Monthly Archives: January 2016

The sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are visually appealing and complex to compensate for the lack of sound in the film. The lighting was staged in a manner to highlight the actors in the frame, as a theater production would draw attention to the lead. The light sources within the frame would often emit from a lamp encased in a grid-like cage. The shadows cast from the light would mimic the bars of a prison. The windows of the asylum cause similar shadows to communicate that Cesare lacks freedom. The shadows within each frame contribute to the creation of the ominous and frightening tone of a horror film. The shadows are often used by Cesare as a camouflage mechanism which causes uncertainty to arise within the audience. The shadows of the actors are cast in a manner to appear to be much larger than the actor themselves. The encroaching manner that the shadows embody represent the ease of evil to overcome the characters.

The sets are constructed in a manner that portrays a theme of geometric shapes and lines. The walls are not built with 90 ̊ angles as they lean inwards, to cause the entire asylum to appear as a casket. The geometric shapes that decorate the sets represent the instability of Cesare. They also allude to the lack of political direction within the era and reflects the aura of a haunted house. The geometric motif is an abstract representation of the unknown future for Germany. Throughout the sets, there are multiple solid lines that are painted to add complexity and depth to the piece, also described is the numerous political routes for Germany. The sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are built and staged in a manner that furthers the film as a work of art as well as a manifestation of the politics of the era.

The Bloody Chamber is a volume of prose that works around bodily fluids. Blood, sweat, tears and ejaculate are where the money is in any media, to be certain, and Angela Carter’s collection of stories deals with a collection of topics that focus on (and in some cases may invoke) these reactions. It’s telling of the material (and the reader) that they reminded me of giallo film.

Giallo is a genre of Italian film that burgeoned during the 60s and 70s. The name means ‘yellow’, for the pulp paperbacks that served as the foundation for many of the stories. Essentially, these are crime and mystery films with elements of horror and eroticism. Hitchcock’s movies influenced the visual style. They are bloody, sexy, awesomely scored, terribly dubbed (for the English versions at least) and questionably written to say the least. The connection to Angela Carter, at least to me, exists in the warped minds of giallo’s three pioneers: Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci.

The films of all of these directors created giallo by taking a similar mixture of high and low culture as The Bloody Chamber, combining a fondness for the finer things in life and a fascination with the viscerally disturbing. Sex and violence are inexorably linked, often through the proclivities of a depraved elite, as in Carter’s prose. The Gothic aesthetic, with its dark, dramatic stories, lends itself well to both. The primary difference between The Bloody Chamber and the average giallo is the unavoidable fact that the latter is, some say inherently, chauvinistic.

A stereotypical giallo plot (used by Dario Argento himself in a recent entry, itself named Giallo) is a black-coated, black-gloved killer, butchering beautiful women (i.e. models) in a very showy, even titillating fashion. The medium ties the emotions of violence with the titillation of sex, and many gialli veer farther into exploitation film territory because of this. Carter is much more ‘involved’ in her subject matter, in that her characters are thoroughly defined and imagined, with the primarily female perspective being the exact opposite of many gialli, which dismiss women as so much meat.

While I cannot defend this characteristic in giallo, especially when it is compared to the progressiveness (and astounding literary quality) of Carter’s work, I do love the genre as a gestalt too much to disown it entirely in the comparison. I can and will recommend films like Deep Red because I find their aesthetic and style undeniable, in the same way that I find the baroque descriptiveness of Carter’s prose to be simply amazing. Before I end, I acknowledge that this perspective comes with the bias of a straight white man, as did the bulk of gialli. Whether Carter did or didn’t successfully subvert this is debatable, but the connection is undeniable.

We’ve all ,at one point or another, been told to separate the reds from the white. However, it appears that Angela Carter did not get the memo and is compelled to fuse the two together inseparably with the symbol of white roses and snow in contrast to blood in The Bloody Chamber. The various times that snow or a white rose is mentioned throughout the fairy tales, almost immediately there is blood shed. For example, in “The Snow Child”, a count stumbles upon a girl with pasty complexion amidst the frost and cold of winter. It is interesting that it is a Count (the blood-sucking monster that is a vampire), who encounters the young girl, who is naked and completely vulnerable to the elements of the cold, “by chance”. We then see that the pale girl pricks her finger on the thorn of a rose and melts (Melts….she melts. Yeah, you read that right). As soon as, for the lack of a better wording, the “reds mix with the whites”, a vile scene soon follows. This is perhaps symbolism of the violation of purity and innocence that is represented by the color white, which is in this case is the obedient little girl, by the bold and brashness that represents the color red. It was perhaps also necessary that the individual who encountered the little girl be the Count, as the pasty girl’s blood would only be desired by creatures such as the Count himself. Additionally, the Count treasured the girl more than his own wife, but breaks free from his fake chivalry as he “unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member” (94)  into the lifeless cast of the girl’s body. Not only are the Count’s intentions finally revealed as rape, but as a morbid obsession of necrophilia. In the end, the innocent girl is deduced to nothing but “a bloodstain, like the trace of a fox’s kill on the snow” (94).

The style of architecture featured in the sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is emblematic of German expressionism. As a movement aimed at externalizing internal thoughts and emotions, it is not surprising that the mise-en-scène — and sets by extension — would serve as a reflection of the events in the plot. The sets used in the film not only consistently externalize the emotions felt in the scene, but the events in the plot as a whole. With most of the film’s events occurring within the mind of a deranged patient, the lack of right angles and rectangular, symmetrical architecture shows the state of madness.

The asylum compared to the hallucinations of Francis

The only time in Caligari when straight lines in doorways and buildings are visible is towards the end of the film, inside the asylum. While an ironic place to find symmetry and order, this contrast from the style in which the rest of the town is depicted shows the difference between the hallucinations of the protagonist and the reality of the world. As an expressionist film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has indeed expressed the inner thoughts and emotions of Francis in every way possible — especially in the world around him.

The flaneur, as discussed last class, was a romantic figure of nearly mystical proportions in 19th century Parisian – and by extension European – urban life, a connoisseur of the pleasures of the city skilled in the art of looking. He was a gentleman of both time and money, who has the luxury of indulging himself in the multifaceted splendour of the bustling metropolis. As Charles Baudelaire described him, the flaneur is the “lover of universal life” who “enters the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy”. The most important quality of a flaneur however, is his dichotomous qualities of both anonymity and individuality. The flaneur is faceless, blending effortlessly into the crowd, never intruding but always observing but at the same time he is also at all times in total control – his understanding of the cityscape and of its inhabitants is encyclopedic and incomparable and while appreciative of what he sees, he is never so drawn in by what the city has to offer as to lose his own identity and sense of self.

The flaneur’s close counterpart, the badaud, fails precisely in this regard. Although they also employ their ample idle hours by looking at the sights of the city, they do so without understanding. Instead being gentlemen strollers like the flaneurs, they are instead simply gawkers. They gravitate towards anything of the remotest interest, such a street brawl or an upturned cart or just the general debauchery of the cabaret. Unlike the flaneur, who is a person of taste, the badaud exhibits no such discretion. He is not interested in observing human nature, only to entertained by any available spectacles. Unlike the aloof and indifferent flaneur, the badaud is a creature of passion, in the words of Baudelaire, he is “absorbed by the outside world, which ravishes him, which moves him to drunkenness and ecstasy. Under the influence the spectacle that presents itself, the badaud becomes an impersonal creature; he is no longer a man, he is the public, he is the crowd”.

The man in Die Straße sets out to become a flaneur but by failing to become an impartial and analytic observer, he becomes a badaud, just another faceless member of society with no control over his destiny. He allowed himself to become a member of the watched rather than a watcher, as exemplified to the poster of the eyes. The true flaneur does not allow himself to fall prey to the allure of the city and all the dangers it represents, instead he is always vigilant, always critical, and always standing in the fringes, always watching and always remaining himself.

Throughout expressionist films, the common theme when viewing in the light of architecture portrays similar aspects. The sets and scenes of these films tend to use buildings with sharp angles, heights, crowded atmospheres and a view of a metropolis. However, German expressionist films rejects all these naturalistic depictions of reality. Often having disorientated figures and portraying landscapes in a disorganised manner.

An example of this can be seen in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Classified as one of the classic German expressionist films during the time. Hermann Warm, the film director, worked with Walter Reimann to create the setting of the film portraying dark and uncanny sets, structures and landscapes are disorientated with sharp-pointed formations.

It is evident that German expressionist films produced immediately after the First World War holds concepts of the social political contexts, however, embodying modern problems of identity. The role of identity can be further explained seen in German society. The role of masculinity during the time after the world war played a significant role in the ideas displayed in expressionist films through the role of insanity and promiscuity in male actions. This can be explained through the changes in society and the increasing importance of the role of women in the country.

Coppola opens the film with a bang by dropping us right in the jungle. There are no opening credits; only darkness with the faint sound of helicopters approaching from the distance. The first image we see is that of a jungle tree line, which stands alone until one of the helicopters crosses the screen in front of the trees, a similar technique as John Boorman used with his cars in the opening of Deliverance (1972) to express mankind’s rape of nature. As psychedelic smoke rises to the music of The Doors singing “The End,” we realize the genius paradox of opening a movie with the words, “This is the end.”

As soon as these words arrive, the helicopters light up the jungle with napalm, superimposed over shots of Willard in his Saigon hotel room watching a ceiling fan. As his POV of the fan blades matches the sound of ‘Nam choppers in his head, it’s a reminder that veterans never truly leave the battlefield; fragments of swirling smoke, screaming comrades and chopper blades always remain.

This battle against one’s self, against our own dark side, is expressed visually throughout the film in a series of half-lit faces, from Willard (the light side) to Colonel Kurtz (the dark side), or as later articulated, “the kind who loves” and “the kind who kills.”

This duality of lightness and darkness hangs over the entire film, as Coppola offers paradox after paradox, most notably Brando’s line, “We teach the boys to drop fire on people, and yet we won’t let them write the word ‘fuck’ on their airplanes.” When you understand Coppola’s artistic sensibilities, you come to understand that the half-lit faces of lightness and darkness represent our internal choice as people — and as a nation — between the “hawk” and the “dove,” an eternal battle of gungho military adventurism versus anti-war peacemaking.

These half-lit faces always from the side and looking in parallel a technique used in early film noir movies to convey mystery and tragedy. To loose sight of ones own face is to give into the darkness and let it consume oneself.

Apocalypse Now is a film that is steeped in references to other works of literary significance – it is directly inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, borrowing much of its subject matter and character names from it. However, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky while watching, which is ironic because Conrad apparently quite disliked Dostoyevsky himself as well as his work (Wood, 2005). The Idiot’s exploration of what happens to a man who is good and moral to a literal fault contains a sense of forbearing and a dark atmosphere throughout, precipitated by Dostoyevsky’s style of writing that is eerily similar to the directorial direction of Apocalypse Now. At one point in The Idiot, Hippolyte states that “It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise!”. This almost perfectly describes that character of Walter Kurtz as, unhappy and knowing the worst, he has built himself his own fool’s paradise that ultimate comes crashing down around him. It is fascinating how works of such different time, character and platform can contain such similar sentiments. So much literature is interwoven, even tangentially, that meaningful comparisons can be found in the most unexpected of places.

Works Cited
Wood, James. “Warning Notes from Underground.” The Guardian. N.p., 26 Feb. 2005. Web. 16 Jan. 2016. .

Between Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, I find Heart of Darkness infinitely more disturbing than Apocalypse Now. The reason is simple. Apocalypse Now is a movie about war, or perhaps in the words of Coppola himself: “It is war.” War is horrible, that is a universal fact. When we think of war, we expect to find gruesome murders, horrific deeds, and utter madness. There is no surprise when we see that in the movie, after all, what do you expect in war?

Heart of Darkness on the other hand, shows the horror of human nature without war. Sure, the worst of mankind is brought out by war, however, even in times of peace, and prosperity, humans are capable of terrible things. Heart of Darkness shows us that we cannot just attribute our horrible deeds to war, it is ultimately humans that orchestrates all the terrors of war. Humans are terrible, not war. This revelation is exactly what I admire in Heart of Darkness, it forces us to gaze inside our heart and see the immense darkness that shrouds it. It shows us the consequences of Kurtz’s exposure to this darkness–insanity. Insanity for Kurtz is an escape, he cannot face the horror of the realization of his own nature, so he chose to run away from it into the realm of insanity. Insanity relieves us of all morals, all judgements, and all ego, so we can act out the most cruel and horrible part of our nature without guilt. Heart of Darkness is a great novel which explores the worst of mankind, and the effect it can have on us when we witness it. It puts into question the so called progress made by Europeans. To Conrad, the civilization of Europe is only a flicker in the darkness, and by no means the light which his contemporaries saw Europe as. No matter how civilized Europe or the entire mankind gets, the inner longing for the primeval ages will never fade, and the brutality and cruelty of human nature will persist.

Dennis Hopper, one of the American countercultural icons to have featured in Apocalypse Now, had a checkered career in some the best and the worst that Hollywood had to offer. From a generation-defining role in Easy Rider, to playing the inimitably psychotic Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, to the legendary humiliation that was the Super Mario Bros. movie, his niche in pop culture is and was that of a talented man, with great vision – or, depending on the story, a violent lunatic with a fondness for drugs that made the Red Hot Chili Peppers look like Boy Scouts. His harlequin-role in Apocalypse Now worked in either vein, and it’s this centrality that makes the comparison to one of his later (and more obscure) efforts possible.

‘Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head’ is the thirteenth track on the album Demon Days, by Gorillaz. It’s one of many of the group’s more oddball ventures, and it takes Damon Albairn’s scientific understanding of pop music to have allowed this song to exist alongside hooky ventures like ‘Feel Good, Inc.’ and ‘Dare’. The hook is sung by 2D, Albairn’s black-eyed vocal avatar, but the verses are a spoken word poem delivered by Hopper. The brief story depicts an idealistic community of Happy Folk, who live at the base of a mountain, worshipping the spirit they see as inhabiting it, Monkey. At some point, a group of (literally) shady Strange Folk come around and try to mine the riches in the mountain. The song ends with some kind of eruption, and fire comes from Monkey’s head as both the Strange Folk and the Happy Folk are destroyed.

The connection to Apocalypse Now is interesting and sinister. The Happy Folk could be read as the wild people, the Montagnards of whom Kurtz appointed himself the general (it would be too much of a stretch to call the Vietnamese government happy or copacetic in their previous situation, on either side), and it’s evident within the story that the Americans in the temple, especially Kurtz and Hopper’s photojournalist, are strange people indeed. Greed is a motivator that keeps more to the Kurtz in Heart of Darkness than the character Brando inhabited, who is more motivated by his desire to fight the war than to gain from it, but the end is the same. In the song, Monkey is the voice of nature bringing wrath on all for wrongs committed, whereas in the film Willard says that even the jungle wanted Kurtz dead, and that was who he took his orders from in the end. The link via Dennis Hopper adds another layer to it, almost as if the photojournalist survived, and went on to employ Kurtz’s mind-expanding rhetoric in this fable about the cost of greed and venality.