Object #21 - Pancakes - Inherent Vice (2014)

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

For this one I'd recommend watching the trailer first just so you get an understanding of the vibe of the film, as well as getting a nice glimpse at the pancake scene. Also it's a really good trailer. Perhaps not the most accurate for the actual tone of the film, which is a lot less...is flashy the right word? Nonetheless you'll get some understanding of the overall plot, but as is clear to see at the end of the film, the labyrinthine plot really isn't the point of the film. 

Anyway, before I end up writing a whole review let's focus on the pancake scene. 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) is a funny old character in Inherent Vice, described as having a "John Wayne walk and a flat-top of Flintstone proportions", he's 'The Man' of the film. There are FBI agents, Bigfoot, and everyone else is either a hippie or a rich entrepreneur, or dentists...yeah it's an interesting film. The pancake scene comes relatively near to the end of the film, and yet it tells us a lot about Bigfoot that we haven't seen elsewhere in the film. First of all, let's not overlook the fact that he's in a Japanese restaurant/take-out, and he's eating pancakes. Clearly, he has enough pull in this place, and enough balls, to have the cook make him an American dish. 

I saw this film yesterday and I literally couldn't tell you what Bigfoot and our protagonist, PI, stoner 'Doc' Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix)  are discussing. The plot is so convoluted and dense that they could be talking about nearly anything. In all likelihood they're talking about the Golden Fang, a drug cartel operating in the film. That isn't a spoiler because, trust me, you won't understand the plot anyway. Spoilers would probably help! What is important, and what does stand-out, is this quote from Bigfoot: "Pancakes aren't like mothers, but what I really come here for is the respect...the respect." 

Let's look at the first half. "Pancakes aren't like mothers.", I have two interpretations for this. The first is that Bigfoot sees the pancakes as cheap things, not like mothers who have value, raising children the American way. This implies either that Bigfoot was raised right by his mother, and enjoys this aspect of the American dream-idea; or that Bigfoot had a troubled past, and thinks of them as a whole, as part of the American dream. Now you may be wondering what the hell I'm talking about? And honestly, I find it hard to justify what I just said. Yet that's the things about this film, the way it's paced and plotted gives this air of being high, confused, making big things out of little things, and little things out of big things. Either that or I'm a pretentious dick! It's probably that. Anyway, the next half is better.

"what I really come here is for the respect...the respect". Now this tells us a lot for certain. Later in the film we see that Bigfoot has a troubled domestic life. He's on the phone to Doc frequently throughout the film. In the later scene, Bigfoot's wife complains about him focusing on work duties on his 'one day off' of the week. He's clearly a man who focuses on his work, his entire demeanor tells us that. So here, in the restaurant, he can come and escape from his unhappy domestic life. Despite the fact he is almost a symbol of the proud American, wife, kids, police job, square hair-cut, he has to come to this restaurant, boss the staff around to make him American food, just so he can feel respected. 

We get this impression throughout the film that Bigfoot sides with Doc, the hippie, more-so than with his uptight police colleagues. He seems to be treated far better by Doc than any other character in the film, despite the fact that they go against one another due to the plot, and in a broader context, by the very fact that he's a cop and Doc's a hippie. So the scene has a certain irony, Doc doesn't need to boss people around to feel respect, he doesn't need respect, and yet doles it out fairly, to hippie or cop alike. It's the hippie that is conforming to the status-quo. The other funny thing is that Doc is a PI, a job so heavily tied to the 30's and 40's with the Sam Spades that he's out-of-date in the early 70's. The cops will soon be the heroes of the media, already starting with Bullitt, you get films like Dirty Harry, and The French Connection, then in the 80's as you look at films like Lethal Weapon, Police Academy, hell, even Predator 2! The only bit of renaissance noir and PI stories get in the 70's is Chinatown and The Long Goodbye (which I've written about here), themselves part of the neo-noir genre. 

So what we have is a reversal of positions with the consensus of the time. Doc, the out-of-date PI is on top, as Bigfoot feels disillusioned with the soon-to-be popular straight cops. The final thing this scene does is be funny. It's a great moment in the trailer as we get Bigfoot's orders for more pancakes, in Japanese: "Dozo, motto panukeiku. Motto panukeiku! Motto panukeiku! Hai? Hai? Hai?”. Brolin has fine comedic chops and they're put to great use here. It's just plain funny to see him strut his 'power', ordering in a language that, actually, he isn't using incorrectly, but we know he doesn't understand. The scene ends with Doc leaving, a close-up (not a surprise for this film) of Bigfoot's face, as he thinks, and then "MOTTO PANUKEIKU!". It's a funny end-note to a scene that has a lot of sub-textual things going on, furthers the plot, and is funny to boot!

Object #20 - Lemon Tea - The Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Dir. Erle C. Kenton 

Drinking tea is synonymous with being British. It's a stereotype, but some stereotypes have roots in truth, which is the case with this one. There are sayings like 'Not for all the tea in China', which funnily enough is Australian in origin. But who sent the first criminals to Australia? Britain of course.  Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) is British, and certainly enjoys his lemon tea. This fact by itself means nothing, it's only when we know what type of man Dr. Moreau is that this act becomes something more.

Moreau, if you are unaware, is a pioneering scientist into the rapid-evolution of plants, and the transformation of animals such as apes, panthers, and lions, into men. Or at least, this is his goal. In the film he has been experimenting on his private island for over ten years, failing to create true men from beasts, instead creating beast-men, grotesque half creatures that need The Law to stop them from killing and eating meat, thus returning to their primitive origins and behaviour. Moreau's experiments on animals had him expelled from his native England, yet his manner is English. He speaks softly, wears suits, and yes, drinks lemon tea. 

His civilized manner is of course, ironic, as he is as monstrous as the things he creates, if not more so. The so-called 'House of Pain', where he vivisects animals to turn them into his man-creatures, echoes with the human screams of fear and pain. He doesn't anesthetize his animals, he doesn't care. He created Lola (Kathleen Burke), or The Panther Woman, a near-perfect human female from panther origins. He plans to have the visitor to his island, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen), sleep with Lola, with the hope that she is a 'true woman' who can become a mother. He doesn't care for her interests, despite the fact that she clearly has sentient, relatively intelligent thought. 

Moreau calmly tells Parker as he stirs his tea that Lola is his most perfect creation so-far, and his intentions to have Parker elope with her. Laughton utterly sells this performance. Scheming, yet softly spoken, as if discussing a horse-race or some other English pursuit. He clearly has pride in his work, and is blind to the horror that he has inflicted and created in the other beast-men. The ends completely justify the means for Moreau, as he later shows that the failed experiments are used as slave-labour to power the island. Parker can only take so much and punches Moreau, spilling the carefully made tea, and knocking over the china. 

Parker, the American, comes as a brute-force reminder of moral justice. I'm not saying that being American means you are morally superior, but there is an undercurrent in this American-made film of lashing back at the colonial British. This is somewhat ironic as America was begun by British colonists but we all know that sordid history. The fact that Moreau can continue to enjoy his tea despite his vile experiments show that he is the worst of the English. Let's not forget that even in the story, Moreau went too far for English society, ostracized from his home country. I'd like to say that Moreau is simply a horrible man, regardless of origin, but the way Kenton chooses to frame the scene, outfit Laughton, and in fact, cast him to begin with, creates this sense of colonial Britain repeating, nay, evolving in every sense of the word the atrocities of it's domineering, and in fact, uncivilized actions. I hate to call the tea a symbol but I can't think of any other way of describing it. Even the fact that it's lemon tea brings to mind this sense of British classism, especially of the upper-class, who were the ones to colonise the world. Hell, even in World War II there's somewhat-true myths of British soldiers refusing to advance on the enemy until they had a tea-break. The contrast of brutality, war, and here genetic experimentation, splicing, and vivisection with a 'civilized' cup of tea is clear, and really hammers home how the most civilized, can in fact be the least, the worst monsters of them all.    

   

P.S On a more lighthearted note, The Simpsons do a brilliant parody of The Island of Lost Souls, you can see a clip of The Island of Dr. Hibbert here. 

Object #19 - The Cut-out Silhouette - The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

Dir. Fritz Lang

There are aspects of film, nay, storytelling, that transcend time because they tap into something distinctly human. Love, war, and sex are the most prominent I find. That last one is a little more tricky due to censorship in more conservative times, but is reflected in romance, and in other inventive ways - Hitchcock's visual joke involving a train tunnel in North By Northwest comes to mind. There is another that dates back not only to literature with Poe, but further back to a time when verbal communication was king - ghost stories, or more broadly, the supernatural. 

In Das Testament des Dr.Mabuse, Fritz Lang uses the techniques he'd learned from his silent film days to explore this theme. The film is a sequel to his silent film Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922) OR Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, where criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is eventually driven insane by the ghosts of his victims, and incarcerated in an insane asylum. The sequel continues the story with the premise that the insane Mabuse is writing of criminal events in his cell, events which seem to be occurring in the real-world. We see,  throughout the film, a group of criminals visit an imposing room, where they are summoned by Dr. Mabuse. The room is almost featureless, with a curtain at one end, and a door at the other. Behind the curtain, Mabuse command his lackeys and receives updates on his work. He's never seen, only heard. Yet it's implied that he can see the lackeys he speaks to, as he knows if they are there but are simply not speaking, or can tell when they aren't being upfront.

Later in the film, one of these criminals, Kent (Gustav Diesel) and his love Lilli (Wera Liessem) are captured and locked in the room. Mabuse informs them that they will die. Kent shoots through the curtain. The two approach, pull back the curtain, and reveal a desk, a loudspeaker, and a cardboard cutout silhouette of a sitting man, now riddled with bullet holes. You can see it above, and the visual is striking. What this does is confirm that Mabuse, and his entire criminal empire, has been accomplished by proxy, by his spirit. 

Earlier in the film, the Mabuse locked in the asylum was found dead. Following this event we saw the superbly experimental and visual scene, where Mabuse's spirit takes control of Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi Sr.), and details his plan of a criminal empire across the world. I mean look at this image of Mabuse's spirit! The effect is creepy to this day, and for an early sound film of the 30's, supremely effective. 

Anyway, so we the audience 'know', and I use that word carefully, that Baum has been taken over by the spirit of Dr.Mabuse. How?Nnever explained. But why would we want it to be? The delight of the story is that the villain and centerpiece of the film, the supernatural Mabuse, is just that, supernatural. Why does this spirit fixate on crime? Why did he remain in his asylum for so long before breaking free of the old and insane mind? Why does he want a criminal empire? Answering any of these questions isn't really desired, the pleasure is in the execution. Like a magic trick, we want to wonder 'How did they do that?'. When the answer is given, we are left disappointed, as the mystery was our enjoyment. As Michael Caine says in The Prestige (2006), a film dealing with this theme, "You want to be fooled". When the curtain is pulled back, secrets revealed, disappointment follows. Now isn't that interesting? When the curtain is pulled back.

Isn't that exactly what we have in that room? Kent and Lilli pull the curtain back and see the answer to the 'mystery' of who was behind the curtain. We know it's Mabuse of course, but we still want to know how exactly he was operating the crimes in the room. And what does Lang do? Gives us more questions! The curtain reveals the loudspeaker, which explains how the audio was being piped in. But that's about it! The cutout is an enigmatic touch that acts as a visual reference for the absent Mabuse. The very fact that it is there tells us that Mabuse has a sense of humour, knowing that Kent would likely look behind the curtain. It also visually shows us that Mabuse can't be killed, or at least, nor as simply as a bullet to the chest. This spirit, this criminal consciousness resided in that area of the room, yet wasn't present.

With the curtains pulled back, the trick has been on the criminals. They thought that Mabuse was playing by their rules, but he's not. Mabuse is supernatural, beyond the physical, and has used the curtains, the speaker, the cutout, as a courtesy, and as a joke. We don't know whether it was his bodyless form that spoke behind the curtains, or if he did in actuality use the speaker as channeling device, but nonetheless the effect is given, Dr.Mabuse is beyond being a common criminal, he truly is a super-criminal in many senses of the word. 

The influence of this scene, and Mabuse himself, is present in the cinematic portrayal of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, arch-villain of James Bond, who, particularity in the early-Connery films, was always presented with face hidden, and silhouetted, with only his white cat as a maker of his true identity. See the image below from Thunderball (1965), where Blofeld (Anthony Dawson, voiced by Eric Pohlmann) sits high above his criminal lackeys, blinds obscuring him. Seem familiar? 

Apparently in the process of writing for The Dark Knight (2008), director and screenplay author Christopher Nolan told his fellow scriptwriter brother Jonathan Nolan to watch The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in order to get a feel for how The Joker (Heath Ledger) should operate his criminal deeds, as well his motivations for chaos. If you've even a slight interest in that portrayal of the Joker, the film as a whole, or Blofeld in general, then I implore you to watch The Testament of Dr. Mabuse as it's remarkably rewarding seeing the source of these homages and influences. And on top of that, it's a damn fine film about a supernatural master criminal, what more could you want?  

Object #18 - The Coin - No Country For Old Men (2007)

Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen 

"What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?". By the time the psychopathic contract killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) utters this line in the famous coin-toss scene, he's won this idle conversation with the store clerk (Gene Jones). In fact, he 'won' it further back, when the clerk nervously tells Chigurh that he needs to shut-up shop...in the middle of the day. Take a look at the scene here, one of the greatest in American cinema history in my opinion. 

Through Chigurh's use of the coin we learn an incredible amount about his view on life, and even more after viewing the entire film. But that isn't the only reason this scene is exceptional. The way the tension is created so quickly from an innocuous purchase of some nuts and some fuel is amazing, mostly down to the script and performances, although there is some directorial flair from the great Cohen brothers. 

Let's focus on that first, we'll return to the coin in a moment. After a simple inference from the clerk, Chigurh responds "What business is it of yours where I’m from, friendo?". Friendo. It's a word you picture smiling suburban 50's men in golf shirts saying. Chigurh isn't that, not at all. His unusual haircut isn't exactly flattering and he doesn't care a jot, his deep voice, and general rigid, psychopathic demeanor tell us that that word shouldn't be said by this man. In the sentence, it's an end-note to a clear threatening rebuff to the clerk's inquisitiveness.

A few lines later, Chigurh eats his peanuts in silence, staring. As anyone will tell you, if you want someone to feel pressured in a conversation, all you have to do is keep silent, and the other person will fill the gap. This is what Chigurh does here, although it does imply that really he doesn't care. He's thinking his own thoughts about the man in his interesting head. The clerk asks "Will there be something else?", Chigurh responds "I don't know. Will there?", and there's more silence. Who speaks first? The clerk of course. 

Another few lines later the clerk loses the verbal duel, as he tells Chigurh nervously that "I need to see about closing". As I mentioned earlier, and as you can see, it's sunny outside, probably around mid-day. Nobody shuts their gas station in the middle of the day. The clerk is intimidated and frightened for his life, and the silence in the conversation makes him let slip his immediate fear. 

Clerk: Well…I need to see about closin'.

Chigurh: See about closing.

Clerk: Yessir.

Chigurh: What time do you close?

Clerk: Now. We close now.

Chigurh:  Now is not a time. What time do you close.

Clerk: Generally around dark. At dark. 

Chigurh calls him out on this, but look how he does it. He doesn't just point out that shutting shop in mid-day is odd, he coaxes the clerk to say it in his own words. As he says "At dark", Chigurh has again won his offensive. Chigurh understands of course why the clerk is afraid, but he's toying with him for his own enjoyment, looking down on this lowly attendant. This is made even more clear later as he asks about the clerks background, repeating the phrase "You married into it". This phrase has so much implication, implying that the man had no initiative of his own, and is less of a 'man' as he marries into the simple business. The Coens here have a little flair after the line "I don’t have some way to put it. That’s the way it is." by Chigurh. As he puts down the empty packet of nuts he's been eating the entire scene, they keep focus on it for a second or two. These few seconds feel like an eternity, as the wrapper unfolds, crinkling and crackling. It's visually showing tension being released, which in some respect is actually happening as the conversation shifts to the coin toss. The scene remains tense of course, but what it does is act as a visual pause. The auditory pauses have remained focus on one of the two, telling us that the performance is important. With the wrapper, it's a break in the scene. 

Chigurh asks the question: "What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?". The clerk doesn't understand. Chigurh tosses a quarter, slaps it on his hand, and repeats "Call it". The clerk wants to know what he's calling for. Chigurh: "You need to call it. I can’t call it for you. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t even be right". Well now. What Chigurh has just done is bring in some big themes of life, fairness and what is 'right'. There is of course the subtextual theme of chance. As Chigurh says "It wouldn't be fair", what he means is that if he called this important decision, well he'd be robbing the man of his 50/50 chance of winning. As he says "It wouldn't even be right", we understand Chigurh's belief that a man has a right to call the coin, to decide between life and death. Chigurh, for all his emotionless murder throughout the rest of the film, understand the importance of chance when it comes to life and death. Or maybe it's the opposite? Maybe life and death doesn't come into it, and Chigurh's faith in chance is so strong that he knows he can't call it. 

Chigurh: Yes you did. You been putting it up your whole life. You just didn’t know it. You know what date is on this coin?

Chigurh says this in response to the clerk saying " I didn't put nothing up". What the clerk has been "putting up" his entire life is his life as a stake in the game being played right now. These lines are the ones that I think betray how insane Chigurh actually is, as another character will call him later in the film. It's Chigurh who's putting all the importance into this coin, and into the game of life/death.

Chigurh: "Nineteen fifty-eight. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails, and you have to say. Call it." 

The weight of time lays heavy on this choice. Or at least it seems to do, "You have to say". Why? Because Chigurh has deemed it so. What the early part of the scene has done so well is show us Chigurh's judgment of the man. It's he who's decided that he doesn't deserve life. So now he's playing a game to decide the fact.

The clerk calls correctly, winning "everything". Chigurh congratulates him with a simple "Well done". There's one last bit of interest though. As the clerk takes the quarter as payment, Chigurh tells him not to put it in his pocket, calling it his "lucky quarter". This is true, as it is luck that has saved the man's life. The man asks where to put it, still showing his weakness in comparison to the dominant Chigurh.

Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Or it’ll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.

"Which it is". Christ this line had me pondering for the entire film! What does it mean? He's saying that the coin is lucky, and special, and shouldn't become part of a uniform group, as then we can't tell which is lucky and which is normal. That's what the "Which it is" means. It means that the coin is in truth only a coin, but it's the importance of the event that's just happened that makes it special, and so deserves to be treated special. It's life in a coin! What's remarkable looking at the scene as a whole, the words life and death are never explicitly stated, only alluded to with "everything" at stake, and the initial question bringing it to mind.

Another great little thing that can be easily overlooked is the fact that Chirurh didn't pay for his transaction. We think he did because the clerk redivided a quarter. The tension of the scene and the event was so great that Chigurh got away with not paying for his fuel, and the clerk himself doesn't notice this. What this tells us is that despite Chigurh's strong belief in forces such as chance, he clearly doesn't think here that paying for his entire purchase is the 'right' thing. Perhaps he thinks that the man winning his life is payment enough? I doubt the clerk would argue!

Let's leave that scene. Near the end of the film, Chigurh goes to the house of Llewelyn Moss' (Josh Brolin) wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald). Throughout the film, Chirurh has been chasing Moss to reacquire a large sum of money he stole from a drug-deal gone-wrong. Moss is dead at this point in the film, by the guns of Mexican drug-dealers. Chigurh, months later, sits in the house of Carla Jean, confronting her after her return from her mother's funeral. Scene here. Chigurh is searching for the location of the stolen money, although there's more to it than that. It's a meeting that was hinted at earlier in film, that would occur when Chigurh came to a dead-end in his pursuit of Moss. 

She tells him "You don't have to do this". He's a little amused, telling her that everyone says the same. She repeats it "You don't". He flips the coin, "This is the best I can do. Call it.". She refuses, calling him crazy. He repeats it. She responds: "The coin don't have no say. It's just you." She's called the bluff in a way the clerk never did. She's not buying into the game, she knows that his use of the coin is a personal way of offloading his murders into a sense of chance over-all. Chigurh says "I came here the same way the coin did". Another line that had me puzzling at first. What it means is that he believes himself to be a doler out of chance in the same way the coin does, and that the coin is on a journey to eventually be used for this purpose. 

I couldn't find an image online unfortunately but we cut to the porch of the house, and Chigurh steps outside, and look at the sole of his boot. It's remarkably subtle but what this tells us is that Chigurh murdered Carla Jean. He's checking for blood on his shoe, which he avoided earlier in the film. This mean that he chose to kill her. Not the coin. His ethos is betrayed, and we see the true psychopath underneath, not that is was that hard to find! 

What happens next is important and interesting. Chigurh leaves the house in his car, and nears a crossing. He doesn't realise the light was red, and it hit from the side by an oncoming car. He hobbles out, injured, a bone sticking out under his elbow. He pays a local boy for his shirt, to hide the wound, as he cannot be found by the police. This is the last we see of Chigurh. What it implies is that he was deep in thought about his killing of Carla Jean, and so was hit. 

Now I've two interpretations of this. The first, is that there is a force out there that is now punishing him. As he chooses to kill, and not just kill to escape or continue on his path, but to murder an innocent that he could have spared, he is punished by being brutally reminded that he is fallible. Throughout the film he is an unstoppable force, he can be injured, but he always returns. Here, he is punished by chance, and so should learn his lesson that he isn't above chance, he is slaved to it's judgement.

The second interpretation, is that this is chance, but not as punishment. It's just that, chance. Not the mystical force of chance, but just a consequence of events. Due to his lack of focus on the road after the murder, he didn't see the oncoming car, and was hit. Simple as that. What he can take from this is own judgment. So in this interpretation, the world of No Country For Old Men is one of stark reality. There is no overruling force, only events, choices, and consequences. 

...I'm not sure which I prefer, but the second interpretation I think is the one that's closest to what Cormac McCarthy, the author of the novel the film is based off, seems to convey in his writings. It can't be overstated how faithful an adaption this film is. Most of the subtext I've described here comes from the script, itself nearly word-for-word from the book. There are filmic touches that enliven the entire story, incredibly so thanks to the masterful Coens, but I must note that it's McCarthy that was primarily being discussed here. If you haven't read any of his books, please do so as I can easily see them being classics of literature in a few decades time, if they aren't already. And of course, if you enjoy No Country For Old Men view the sister film There Will Be Blood (one of my top 5 films), which was filmed in the same location and at the same time. And for McCarthy, read Blood Meridian and The Road, and perhaps watch the adaption of The Road (2009), starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee, directed by John Hillcoat. 

Object #17 - The Viewing Balcony - The Birth of a Nation (1915)

Dir. D.W Griffith

I went into this film expecting to dislike it heavily for it's ridiculously racist and bigoted content, and I did. I went into this film expecting it show me a different view of early cinema, and it did. What I didn't expect on my first viewing was to thoroughly enjoy this 3 hour silent epic, and not just that, but be left with a feeling of cinema being born.

Birth of a Nation is remembered largely for the controversy it created upon release. Griffith, so disillusioned to the American South's bigoted views of the black population, released a film which he repeatedly defended as accurate in it's portrayal of the Civil War, and the history surrounding it. This is a film, where black characters, played by white actors in blackface, are directly portrayed as villains, in a a time when films didn't have villains. They want to sexually assault young white women, make a mockery of the institution which gives them rights, and are thieves and murderers of white people. The staggering fact is that this is treated as historic fact, and any black character not faithful to the whites are portrayed as monstrous. I mean just look at this:

There's a psychological concept called persecutory delusion, where individuals feel that they are being persecuted, normally when there is no threat to them at all. It still happens in the modern-age all the time, look no further than the American Fundamentalist Christians who feel that their religion is being eroded from American culture - 'Put the Christ back in Christmas' and such nonsense. Groups and people like this say such things despite being part of a clear majority, and normally, so prevalent in their society that to claim they are being persecuted is laughable. And we have it here, in spades! It's actually incredibly disheartening to see this attitude continuing towards black people to this day, 100 years after the film's release. This is just one of the many reasons Birth of a Nation is valuable to us. Beyond the controversy, and its merit to film-making as whole, it's very existence as a historical document is fascinating.

That's why I've chosen the above object, even though it doesn't highlight the horrible racist attitudes of the film, as it tells us a lot about film-making, but also the time. The scene is here, where Griffith dramatises, to precise historical detail, the assassination of President Lincoln. This is 50 years after the event, so it's akin to us making a film showing the assassination of Kennedy today, which occurred just over 50 years ago. Without focusing on the excellence of the way this sequence is shot, it's fascinating to see directors, actors, and so on, re-create established history in their time, when the film we watch now is established history in it's own right.     

Colonel Cameron (Henry B. Walthall) and Elise Stoneman (Lillian Gish) are in Ford's theater on the fateful night. These have been our main characters for the majority of the film, and this scene acts as the culmination of the first part of the film. Griffith has an establishing shot of the theater, so we can see the audience, the stage, and the viewing balcony where Lincoln (Joseph Henabery) will sit and be killed. We see Cameron and Elise in the audience, linking their story to the event about to unfold. We are shown Lincoln arrive,  and receive a standing ovation for the end of the war, from our protagonists as well. 

Here's where, to us, the scene continues as we expect. We are shown Lincoln's bodyguard sit outside the door to the balcony. We return to the shot of Lincoln viewing the play, and the wide shot. He returns to the bodyguard, and an intertile tells us that he moved to get a better view of the play. We see him move to another balcony to the side, leaving the President exposed. Ok, so what? Incredible stuff for 1915. What we have here is narrative! The same event from different perspectives, and not only that, it's clear! Some modern filmmakers, in reaction to the shaky-cam of the Bourne series, can't stage scenes to save their lives. We know the position of everyone in the scene. All except one of course.

An intertile has the words 'John Wilkes Booth', and we see the above. The picture is tinted darker, and the lens focused on the villainous Booth. I mean look at him! That's a film villain if you've ever seen one. We see him move to the President's viewing booth, pull his gun, prepare himself, and then we get a close-up. A close-up! 

Just reminding you here, 1915. Close-ups weren't a thing before this film, all silent films were normally single-shot scenes, where, like a play, actors moved around the space on screen, and things happened. In this scene, there's an establishing shot, multiple characters and their viewpoints on the same scene, and even a damn close-up. There's a reason Birth of a Nation is so praised, it invented, and not only that, implemented film techniques with such flair that cinema was changed ever since. That's why I chose this object, as it's the center of this incredible scene that sums up nearly all of the terrific techniques Griffith created for the film. 

Events happen as you would guess. Booth rushes in, fires, Lincoln's head stoops. Booth jumps to the stage, gives his famous quote, and runs offscreen. We cut to the dying Lincoln, and to our protagonists as they respond to the climactic event. 

The rest of the film has other inventive techniques such as larger establishing shots, more effective colour tinting, and an even greater focus on inter-cutting between events to create enticement, as the Klan ride to save the young white girl from the villainous blacks. That scene is an entirely different kettle-of-fish, but what it does overall is show that the magic of films can have us swept up in events in a completely detached way from our morality. 

 In the great critic Roger Ebert's review of the film, he quotes James Agee's view on the battle scene earlier in the film:

"The most beautiful single shot I have seen in any movie is the battle charge in 'The Birth of a Nation.' I have heard it praised for its realism, but it is also far beyond realism. It seems to me to be a realization of a collective dream of what the Civil War was like..."

And that's it in a nut-shell. The film is so realistic in some respects, yet the portrayal of the Klan is so so wrong to any morally-sound person it's hard to forgive Griffith. What the film does, although this wasn't the intention, is show us the most extreme version of negative morals portrayed positively. No other films would be as offensive as Birth of a Nation for a long-time. Hell, if it wasn't for this film, and it's heroic portrayal of the Klan, and damnation of the blacks, the Klan itself wouldn't have had a resurgence and continued to terrorise and murder black individuals across the South for many more years. We could write-off the film for that very reason, but that isn't what mature adults should do. We must question our morals and appreciate the artistry and influence the film has had on film-making.

Thankfully, these days we have films to vicariously live out the hate we have for the racist white-folks of the time. Tarantino's Django Unchained gleefully revels in doling out redemption on slave-owners and racists. The Coen Brother's O, Bother Where Art Thou? makes a mockery of the Klan, taking the sardonic comedic approach in typical Coen style. Isn't it great that this racist film that revolutionised cinematic techniques has borne such gleeful mockery of the morally repugnant? And even at a micro-level, the depiction of history such as Spielberg's Schindler's List, and perhaps more aptly, Lincoln. 

It's a slippery slope this. As enjoyable as it is to see your enemies punished for their backwards ways, it isn't hard to see the tables-turned. Birth of a Nation was the first to show this, and all you  need to do is look at any film over-seen by Joseph Goebbles during the rule of the Third Reich to see how films can reflect the views of the time and culture. Morality is a funny thing, and better philosophers than I have pondered this dilemma. Many of them I'm sure, after watching Birth of a Nation.

I'll end on the words of a better man than I, Ebert himself:

As slavery is the great sin of America, so "The Birth of a Nation" is Griffith's sin, for which he tried to atone all the rest of his life. So instinctive were the prejudices he was raised with as a 19th century Southerner that the offenses in his film actually had to be explained to him. To his credit, his next film, "Intolerance," was an attempt at apology. He also once edited a version of the film that cut out all of the Klan material, but that is not the answer. If we are to see this film, we must see it all, and deal with it all.

Object #16 - Confetti spaghetti - City Lights (1931)

Dir. Charlie Chaplin

City Lights is well-regarded as one of, as the man is so prolific, Chaplin's masterpieces. It's been over 80 years since it's release and it's hilarious to this day, and utterly charming. Most of this is due to Chaplin's character of The Tramp, who is introduced so brilliantly. As a crowd watches the unveiling of a new statue, a stately woman pulls the ribbon, and the sheet is pulled up, revealing the Tramp: 

You can see the scene in all glory here. The comic timing is superb, and we know exactly what sort of man this is within the first few seconds of seeing him. This is a man who sleeps on a monumental statue with no second thought, and then manages to get himself ensnared on the way down, tipping his hat to the statues for being so rude. 

Later in the film, the Tramp and his new drunk millionaire friend go for a night out on the town. In the club he, in typical Chaplin style, falls prey to many moments of slapstick. You can see the scene here. He slips on the dance-floor, misses his seat many times, and is unable to light is cigar repeatedly. Typing these moments out really doesn't do them justice. In the film they are delightful to watch, as they come so quickly, and each are so inventive it's astounding there's so much clever visual comedy in one film.

The two are served spaghetti, and we can already see what's coming. The revelers shoot off confetti to celebrate a good night out on the town, A strand of confetti falls into the tramp's meal, and of course, he end up eating the strand of confetti. Chaplin keeps going, eating a remarkable amount of confetti! He stands, following the strand, like a fish in a tank. He nearly eats the whole thing before his friend notices and removes the rest. In the world of City Lights, and the world of the tramp, he won't wonder why the spaghetti tastes strange or seems to be reaching into the roof, he'll just eat it!

Out of the context of the film, what the regular spaghetti does is display to us the cross-over between the silent era of film and the new 'talkies'. There are sound effects interspersed throughout the film, particularly in the whistle scene, another bit of great audio comedy. as the tramp sucks the spaghetti, we get a slide-whistle noise. You know the one. Why? Because of City Lights, and other films and cartoons of this era. It seems obvious and antiquated to us as a modern viewer, but at the time this use of sound effects in film was brand new, and frankly, funny! This is likely the best use of it in film, whereas I can unequivocally say that the use of it in the car-flip scene in The Man With a Golden Gun (1974) is the absolute nadir of the effect, ruining one of the greatest stunts in film history. You can see how awful it is here. 

But in City Lights, it's funny, and continues to be funny to this day, despite our culture dampening it's original comedic value - see Seinfeld is Unfunny. Chaplin is so good at the physical comedy, so suited to the silent films, that this use of audio could have gone far worse. But here, it's inventive, funny, and matches the visual comedy of the confetti spaghetti. What we have here is the direct crossover of visual and audio comedy in film, in a Chaplin film no less. And for that reason, it deserves a mention on this blog. As i do with all of the films here, I urge you to give it a watch. If you've never seen a silent film, watch City Lights. If you've never seen a Chaplin film, watch City Lights. And most importantly, if you want to laugh, watch City Lights. 

Object #15 - Mason Jr.'s first picture - Boyhood (2014)

Dir. Richard Linklater

It's just struck me how apt Richard Linklater's surname is to the filming of this film. Link-later. They started shooting Boyhood with an initial script but the rest of the plot was planned at each interval over the years. As you likely know already, the 'gimmick' of Boyhood is that it was shot over 11 years, from 2002 to 2013, with the same cast. It's far more than a gimmick however, and I disagree adamantly with anyone who thinks the film only works as well as it does because of its unique production. It enhances the film, that's for sure, but the story is so applicable to many, particularly children of the 90's, that the film works alone. It wouldn't have had such a critical-buzz I think, but it still would have been seen as a great film. But yeah I just find it funny that the script was literally linked-later, as time went on.

Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane), who becomes a novice photographer over the course of the film, is leaving for college and packing his things. He talks to his mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette), about his plans and what he'll do with his old belongings. The scene is here. He laughs at the fact that his mother has put the framed first-picture even taken by him into his leaving box. She says "Come on, it's the first picture you took". He responds "All the more reason to leave it, right?". And Olivia breaks down crying. 

We get this exchange:

Mom: This is the worst day of my life.

Mason: What are you talking about?

Mom: [Starts crying] I knew this day was coming. I just... I didn't know you were going to be so fucking happy to be leaving.

Mason: I mean it's not that I'm that happy... what do you expect?

Mom: You know what I'm realising? My life is just going to go. Like that. This series of milestones. Getting married. Having kids. Getting divorced. The time that we thought you were dyslexic. When I taught you how to ride a bike. Getting divorced... again. Getting my masters degree. Finally getting the job I wanted. Sending Samantha off to college. Sending you off to college. You know what's next? Huh? It's my fucking funeral! Just go, and leave my picture!

Mason: Aren't you jumping ahead by, like, 40 years or something?

Mom: I just thought there would be more.

It's tragic really. This is the final scene we have with Mason Jr's mother, in a near three-hour film, and what Linklater chooses to do is end it with this message. It's true to life, if a little more pessimistic than some of the other characters' responses in the film to life at large. "I just thought there would be more" sums up what everyone feels at some point in their life, normally when they reflect on their past, and where they are now. Some are happy at where they are, but I've felt it, and I'd be very surprised if at some point you haven't thought that "there would be more" to life. We are promised a long-life journey since we're children: go to university/college, get a partner, get a house, get married, have a kid.

When Mason Jr. discards the picture, something his mother finds to be an important milestone in his and her own life, and is ready to move on to live his life, she thinks of her own life, and how it's reached the point where her child is 'ungrateful' for the life she's given him. It isn't that negative an emotion, but you get my meaning. It's more a sense of worthlessness, as Olivia realises her life has all been milestones, and now they've ran out, the only one left is death. In the film she's had a hell of a life, her first husband, Mason Snr. (Ethan Hawke) and her don't work out. We don't see this in the film, but she's been a single mother raising Mason Jr. and his sister. Her next husband we see as an abusive drunk, and the husband after that is a drunk military-man, but not as bad. She gets to a reasonably good point in her life goals, teaching at university, a happy mother, yet steeped in bills and worries of providing for the family. As Mason Jr. leaves for college she is planning to move to a smaller, cheaper house; hence, the business with the picture.

The length of the film is a pro in this respect, as we've seen this life, in the background of Mason Jr's. And of course, we've seen the three of them, mother, son, and daughter actually age. It's Arquette's stand-out moment in the film, as it's a culmination of everything her character has gone through, in a reflection. The scene after this has Mason Jr. take photos of old objects with his camera, Linklater hammering home the 'snapshot' nature of life, as moments are caught in the shutter, then pass into the past. Life is funny in that respect, it's both slow, yet so fast. And this is what Mason Jr.'s first picture shows, the image captured isn't important, but it has significance to the two of them, clearly more to Olivia. The act was simple, snap, click. But what it's used for here, near the end of the film, is a trigger for Olivia's reflection on her life in relation to Mason Jr.'s.

There are a few other objects in the Boyhood I was going to discuss, the saw blade, a whale heart, and the black Beatles album. Who knows, I may still write about them one day, but it's Mason's first picture that struck me as the object that really sums up most of the themes of the film, particularly the motherhood of Boyhood. See the film if you haven't, it's very powerful, very real, and I think everyone can find something in it that reflects their own life.

Object #14 - Hedges - The New World (2005)

Dir. Terrence Malick 

There's no filmmaker better than Malick who conveys humanity's link with nature. I realise that's a bold statement, but I'll stand by it. His films almost always have a scene of someone walking through a field, appreciating the beauty of nature. In fact, some of his most recent work such as To The Wonder have been criticized heavily for placing this focus on nature above all else, such as the plot and the characters. In The New World, Malick strikes the chord with such finesse that it's both subtle and obvious. 

In the end of the film, Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilchner), the Native-American princess is in her English estate. I actually haven't seen the 1995 Disney Pocahontas and I've no idea if they even cover her later married life. I realise that most readers will only be familiar with her character through that film. To put it simply, she reluctantly (although the emotion is a little more complex than that) married John Rolfe (Christian Bale) in historical fact, and does so in this film. She plays with her young son, playing hide-and-seek in the large garden of the estate, scene here. As she does so we see the elaborately trimmed and topiaried hedges of the estate. As I've said, Malick loves to focus on nature. And what we have here is nature controlled, and tamed to retain a certain aesthetically pleasing shape. Throughout the film, in early-settlement America, and the home of Pocahontas' tribe, there are lush fields like this:

In England, nature is tamed, like so:

What the environment (and remember this a Malick film, so the environment is oftentimes more important than the focus of the scene) does is show us the differences between 'civilization' and the un-civilized America. The New World that the title alludes to makes you think of America, the final continent discovered by man, and all the possibility and history that would unfold over there over the next few hundred years. The first half of the film explicitly deals with this land. The final half or so contrasts it. Instead of seeing the Englishmen carve (literally) their world ideals into the new world, erecting forts by cutting down trees, engaging in skirmishes with the Native-Americans using their guns, bringing English hierarchy and religion, and so on, we see Pocahontas and some fellow tribesmen react to the already established world of 15th century England. However, what we realise is that this is the new world to them. Their culture has a history just like ours, they may not have made guns, have organised religion, or more elaborate engineering, but they are a culture. In fact, a culture that has remained harmonious with nature.

The hedges show us all of this by contrast. Take out all the other things I've mentioned that the film elaborates on to explore the theme, and look at the difference in the growing field, and the trimmed hedge. That's the core of the film, the rest of the film is the meat. Pocahontas is our guide through this, and do you know what? She realises shortly before her death, "Mother, now I know where you live". She knows that nature, Mother, is everywhere. As she plays with her son we are reminded of how she frolicked with her tribe in the long-grass. The fact that the hedges are just that, hedges, doesn't matter to her, as she realises that her playing, her joy at nature, continues to flourish in this new world. Nature is universal, and more than that, humanity is universal. Universal implies the universe, but what else was the Earth at this point? America was undiscovered until now, what we see, and what she sees is this universality of humanity across the globe, through nature. It doesn't matter if you are civilised, a hedge, or uncilvilised, an overgrown field, all that matters is that you are human. 

In the final shots Malick hammers all this home to a crescendo. Pocahontas frolics in streams and trees in her civilized dress, the music builds, we cut to shots of nature, a calm lake, rivers flowing, and the large ship, sails large as it sails back to the new world. We know that Pocahonatas will die on this trip of pneumonia, but it doesn't matter, she was happy, she accepted her husband and loved him, and loved their child in the English estate. The shot of the ship and the sea is repeated, but without the ship, a horizon, the sea. The ship has passed, as has Pocahontas, and we are left with the sea, and the final cut: trees swaying in the wind, and birds singing. Nature, at the end of all things. 

        

Object #13 - Scramble Suit - A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Dir. Richard Linklater

This is an object that demands to be seen in motion, as evidenced by my use of a .gif above. For a video, see here. Based off the novel of the same name by the great sci-fi author Philip K.Dick, author of works that would be adapted (very loosely) into Minority Report, Blade Runner, and Total Recall, among others, A Scanner Darkly is probably the most faithful adaption of all Dick's work. I've read the book, and the script is faithful to a tee, with Linklater's choice to rotoscope the entire film going a long way to capture the hazy, drug-induced feel of Dick's prose. The prose remains here in the script, so the effect is twofold. 

The scanner suits add to this effect as a whole. We are introduced to them very early in the film, following an initial scene which acts as our anchor to the rotoscope effect, as the effect of the scramble suit would confuse the audience initially atop the unusual rotoscope. In the universe of the film, set 'seven years from now' (a great way to set it-up by the way, always implying this future could be around the corner), the police are outfitted with scramble suits, which cast a shimmering hodge-podge of appearances over their own body. Faces of different ethnicities, with different bone structures and hairstyles flash and blend into one another, with the body changing cloth colour, type, and shape. The reason is that the officers are acting undercover, and so this protects their identities from the general public, as well as their fellow officers.

'Fred' (Keanu Reeves), as he is codenamed, is undercover as Bob Arctor, a drug-addict to substance-D, a revolutionary new drug overtaking the city, with 20% addicted. He goes about his days with other addicts, such as Robert Downey Jr's Barris. His goal while undercover is to incriminate Donna (Winona Ryder), a substance-D supplier. The problem is, he's taking substance-D himself as part of being undercover, and so falls into the same paranoia of his addict friends, however he has more of an identity crisis as he seems to forget whether he is 'Fred' or Bob Arctor. 

 It's worth noting the obvious here, the name Arctor resembling 'actor' and the irony of a cop taking drugs in order to stop others illegally taking drugs. With the scramble suit on, he can't reveal to his colleagues who he even is undercover as in the house. Bob Arctor then becomes his 'true' self, as that is who he is all-time when off-duty. When in the police station he is this faceless person within the suit. It's alienating, and hammers home the duality of an undercover cop so well. No, in fact, it makes it something more, it flips the tables completely. Chuck drugs into the matter and the whole thing becomes even more confusing - just like being on drugs. The script, animation-style, and objects of the film inform us of 'Fred''s experience, atop showing us. 

Also on top of this is the fact that his colleagues are spying on Arctor, in other words, 'Fred' himself. They know that 'Fred' may be Arctor, yet they continue regardless, as they believe Arctor to be the head of the whole gang (gang, as in gang of people, not thugs). So 'Fred' has to deal with the drug-users thinking he's Arctor while being an undercover cop, and the police knowing he's undercover, but he has to hide that he is Arctor. 

Let's go deeper down the rabbit hole. Add Barris, who comes to 'Fred''s place of work, willing to snitch on Arctor, who Barris believes to be a terrorist due to the shiftiness of his actions around them. Isn't it just hilarious that by the act of being an undercover cop, 'Fred' is accused of being a terrorist? The two opposing elements of cop vs. traditional 'bad-guy', seen in the drug-user vs. cop, is even seen among the drug addled, with drug-user (in reality, an undercover cop) vs. terrorist. 

There's another scene where a person in a scramble suit watches the tapes of the household with Arctor and co., with some events happening live, and some recorded. For a minute or so we are unsure if this is 'Fred' himself, or his handler 'Hank'. It turns out to be 'Fred' but again, isn't that great? We the audience can't tell who is who, again hammering home the difficulty 'Fred' lives with in his workplace, and in the house when he forgets who he is. 

To add to all this, we are given a twist. It turns out that 'Fred''s handler, 'Hank', who has had a predominantly male-synthesised voice throughout by the suit, is in fact Donna, the person 'Fred' has been spying on and been romantically involved with. It transpires that the real-target was Barris all along, who they successfully incriminate. 

Hold on to your hats folks, we're going even deeper. It turns out that the whole spying act was all a ruse, with Barris as a cherry on top, as the main goal was to have 'Fred' get so addicted to substance-D, that he can be sent to New-Path, a rehab clinic. Why go to a rehab clinic? Well, so that he can be undercover as Hank/Donna (with Donna not even being that person's real name), and other officer Mike (Dameon Clarke), suspect that New-Path are the actual suppliers of substance-D. Confused? You likely are. 

What we have here is the deepest layers, and combination of inter-twining layers, of 'undercoverness' that I've ever seen! There's double crossings, and even triple-crossings, it's crazy! Crazy. Now there's the crux. What does substance-D do? It makes you hallucinate, lose sense of reality, forget who you are. 'Fred' is truly addicted and so goes to New-Path honestly, 'Donna' and Mike only hope that he'll hold on to his inner-sense of being a lawman to expose New-Path as the originaters of substance-D.

Let's look at New-Path. They act as a rehab clinic, yet they use their inmate substance-D suffers as tenders to the fields that grow the flower that becomes substance-D, for the reason that the sufferers can't comprehend what they are doing. 'Fred' seems to have an understanding in the last scene of the film, however we are unsure if he can retain this thought, or even if he can return to sanity. Frankly, with all the events of the film and the drugs combined I wouldn't be surprised if he never does. It shows however that even the rehab clinics are the complete opposite of what they seem, supplying the drug they treat, for experimental purposes.   

The scramble suits then act as a symbol of everything the film is trying to thematically display. Paranoia, changing identities, psychedelia, and a lack of humanity. 'Donna' asks herself if it was ethically right to addict 'Fred' to substance-D for the greater good, as they are no better than New-Path. What it goes to show is that the authority figures, even when righting wrongs, have to subvert rights into wrongs to do so. Mike reassures her, video here, that all the subterfuge they used will be worth it in the end, as the details will be forgotten, but the positive effects will be felt. Maybe there is some humanity in there afterall? But like being under a drug, it's all so hazy.