Reviews

`We cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.' -- Albert Einstein

`Peace is our profession.' -- sign on General Ripper's base

What statement was Stanley Kubrick attempting to make with this 1964 film? Is this a parody of the U.S. military and more generally the U.S. government – a mere spoof? How realistic is this depiction?

Though the scrolling text that introduces the film says that any similarities to real people is purely coincidental and that the U.S. Air Force safeguards against the types of occurrences contained in the film text, all subsequent devices used in the film point to a more realistic feel. This sense of factuality overrides the understated initial comments almost to the point of negating them. After our introduction to Group Captain Mandrake and General Ripper, we are whisked away into news-reel-like footage about the Airborne Alert Force. The voice over that accompanies the footage also encourages the viewer to liken the sequence to a factual news segment. Additionally, the statistical information about the 50 megatons of explosives being carried by each B-52 makes the footage seem realistic. Though there is definitely an element of fiction in the film, the realism is later continued by the hand-held camera footage of the invasion of Ripper's base by U.S. troops.

One of the film's elements that seems as at first as if it can't possibly be realistic is the ability of Ripper to enact Code R, to call an attack without the knowledge of the President, the commander in chief of the armed forces. President Muffley has his power `muffled' by a war provision that he has approved and signed into action but about which he has no recollection. The President is shown to be completely impotent in at least one of the powers granted to him by Article II of the Constitution. He is further depicted as a bit of an idiot he has childish arguments with the Russian Premier about who is more sorry and as he makes statements such as `Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is a war room.'

Ultimately, none of the people who sit in the ever-important war room of the Pentagon and gaze upon the secretive `big map' have any real effect on the bomb being dropped. Finally, the decision, after Ripper has made the initial order, is left to be implemented by this group of young pilots, headed up by the countrified Major Kong. Armed with their conspicuously labeled top secret manuals, the crew sets about to follow the ridiculous mission with which they've been entrusted to see through. No wrench can possibly be thrown in the works to stop these boys from carrying out their mission. Kong has been so trained (or so brainwashed – something with which the enemy Commis were charged – by his military training) to stop at nothing, not even following the example of the WWII Japanese Kamikaze pilots, to follow orders. No amount of conferring at the big round table about the big map can keep plans from going awry. In the end, those men at that table really have nothing to do with the war that goes on outside the walls of their precious inner-Pentagon sanctum.

We find that Ripper's aim of peace as a profession is erroneous just as Einstein surmised.

How will Mildred Pierce succeed in a male-dominated/patriarchal world? She will be forced to take on the characteristics of the men who control it. Unfortunately, Mildred never makes a complete transition to a man and ultimately fails in her endeavor. She has a strong desire to be the loving mother who gives her daughters everything, as well as the drive to be the primary caregiver (partially out of necessity) through her entrepreneurship.

In situations where Mildred is successful at one thing, she fails at the other. For example, when her business is booming, her home life dwindles and Veda continues to grow more apart from her and closer to her male sugar daddies (Monte and Wally). In fact, the opportunity/necessity for Mildred to start her own business grew out of the fact that she was a single parent in a failed home. She doesn't hesitate to kick her husband out and she doesn't take long to decide how she will cope with the lack of income. Eventually, the tables are completely turned, as she takes on the responsibility of providing for Monte. Her very active position in the relationships and her ability to cope well with being on her own (individuality) indicate male characteristics in Bachofen's theory.

Secondly, Mildred fails when she attempts to be what is typically characterized as feminine. During her weekend jaunt with Monte, she is out of touch with everyone, including her husband and children. It is during this weekend that Kay becomes deathly ill with pneumonia. She comes to Kay's side just in time to hear her daughter's touching last word, `Mommy.' The death of Kay, Mildred's tomboyish daughter, comes to foreshadow Mildred's final downfall. Kay, representative of the male side of Mildred, dies, as will that side of Mildred in the end. What message do female viewers take from this film? Succeeding in a male-dominated world is impossible. Even the temporary success of women will be thwarted by men, forcing women back into their secondary positions. We can clearly see this in the film's final scene. Mildred is back with Bert, the man she wanted to escape from so badly. She is someone's wife/woman again and she's going to return to the same domestic chores the women in the Hall of Justice are doing.

A metaphor for hell, Barton Fink (Joel Coen, 1991) uses the landscape of Hollywood in the 1940s to trace the deterioration of a Broadway writer. Through visual and narrative elements, the Coens relay this message to us from the film's onset.

The first image the audience sees is of the red, flame-like wallpaper of the Hotel Earle. Though we do not at first know the significance of this textured background for the opening credits, we quickly recall it as we see it through Fink's eyes when he is typing at his desk. Our attention is redirected to the wallpaper at several other moments in the film, as it seems to keep falling off the wall. The connection between the wallpaper and Charlie Meadows (aka Carl Mundt) is drawn when the same white viscous substance drips from both his ear and the wall. And the wallpaper shows its function as a foreshadowing device when the walls erupt into flame during Charlie's final entrance. That the walls of the Hotel Earle are covered either symbolically or literally in flames is only one of many indicators of its symbolism. On his initial entry into the hotel, Fink is greeted by the bellhop Chet (played by the deathly pale Steve Buscemi), who ascends, as if from the underworld, from a trap door behind the front desk. Fink is also asked to sign his name to the registry. This can be likened to signing your life away to the devil through selling your soul. Also, the most blatant of references is the location of Fink's room on the sixth floor. On the ride up to his floor in the red hued elevator, Barton and Pete make mention of the number six in conversation three times.

The Biblical references are also part of one of the elevator rides.

Barton Fink: Have you read the Bible, Pete? Pete: Holy Bible? Barton Fink: Yeah. Pete: Yeah, I think so. Anyway, I've heard about it.

This furthers the notion that members of the Hotel Earle residential population and staff know very little of the ways of God and good. Additionally, we have W.P. Mayhew's book (which we later find was really penned by Audrey), Nebuchadnezzar, introduced as a reference. We see the king's name again in the Bible that Fink finds and reads in his desk drawer. Appropriately, the verse he reads, Daniel 3:20, posits Fink as the interpreter of `living men.' `As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O King, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.' (New International Version) As Fink turns to the beginning of the Bible, we see the setting of his script under Genesis 1:1.

From the film's beginning, Fink has been pegged as a god of sorts. As the author of the highly acclaimed Broadway production at the film's beginning, he is the man behind the scenes orchestrating the action, as some believe that God manipulates the people on this earth. That Fink's text becomes part of the Bible continues thought in this vein. Fink attempts to be a man who represents the `common man.' This idea is strung throughout the narrative. When Fink shows concern to Garland about leaving Broadway for Hollywood, Garland says, `The common man will still be here when you get back.' Later, while explaining his profession to Meadows, Fink says that he tries to `forge something real out of everyday experience' and write about `the average working stiff, the common man.' When on Earth, Jesus attempted to be `one of us' as well. But, as we see in Fink's case, in putting himself out to be representative of an entire group of people, he necessarily becomes or tries to become better than the common man for who he speaks. This is precisely why Meadows claims to punish him. At the film's beginning, Meadows attempts to tell Fink the stories that he claims to want to relay to his audiences, but Fink won't listen. `You think I mad your life hell?' Meadows asks Fink, `You're just a tourist with a typewriter. I live here.' Though it seems as if Meadows, who may represent the devil or just one of his minions, is letting Fink leave, we realize after his meeting with Jack Lipnick that he will be forced to stay until his contract expires. Neither the audience nor Fink seems to be aware of when this will occur. We are left in as hopeless a place as Fink – a place where the devil wins in the end, not a comforting notion.

Though the narrative provides a direct link to the metaphor, so too does the visual aspect of the film. The use of aerial shots shows the trapped nature of the person in the frame – Barton Fink. The first aerial shot, though it doesn't include Fink, is of the registry book spinning. This spiraling motion of the book foreshadows the eventual downward spiral of Fink himself. We see Fink from above many times throughout the film. First, we see him pinned by Meadows after his wrestling demonstration. We see several similar shots of Fink in bed sleeping. After Fink awakens to find Audrey dead, he runs into the bathroom where we get another aerial shot.

As Fink struggles to write `simple morality tales,' we see him fall to his demise. The more good he tries to put into the world, the more evil he encounters. But, as Audrey tries to tell him, ` you don't have to type your soul into it.' This film not only comments on the ruthless nature of the Hollywood film industry, but is also purported to represent the specific struggles of the Coens, who wrote this script while experiencing writer's block during the writing of their 1990 film Miller's Crossing.

Though the title is accurate to describe the portion of the film that's about Hugh O'Connor, Elizabeth Barret's Stranger with a Camera is more precisely about strangers with cameras in a particular part of Appalachian Kentucky. As in most any documentary, Barret is faced with the task of accurately portraying a group of people and a way of life with which most people are unfamiliar. Fortunately, she is able to see the topic through two very important lenses – that of a filmmaker and that of a resident. Without the latter qualification, Barret arguably would have been in no better position to make a commentary on the place or the particulars of O'Connor's death than any of the filmmaking predecessors (i.e. CBS) she features. Primarily, though, she is telling the story of O'Connor and his crew and Hobart Ison and the people of Jeremiah, Kentucky. Clearly, both of these groups will tell their stories, but the challenge comes in how to capture them on film. These distinctly different groups will come across on film in very different ways. As Barret's voice over tells us in the end, `My job is to tell fairly what I see . . . and trust that that is enough.' Does she accomplish this? By interviewing the people in their natural environments and letting them give their interpretations of the events without giving much of her own commentary, Barret leaves the judging up to the viewers. Unfortunately, when a person who has grown up and lived in Appalachia all of his or her life is positioned next to a highly educated, well-traveled person in a documentary, he or she will inevitably look a little foolish to most viewers. Mason's scraggly teeth, stuttering, and slightly incoherent speech pit him as a simpleton. Though he gives one of the only firsthand accounts of the killing, he could come across to the viewer in a less than credible light. Mason is not a player in this narrative who can be left out. Without a doubt, Barret had to include him, and her editing decisions surrounding this person must have been tough. Critics have often asked Barret and the film's producer, Judi Jennings, why they chose not to use subtitles with this man and other Appalachian residents featured in the film. Both she and Jennings have said that this would demeaned and belittled them. However, Alexander Hammid's, one of O'Connor's crew, interview sequence used subtitles. Hammid both had an accent and spoke softly. He is arguably no more difficult to understand than Mason. Yet, because he is more educated and makes a better impression on most viewers, it is somehow judged as more appropriate to include subtitles for his answers. When interviewees are foreign, including subtitles isn't offensive, even if they're speaking in English. Since Mason is both a native English speaker and a life-long resident of this country, the filmmakers deemed it inappropriate to include this viewer's aid. Not all of the Jeremiah residents are as difficult to understand as Mason though. Both Ison's attorney, Polly, and the publishers of The Mountain Eagle, though their opinions were polar opposites, came across as educated and credible. They matched the screen presence of members of the Canadian crew, such as Richard Black and Colin Low. Though I'm sure that most people in Eastern Kentucky were at least somewhat sympathetic of Ison and other exploited neighbors before the film, most people from other parts of the country and the world would have probably been more supportive of the film crew and their rights. However, near the film's conclusion, when we hear Black, the most prominent of the film crew, describe the defense summation from Ison's trial as `a poem about Eastern Kentucky that was beautiful' and one that ended up being more about the values of an Appalachian community than a man who pulled a trigger, we suddenly begin to empathize with the community. When the filmmakers and O'Connor's daughter, Ann, are able to forgive Ison, the viewer can too.

In his opening sequence to Jungle Fever, Spike Lee introduces the pervasive theme of the appropriateness of sex. Through the red haze of a Harlem morning, we are introduced to Flipper and his wife Drew in a very compromising position. Entangled in both the sheets and a moment of passion, the couple begin their morning in copulation, all the while trying desperately not to `wake the baby.' This `baby' could be a child who they've already produced or a child who is potentially in the making.

This notion of sex as a means of producing children runs throughout the film. We find that even after Flipper has begun his relationship with Angela Tucci, he would never think of having children with her. Flipper's fear of having mixed (`octoon, quadroon, mulatto') children is very high. We learn that his wife is mixed herself. Her father is white and her mother is black. During the scene in her office, we get a glimpse of the kind of heartache that she has suffered from her skin color, a result of the intermingling of the two races of her parents. This sex-and-its-aftermath theme manifests itself in the dysfunctional parent/child(ren) relationships throughout the film. Angie is tied to her father and two brothers as a sort of domestic slave. Not only does she have to work hard in a distant part of town all day, but she also has to return home to cook for and clean up after her three male family members. She seems to receive no financial or emotional support for her efforts either. This becomes very clear when her father beats her up after learning of her relationship with Flipper. We see a similar relationship develop with Paulie and his father. His father's constant nagging about the number of each of the periodicals that he orders on a daily basis coupled with his lack of gratefulness for the meals that he cooks for him each day drive Paulie mad. Though Paulie's father isn't as physically abusive as Angela's father is, we see his proclivity toward violence we he forces his way into the bathroom and whaps a teary-eyed Paulie on the head with a magazine. Eventually, Paulie is able to stand up to his father, telling him `I'm not your f***ing wife; I'm your son.'

The most powerful and destructive parent/child(ren) relationship that unfolds on the screen is that of Flipper's family, including his brother Gator and both of his parents. Lee's choice to introduce the reverend doctor and his wife as parents of Gator first necessarily colors our impression of them as good parents. What type of parents produce a crackhead? Certainly not the same type of parents that produce an upstanding architect, but maybe the type of parents who would rear an interracial adulterer. Other than Drew, who we really never see interact with her child, Gator's mother is the only mother to which we're physically exposed in the text. She loves both of her children and would rather not talk about the problems that exist in their relationships. Instead, she closes her eyes to the truth of Gator's drug habit and hands him money while he does the dances that she likes, and she would rather change the subject at the dinner table than broach the topic of adultery. This approach to parenting doesn't work any better than that of her counterpart. The reverend doctor doesn't ever want to really talk to his kids about their problems without using biblical metaphors. These one-sided diatribes seem to drown out any potential discussions just as much as the wailing of his favorite Mahalia Jackson records. In the end, he must kill his neglected son because he has deteriorated so extensively from crack use. The film's concluding sequence has brought us full circle. The framing of the newspaper landing on Flipper's stoop initially suggests that everything has returned to normal - that Drew has accepted her husband back into her life. Their daughter's smiles and giggles also point to the same conclusion. But we find, as Drew rolls over in bed and tells Flipper he better leave, that the sex is only a temporary fix for a desire for pleasure. The sex will not solve the problems that it has created. In the film's resolution, we see echoes of Paulie's father's former explosion in the bathroom: `All they think marriage is for is humping.'

The final, seemingly confusing line of the film - `Yo, daddy, I'll suck your big black d*** for $2.' - sums up this theme well. It both mirrors in video and echoes in audio an almost identical part from earlier in the film. When Flipper was walking his daughter to school, a crack whore approaches him with the offer, `I'll suck your d*** for $5.' By the film's end, the price has lowered, the sex has been cheapened, and the whore is addressing Flipper as `daddy.' In this final line, the importance of parent/child relationships is emphatic. Sex, a supposedly physical manifestation of love, often results in a product - a child. This child will then live in a society where sex and love is misguided or undirected altogether.