Irish folk ballads.  The establishing shot reflects the film’s mood and color palate; we hear the crisp clink of ice dropped into a glass framed by backlit bottles of amber, browns, and green.  To the right of screen, Byrne’s shadowy figure slowly advances into the foreground as a dark blur, while a conversation between mob bosses takes place.  Albert Finney’s Leo enters the film as one of the Coen’s favorite tropes, the patriarch behind the big desk—while Jon Polito’s red-faced, Johnny Casper bemoans the lack of friendship, character, and ethics in their world, the bond between thieves.

The film’s main action spills back and forth between urban and wooded spaces, and cinematographer Barry Sonnenfield recreates the interior color palate of the film’s mise en scene by finding outside locations with corresponding colors—and by switching from Kodak to Fuji film for scenes in the mysterious woods, in order to capture them in a muted brown and green tone.  Filmed in New Orleans, Miller’s Crossing also takes on the strange ambiance of that city, which in 1989 looked much like it had in the 1920s. Additionally, the Coens wanted the ominous light of winter without risking snowfall.

The ensuing action is rife with violence that is by turn, comedic, grotesque, and sublime.  Tom is beaten, buildings are exploded, riots erupt, gangsters are assassinated, and bullets rain.  And in one of the most beautifully timed, shot, and executed moments in any Coen Brother’s film, Albert Finney’s aging gangster defends himself with a Thompson gun in a scene of remarkably choreographed violence and beauty—which builds to its climax during a diegetic playing of “Danny Boy.”  This version was recorded by the Irish tenor Frank Patterson while watching the film, in order to match his timing and emotion to its pacing.  And, a scene of John Turturro begging for his life in the forest is a gruesome evocation of Snow White and the woodsman.  It is one of his best ever performances.

Yet for all its drama, the film is still often hilarious, and reflects the Coens gleeful, dark humor.  A ladies room scene features Albert Finney in drag, the Coen’s mentor, director Sam Raimi, is killed in a hail of bullets which resembles a macabre tap dance, and Tom is often beaten merely for the comedic gesture of being handed back his hat.

Tom’s hat is also the central symbol for the film.  The opening and closing credits feature it, a hat blowing into the woods, the re-creation of a dream Tom shares with Verna. Halfway through completing the screenplay, Ethan and Joel developed writers’ block.  Frustrated, they took three weeks off to write Barton Fink and then returned to the more complex narrative… therefore Tom Reagan lives in the Barton Arms.  If the point of Barton Fink, however, is to examine the life of the mind, Miller’s Crossing leaves us with only a vague symbol of its convoluted reasoning: a dream, something lost, recovered, and then lost again.  And yet at its heart, Miller’s Crossing ultimately is, a film about friendship, character, and ethics.         

Star Trek Into Darkness: The Trouble With Drones

Star Trek Into Darkness:  The Trouble With Drones

J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek Into Darkness is a rollicking good ride; an old-fashioned Action/Adventure flick based on a beloved TV series from the 1960s.  Today, as we inhabit an America socially closer to the 23^rd Century where the Star Trek narrative is set, we are also nearer to the equality that only existed aboard the USS Enterprise in the America of 1966.  The crew of the Enterprise is composed of both men and women, and its flight deck includes multicultural and multinational representatives who look as if they have been recruited from the United Nations—with even a likeable Russian, Chekhov, and this at the height of the Cold War.  Of course, anyone born after the 1960s still has exposure to the era, through history books, cinema, pop culture, and even modern television such as Mad Men, and knows that chaos was inherent, perhaps rampant, in the era.  Civil unrest, as well as violence over Civil Rights, Women’s Right’s, and soon after, Gay Rights, was all part of the zeitgeist of Star Trek’s tenure.  Not to mention that one of the most controversial U.S. Foreign Policy decisions ever made, The Vietnam War, was at its zenith.

 Star Trek Into Darkness entwines modern cinematic plot structures with plucked out bits of back story, original characters, and plot points from Star Trek’s illustrious past—both film sequels and the original series—to construct a meta narrative, as well as a CGI spectacle, which aspires to be pleasing to both trekkies and novices.  What I find most interesting, however, is its thematic attempt to echo some of the original anti-war motifs of Gene Roddenberry’s series.  Specifically, in this latest sequel to the Star Trek legacy there is the matter of the photon torpedoes, which relate to a very particular aspect of current American foreign policy: drones.

Roddenberry stated that he intended the series to be the antithesis of Cold War politics, with its multinational crew and mission to explore not conquer.  Critics have speculated, however, that like many other popular media texts, the hero of his tale reflects the state of the nation as well as traits and attributes that exemplify the most cherished qualities of American heroes.  Critic H. Bruce Franklin proposes that the plot of the television series shifts gears in 1968 and goes from episodes which supports the colonialist attitude that the U.S. is saving the world from communism, with Klingons encoded as the big, bad savage villains of the universe—to the idea that something has gone terribly wrong with the American Way.  In earlier episodes, when the Enterprise arrived on planets in conflict, they threw their might or knowledge onto the side they saw as “right.”  In the episode “City of the Edge of Forever” Kirk and McCoy are transported through a time warp to American in 1930.  Kirk must let a woman he has fallen for die in an accident because her message of pacifism would have spread in America and allowed the Germans to win World War II (“Star Trek in the Vietnam Era”).  This episode is seen as a justification of the war in Southeast Asia.  But by 1968/1969 Franklin posits that the conflicts on other planets symbolize a dismal view of war as a futile struggle that leads to years of entrenched violence.  Furthermore:

Like other Americans, SF writers were profoundly and bitterly divided about the Vietnam War, and in early 1968 more than a hundred and fifty of them took out rival advertisements supporting and opposing continuation of the conflict … in the March issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction … Among the 82 who signed the ad that stated “We oppose the participation of the United States in the war in Vietnam” were Star Trek scriptwriters Jerome Bixby, Jerry Sohl, Harlan Ellison, and Norman Spinrad as well as Gene Roddenberry himself. (“Star Trek in the Vietnam Era”)

The attitude of the show had shifted.

Author Henry Jenkins states, “Kirk continually intervenes.  He continually disrupts and destabilizes governments.  He seems to embody the Vietnam-era idea of America as a policeman that interferes in other peoples business”(“Star Trek: Klingons and Commies”).  But it would also seem that if Kirk is the typical American who is brutish and brave, charming and dangerous—his antithesis could be found in the other crew members, especially Spock, who seems to balance Kirk’s rash bravura because he isn’t American.  At all.  Spock is something Other—than human.  His creed of logic always seems to veer toward pacifism and the Prime Directive, the doctrine of non-interference.

And so it is with Star Trek Into Darkness.  Blind with rage against a federation rogue, John Harrison, who has attacked Starfleet Headquarters and killed, among others, Kirk’s father figure, Christopher Pike, Kirk begs the Starfleet Admiral to be allowed to track down and capture Harrison.  Things seem fairly straightforward: Harrison is hiding on the Klingon plant of Kronos and the Enterprise is sent to find him.  This is all good and well until 72 photon torpedoes are delivered to the Enterprise and Kirk is told by the good Admiral Marcus to use these to hunt down and destroy Harrison without loss of life to the crew.  Easy. Fine.  Only the bad guys dies.  However, this idea is abhorrent to all the major players except for Kirk.

Spock finds it illogical and unethical that a criminal be destroyed without a fair trial.  The chief engineer, Scott, resigns because the torpedoes are sealed and he is not allowed to inspect them—yet he realizes they contain enough radiation to interfere with the ship’s warp drive.  And Uhura and McCoy just think it’s bad business to kill someone in secret; that a face-to-face conflict is better than well, cheating with the torpedoes.  Therefore, the Enterprise has a drone problem.

Kirk, is convinced to do the right thing and goes after Harrison with a search party—which almost gets them killed by barbarous Klingons, and gives Lieutenant Uhura a chance to show the guys what a real woman can do in terms of guile and bravery.  But in the end, the film’s initial ethical conflict reflects the current state of American warfare, just like the original did way back in the day.

It’s the job of popular narratives to reflect our nation state and Star Trek Into Darkness does its job skillfully.  Not only does it turn out that the drone-like, radioactive torpedoes are unfair weapons, they also harbor what is left of an ancient race.  Following Kirk’s blind faith the crew would have used weapons to an unethical purpose, wiped out an entire race of people, oh, and disregarded the Prime Directive of non-interference which Kirk is always ignoring—to reshape a balance of power—all too familiar territory back in 1966-1969.  And typically, the nefarious plot is set in motion by a mad man with an ulterior motive: war.

How far have we come?  Well in my opinion, much of that rests with Nyota Uhura who is black, female, logical and emotional, and an Amazon warrior all in one: Beam me down on that flying unmanned space craft and let me at that super-human villain who’s after my man!  Let me go out there and talk reason to an uncivilized group of angry Klingons!  This is the character I most want to reflect my nation state.  And Uhura, she is also one sure sign that our national narrative has changed in the last fifty years.  Still, Star Trek Into Darkness carries the storyline that Roddenberry envisioned into a new age: a post Cold War, postcolonial, and postmodern twenty-first century—unfortunately with most of its original questions about war and ethics still intact.

 Works Cited:

“Star Trek: Klingons and Commies.”  BBC, 1 July 2013. Web. 1 July 2013.

Franklin, H. Bruce. “Star Trek in the Vietnam Era.”  Science Fiction Studies, 62.21

     (1994). Web. 30 June 2013. 

“In Care Of”

Tonight is the Season 6 finale of Mad Men—and as we edge closer to the less-than-five hours-away from the conclusion of Season 6 and another interminable wait for the next, which will conclude the series—how can you but help but wonder what all the clues and encoded symbols this season, well, mean?
Perhaps Season 5 was about resurrection: Megan’s self reliance, Peggy’s individuality, Roger’s brush with psychedelics, Peter’s affair and consequent existential angst, Don’s transformation into a reliable husband just as Joan enters single life, and of course an episode entitled, “Lady Lazarus.”  Yet most of the speculation about Season 6 has turned to supposition of someone’s death.  How can we not, when we have a season that begins with the death and revival of a doorman in the lobby of Don’s building right under the horrified gaze of himself and Megan—and luckily Arnold Rosen, a heart surgeon who leaps into action.  The other witness to the encounter is his wife, Sylvia, who also turns out to be Don’s latest conquest.
The episode begins in Hawaii where Don hatches an ad scheme which is reminiscent of suicide, and the season’s plot arc amounts to A Season in Hell for Don Draper, as reflected by the opening shot of Don reading Dante’s Inferno.  There is a near death in the lobby, Don’s near drowning in episode 11 and of course, the internet rumors of Megan’s Draper’s impending death a la Sharon Tate, which Weiner himself had to step in to dispel, stating:  “I don’t want to spoil anything for people, but after Lane… It’s just not part of the show… No one’s going to die. This season.”
And of course, we now have the added attraction of Ted Chaough, the new ad man who flies a small aircraft with several of our main characters on board, as well as the creepy Bob Benson.  Those facts, coupled with the backdrop of 1968, has given us a Mad Men season with the constant background chatter of the Vietnam daily death counts, the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the Chicago riots—as well as a diagetic soundtrack, a plethora of encoded symbols for death (including Sharon Tate’s t-shirt on Megan), and a haunted, backsliding, miserable Don Draper.  All of this makes for nerve-wracking suspense and speculation.
So what will happen? Don has had a vision that Megan is pregnant, perhaps she is.  And as my friend and mentor, Dr. David Lavery has pointed out, Sylvia tells Don that if her husband learns of their affair, he will “kill us.”  Perhaps he will.  Or as Lavery also reminds us, Matthew Weiner is the writer who put Tony in a coma for most of the final season of The Sopranos.  Perhaps Don will wake up in Hawaii, or perhaps in jail given the cops in the background on Mad Men’s most recent poster.  Or perhaps he will merely wake up in the lobby mirroring the season’s beginning.  However, Episode 13, which airs in a mere few hours, is entitled “In Care Of,” a phase that carries the meaning “through someone or by way of someone.”  Who could that be?  What could it mean?

Hushpuppy’s World: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a mysterious story told and filmed from a child’s point of view.  It occurs in a liminal space, a wild landscape that does not follow the laws of reason or the social order.  Somewhere between the truth and perception, between dry land and the sea, and away from the constraints of normalized civilization is a community of intensely proud outsiders called The Bathtub.  It exists in a realm south of New Orleans, a region below the levees and just beyond the law.  There, life is dependent upon the land— its bounty and its punishment.  Hushpuppy is a six year-old girl-child without a mother, whose father, Wink, must imprint with the legend of their history while teaching her the tricks of endurance.  While the population of The Bathtub is already perched on the boundary of existence—into their daily life comes an apocalyptic Katrina-like storm with an after effect of Biblical proportion.  In addition, Hushpuppy is a visionary.  She tells us, “When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me flying around in invisible pieces.”

Hushpuppy shows us her cosmos: the real world around her and a dream world where animals speak to her, her mother appears as a light in the distance, and an interracial community keeps itself going to become a family.  “I see that I am a little piece of a big, big universe, and that makes it right.”  BSW shows us the universe is connected: ice caps melt to reveal the mythical beasts who come to destroy her world through rain and flood, and when Hushpuppy tells her father in a childish rage that she will eat birthday cake on his grave, her words literally strike him to the ground.  The physical world of The Bathtub is unforgiving and unkind— but it is steeped in poetry and grounded in reality.  Floods recede to leave death and hunger.  Miss Bathsheba, the teacher, tells her class at the beginning of the film, “We are all meat.”  And BSW proceeds to prove her right, food is caught and dismembered, flesh rots and dies, and joy is large and passionate.  Miss Bathsheba, however, also teaches gris gris and kindness.  And best of all, the women of The Bathtub grow up strong and fierce and sure.

BSW is by all means an independent film, you have to ride the narrative flow and trust in its process.  The cinematography is lush and magical, the stars are untrained and phenomenal, and the plot is full of leaps and surprises.  These characters radiate a kind of dignity and pride that is wholly Southern and fully realized by regional actors.  Survivors of Katrina are believable as survivors, and their experience informs the film.  Yet this is a narrative where girls swim out to sea to find their mothers as sirens in a down and out juke joint in the ocean called Elysian Fields, and also learn to catch fish with their hands to subsist.  BSW is a peculiar collage where all the pieces ultimately fit together to construct Hushpuppy’s world.  And what an amazing world it is.

For a brief moment these individuals are tamed, but ultimately they return home to a place with “more holidays than the whole rest of the world.”  Determined, proud, and free, they are closer to the origin of the world than most of us.  Hushpuppy’s father Wink states that while they are struggling to find food, the people beyond the levee are shopping in markets, not out in their own backyards.  Our sense of their poverty is staggering.  But this is a rag-tag group who remember what the rest beyond the levee have forgotten:  what connects us is both mystery and sinew, a thing that rises above the flood and lives beyond adversity to become the truth, the fabric of our memory, and finally, legend.  Hushpuppy knows the most important thing is to be recognized after we have gone, and to be remembered.  That who we are and what we become is part of the larger universe.