American Gigolo (1980)

This is a hard one. I debated whether to even post on it, actually, because it’s not that great of a film. But I suppose I can still glean a little something from it. If not, what am I doing here?

I’d like to start out with the absurdities of the characterization of Julian (Richard Gere). Julian is presented as a high-rolling gigolo, able to speak “five or six” languages (though he doesn’t even affect an accent when he’s speaking French), able to spend three hours bringing the aging Mrs. Represseds out of their sexual shells. He is someone who has all the right connections at all the classy L.A. restaurants and bars, and he is the “only one” who can get into the most exclusive country clubs in L.A.  That’s wonderful. Truly wonderful. But as I’m sitting there watching it unfold, I’m wondering to myself about a few things: why is prostitution being glamourized, why does Julian have so much credibility, and with so many “return-tricks” in high society, how is Julian not caught/ how are all the women he is hired by not shamed by their associations with him (they all seem to know who else he hooks up with)? He’s just that cool, I guess.

He’s also cool enough to school Detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) in the art of dressing up for the ladies, and the Detective even listens to his advice. I’m just wondering about the reality of a high-class hooker maintaining his ethos with so many people in this way. My point is that it’s just not that believable. He’s a “whore,” as the Senator points out.

Speaking of the Senator, one of the scenes that really bothered me was the scene at the country club when Julian confronts the Senator (or vice versa). If you notice, it is the Senator who goes after Julian; it is the Senator who follows Julian around, not vice versa. One would think that a Senator wouldn’t be the one to go following a gigolo around like a puppy dog whining about his wife. I suppose this scene both disappointed me and reinforced the message being conveyed about Julian: that he has something about him that sets him “above” the norm. He even says to Detective Sunday at one point that there are some people who are “above the law.” I suppose he was referencing himself. But, as the narrative progressed to the climax of the story (I would categorize this as the scenes dealing with his realization that the jewels were planted in his car, leading up to the confrontation with Leon), the viewer is treated to a classic peripatetic moment.

Julian’s true reversal of fortune was when he actually kills someone. Up until that point, he hadn’t done anything wrong. He was being set up, and then it went terribly wrong.  Poor Julian.

I suppose the biggest let-down of this film was that in the final scene, when he is across the jailhouse glass from Michelle (Lauren Hutton), and she says she told the truth so she could be his alibi for the night of the murder, the film ends awkwardly with Julian’s sappy comment about not believing he had to come this far to get to her. Gag me with a spoon. Not only is there no resolution to the case itself, nor the general problems associated with a Senator’s wife dating a gigolo, but the viewer is left with the message that ‘love conquers all’ or something like that.

I’m too smart for that.

Rather than ‘love conquers all,’ this film says to me: it’s okay to be a whore if you’re public image portrays an air of higher class.  I mean, Julian technically ‘tricked’ in not only the “clean” environs of the country club ladies and the Senator’s wife, but also in the very bizarro worlds of Leon and Mr./Mrs. Rheiman (she did not look truly conscious to me when he had that encounter), and yet he did it anyway.  So, all the glamour of the suits and the stereos and the Mercedez Benz can’t possibly balance out against the sometimes gruesome service he is performing for money.

I guess I’m failing to see the overall point of this film. I think they were trying to say it’s hip to be a gigolo. But then I also think they were saying even gigolos get the blues. When all is said and done, I think Paul Schrader and Jerry Bruckheimer could’ve made a better film with what they had.

Though it does remind me of that old jazz standard, “Just a Gigolo”:  ”when the end comes I know they’ll say I’m just a gigolo…life goes on without me….” (I’m thinking of the Marty Grosz version).

The Wrestler (2008)

What I like about this film are its moments of raw, human desperation. This is certainly something typical in Aronofsky’s other films, like Requiem for a Dream (2000), which I’ve mentioned in a previous post.  I think the strongest examples of this raw, human desperation in The Wrestler, have to be found in two scenes: first, the flashback to the 14-minutes-ago scene in the wrestling rink when The Ram was going up against the Hillbilly-looking wrestler with all of the ladders, staple guns, tacks, barbed wire, and glass; and second, when Randy-as-’Robin’ reaches his breaking point in the Deli.

In regards to the wrestling match, I will hand it to Aronofsky for ‘preparing’ the viewer for the brutality by showing a prior match where The Ram cuts himself on the head so he will bleed, and so the match will appear more real. Well, it was real blood, so it was real, but there was still an element of staged spectacle in that match. Nonetheless, it was real blood, and it was a precursor to the later, more brutal scene with the Hillbilly. Even before the actual scene comes, Aronofsky once again attempts to prepare the viewer for what’s to come by having the Hillbilly ask The Ram if  a staple gun is okay to use during the match. So the viewer is thinking it’ll just be a staple gun.  But, it isn’t. It’s much worse. And the lengths to which both wrestlers were willing to go for the spectacle (or in The Ram’s case, for the love of his audience) are truly pitiful. The viewer gets the same feeling about this scene, as he/she does with some of the terrible scenes in Requiem for a Dream when we get to witness the lengths to which Marion (Jennifer Connoly) will go for her heroine. Both scenes show the exploitation of the body for a gain in some way. Both scenes show moments of human desperation. Both scenes invoke, in the viewer, a sense of pity for the character(s) involved.  Marion exploited herself for heroine and The Ram exploited himself for audience admiration. I mean, that’s fine and all, if that’s your thing, but to watch it unfold should remind the viewer that life isn’t all peaches and cream for everyone.

The second scene, in the Deli when Randy-as-Robin is recognized by the customer and he is going back and forth getting the potato salad amount perfect for the old lady, is a reminder to the viewer that Randy is self-destructive by nature. His willingness to go to the extreme of slicing his own finger on the meat-cutting machine as a rebellion against his past submission to the ridiculous authority of the grocery store manager (thus, as a metaphor for trying to hold down any real job) is a reminder that Randy The Ram is pretty much cut out for the wrestling circuit and all its self-destructive demands. It was icing on the cake that in classic The Ram style, Randy smears his own blood all over his face as he’s tearing his way through the store, making himself fierce, a fighter.  This is reminiscent of something you might see in Homer’s The Iliad with Ajax/Aias or Sarpedon blazing their way through a jungle of bodies, mowing them down, and wearing their victims’ blood as trophies.  In Randy’s case, his own blood is his trophy. A striking image, actually.

But!  I think Randy submitting to the authority of the sleazy grocery store manager (who clearly has a Napoleonic complex of sorts) is ultimately the same as submitting to the nature of the audience’s authority that a wrestler must accept when his impetus for success is ‘win the audience at all self-inflicted costs.’ Both are humiliating in their own ways, and both remind the viewer that there’s maybe no escaping getting caught under this machine.

Ultimately, it’s sad that Randy tries to reconnect with his daughter and she severs their relationship. And it’s sad that despite all the work it took Randy to get closer to Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), he still felt abandoned by her at the end: he looks up to see her, to seek acknowledgment from her, but she’s ‘always already’ gone (in his mind). He had nothing to live for but his fans and if he goes out in a blaze of glory, then so be it.

Aronofsky has made a lot of films that make you feel sorry for people, for their lives, for their decisions in life, for the predicaments they’re in. He shows you moments of desperation that are believable. He shows you the struggles of real people. I have a hard time believing there are real Jason Bournes or Mr & Mrs Smiths out there, but I can surely see the Randy The Rams out there, struggling day by day, trying to be happy and good, but falling way short and failing miserably.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

There are a few things to consider with this film: hard work (the bootstraps kind) that leads to a sense of entitlement,  a culture or mentality that allows megalomania to thrive unchecked (I might even call this Capitalism), and basic psychology.

The protagonist (and we know he’s the protagonist because he’s the first actor to appear onscreen), Daniel Plainview, is a loner. He has no one except the baby he claims as his own. But when the boy, H.W.,  loses his hearing, Plainview abandons him to a deaf school in San Francisco, and later when H.W. wants to go off to do his own thing, he admits the devastating truth to H.W. just to cause him pain. He is therefore selfish and seemingly heartless. He knows no compassion at all, except when it serves his selfish purposes (e.g. missing H.W., etc.). Plainview exhibits behavior, as the film progresses, that indicates he is also lonely, though he his surrounded by faithful friends (Fletcher, played by Ciaran Hinds….hail Caesar!) and his son.  At the arrival of his ‘brother,’ he is at first skeptical, but then takes him on like it were the natural thing to do, only to ultimately be disappointed and enraged by the man’s deception. His final treatment of his ‘brother’ shows how heartless he  is and how far away he is from having compassion for his fellow man. Same with the final scene with Eli at his home’s bowling lanes. He is heartless, and selfish, and out to make or keep whatever money he can.  He is also overly concerned with maintaining his perception of his dignity. Ironically, his seeming-antagonist, Eli, though the viewer might expect him to become Plainview’s nemesis, due to his own inability to deal with people on a truly human level, falls way short of keeping the force balanced.

Therefore, Daniel Plainview’s megalomaniacal personality goes unchecked. It was really disappointing to see Eli never really come through with any counter measures against Plainview. Perhaps this is what the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, wanted: to not be so predictable. Or perhaps it was of the utmost importance that Plainview be able to fully develop into the monster that he was.

I can’t help thinking of another great film with an ending and a protagonist very similar to this one: Patrick Bateman and American Psycho. These two films end very similarly, almost in a bizarre parallel universe sort of way: Patrick Bateman, after confessing his crimes, finds that his crimes are overlooked and his peers don’t seem to care that he is a psycho killer (though it is debatable as to whether Bateman really was a psycho killer, or whether it was all in his head, but that’s a topic for another day, right E.D.?!); Daniel Plainview, as the film draws to a close, after bashing Eli’s head in with a bowling pin, tells his assistant/butler, who DOES NOT register a shock at the sight of the crime, that he’s all done with his dinner. The viewer must surmise that the butler will merely clean up the body with the dishes and that will be the end of it. Yes? No?  The film ends with the viewer wondering how on earth this is not going to end badly for Plainview, in a going-to-prison sort of way. But then we think of Patrick Bateman and perhaps we know what will happen: nothing. Nothing because sometimes megalomania goes unchecked. Sometimes people want to keep their jobs.

If Plainview represents the American Dream (that pull yourself up from the bootstraps and drag your  mangled ass across miles of desert for the possibility of getting rich sort of thing), and if the American Dream requires you to do whatever it takes to make it to the top, including murder (and dragging your ass…) then it is reasonable to surmise that Plainview is representative of all of the Capitalist moguls and tycoons and robber barons who have exploited all the resources they could in order to grace the Society and Financial pages.

But I think that’s too simple. Honestly, the film can’t just be about how ridiculous it is that super rich capitalists can get away with anything and everything just because they worked hard to make their millions/billions. I mean, really?!  Could it be that simple?

I mean, Eli was an insufficient nemesis. There was no real nemesis to counter Plainview’s hubris. Even Standard Oil couldn’t give Plainview a tear in his stockings. There were NO checks or balances. Not even God, in this film, could really counteract Plainview. I mean, he’s in plain view! He’s right there. Somebody do something! But no. Nope. Everyone was weak.

I suppose we should consider the title: There Will Be Blood. Blood will be shed. Guaranteed. Not, There Might Be Blood.

As a viewer, I had higher hopes for Eli in terms of his nemesis potential, despite his inherent weakness as a human being.

Finally, the extradiegetic music in this film was very persistent in its setting of the mood as somber, dangerous, and high-anxiety. Even with a simple pan across a train station when no narrative action was presumed to be taking place, there would be music indicating impending danger. One must suppose that the point of this was to lead the viewer to believe that the whole scenario was fraught with danger.

Danger! There will be blood shed! Danger!

Hmmm…Thompson definitely tried to take this narrative and show us something. I’m just not sure it was something profound. Perhaps I haven’t thunk on it hard enough.

Black Book (2006)

Paul Verhoeven directs this WWII-era drama. It reminds me a lot of The Lives of Others, perhaps because it costars Sebastian Koch, who is in both films, and because both films deal with the Nazi Stasi.

It was a long film: 2 and a half hours. But there was a lot to be shown. I think what stands out to me most in this film is the depiction of the ravages of war and nationalism/patriotism on humanity. But let’s face it: we are all now used to seeing images of Nazi war crimes being played out for us on the screen. We are no strangers to the firing squad and the looting of Jewish riches by Nazi soldiers.  This is certainly at the heart of the Jewish distaste over any recreation of Holocaust imagery: to try to is, in itself, a blasphemy against the atrocities and suffering. But, Nazi-era films keep coming out. So there must be a Hitler or a budding SS in our midst that someone’s trying to allegorize for our collective subconscious to clue into.

Back to my point about depicting humanity’s deep plunge into the absurdly unethical in times of war: Though we are used to “seeing” the Nazi crimes, in this film we also are treated to what happens when the Nazis leave Holland, and the Dutch are left to punish their own traitors. They are just as brutal and inhumane to those who they feel betrayed Holland and sided with the Nazis. The point is that nationalism is nationalism is nationalism, and none of it works very well if you’re trying to maintain a sense of ethics and compassion for your fellow man.

Luckily, we have a few characters who are able to bridge the gap between all the patriotic-war-games-hoopla, and see each other for who they were: Rachel Stein and Muntze. Love, the great equalizer, made their relationship work, but it was also what ultimately brought them to suffer more. It’s amazing that in this film, Muntze, the highest-ranking Stasi, is able to fall in love with a woman he knows to be Jewish. Even more amazing is that Rachel is able to be honest with him, on quite a few occasions, when the viewer is thinking: don’t tell him that! But she is a symbol of purity and her character is the reason the film works: because without her as a gauge to show the atrocious behavior of the others, we might just have a lot of killing to watch.  And Muntze is the same: who would have expected a compassionate Stasi official?

I think films like these remind us that even in the midst of chaos, we can stay true to ourselves, to reason, to reasonableness, and to ethical behavior.

It is interesting that the film is framed around Rachel’s flashback of the events of her youth because later in life, it must have been in the 60s or so, she is in Israel on a Kibbutz, and as the film ends and she is walking back through the barbed wire with her husband and kids, there is another war going on around her. Clearly we know what war this is: between Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians. Clearly we know that we are supposed to make the connection between the Nazis in Holland and the final scene. This can be taken several ways. It’s hard to tell what Verhoeven was getting at. But like most films, we bring to the final meaning what we want to, and sometimes we want to leave it open because there are no simple explanations or solutions. But with a good film, a well made film, a smart film, we can go back through the film to fill in the blanks left open for us in the end.

Religulous (2008)

Just a few brief words about this film:

What I found throughout this film is a lack of support for a lot of Bill Maher’s “Biblical (or other religious textual) evidence.” There were countless scenes in which Maher was saying to people “such and such is in the Bible” and the people would say, “no, i believe it said this,” and he would say, “no, that’s not in there.”  But he didn’t carry a Bible or a Qu’ran or anything else with him to “show” anything. There were only a handful of times in which he actually provided quotes from religious texts in order to support his argument–he could have either shown the quotes to the people he was talking to, or presented them as titles for the viewer. Otherwise, his lack of consistently doing this severely affected his ethos in my opinion and it severely diminishes the overall quality of this film.

He attempts to make some good points in this film but I fail to see the point if you don’t do it right.

Blue Velvet (1986)

So, I had to see some more David Lynch because we’ve been watching Twin Peaks.

I’m not quite sure what the point of Blue Velvet was, other than to show some secrets of small-town living, but I think Lynch must just like showing aberrant behavior on film.

What do I want to say about this film? It was interesting.  It was violent. It was kooky.  It was bizarre. 

Ultimately, it was “okay.”  I think film viewers and connoisseurs enjoy kooky.

One thing the viewer can see more readily by watching this film is Lynch’s style. It’s hard to be certain within a TV series like Twin Peaks, but there are certain elements in both texts that give the viewer a better glimpse at his style.

For instance, the night club/bar and strange singers, the color red (or blue), the innocence vs. experience trope, the mystery to be solved (ironically by Kyle MacLachlan), drug use, and the aberrant sexual behavior trope.

I’m still laughing about Dennis Hopper’s character, Frank Booth, and his bizarre, Freudian sexual fantasy.  …what on earth?!

Woyzeck (1979)

I had forgotten that this particular Herzog film starred Klaus Kinski, even though I now remember scenes from it that were on the documentary, My Best Fiend, which is about the tumultuous relationship between Herzog and Kinski.

Actually, watching My Best Fiend really helps one to appreciate the evil genius of Kinski’s acting. As Woyzeck is drawing to a close, and Woyzeck is wielding the knife on his wife, Marie, as the viewer I know that although he is not stabbing her with the knife (there is some BRILLIANT camera work and acting going on because you can see him come down with the blade and at the last second turn his hand so as to not really stab!), he is still literally going through the motions with the same intensity as if he were really doing it.  The shots are slowed, the grimace is on his face for an extended period of time, and Marie is hanging limply in his arms, her hair in one of his hands, the knife in the other stabbing down.  Eva Mattes (Marie) must have had nerves of steel to trust Kinski that much. Really!

For me, this is one of the best aspects of Herzog’s filmmaking: capturing the focused intensity of the shot, whether it be waiting uncomfortably on someone’s face while they squirm because they think he’s going to turn it off but he’s really waiting to watch the subject squirm; or capturing Kinski-as-Woyzeck in the midst of murderous emotional release, slow and deliberate, watching the pain play out on Kinski’s animated face. 

I do wonder sometimes what makes Herzog choose a particular story to tell. And aside from the infidelity-murder plotline (not being of the most critical importance overall), I feel the more critical aspects of this film are clearly centered around Woyzeck’s relationship with the Doctor and the Captain. Both are using him, manipulating him. And eventually they manipulate him together (in a God-Satan-Job sort of way), ultimately setting into motion the death of Marie.

In The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog is critiquing the educated, or the systems of education and medicine,  because of how Kaspar was “studied” and flaunted for everyone’s amusement and personal gain in the film.

In Woyzeck, Herzog seems to be showing the viewer a perverted system of science, where a selfish doctor is willing to deprive a man for months for his own scientific gain: he makes him eat only peas for 6 months so he can test certain things, like urine levels. And the Doctor constantly references his “theories” and he has a huge closet full of papers; presumably papers he’s written or read; presumably referencing the papers he plans to write using Woyzeck as his test subject.

I think Herzog is telling the viewer that people should not be scientific or social experiments. He told us this in Kaspar Hauser. Because when that happens, things go terribly wrong. 

You can’t force a man to eat only peas for six months and expect him to remain sane!

Dodes’ka-den (1970)

On the heels of reading a real uplifting novel like The Grapes of Wrath, it was a much needed pick-me-up to be able to watch Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den.  I’m kidding.  About the uplifting part.

This film takes place in what looks like a nuclear fallout zone. I imagined the setting as Hiroshima, a year later. It’s pretty much a slum.  The viewer is only given a glimpse of the dirty, run-down fragments of a community: there are no wide shots of the surrounding facets of the slum, or the larger city in the distance.  This is fitting because the viewer is treated to only fragments of the characters’ diegetic lives. 

Without knowing Japanese, it’s hard for me to guess what “dodes’ka-den” would be translated as in English. The boy is mimicking driving a trolley, and it’s hard to come up with the onomatopoedic (is that a word?) equivalent of a trolley sound, so I’m correllating it to our  English train sound of “Chugga chugga chugga chugga choo choo.” It doesn’t matter other than just knowing that the boy is repeating it over and over as he’s acting like he’s the trolley conductor (he’s shell-shocked or mentally handicapped).  Bless his heart.

The film shows glimpses into the home lives of the various residents of this sector of the slum: interestingly, many of them are doing work from home, assembling various items to sell like hair brushes or fake flowers.  Some of them are drinking, some of them are fornicating, some of them are starving, some of them are washing clothes and gossiping, some of them are dying, some of them are already dead.

Perhaps the most intriguing character in the film is the guy who’s pretty much already dead: he walks around like a zombie, his eyes bugging out, bright and wide open, but the lights are turned off inside. As the film progresses, his estranged wife returns and she seeks forgiveness from him for cheating on him (presumably MANY years ago). But he registers nothing. He is already dead. Killed years ago by that ravenous beast, the she-wolf, whose lusty hearts saps men of all their strength.

It’s sad, actually, that he wastes his life away. He gave up.  Is he a waste of space? He makes no effort to even talk to her, nor to anyone else in the film. He just stares out into oblivion. It’s no way to live. It’s not living.

Same thing goes for the homeless man with the little boy: idiocy and poor parenting gets them into a real fine mess. Their days were consumed with trying to stay alive, and trying to keep themselves motivated to stay alive by fantasizing about building their dream house.  They struggled for survival every day and it did not work out very well in the end for the boy.

Some of the characters in this film struggle with their daily existences, minute-by minute-sometimes. The mother of the Trolley Freak, as he’s called by the taunting kids, is desperate to keep her son happy because he does not seem to realize he is different; the girl who makes the artificial flowers struggles just to stay awake so she can finish her task, all-the-while she is just a pound of flesh without any enjoyment in life whatsoever.

There are other characters who do not struggle quite as much, like the gossiping wives around the water spigot, or the two couples who seem to be “swingers,” or the old man who is a positive, compassionate influence in the community. 

So what do all of these characters have in common?  Why is Kurosawa making a film about the slums and the various people that are living there?  Honestly, I don’t know. But I’m going to make a guess.

I think we all exist within a community with our own individual sense of reality. We all arrive at this moment in our lives with baggage of various sizes and weights. We all have capabilities for success and failure.  Just because we are who we are right now does not mean others are right there with us, though they may be standing beside us in the literal sense. I think Kurosawa was showing the viewer a community where hardship, gossip, violence, love, sex, compassion, death, and longing are all a part of daily life, and though we may be experiencing bliss or pain in our own realities, those around us might be experiencing something similar to or completely different than us. 

I think we are supposed to watch a film like this (and I also think that the horrible film, Babel, was an attempt at this) and recognize that we are part of a community of men and women who, behind closed doors and out in the public eye, lead individual lives, but also lead lives that we are all subject to seeing if we bother to open our eyes to them.

Two of the best examples of this in the film are when the bike delivery boy keeps noticing the flower girl is pale, weak, and sickly looking, and how he knows that her uncle is overworking her. But every time he confronts her about this, he only takes it so far as to tell her she’s in bad shape, but he never does anything to help her. The viewer is thinking he will somehow rescue her. But each time, he rides off on his bike with a smile having only pointed out the obvious.  This comes back to bite him in the end (in a way) because she later stabs him as a proxy for her uncle raping her. 

Another example is when a burglar invaded the old man’s house and was about to walk away with his tools. The old man woke up and asked him to please not take his tools, but to take his money instead. He got up, gave him the money, and told him to come back if he needed more. Later, when the police caught the burglar, and the burglar confessed to the burglary, the old man denied ever having given him the money. 

The old man has a code of honor that I believe is highly valued by Kurosawa.  He was the only “old man” in the film, and he was always dressed traditionally, while the other men were dressed variously. A clear statement about old/new.  He was also the person that seemed to be able to alleviate various tensions in the film: like an old Sage.

Ultimately, I think this film was about paying attention to the world, and the people, around us.  And more than that, behaving compassionately in all that we do.

That’s possible, but not for everyone.

This film is really a lot more than just that but I can’t possibly fathom the film’s cultural meaning from a Japanese standpoint because I am not Japanese.

The Grapes of Wrath (Novel, 1939)

As my faithful readers know (thank you!), this is a blog devoted entirely to analyzing film. And, I normally stick pretty closely to the unspoken tenets of only writing about films. But once before on this blog, I ventured into writing about Arthur C. Clarke’s Odyssey Tetralogy because of the corresponding films and my overpowering desire to write about the books in a place where I knew it would be read. So I suppose I justify my actions now in that same way.

Now, I haven’t watched the 1940  Henry Fonda/John Ford film version yet because I like to read the book first and then watch the film, but I did just add it to the top of my Netflix queue.  But, I feel compelled to write about the novel right now because I just finished reading it this morning and it evoked a particular reaction in me.

I don’t know if I had the same reaction as every one else who has read this novel or not. The older I get, the more I realize how similar we all react to things. So what I say about this, or anything else I write about on this blog, is just what comes out: untainted, unfiltered.  

I’ll get to my point in a bit but I’d like to build up to it by explaining that the reason I picked this novel up at the Library was because it’s a classic and I’d never read it. I’ve started to feel ashamed lately because of my lack of experience reading some of our great American classics.  I didn’t specifically pick the book up because I thought it had some relevance to today’s “economic hard times” as we keep hearing on the news…now, after reading The Grapes of Wrath, I know the real hard times is yet to come, folks!  (A side effect of reading this novel is that you want to write in Okie dialect too).

But as soon as the novel began, I started seeing the connection between the state of affairs in the novel and what we’re experiencing today: big businesses and banks taking the land and livelihoods away from the American people in order to turn a bigger profit.    But by the end of the novel, in the last paragraph actually, it really hit home for me that we’re not any where near the level of desperation and human suffering that Steinbeck was describing. I know this for a few reasons.

I know this because we’re still taking vacations and planning weddings; we’re still shopping online for iTunes; we’re still filing sexual harassment lawsuits; we’re still protesting gay marriage rights; we’re still having parties at our houses and inviting friends and feeding them all night long.  

We’re nowhere near the level of desperation Steinbeck describes. I agree with you that that is an obvious statement. But until you’ve gone through the novel and you’ve let your imagination run wild with the characters and their plight, I think it’s too easy to say to yourself as a reader in 2009: the same thing’s happening now!

No, the same thing isn’t happening now. We keep hearing “these tough economic times” every time we turn around. Yeah, we are experiencing tough economic times. Yeah, many of us don’t have jobs or have jobs that don’t come close to paying the bills. Yeah, I know. I’m living it too.  But the connotation that the media is trying to convey with “these tough economic times” is something much more grande than we can fathom in 2009.

I know this because I know what Rose of Sharon did in that last paragraph of the novel, and I know what the penultimate chapter was foreshadowing. Don’t worry, I won’t give it away. In the paragraphs leading up to the final paragraph of the novel, I didn’t realize what was happening. I stopped and re-read it a few times before I got to the end because I couldn’t figure it out. Then, I finished the last paragraph and I knew.  And I cried. I can’t remember the last time I cried reading a novel. 

I cried first because of the beauty of human nature. And the confusing part became clear.  Then I cried because of my confusion and I realized that’s the difference between us and them: we can’t fathom it, and Rose of Sharon and Ma both knew what had to be done. 

Despite the 4-5 weeks it took me to read this 450 page novel (I won’t lie:  it’s long and it’s depressing, and that makes it hard to read for long durations), I made it to the end and found it to be one of the most beautiful novels I’ve ever read. At first, the rotating descriptive chapters are tedious because the reader hasn’t been brought thoroughly enough into the Joad Family story line yet.  But as the novel progresses, the descriptive chapters provide much-needed details and foreshadowing about the general state of affairs for migrants.  And by the penultimate chapter, it’s clear that it’s foreshadowing beyond the last words of the novel. It’s a lot like reading The Odyssey:  the narrative seemingly just ends without giving the reader the satisfaction of a truly happily-ever-after for Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus, but the reader has to recall the prophecies and the omens and then he or she will know what is to come for them, and the reader can take some peace from that because the end is known.

Steinbeck has done the same thing for his readers but his Odysseus and Penelope and Telemachus will not grow old on Ithaca, and that is part of the sadness and beauty of this novel. We do not know what will specifically happen with Tom, but we know what happened to Casy. We do not specifically know what will happen with the rest of the Joad family, but we know what the penultimate chapter foreshadows. And we do not know what will specifically become of Rose of Sharon but we know that she is the embodiment of all that is good and pure in the human soul. 

People relying on people who are in the same state of being as they are. People being good to others because they are good people, not because they’re being forced to for some ulterior motive.  People recognizing their own suffering in others and doing their best to assuage the pains of life.

This novel moralizes while also de-emphasizing the necessity for a fear of God. In fact, I think it is one of the best aspects of the book, and it is why Casy is in the narrative: to show that goodness and moral-ethical behavior do not have to be followed by God’s wrath. In fact, Steinbeck makes a point of showing that good judgment is just good judgment. (And there’s plenty of suffering for the living without having to worry about suffering after death).  And sometimes when wrong is being done to you, and you react in a way to protect yourself, bad things happen accidentally. I don’t think Steinbeck is justifying murder or violence; just the opposite. I think he’s justifying human behavior in the face of highly unethical treatment and oppression: the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.  I think he’s pointing out that if you push men to the brink, they will have no other choice (i.e. Tom) than to protect themselves, and at the same time, they will make the right choice (i.e. Rose of Sharon). When you’ve stripped man of his autonomy, you’ve opened up the can of worms on yourself; but when the can is empty, you’ll find the core of human nature. 

Steinbeck was writing about real people.  We’re not quite real yet.  Nope. Far from it.  But I know there are Roses of Sharon out there waiting in many of us.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Okay, so I do get out to the cineplex every now and then. But, I’ve got to admit that I really do not like the $9.50 ticket price! I mean, really!  And I won’t even go into the debacle at the refreshment counter over a gold-plated bottle of water.

This film was what it was: blockbuster action, shoot ‘em and kill ‘em and stab ‘em and slash ‘em. Was it good: yes. Was it bad: no. But, it was very disturbing somewhat late in the movie to hear a little kid in the theatre say “Why’d he shoot him?” When Wolverine took one of many bullets. Yes, I’m talking to you, you crazy viewing public who takes 6 year olds to movies like this…shame on you!  

What I’d like to say about this film deals with our current need for heroes. I thought frequently during the film about the TV show, Heroes. If we can channel Mr. Jameson’s theory about the ‘absent cause’ here, then I think we can begin to surmise that superhero stories/remakes/prequels are feeding into, and out of, our collective unconscious in a way that is trying to pretty much scream out at us that we need some dang heroes!  What’s the absent cause you say? Look at the black hole that was the last 8 years in this country and we can find lots of reasons to justify wanting to manifest real heroes.  

And, I further justify this theory because a major part of this film was centered around a corrupt Colonel who was torturing and experimenting on mutants for his own selfish gains, and at whatever cost necessary.  Hmm….

I’m not a big fan of the overpowering cacophony of machine guns coming from the surround sound system, or the actual shoot-em-up sequences that pervade the film. For instance, the first 10 minutes of the film is all killing. Wars and killing, killing and more wars. 

Why?!  Why?!  Why are we still killing?! Why do filmmakers make films with all that killing?! Why do audiences want to see all the killing?! We’re just falling further and further down the rabbit hole of numbness to real death. Dagnabbit!