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The Case for Female Directors: Zoe Cassavetes

June 5, 2010 by thecantedangle

The film industry is dominated by men. I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently and have tried to seek out female directors. Zoe Cassavetes, daughter of director John Cassavetes, wrote and directed her 2007 Broken English. It was not a very good film. It was a lot like a Hollywood romantic movie, but with a lot less money. Despite this, I found that it had some interesting things to say about feminism.

I wrote one of my final papers about the differences between second-wave and third-wave feminism (and how they are shown in Cagney & Lacey and Weeds). I see this dichotomy in Broken English, so I’m going to give the fastest, least boring explanation possible of the two types. Second-wave feminism is from the 1960s and 1970s, fighting for women’s rights, equality in the workplace, everything you think of when you think of “feminism.” Third-wave feminism began in the 1990s and offers a more loose interpretation. Thanks to all the work the second-wave feminists did, women today can enjoy their freedoms and choose how they want to live. For example, the second wave made it possible to go out and start a career and not have to be a stay-at-home-mom; the third wave says you can be a stay-at-home-mom if you choose to be, it’s all up to you.

Rosie the Riveter, I've always loved this

A lot of the writings on feminism set up this discourse between the second and third wave as “mother and daughter.” The mother being, of course, the older woman from the second wave, and the daughter being the younger woman today. There is a scene in Broken English that shows parts of this conversation. The film is about Nora (Parker Posey) living in New York City in her late 20s-early 30s looking for love. She has bad luck with men, and everyone around her is married. She also seems to have depression and anxiety and is generally miserable and lonely. Anyway, there is a scene where she is in a restaurant with her mother Vivien (Gena Rowlands) and the two women discuss the state of Nora’s love life. Nora’s mother and other older women continue to ask her when she is getting married throughout the film. Vivien says to Nora:

“I can’t quit thinking about how hard it must be for young women nowadays. I mean, on the one hand, the world is wide open to you, all the choices you want, I think there’re too many choices really. It just must be very confusing, trying to find a path through all of that. Especially with men.”

Vivien is perhaps too old to have been a “second-wave feminist” and I know I’m making a huge comparison, but Vivien represents an older way of thinking about women. Women used to have a “path,” they were to get married, have babies, and take care of their family. Today we have “too many choices” and Nora represents the “third-wave” woman, maybe even later. She has all of the choices in the world open to her, but yet she seems to want to just choose to get married. According to the new feminism, it’s fine if she chooses that. But then that choice doesn’t really work for her, because she just can’t seem to find a good man. And then as a result of not being able to find a good man, she is miserable and doesn’t want to pursue any other “choice” open to young women today.

On the surface this seems to be an anti-feminist film, which is discouraging since we don’t have many female voices in the film industry. Zoe Cassavetes had a chance to say something good about young women today. Instead, she buried her message into a tangly, problematic script. But I think I understand what she was going for. Despite the many choices young women have, many women still are only interested in securing a man. But having a man will not make you suddenly happy (if you are already depressed). Nora’s best friend Audrey (Drea de Matteo) is married to Mark (Tim Guinee) who is very rich and successful. But Audrey is almost as miserable as Nora is.

I think the overarching message of Broken English is that more often than not, life just sucks. The game of finding a man to marry is just something to distract women from their unhappiness. Because even if you do find a wonderful rich and successful man who can provide for you, like Audrey, you will eventually become lonely again and wish you weren’t married. “Having a man won’t make you happy” is a good enough message, but (Zoe) Cassavetes doesn’t offer any alternative. You are either alone and miserable, or married and miserable.

Wonderful.

Broken English can really be summed up by the annoying cliche: "Men: can't live with them, can't live without them."

Posted in Film, USA | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

See You In Another Life, Brotha: LOST Finale

May 25, 2010 by thecantedangle

After six seasons of unanswered questions and emotional abuse, LOST finally came to an end last night. (Note: I wrote this yesterday, but my internet went out and just came back now, so I guess LOST came to an end two nights ago.) I know that everyone is arguing over whether or not the finale was good. For the most part, I thought it was a great ending. Yes, there are still a lot of questions and mysteries that have been left open, but what did we expect? A finale in which Carlton Cruse and Damon Lindelof sit there and wrap up every single question that has ever been raised? Instead, they ended the series by attempting to give it some kind of greater meaning, and by trying to make us all feel better.

This show has put us through so much. I realized during the recap just how many epic separations and reunions Sun and Jin went through. I realized that we watched Jin die TWICE and both times I cried. Then there was also Charlie (Not Penny’s Boat!), Sayid, Boone, Shannon, Mr. Eko, Libby, Locke (kind of), Juliet, Daniel Faraday, Jack (right?), and some other characters that I didn’t really care about like Ana Lucia, Charlotte, Nikki & Paulo, etc. All of these people died terrible and confusing deaths and one of the big questions of the whole show was: WHY?

Remember?

I think it was a little strange that the big reveal of the SERIES finale was the flash-sideways, a question that was only raised at the beginning of the last season. But it does have a greater significance. Those fifteen minutes my roommates and I spent sitting on our couch bawling after Sun and Jin died were not for nothing. We got to see them reunited! And then they remember everything! And they’ll be together for all of eternity! And so will Charlie and Claire! Desmond and Penneh! Hurley and Libby! Everybody! This makes us feel better, that the horrible fates these people suffered on the island eventually ended in happiness.

It’s almost like we, as viewers, were in our own flash-sideways purgatory for the last six seasons, waiting and wondering what any of this even means. And for waiting, we were rewarded with seeing that everyone ended up together, at peace, finally. Which is the same thing that happened to the characters on the show. My only issue with this is that the whole island thing was kind of an elaborate way for everyone to die. But if they hadn’t gone to the island, they wouldn’t have all met each other, and it was fate or coincidence or something, right? Who knows. I still don’t really understand what happened, but I do know that I have loved this show and I’m sad that it’s over. The acting (for the most part) was great, and a good chunk of the writing was very good. I couldn’t stand Jack for most of the series, but somewhere in the middle of season six I changed my mind. He actually had a full character arc, he changed a couple of times and he ended up being a pretty good character. It’s lucky that they fixed (get it? fix) him in time, because otherwise I probably would have been angry that in the end, it was all about Jack.

Anyway, I’m going to end with a tribute to my top five favorite characters.

5. Hugo (Hurley) Reyes

Hurley was awesome and never got enough credit. They kind of made him the comic relief because he was overweight and said “dude” all the time. But he had so many weird things going on like The Numbers, the curse where everyone around him dies, he sometimes could see and talk to dead people, they put him in a mental institution because of all this, his creepy imaginary friend Dave, and his relationship with Libby and the episode in this season when they meet up in the flash sideways! And in season three when he fixes the VW Bus and drives it down a hill to break the curse! And when he sets up a golf course for everyone because they might as well have fun! Hurley was a great character and it was kind of weird that he ended up in charge of the island but it kind of makes sense, he waited patiently the entire series just hoping someone would tell him what was going on.

4. Claire Littleton and Charlie Pace

The show started to treat couples as one character so for the sake of this list, I’ll do the same thing. Charlie and Claire were my first favorite characters. Claire was so mysterious in her flashback where she went to a psychic who warned her about her baby. And then all the weird stuff that happened with her baby and the Others and that really scary episode “Maternity Leave” where she finally remembers what happened to her. And then she was in the cabin? And then crazy Claire with her weird dreadlock hair and her bone baby. And her Australian accent! Charlie was really great too. His whole heroin addiction/attempt to quit with Mr. Eko and John Locke. And YOU ALL EVERYBODY! And the time when he and Hurley get Desmond really drunk/his friendship with both of them. And he could be kind of dumb sometimes but he always meant well, like when he gave Claire imaginary peanut butter and how he generally always tried to take care of Claire and Aaron. And his British accent!

3. Richard Alpert

Remember when we first realized that Richard Alpert never aged? So mysterious. He always seemed kind of omniscient and I liked how in the end he was just as confused as everyone else. Ricardo always showed up to guide people and sometimes even remember them during all the time jumps. Something about him was comforting. And then in his episode in season six he spoke Spanish the whole time, which was great. I feel like there isn’t a lot to say about him, he was quietly cool, and definitely one of my favorites.

2. Ben Linus

Where to even start with Ben? The first time we met him we already didn’t know whether or not to believe him. Is he Henry Gale? Or is he the leader of a mysterious band of island people who are actually just wearing island clothes? We never knew whether or not to trust him, and there were at least 15 different times when I decided for sure that I either believed him or didn’t, and I was usually wrong. He was probably one of the most interesting characters on the show. His whole backstory, the fact that he killed his father and everyone else that was with them, Alex/Rousseau, when he got judged by Smokey, the way he looked and talked at all times, and how creepy it was when he was a teacher and complaining about coffee in the flash sideways. It was sad that he didn’t get to go into the church at the end, but I guess he was kind of a terrible person (right?).

And now, for my number one favorite character on LOST, possibly favorite character in all of TV, anyone who knows me knows what’s coming…

…

…

…

1. Desmond Hume

BROTHA! PENNEH! YA GUNNA DIE CHAHLIE! Desmond was beautiful and interesting and mysterious. He knew when people were going to die. He could flash between the sideways universe and the island. He was immune to electromagnetism. He was the constant! He was a monk. He was the package. HE WAS IN THE HATCH! He had all of those weird encounters with Eloise. He kind of became the new Jacob, he brought everyone together so they could “move on.” Every time he reunited with Penny was joyous. He named his son Charlie! What’s not to love? Desmond was my favorite character, by far, and the biggest problem I had with the finale is that it still didn’t really explain his role. But that would have taken away from his mystery, so I guess it’s okay.

Honorable Mentions: Sun & Jin Kwon, John Locke, Daniel Faraday, and sometimes Jack.

Another Honorable Mention: Gabe at Videogum whose LOST recap posts were almost as fun as the show itself. Check out his blog, he is hilarious.

So that’s it, it’s all over, college is over, LOST is over, what happens next? At least we’ll always know that,

Posted in Television | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Death In America

May 21, 2010 by thecantedangle

Jim Sheridan’s 2002 film In America is beautifully written and shot. It is touching and it will probably make you cry. It bears no resemblance to my favorite terrible movie, Sheridan’s 2005 biopic of 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. In America follows a family who has just come to America from Ireland. But, the film is more about dealing with loss than issues of immigration, and I think Sheridan told his personal story in a very clever way. He almost completely avoids cliché and the film is not overly sentimental. It is an honest, heartbreaking tale of how difficult life can be. I will focus on the way the film depicts loss and how it affects children, and how Sheridan uses E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982) as a kind of framing thematic device.

The film begins with the family in the car, illegally crossing the border into America. The family is comprised of Johnny, the father (Paddy Considine), Sarah, the mother (Samantha Morton, who stars in one of my favorite films – Anton Corbjin’s 2007 Control), and their two daughters Christy (Sarah Bolger) and Ariel (Emma Bolger). We learn right away that there used to be a third child, Frankie, and he has passed away. Christy, the older daughter (age 10), tells the viewer in a voiceover that she asks Frankie for wishes sometimes. Other than her occasional, stoic voiceover, Christy rarely speaks, she spends her time filming everything around her with her camcorder. In Christy we see the true burden of loss on a young child. Her younger sister Ariel deals with it in a somewhat more playful way, but there are moments where the loss she has suffered forces her to act older than she is.

In one scene, the family goes to the movies to see E.T. They all enjoy it, and later they go to a carnival where Johnny almost loses all of his money trying to win an E.T. doll for Ariel, who loves the movie. E.T. comes up a few other times, in very sad scenes where we see the family deal directly with loss. The connection is probably obvious – E.T. is an alien, a synonym for immigrant. And at the end of E.T., the little girl has to say goodbye to him. The family in the film are technically “aliens,” and they all have to say goodbye to people they love, a couple of times. But E.T. represents more than just the surface connection. It is something that the family can focus on which has similar themes to their own lives, but it is a magical, make-believe story that is easier to deal with than their own issues.

All of Ariel's hope rests within her father's attempt to win the E.T. doll. "I know you can do it Dad. I just know it."

Being an immigrant or an “alien” is hard enough, dealing with the loss of a family member alienates you from society even more. In this sense, the characters in the film are almost double aliens. They are not American, they don’t have any money, and the loss of their son/brother is tearing them apart. I found the depiction of the children in the film to be so realistic and moving. The children are forced to grow up, despite how confused they may be. Their childhood is taken away from them and replaced with an uncertainty. This is most clearly seen in Christy, she is quiet and serious for the majority of the film. She doesn’t break down until the very end, and she also doesn’t funnel all of her sadness into taking care of her living sibling, Ariel. Ariel can’t be older than five or six, and in a restaurant she tells her family, “I miss things.” They ask her what she misses and she says she has no one to play with, no one to tell secrets to. “Christy plays with her camcorder. She tells her camcorder her secrets, and she won’t let me hear.” Christy’s inability to deal with loss lead her to silence, to become fully absorbed in filming the world around her instead of participating in it. This inability directly hurts Ariel, making Ariel feel even more lost and alone, and her ability to voice these feelings is heartbreaking.

Christy’s silent way of dealing with loss has caused her family to rely upon her. “He was my brother too,” she tells her father at the end, and she expresses that she has carried the family on her back for the last few years. Her parents, despite their age, are no better at dealing with loss than the children are. Johnny tells the border patrol that he has three children, and Sarah has to correct him by saying they only have two. When playing a game later, Johnny includes Frankie, even though he is not there. Johnny has completely refused to acknowledge that Frankie is gone. And Sarah deals with it in her own delusional way: by trying to have a new baby, despite the danger pregnancy may have on her health. Ariel is obsessed with E.T., and this leaves Christy to be the only one to deal with everything.

One of the few times Christy embraces Ariel

The way that the children speak about death is also very realistic and chilling. When the young girls meet Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), a man in their building dying of AIDS (although it’s never called AIDS, so it might also be some kind of Hollywood disease that requires a lot of medication, causes sores, and can kill you), they almost immediately tell him about how Frankie died. I won’t include that here since it could be considered a spoiler, but they describe it in precise medical terms, and it causes Mateo to cry.

Towards the end of the film, with Mateo’s condition worsening and Sarah’s pregnancy becoming riskier, Ariel simply asks: “Why is everybody dying?” Nobody has an answer to this, no adults, no older children, not even the people themselves who die. You can say it’s God’s will, or you can say it’s just the cycle of life. There is no answer that could console Ariel or anyone who has had to deal with loss. Near the end, Johnny tells Christy and Ariel to look up at the moon and they will see Mateo riding by on a bicycle (another reference to E.T.) as a way to help Ariel who was upset because Mateo never said goodbye to her. “I don’t see him!” Ariel says. Johnny and Christy continue telling her to look more closely, that he’s really there, don’t you see him? Eventually she exclaims, “Oh yeah! I see him! Bye Mateo! Look after Frankie!” This type of childish enthusiasm for what is essentially the game of death is devastating. The power of imagination is wonderful and everything, but we have a young girl thinking she sees her dead neighbor riding off into the moon, and she asks him to take care of Frankie. Her parents have told her that Frankie “went to Heaven.” Which is also where Mateo is going. And Ariel is jumping for joy and so happy that they will have each other. Because what else can you tell a little kid about death, other than that people who die get to ride bikes over the moon and hang out with each other in Heaven?

And isn’t this what we continue to tell ourselves as adults? That people who die have gone to a better, happier place where they will be reunited with their loved ones? (Religious beliefs aside). Death doesn’t make sense to children or adults. We have to trick ourselves into believing that everyone is better off this way. Death is a horrible, unfair part of life that I don’t believe anyone really knows how to deal with. Adults can turn to alcohol and anti-depressants, but children have to make it into an imaginary game. Jim Sheridan has captured this idea perfectly in his wonderful film, and I encourage everyone to see it.

Posted in 2002, Film, UK | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Why?

May 14, 2010 by thecantedangle



Over the last year and a half, every couple of weeks one of these posters started showing up all over New York City: on bus stops, in the subway, on construction sites, and of course on television. Although I have not actually seen any of these films, and while I’m sure they are enjoyable to watch, they are all the same film to me. Poorly written romantic comedies with some kind of contrived conflict that the famous people on the cover are definitely going to solve by the end of the movie, probably by getting married. I am not saying that I only watch meaningful and artistic independent films, but I am saying that enough is enough. We get it.

I understand how the film industry works. Big studios want to produce films that will make the most amount of money by appealing to the lowest common denominator. And unfortunately, we asked for this. Our American culture values reality television, over-produced pop music, and big budget romantic comedies. And money. Lots of money. There is a demand for bad romantic comedies, so there will continue to be a supply of bad romantic comedies.

But why isn’t it like this in other countries? For example, Spain. Pedro Almodóvar is Spain’s most important and most beloved director. Yet he makes complicated films with brilliant color palettes scored with popular songs that he tweaks for his own purposes, that delve deeply into questions of gender roles, family, religion, and society. If a filmmaker in America tried to make something like Almodóvar’s Bad Education (2004), only a select group of people would care, and it wouldn’t be enough to convince studios to finance any future projects of this hypothetical American Almodóvarean director. (See: Terry Gilliam.) Yet in Spain, Almodóvar is highly respected. Which leads me to believe that mass produced terrible movies are an American tradition.

Mainstream American cinema would just never center a film around a transgendered sexually abused heroin addict seeking revenge, but mainstream Spanish cinema did.

I am in no way saying that all other countries only make brilliant films. I am also not saying that all American films are bad. The problem is that we just don’t care. We would rather mindlessly watch a very offensive battle of the sexes between Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. And there is nothing wrong with occasional mindlessness. It’s just that popular mainstream American cinema is currently 90% mindless. And I am proposing that we do something about it.

Maybe we need better marketing strategies for independent films. Although I argue that the “indie” film is dead and over thanks to films like Juno (2007) and 500 Days of Summer (2009) which successfully commercialized quirkiness. But independent films still exist, they just don’t always have to be about quirky young people. I wrote about Terry Gilliam’s 2009 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus here. It’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. We had a film that explored the nature of dreams and reality, performance and cinema itself. It had wonderful cinematography and thought provoking dialog. Yet it’s been criticized because the plot is hard to understand. So what? The only reason this film even came out is because it was Heath Ledger’s last role, and we only care about celebrities. Otherwise it probably never would have gotten enough funding.

Look at us shoving our quirk down your throat!

Independent films need more financing and more promoting. We can’t change the values of our fellow Americans, and we can’t change that bad movies will continue to make money. But there is this abundance of hypothetical money that only gets funneled into terrible projects. Why not spread some of it around and give independent filmmakers a chance? Of course not all independent films are good. In fact there are plenty of terrible independent films that don’t deserve more money.

I don’t know what my solution is, but I would like to be a part of it. I have now graduated from NYU and am trying to figure out what to do with my life. This is something I am very passionate about. If anyone happens to be reading this that works for an independent film company, please, hire me. (Hello, ThinkFilm, IFC, Focus Features, Sony Pictures Classics, and everyone else!)  I want to help you. I live in NYC and I have a lot of office experience and I can be your receptionist or bookkeeper if that’s what you need. But I can also use my writing ability and analytical thinking to help further the cause of independent and foreign film in the United States. Let me help you change the film industry.

I will close with one final point: James Cameron. Titanic (1997) was the highest grossing film in the United States. And it deserved to be, it was a wonderful film. He then broke his own record with Avatar (2009) which, in my opinion, was a disaster. No disrespect to the incredible visual world he created, it was aesthetically pleasing and arguably “changed the game.” But the writing was horrific, we had stock characters that we didn’t care about who were motivated by some vague narrative that was much more developed in Pocahontas (1995). I got over it, I was ready to move on–but no. Avatar is currently in theaters again so that it can make all of that money all over again. And it was already released on DVD, but it will later be released again as soon as the 3D technology is ready, which means the film has now been in theaters twice and will be released on DVD twice even though it ALREADY broke all the records the first time it came out. To make matters worse, soon Titanic will be re-released in theaters in 3D. Which means that it will make all of its original money again, plus millions more due to inflation and the fact that a ticket to see a 3D movie costs almost $20 in NYC. And then it will probably be re-released on DVD, and then re-released again as a 3D DVD. BUT HE ONLY WROTE ONE FILM. He isn’t even trying to make another 3D game changer with a horrible script, he’s just using one he has already written. And the studios will give him all the money he needs, because they know that it will easily continue to break records. And all the independent films will continue to need money, and that’s why I need to be a part of restoring meaning to American cinema.

However, I will always love Titanic.

Posted in Film, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sin Nombre

March 8, 2010 by thecantedangle

Sin Nombre is Cary Fukunaga’s 2009 film about illegal immigration and gang warfare in Central America. I had been meaning to watch this film because Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna are the executive producers. When I saw them speak after a screening of Rudo y Cursi (2009), they talked about how they wanted to give Mexican films a voice in the world, they want to spread the stories of their home country. 

I enjoyed this film, and I found the narrative structure to be pretty clever and interesting. Sayra (Paulina Gaitán) and her family are trying to get from their home in Guatemala to Texas, and then to find their family in New Jersey. At the same time, using D.W. Griffith’s parallel editing, the film shows Willy/El Casper (Edgar Flores) and El Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), two brothers who are part of the gang Mara Salvatrucha. Sayra and her family, along with other hopeful immigrants, sit on top of trains that run north toward the border. El Casper and El Smiley end up on the same train as Sayra when they try to rob the immigrants, and El Casper ends up staying on. 

 

Typical Mara Salvatrucha tattoos and their hand sign

 

The train literally represents the rhythm of the plot. As it moves forward, so does the story. The story begins with Sayra and her family getting on the train, and ends soon after the main characters are no longer on the train. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers by being vague). Moments in the film when the characters are not on the train are moments in the narrative when characters are trying to find each other, pauses in the plot.

Another interesting aspect of the film is the idea of whether or not the characters will make it to America. At the beginning of the journey, Sayra’s father tells her “Not all of these people will make it,” as the camera pans the area showing probably a hundred people all getting ready to travel to Texas. The viewer wonders what types of things could happen that could prevent the characters from making it, aside from the obvious fact of getting caught by la migra or the border patrol. Of course, many of the characters don’t make it, for many different reasons.

It’s an interesting exploration of how dangerous illegal immigration can be, but it also shows how desperately people want to live somewhere with more opportunities. Many of us, myself included, take living in the United States for granted. All of the freedoms and opportunities we enjoy are not available to everyone, and people are willing to risk their lives just to live here. Perhaps this is a very obvious and cliché lesson to take away, but there’s also another layer to it.

At the beginning of the film, El Smiley is initiated into the Mara gang. The gang leader tells him, “wherever you go, you will be taken care of,” suggesting that there are Mara chapters (I’m not sure what else to call them, but I’m sure that’s the wrong word) everywhere. At first, this seems like a comforting idea. But when El Casper commits a crime against the Mara gang and tries to escape, it’s clear that because the Mara is everywhere, he will never be free. This suggests that although America is a land of freedom and opportunity, it’s not a land of sunshine and rainbows where all of your problems will disappear. As I talked about in a previous post, you take yourself with you wherever you go. You can’t run away from your problems, especially if they are gang-related.

 

El Casper sits atop the train, the beautiful cinematography shows the Mexican countryside in the background.

Posted in 2009, Film, Mexico | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Violent Island

March 5, 2010 by thecantedangle

Shutter Island (2009) finally came out, and I saw it on its opening night. I really enjoyed it, despite all the bad reviews about how it is disappointing and not Martin Scorsese’s best work. It’s certainly no Taxi Driver (1976) but I appreciate it for what it is, a good old-fashioned creepy movie with a straight narrative and a couple of twists. And of course, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. One aspect of the film that I find interesting is Scorsese’s use of violence.

Violence, both physical and psychological, is an overarching theme in almost all of Scorsese’s films. A lot of his films are just blatantly about violence itself: Mean Streets (1973), Goodfellas (1990), and The Departed (2006) — all dealing with mafia-related violence. Raging Bull (1980) is about boxing, an inherently violent sport. Taxi Driver (1976) depicts a Vietnam war veteran, a man shaped by violence and who himself commits violence. Even some of his less explicitly violent films such as The King of Comedy (1982) and After Hours (1985) deal with a lot of psychological violence (as do the physically violent films).

Shutter Island to me seems like a culmination of all of Scorsese’s ideas of violence. It has plenty of physical violence and it is probably his most literal use of psychological violence. All issues with fake Hollywood psychology aside, the film deals with mentally ill patients of a psychiatric institution. Without spoiling anything, it’s clear from the trailer that something is just not right on Shutter Island. The doctors and orderlies seem to be hiding something, and they may be using psychology itself violently. There is also another layer to this: the film itself is psychologically violent. With all the twists and gruesome detail, the viewer feels like they themselves have been a victim of psychological violence. I saw it with my friend Allison and at the end she said that she wanted to curl up under some soft blankets and cry.

Another aspect of Scorsese’s culmination of violence in this film can be seen in the dialog. Several times throughout the film, the characters discuss violence itself and seem to consider it philosophically. At the beginning, a doctor calls Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) violent, although Teddy hasn’t done anything violent to warrant such an accusation. We then see a flashback proving the doctor’s point. Teddy is confused as to how the doctor could have known this, and it raises some interesting points. Does committing violence make a person violent? Is experiencing violence enough to cause a person to be violent? Can you really tell that someone is violent just by looking at them? How much violence does someone have to commit before they are forever violent? Why tell stories of violence? There are other conversations in the film about these ideas. Also, Teddy repeats the line “I’m not here to kill anybody” many times. Although he is usually answering a question, it also seems as if he is trying to convince himself, to talk himself out of violence.

After decades of making films about violence, Scorsese finally seems to sit back and let his characters wonder what the hell all of it really means. Although nobody seems to come to any type of conclusion, I really like that he’s asking these questions.

Martin Scorsese on the set of Shutter Island

Posted in 2009, Film, Martin Scorsese, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

More posts coming soon!

February 16, 2010 by thecantedangle

I am so sorry I’ve neglected The Canted Angle. I got a little preoccupied with my last semester at NYU, I’m writing a 40 page thesis on Almodóvar and I started two new internships: I’m the Webmaster for Cinema Tropical and an intern for Pragda. Cinema Tropical promotes films from Latin America, and Pragda promotes films from Spain. I’m very excited about my thesis and internships, and I will be posting more about them in the future. So, please don’t give up on me, there will be more posts soon!

In the meantime, this finally comes out on Friday in NYC:

I’ve been waiting to see it for months! I will definitely be posting more on it after I see it, but for now I can say that I think Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio work together really well. After studying Scorsese extensively, I’ve become a big fan, and one thing I found interesting from the class I took on him was that people usually reacted to his films in the following way: “Wait, Scorsese is making a ____ movie?” For example, when he made New York, New York (1977), “Wait, Scorsese is making a musical?” But it’s because he makes films from many different genres, and he still puts his own style into whichever one he chooses. Although he has made a thriller, Cape Fear (1991), I think Shutter Island seems to be a different type of “scary,” and I’m very interested to see how he handled it. Check back for more after Friday!

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