“Lights, Camera, Action, Squat.”
Tastes change over time. When I was a ten year old, the idea of sliding a raw oyster down my gullet had all the appeal of licking a movie theater floor. During my collegiate career any form of edible substance was acceptable. A Slim Jim was a highly touted study treat. The same is true with taste in movies. Re-watching The Creature from the Black Lagoon, I cannot recapture that childhood sense of suspense and thrill, as the heroine spends four hours watching the monster approach her before she considers the possibility that she can get up and run away from him. The film is the same. The film viewer is different.
One thing about the movies. Movie going is often a communal event. Kids will jump up and exclaim, “We’re going to the movies!” Teenagers, spending six hours determining what the group should do, inevitably fall back on, “Let’s go to the movies.” Does not matter what movie really. Movie going is an event unto itself.
During my economically lean college years, our favorite movie-going involved taking the P&W (Villanovans called it the Toonerville Trolley or the Pig and Whistle) to the 69th Street Terminal which housed two movie theaters. Not only was the purchase price within the range of students who survived on Peanut Butter Helper, but one store in the terminal sold, at a modest price, hot onion rings. We would chip in to the Snack Fund and buy a paper cup or two of those delicious, round, batter-crusted ovals and inside the theater we tantalized our fellow movie goers with the enticing aroma. Some withstood the torture, but most raced out in the middle of the showing to get some of their own onion rings. It was the sixties, and we knew how to be subversive.
The 69th Street Terminal Theater often showed two movies for the price of one, and, if we were lucky, one of those movies was from the twentieth century. The first film was usually a relatively new (though two star rated) endeavor involving spying, adventure, jewel heists, shootouts or Brigitte Bardot. The second showing was often a cinematic venture that we had already seen on the Student Union television several times, usually a western. One such movie involved Jimmy Stewart as the sheriff, and, since all six of us had seen the film several times, we knew what was about to happen, so we felt obliged to tell Jimmy how to survive the gunfight. “Lookout Sheriff behind the rain barrel!!,” we would shout. From behind the rain barrel up would pop a villain, but Jimmy heard us and wheeled and dropped the evil doer. When you have seen a movie nine times, you have to generate your own entertainment, although the other members of the audience did not see it that way. Necessity is the mother of invention, and as, college students, there was plenty of financial necessity to go around. We learned to entertain ourselves.
Cinema for me is one of those threads that weave in and out of the fabric of my life. When I met Polley in graduate school, we talked about, among other things, movies. A movie maven, she was horrified to learn that I had not seen Gone With the Wind—ever! Having watched that dreamboat Clark Gable six times she insisted that, for our dating to continue, I experience the fictional history of the ante-bellum south. Luckily for me, Gone With the Wind was playing at a theater in nearby Indianapolis, so we continued to date. I liked the burning of Atlanta best.
The cinematic sewing of the fabric of my life resumed one summer during my teaching career. Late one August I received another one of those calls from one of my assistant principals. “We want a different take on teaching the Cinema elective. We immediately thought the best teacher for this would be you. How about it?” I knew this was code. The summer before it was the Creative Writing elective. Two summers before that it was the Computer Assisted Composition course. Four summers before that it was the Journalism course. The code was encased in flattery for my teaching skills, but what the compliment really meant was that the teacher who formerly taught the course was sick of it or learned to hate teaching it, and before the assistant principal had telephoned me, nine other teachers had declined. These calls were always made about a week or two before the start of the school year, so I began a crash course in: semiotics, mis en scene, anamorphic effect and what a key grip did (supervises the other grips who support camera movement) and what role a gaffer played (electrician). The truly great thing about being assigned a new course is that, in order to teach it, one has to become a student again and learn everything he can about the subject….albeit in a short time frame.
At the very beginning of teaching Cinema, I decided that the approach would be similar to teaching literature. Art is often self-reflexive. It is influenced by the culture that produces it, and the culture is frequently changed by that same art. Cinema is the one art form that encompasses all the other art forms: literature, music, visual arts, dance, kinesthetics, etc. The major problem was convincing my high school students that they could actually learn something about the movies as an art form.
“Mr. Maltese. Really! We’ve all been to the movies—what can we learn about the movies, I mean, really…..can we watch Dumb and Dumber?”
No, we cannot. My biggest problem was what cinematic tour de force NOT to show. My first choice, Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, initiated a revolt. “Aw, Mr. Maltese, I have never seen a black and white movie in my life. We have color now. Why can’t we watch a color movie?!! Anyone else in here want to watch a black and white movie?” Many shaking of heads. In these situations I have a strategy.
“Would you feel better if you voted as a class?”
Many nodding of heads.
“Okay. Let’s vote. Who doesn’t want to watch City Lights, a black and white movie?”
Twenty-five out of thirty hands go up.
“Okay. Put your hands down. Do you feel better voting?”
Again, many nodding of heads. “Good. I am glad you feel the joy of democracy. Now, City Lights was one of the hardest films Chaplin made…”
“Hey, Mr. Maltese, we voted NOT to see City Lights!”
“That is correct. And, if this class were a democracy, we would NOT view City Lights.”
God bless democracy, but not in the classroom. Dumb and Dumber will not reign.
As I taught Cinema over the years the pattern was always the same. They protested, and then grudgingly liked most of the movies I showed. Most importantly some of them even learned. I would stop often, pointing out a cinematic technique or a contribution to the film’s theme, or a camera movement. The longer I taught any course the more reinforced was the lesson I learned for all my teaching. My teaching responsibility was not to indulge their interests (especially recalling my own adolescent predelictions), but to expand their interests.
I knew I was on the right track when a student told me one day, “My boyfriend hates you.”
“Do I know your boyfriend?”
“No, but he hates you because we will be watching a movie in my living room and he will have his arm around me, and I stop the movie a lot and point out the lighting or the dolly movement of the camera.”
“Oh, I see.”
When I introduce Casablanca, another groan goes up. “Another old movie!” But the end result is usually the same. I can tell by their eyes they are immersed in the film. Sitting on the edges of their seats awaiting Ilsa’s decision, most of the young ladies stomp their feet and yell at the end of the film, “She stood have stayed with Rick!!!! What a dummy!!” The little darlings. It just goes to show–quality will out. This, even though I taught Casablanca as a propaganda film and not as a romance. I point out the resistance fighter dying at the foot of the poster of Marshall Petain (the Nazi collaborator), Rick (representing America) tossing aside personal interests and getting involved, Captain Renault committing himself to the cause, and that wonderful scene in which the French people in Rick’s Café led by Victor Laszlo sing La Marseillaise and drown out the Nazi officers and their version of Die Wacht am Rhein. If truth be told, it is the greatest military victory the French accomplished in both World Wars. They should have employed that tactic more often. I remind students how the audience, seeing Casablanca for the first time in 1942, did not know how the war would end.
“Geez. Didn’t they have history books?”
“Hmm. Our next film….Citizen Kane.”
Technology drives cinema. This is different from some other art forms. Having a better keyboard or pen does not translate into better writing. But better computer graphics and more sophisticated cameras can open up possibilities for directors. High speed film helped Stanley Kubrick shoot scenes in candlelight for the first time. The zoom lens aided other directors in their camera movements.
Cinematic criticism is another story. While teaching cinema I required students to read several critical reviews of movies we viewed. I still occasionally read reviews if only to chuckle at the frequent sesquipedalism and pomposity of the reviewer. I am convinced that the more confusing and irrational the plot of the film, the higher ratings it will receive. Consider this portion of a New Yorker review by David Denby. “the impatience, the sharpness, the full-bore egotism that modulates into rueful self-recognition. Intellectual passions have hardened (in many cases) into arid rectitude; autumnal emotions such as sarcastic rage dominate the dinner table; and, in the future, the terminating scythe awaits. The positive side of the shift is that these roles bring out the toughness of aging hides.” It does not matter what film this refers to. It could be The Creature from the Black Lagoon. What I do know for certain is that none of this happened at my dinner table. And I have yet to experience “autumnal emotions.”
This kind of criticism must be fun to write. Here is my modern artsy attempt at a critical review of Soup to Nuts starring The Three Stooges. “The pugilistic triumvirate are once again thrust into a universal dystopia unplagued by a moral epistemological compass and unfettered by economic deprivation. Their tactile hostilities, buoyed by a fraternal covalent bonding that is only superseded by a primal quest for identity, result in a reflexivistic cascade of eye-poking and nose twisting…a wheeling tantrum tour de force.”
I do know this. Highly rated modern artsy attempts at film making and television (think Orphan Black, American Odyssey, Orange is the New Black, all decent shows) must include two scenes. There is the obligatory cocaine sniffing scene. At some point in the film, the protagonist must sniff the white stuff whether he or she is in the middle of a pool, the middle of a sky dive or the middle of a fire fight. This is another attempt by amateur film makers to be “cutting edge,” as if doing drugs is cool. The other scene that modern artsy attempts at movie-making must have is the toilet scene. A city slum apartment, a posh party or a fire fight in the desert is the locale for the protagonist to relieve himself or herself. One movie combined both kinds of scenes in one take. I don’t know why this trend is, but it is true. I am puzzled as to why directors believe that a human function that has been rehearsed by millions of people over thousands of years is worthy of a camera shot. I guess this is what they consider pushing the envelope. Suddenly, urinals and lavatories and outhouses have become the cinematic rage. It is as if modern movie makers have just discovered one of the most basic of human activities. I don’t remember a shot of a person relieving himself or herself in Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia (and there was plenty of desert to do so), or Singing in the Rain. This trend is also popular in modern television series. Entire plot expositions are delivered in rest rooms while the characters are in the process. Well, not all television series. I don’t remember such a scene in Downton Abbey.
I envision a conversation between a modern assistant director and his boss.
“Hey, Cecil. The picture kinda bogs down here. Suppose during the chase through the rain forest, we insert a potty scene? While Olivia is squatting, she flashes back to her and Antonio punting on the Thames and she realizes that she has loved Antonio all along. I mean it is a romance, right?”
“Sounds good. Work out the camera angles.”
When the actors finish these scenes, they must also spend several minutes staring profoundly. Staring pointlessly for five or six hours is another artsy attempt some directors employ, especially those from Scandinavia.
I also see a pattern in the assignment of rating stars. A four star movie is a film that neither the critics nor the movie goers understand. This cinematic triumph is rarely a comedy, and, if it is labeled a comedy, it is usually not funny.
An artistic movie is awarded five stars if we do not understand it, and if our minds drift during the first half of the movie, and we start thinking about mowing our lawns diagonally instead of using a crisscross pattern.
Despite the many poorly made movies that do not withstand the test of time, going to the movies is still a phenomenal artistic event. We sit in the dark and lose our world and embrace the fantasy that is projected on the screen, the two dimensional cosmos that we know is not real but which continues to elicit the tears and the laughter and the excitement and the dreams that drive the projectors in our brains. We want to shout out to the heroine as the monster approaches to “Get up! Get up! Run away!” But we cannot interact with the reality of the flat screen. We invest our energy in the temporary belief that what we see and hear on the silver screen is real and worthy of our emotional and intellectual commitment. We are drawn in. If the movies is made well, like a good book, it refreshes our soul.