Object #83 - "Walls of Jericho" Blanket - It Happened One Night (1934)

Dir. Frank Capra

It Happened One Night is the ur-romantic comedy. Every modern romantic comedy you've ever seen has an origin in this film. Amazing then, that It Happened One Night remains timeless. When the core of the film is the budding romance of two people stuck together due to external circumstances, then those external circumstances don't really matter, it's all charisma, chemistry, and witty dialogue. What It Happened One Night masters, more than many of its successors, is heart.  

Take one of the most iconic scenes of the film, where our leads - Peter (Clark Gable), down on his luck reporter, and Ellie (Claudette Colbert), absconding bride-to-be, are required to share a room for a night. Ellie has fled her father  (Walter Connolly) and has caught the night bus to New York, so that she can reunite with her husband-to-be. Peter, who has just lost his newspaper job, sees Ellie as his route back, her story being that of the headline grabbing famous heiress, on the run from her rich, famous father. 

Prior to this scene, the two have warmed to each other, Peter more-so than Ellie. However, as Peter organises the room, a situation forced due to rain blocking the night bus' route, we feel for Ellie. She has previously had the suitcase with all her money stolen, and even Peter has taken her remaining four dollars, thinking her spoiled nature will have her waste it. She is now in the tricky situation of potential blackmail. What cost will Peter ask for his silence? A night shared with her under duress?

Thankfully however, Peter dispels this horrid idea in the most charming of ways. The two single beds on opposing walls, already some reassurance that there is nothing untoward going on, are immediately divided by Peter as he hangs a wire with a blanket on it. He plays with her expectations - "Oh, I like privacy when I retire. I'm very delicate in that respect". He proclaims: "Behold the Walls of Jericho", tosses her a spare pair of his own pyjamas, and asks her: "Do you mind joining the Israelites?", pointing to the other side of the room. She stares and judges his performance. Unabashed, Peter continues to undress, telling a funny story about the order in which a man undresses, taking his shirt off, and just before he'll take his trousers down, she dashes to the privacy afforded by the blanket.

Already, this is a fantastic use of a prop. It's a symbol of Peter's playfulness, respect, and good intentions. He could have been a swine, as we later see fellow traveller Oscar Shapely (Roscoe Karns) reveal himself to be. Instead however, Peter continues his subtle charm offensive of Ellie. The blanket is used even further however as a device for developing their relationship, as after turning off the light, Ellie undresses. 

The scene becomes intimate - rain pouring outside, Peter's face half-lit as he smokes. He sees her underclothes thrown over the blanket, wryly assesses them, then states: "I wish you'd take those things off the Walls of Jericho.", once again playfully using his name for the privacy blanket. Ellie quickly apologies and does so, having absent-mindedly hung them. After undressing, within this private intimacy, she asks him his name, reminding us that despite their clear chemistry, they barely know each other. 

At a later motel, after the two have bonded even further, the Wall of Jericho is placed again. However Ellie, who has fallen for Peter, rushes around it, into his arms, breaking the privacy and distance that he had established in that first scene. She loves him, and tells him so. He knows that she is engaged to someone else, someone that she was mad enough about to run away to and start her entire adventure. Crestfallen that he won't promise to run off with her, she returns to her bed. After she falls asleep, Peter asks her if she really meant what she said, to no reply. He peeps over the blanket, finding that she's fallen asleep. He was going to reciprocate, even peeping over the blanket, but the timing was off. 

He decides on another plan, as he surreptitiously dresses, all the while protected by the blanket, leaving her to sleep. His plan is to sell the story of their love to his editor, asking for an upfront payment of a thousand dollars, enough for them to run away together. As he races back in the car, trying to reach her before she awakes, it becomes apparent that she was kicked out by the moral motel owners, and found by her father, returning her home. When she was awoken by the motel owners, we see Ellie just as confused as them at Peter's leaving, as she initially calls out over the blanket, which the owners pull down. The blanket is therefore reinforced as a symbol of their relationship, one that is now being used, in Ellie's mind, as an aid to his leaving her high and dry. The privacy it once represented shattered by the motel owners violently tugging it down.   

This theme is finalised at the film's end. Peter has convinced Ellie's father that he truly loves her. Her father then convinces Ellie that she should leave her would-be husband at the altar, which she does, dashing to a nearby car. We don't see either of the two leads from this point. We do however see the marriage being annulled, with Ellie's father then receiving a telegram: "What's the hold up? The Walls of Jericho are tumbling". He replies: "Let 'em tumble!". We see an exterior of a motel cabin, lit from inside. The motel owner tells her husband that the guests asked her for a blanket and a string, despite it being the middle of the night. The husband replies that they sent him to the store to get a toy trumpet. We hear it toot, the blanket fall, and the lights go out. The couple can marry, and the private Walls of Jericho now fallen, they can become truly intimate with one another. 

Having a prop used multiple ways in a scene is difficult enough. Having a prop used multiple ways throughout an entire film even harder. It Happened One Night pulls it off, wringing that blanket dry of narrative use, and thematic symbolism; even using it as a fantastic denouement to the entire film, and ergo the relationship of Peter and Ellie. The initial "Walls of Jericho" scene is one of the most iconic from the film, and one of the most iconic romantic comedy scenes in film. What makes it so great is that that object, which aids in forming the heart of the film, does so in such a smart and controlled way throughout the entire film. It's timeless filmmaking, through and through. 

Object #82 - Hot Air Balloon - The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

Dir. Jim Henson

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life" - Pablo Picasso

Art can challenge, art can teach, and art can soothe. The ability of art to soothe, and to allow an escape from our everyday lives is being put to the test more than ever, due to the worldwide crisis caused by COVID-19. This virus physically isolates us from each other. Film shoots have been put on hold, in limbo until the invisible killer is contained. Films scheduled for imminent release now delay, to a time when, hopefully, the market, and the world, is back to normal.

But normality may never be the same. Everything has been impacted - science, politics, the economy, and most importantly for us film lovers - culture. As we all quarantine ourselves for the greater good, we turn and examine current culture in entirely different ways than we would have otherwise. There is a surreal quality to television and film shot pre-COVID. People hold hands without checking if they've washed them thoroughly for twenty seconds first. They gather in groups of more than two! They continue the lives that they thought we'd be living.

Some art has not only met the challenge of a COVID-19 world, but has thrived because of it. As the crisis worsened across Europe, the pastel-coloured, town simulation game Animal Crossing: New Horizons became the cultural touchstone. Its promise of a deserted island getaway was perfectly timed for a world which needed bright, optimistic escapism. I myself, for the first week or so of self-isolation did little else than form my own island town, and read trashy science fiction novels. The first film I even cautioned to put on had to be something uplifting, something to soothe and comfort. I chose The Great Muppet Caper. 

The film opens with Kermit (Jim Henson), Fozzie (Frank Oz), and Gonzo (Dave Goelz) adrift in a hot air balloon against a pastel-blue sky. Viewing it oddly felt like some extension of that Animal Crossing world, despite releasing nearly forty years ago. There is no explanation for why they're floating around, they simply are. The three meta-textually comment on the fact that they're in the opening credits of a film, as Kermit reads aloud the grandiose title. They swap some witty one-liners about surviving the fall, the length of the end credits, and the number of people who worked on the film.

A prime example of how the perception of art has been changed by current events comes towards the end of the sequence. Fozzie states, about the opening credits - "Nobody reads those things anyway, do they?", to which Kermit replies: "Sure, they all have families". Firstly, it's already a lovely Kermit moment, providing optimism instead of shallow pessimism. But secondly, in the COVID world, it stands as a potent reminder of the value of human life. In all seriousness, the loss of life has already become a rapidly climbing statistic, as daily death totals from across the world fill the news; and scummy politicians debate sacrificing elderly human life to The All Great Market. Human life has been cheapened. But here, Kermit reminds us that every name, every number, has a family. Somebody cared about that person, and their loss from the world is a tragedy to someone.

The hot air balloon lands in a populated street scene - once again, now a fantasy in comparison to our COVID lives. As the colourful balloon lands, the opening musical number Hey a Movie! begins, with Kermit and the crew singing about the movie we're about to watch - the "spectacle", the "fantasy", the "derring do". I could not have chosen a better film. The Muppets are here, from the past, reassuring us that at the other end of this crisis, we can have a silly caper film with singing felt puppets. All of those actors, and all of those magnificent puppeteering artists were able to come together and create something beautiful. As the standard street scene comes to life with colourful, varied muppets, we see life being lived. It will happen again, as hard as that is to believe right now. We will get movies that are self-assured enough to promise a happy ending from the start. We will get movies which promise something "terrific" - "starring everybody, and me!".

Some art then, is just waiting to be re-interpreted, re-discovered, and re-conceptualised in our current COVID world, and beyond. See the amazing resurgence of Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, the communal twitter viewing parties, and all the personal ways we will now view art in the light of a new world, like I'm personally doing with The Great Muppet Caper. It's a time of crisis, and if all art is as hopeful as Kermit promising "stuff like you would never see", then I think we'll be alright in the end.   

Object #81 - Chewbacca's Bowcaster - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Dir. J.J. Abrams

Characterisation is key to a good story, right? If so, is Star Wars, one of the most beloved stories across the world, solely good because of its characters? No, not really. The original film wowed 70s audiences with cutting edge visual effects, ushering in the age of the special-effects blockbuster, an age which has yet to see an end. I'm also sure that the music of John Williams immensely contributed to the success of the film. Indeed, the storytelling of the Original Trilogy in particular, borrowing from Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces, is mythic, and appeals to people of all cultures, ages, sexes, and so on. But despite all of that, if we didn't know, understand, and love Luke, Leia, Han, Vader, and R2D2 as characters, then that galaxy far far away would be lifeless. 

With the release of The Force Awakens, 38 years after A New Hope, the question on everyone's lips was: Could the magic of the original films be recaptured? Could J.J. Abrams and Co. do what even Lucas failed to do with the Prequel Trilogy? Those films, released in the interim, were criticised for many reasons, not least a poor script that had characters beholden to creaky, overt dialogue. Seasoned actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Sir Christopher Lee failed to bring it to life, with only a few standouts such as Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi managing to leave an impression. Amazingly however, The Force Awakens pulled it off. 

While elements of the plot were critiqued by some as being safe, and a re-hash of the original A New Hope, the general consensus was that Rey, Finn, Kylo, and Poe were instant successes. Perhaps more surprisingly, despite returning screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, many found the returning cast from the original films short-changed, particularly Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker, who only features in the closing moments of the film. 

This was always going to be a thorny issue. Fans built up their memories of the iconic Original Trilogy characters through multiple viewings of the original films, through extended universe fiction, and generally had personal interpretations and expectations of how these characters would have lived on after those closing moments of Return of the Jedi. It would be impossible to please everyone, as the reception to the sequel The Last Jedi displayed even more-so than The Force Awakens.

Myself, a fan of the extended universe novels and video games, did have a pre-conceived notion of the future of these characters. Luke Skywalker being a married Jedi Master, with a temple of students on Yavin IV. Princess Leia raising multiple children as she balanced serving the New Republic, fighting external threats to her family and the galaxy, plus some light Jedi training on the side. General Solo, balancing his role within the New Republic and his old smuggling life, fighting Imperial Remnants, and dealing with the deaths of Chewbacca and his son at the hands of alien invaders.

I left all that at the door, something many fans found difficult. This became evident as they compared the interpretations of the filmmakers, ones they found lacking, with their own interpretations, sometimes based off older extended universe stories, sometimes not. I remember reading at the time criticisms of Han Solo's return to smuggling in the wake of his son turning to the Dark Side of the Force. I remember hearing people's issues with the fact that General Leia hugs Rey, rather than Chewbacca, a character she knows far more, after the death of her husband, Han Solo. Some of these criticisms were from hardcore fans, some from established critics. 

Unfortunately, with the advent of the internet, many criticisms of character became toxic, and were weaponized not only by bitter fans, but by online trolls with more malignant intent. How many times have you heard Rey described as a Mary Sue? Or Leia's hugging of Rey being framed as character assassination? The discourse became tainted, with the original characters held high as perfect examples of character-writing within their own films, and newer characters and story decisions torn down. You try telling fans that Luke Skywalker (whisper it) is kind of a Gary Stu himself? Or that Han Solo has barely any character arc in Return of the Jedi. 

But, here we come to the thorny issue. Because I love The Force Awakens, I love everything it did with the new characters. Rey's introduction, with that perfect John Williams score, is some of the best purely visual character storytelling I've seen outside of silent film. Kylo Ren is one of the greatest villains of the screen, more-so with The Last Jedi included, but even within this film alone, he would rank highly. I find one character decision baffling however, and despite it being a small moment, it's a flaw I find concerning considering the return of J.J. Abrams as writer and director to the trilogy finale, The Rise of Skywalker.

Han Solo and his trusty Wookiee partner, Chewbacca have been adventuring across the galaxy for decades. They are established from the first moment we see them in A New Hope as partners, familiar with one another, and as characters who have had some bad scrapes in their time. From dropping cargo shipments, to escaping bounty hunters, and eventually confronting crime bosses like Jabba the Hutt. They aid in defeating the Empire, becoming heroes and holding positions of power (although Chewie never did get that damn medal for helping blow up the Death Star). In The Force Awakens, we learn that after their son Kylo Ren fell to the Dark Side, Han and Leia's marriage fell apart. Dialogue establishes them as falling back to what they are good at - Leia, politics; Han, smuggling. 

This carries through to the film, as we first meet Han and Chewie as they re-capture the Millennium Falcon from Rey and Finn. The two are hauling live cargo, and have become entangled in the vying of two crime syndicates for said cargo. This becomes an action setpiece, easing us back into the wackier side of the Star Wars world, while establishing Han Solo's current life. Incidentally, we also see Chewbacca use his personal weapon, a Wookiee bowcaster, a sort of laser crossbow with devastating effect.  

Later in the film, the villainous First Order Stormtroopers attack Maz Kanata's castle, equivalent to the cantina in the original film. As our heroes flee the wreckage and fight the First Order, we see Han deftly use his iconic blaster. As they hide behind cover, Han asks Chewie "Can I try that?", meaning Chewie's bowcaster. Han fires it to great effect on some stormtroopers, then turns to Chewie, saying "I like this thing". It's a cute comedy beat in an exciting action scene. I hate it.

Leia hugging Rey I can side with. Within that scene Chewbacca is busy taking care of an injured Finn, he has no time for a hug right then and there. Plus I can interpret it as Leia and Rey sharing the same grief via the Force, Leia due to her husband, Rey due to losing her mentor. Hell in A New Hope, Leia comforts Luke after he loses Ben Kenobi, despite the fact her entire planet and people were destroyed shortly before by the Empire! Maybe she copes with grief by comforting leads in films, who knows? J.J. Abrams has since claimed, despite some defence on his part, that he regrets not having a moment between Chewie and Leia. 

But a significantly worse flaw in characterisation I find is that bowcaster moment. In all the time Han and Chewie have smuggled together, he's not once been curious to try out the bowcaster? In no scrape has Han been short of a weapon and had to resort to using it? Come on. Why this moment, what merits this entanglement with the First Order as being worthy of Han's interest in the bowcaster? I know I sound like an absolute nerdy stereotype right now, but genuinely I believe this is part of a deeper flaw of Abrams' ability as a screenwriter.

That bowcaster moment is a comedy beat in an action scene, one that serves a function of pacing and blockbuster humour above sound character work. These are characters everyone loves and is familiar with. Does it not ring alarm bells to have Han ask to flippantly 'try' the bowcaster out? Like it's a shiny toy that has only now entered his mind to even attempt to use, despite Chewie using it with Han for years and years. That one word "try" is maddening. "Use" would have added some ambiguity - "Can I use that". The follow up "I like this thing", clearly implies he's unfamiliar with its use, but for fuck's sake, we're nerds, we can work around dialogue intention to fit interpretations of character. As it stands, it's almost impossible to work around that dialogue, that one word, "try". 

Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan, as, naturally, is Kasdan, who originally aided in defining Han Solo with his witty dialogue in Episodes V and VI. How did this slip past the both of them? Abrams otherwise is a master at crafting blockbusters, due to his excellent understanding of forward motion of plot, enhanced by his direction. See his Star Trek movies, which even despite some deficiencies in plot details at times, work as blockbusters. See The Force Awakens, which has a unique, kinetic quality to it, deftly carrying you through with some nuanced character work for Rey, Finn, and Kylo along the way. As the sequel trilogy closes, and caps off the Skywalker Saga of films, that fine detail will be needed more than ever. I worry that Abrams may not have learned from his mistakes here, that character work cannot suffer as part of a wider framework of blockbuster pacing. The production of The Force Awakens was relatively rushed, so one hopes, with a new screenwriter on side, and more time, that The Rise of Skywalker will deliver that magic again, but with an older, wiser Abrams showing off what he's learned.      

Object #80 - Metal Wire - Coffy (1973)

Dir. Jack Hill

Having empowered women as lead action heroes is currently a hot-topic within film discourse. With the release of Captain Marvel, and her continuing role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it doesn't seem like the conversation surrounding her will go away, but will rather develop over time with her character. If you trawl forums and social media, how the character of Carol Danvers is discussed holds a wealth of opinion, subtext, and dog-whistles. 

One of the most interesting topics to come out of the film has been the discussion surrounding the character arc of Carol Danvers. Her arc within the film has her hold extreme power, but due to memory loss and gaslighting by her male controller, she is unaware of the extent of the power, and is taught to restrain what little she believes she has. When spelt out in words the message of the film is obvious, but most specifically, the way in which this is a character arc rooted in the perspective of women in a patriarchal world has brought much discussion. Some fans, usually male, find it difficult to relate to such an arc, perhaps being used to more male-centric arcs where power is steadily gained, lost, re-gained, etc., until an eventual apotheosis of power near the end of the film/arc. In Danvers' case, her unlocking of her own power is tied to the notion of operating on her own terms, no longer pulling her punches unnecessarily, nor being restrained in development by weaker men.

Turn then, to Jack Hill's Coffy. Coffy's (Pam Grier) arc is revenge, plain and simple. Her younger sister has become addicted to heroin, and Coffy in retaliation will hunt down the drug pushers responsible. From the off, Coffy uses her femininity as an advantage, turning the specific weaknesses of men to her gain. She acts as a strung-out prostitute, desperate for a fix from Sugarman (Morris Buchanan), who'll happily take advantage of her for his own sexual gain. She is offered like a piece of meat in the back of a car, but upon returning to Sugarman's apartment Coffy allows him no pleasure, blowing his head off with a shotgun in one of the most startlingly satisfying effects in Blaxploitation history. 

This opener sets the tone for the rest of the film, as Coffy infiltrates the organisations of pimps, drug dealers, and the mob. In your traditional male-centric, Charles Bronson-y crime film, the male lead would infiltrate by busting into the corrupt locale - shooting up the place, interrogating the boss, maybe saving a prostitute along the way. But in Coffy, the beauty and femininity of the lead character is used to her gain. For example, to infiltrate pimp King George's (Robert DoQui) operation, Coffy poses an an exotic Jamaican, seductively dressing in a bikini, visually using her beauty to attract the men of this seedy world. 

However, as we saw in the opening, Coffy does not shy away from more traditional action-hero methods. When interrogating a drug-using associate of King George (Lisa Farringer) for information on the type of women he likes, she uses force, and shows no pity for her drug use. This is interesting considering that the instigator for Coffy's vengeance was her younger sister getting hooked on heroin. Clearly Coffy has no sympathy for drug-users, instead going straight to the source, and removing the suppliers. 

Similarly, she is aggressive in the face of competition from the other prostitutes. During a cat-fight which breaks out at one of King George's parties, knowing that mob boss Arturo Vitroni (Allan Arbus) is watching, Coffy wins out, and uses aggressive tactics to her advantage. Coffy pulls down the dresses of the women she fights, almost using their femininity as sources of embarrassment. She meanwhile has prepared for any such conflict by hiding razor blades in her afro, which comes in handy as one of the women grabs her by the hair, which results in her screaming and bleeding. Coffy establishes her resourcefulness and strength as attractive qualities to Vitroni. Incidentally, Pam Grier has mentioned in interviews that putting razor blades in afros was an actual tactic of defence used by hood women, a characteristic she co-opted for the film. In this respect, Coffy stands specifically as not only a symbol of a strong female action hero, but also as one rooted in African American culture. She has triumphed in a world which discriminates against her doubly.  

This extends to the object of this post, the metal wire she hides in her afro, and which she uses to retaliate against her would be killer and rapist, a henchman of Vitroni, Omar (Sid Haig). Coffy has been cast aside by Vitroni, believed to be a spy and assassin of King George, who himself has been brutally lynched by Vitroni's henchmen. There is no question that Coffy is in danger, as she is in the car of a corrupt cop, who drives her and the henchmen to an underpass for her to be killed. However, Coffy pretends to be in need of a fix and a man, which Omar gladly responds to. They inject her with drugs to make her more complaint, as Omar lays her down in the dirty trash. 

However, Coffy, resourceful as ever, swapped out the drug with harmless sugar earlier in the film, faking her high the entire time. As Omar pulls his trousers down, Coffy reaches into her afro, pulls out a pointed metal wire, and repeatedly stabs Omar in the neck. As she does so, Roy Ayers' soundtrack begins the track Escape, a song which ticks along with suspense, and a sense of purpose. Omar bleeds-out, calling for help from his associates who ignore him and chase after Coffy. The strong henchman has been left to die by a resourceful woman, who uses planning, her female sexuality, and her very African American culture to her advantage. Now that's a hero!

The film doubles down by having Coffy escape, off Vitroni, and in a coup-de-grace kill the corrupt cop Brunswick (Booker Bradshaw), her former boyfriend. In a brilliant move, Coffy finds Brunswick, who at this point has left her for dead, in bed with a white woman. As soon as Coffy sees this woman, she unloads her shotgun into Brunswick's groin, killing him for good, and removing his manhood along the way. He was corrupt through and through, cheating on his own police career, cheating on her, and even cheating on her with a white woman. It's a crowd-pleasing moment for anyone who sympathises with the plight of African American women, and the films ends with Coffy walking along the beach, her righteous campaign concluded.  

Coffy is a Blaxploitation film unusual for its time, by having the drug pushers be the bad guys, not the good. But why it succeeds as a hallmark of the genre, and certainly as a hallmark of action and crime cinema, is by leaning into the femininity of the lead character. Captain Marvel does the same, but is somewhat constrained by its own genre and age rating to really dive into the ways in which women are treated. Coffy on the other hand twists the genre of Blaxploitation, offering an anti-drug message from an empowered, vengeful black woman. Coffy thrives in her seedy, patriarchal world by leaning into the way women are viewed as lesser, purely sexual beings. 

It's unfortunate that lead action roles for women do not lean into the femininity of their lead characters more often, as we see the positive result in Coffy, a film released 46 years prior to Captain Marvel. The conversation around lead female action heroes, if anything, seems to have regressed, and one wonders how some male fans would react to more overt delves into the femininity of film leads. If anything, as positive a collaborator Jack Hill was with his female leads, I think the answer might lie in more female directors and screenwriters, who can imbue their leads with a different approach. Regardless, 46 years on, Coffy stands as a terrific example of Blaxploitation, action cinema, and the refreshing power of a female action-hero lead.    

Object #79 - Trophies - Paris is Burning (1990)

Dir. Jennie Livingston 

"I went to a ball, I got a trophy, and now everybody wants to know me."

What is the purpose of a category? To differentiate one thing from another; to recognise similar things; to know a thing? Does a thing have to be categorised, or can it simply be?

In the balls of Paris is Burning, the contestants compete in contests of dressing in drag. Categories include 'Luscious Body', 'Schoolboy/Schoolgirl Realness', 'Banjee Realness', or 'Butch Queen First Time In Drags At A Ball'. These are categories created and developed within the queer ball community of mid-1980s New York. The categories have men perform a specific performance - one of dress, hair-styling, make-up, but also of attitude, of physical movement, of expression. Categories can tell a lot about the people doing the categorising.

It is difficult to describe the men and women who star in Paris is Burning, as to do so means categorisation, which in this case feels diminishing. The wonderful people at the heart of this documentary come from what they would have likely called the Hood, what the top-tier White class of the time would have called the Black and Hispanic community; we would refer to them today as People of Colour, a term broad enough to encapsulate many minority backgrounds. Not all are people of colour, but most are, and that in and of itself cannot be discounted. Even their status as men is called into question by they themselves. The entire ball performance is hooked on the notion that these are queer, usually feminine men, who perform to pass as specific types of women, or to pass as accurate caricatures of their straight counterparts, again in varying types.

Many of the subjects within the film wish to be exactly like the women they admire from magazines like Vogue, to the extent that many of them, if they can afford it, engage in surgery to become biologically closer to their goal. In modern terms this is transsexualism, an extension of being transgender. But in all honesty, it is difficult to say whether their need to feel like women comes from an internal voice or feeling (that which we today consider as one of the hallmarks of trans people), or is an extension of the ball environment. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Were these trans women drawn to the community to express their true selves, or did the community itself spark the light of questioning their identity and gender? These are questions which trans people find difficult to answer, let alone outsiders who categorise and classify.

Crucially, what makes the drag community so fascinating is that the exploration of identity, gender, and performance is so intertwined with the same internal exploration of the queer community. Of course transgender and transsexual people would be drawn to drag, as it allows the accentuation of the feminine from the societally gendered masculine body. It is an externalisation of the internal.

'Realness' is one of the most interesting topics presented by Paris is Burning. To be Real in the ball community is to have the ability to pass as straight to the trained, or even the untrained eye. This is such a loaded concept. It naturally assumes that if you have found yourself into the ball community, you are a feminine gay man. To the gay community of the time, being gay and being feminine went hand in hand. The feminine gay was something about yourself that was hidden in the straight world, and policed in terms of fashion, voice, and demeanour.

For the majority of the runtime of Paris is Burning, straight people are The Other, characterised as legion on the streets of New York, as the elite on the covers of magazines, and the beauty models of the fashion world. Only near the end do we gain an insight from straight people. What this achieves is full empathy, as the straight view of the community is utterly irrelevant, as odd as it may seem considering that many of the contestants desire to be among the glamour models of the straight world. Drag is a reaction to the straight world, it could not exist without it, but it would not exist without queer people. 

The trophies that the ball contestants compete for feel like a carry-over from the straight community. They look identical to oversized racing trophies, or bowling trophies, hell probably some beauty pageant trophies somewhere. Trophies are symbols of victory, and in this case the victory is passing as a woman, a Real Woman, or a Real Straight Man. The trophies are as nondescript as a bowling trophy, and therefore almost act as symbols of this Realness. The contestants have done so well at being Real that they've won a trophy that could have been imported directly from the straight world. In that respect, the trophies themselves are almost playing a performance. They appear straight, but are proof of the victory of being queer. 

The vast majority of the contestants of the New York balls came from poverty, and resort to the thieving the expensive designer clothes they vogue in, or even turn to sex work to afford their outfits. Some of the older contestants lament that the balls are all about the designer clothes, rather than the extravagance of outrageous fashion back in their day. There is a lineage and history to the balls, they are part of queer culture, a culture which continues to this day in shows like RuPaul's Drag Race. The balls are a world unto their own, and to many of the contestants they are processes of self-actualisation. Indeed what is life but continual self-actualisation?     

To transsexual people self-actualisation is integral, they cannot feel themselves without this process. Therefore it becomes all the more tragic when the film closes with the news that Venus Xtravaganza was found four days after her death via strangulation under a seedy hotel bed. Throughout the film we have seen Venus detail the first day she met a drag queen, how she meets men who believe her to be a woman and are disgusted at the 'truth' of her biology, and how she wishes to go through surgery to become the real version of herself. The real version of herself. Think what that ball trophy must mean to people like Venus. Through competition, with shade passed or not, we can only hope that every trans person achieves the trophy of self-actualisation. 

So who knows, perhaps categories are in fact integral to discovering one's true self? Can one only be, when one is outside of a category? The categories of the drag balls allow their contestants to become their true selves, their real selves. The balls are microcosms of the struggles everyone faces, but are nonetheless unique to the queer community. The film ends with the words of a wise-beyond-his-years fifteen year old:

"The religious community want to pray together a lot, right? Well, this gay community might want to all...all, they like want to be together."   

Object #78 - Hell's Bells - Red Hot Mamma (1934)

Dir. Dave Fleischer 

Unofficial Rule #1 of this blog - An object is only an object if it isn't sentient. So as much as I'd like to discuss Roy Batty, he's an android that is More Human Than Human, and is off the table for specific discussion. The same goes for magically enhanced candlesticks, possessed bedframes, or simple-minded robots. So far, this rule hasn't caused too much aggravation, that was until Betty Boop walked into my life.

Even the earliest shorts featuring Betty Boop are beautifully animated, improving in on-screen detail and richness as they go. Fleischer Studios have gone down in history for these short Betty Boop animations, alongside their Popeye, and Superman shorts, and it isn't hard to see why. In Fleischer cartoons, there is a sparkling life to almost every object on screen. Focusing on 1934's Red Hot Mamma, we open on Betty Boop (Bonnie Poe) asleep in her cold house. There's an immediate dynamism as the wind blows the curtains into the house. Boop awakens, frozen, and shuts the windows. 

We follow two perched birds as they fly inside to the fireplace. Atop the fireplace, a clock visibly shivers, as the hands of the clock anthropomorphise, rub themselves warmer, and don a pair of gloves. Boop throws some logs and coal into the fireplace, and the flame from her lamp comes alive, jumping into the fire, lighting it. The birds begin to sweat, and spin on the grate, visually transforming into rotisserie chicken; the candles melt; the thermometer fills to the top, and begins to sweat mercury; the igloo inside a painting melts, and the painted man removes his warm winter coat. Every single object has a verisimilitude, and express some sort of sentient action, hence, making any post on this blog about Betty Boop hard to write!

Most of the Boop shorts share this dynamism in their animation, with Snow White in particular having constant action from the characters and objects on screen. These details are a likely contributor to the long life these shorts have had in the public consciousness, with their influences being felt particularly in the Disney films that would follow them. Many of the Fleischer animators did eventually move to Disney, so this may not be so surprising. Sticking with Red Hot Mamma however, there are more pleasures to be enjoyed in the sounds of non-sentient objects.

Betty Boop dreams from the intense heat that she's entering into Hell itself. As she fearfully struts inwards, even here a sentient flame with two legs follows her. At one point she trips, falling into a rope and accidentally ringing the bells of Hell. Here, the music begins to specifically synchronise with the events on screen. As each burst of flame from underneath booms outwards, the brass section of the orchestra booms with it in tune. After Betty falls into a pit, a bell continues to ring, but in time with the now jazzy music. 

As 'Freshmen' fall into hell, horned devils zip them into a suit, place horns above their head, and tails upon their butts, all done in tune with the music. Just as the animators bring boring everyday objects to life with verve, so too do they inject the sentient devils with an extra spark in synchronising their movement to the music, making them so enjoyable to watch. Everyone likes a good tune after all, and a synchronised dance even more. Like a pre-cursor to a music video, the short continues as we see two devils ring a metal hoop, calling for firemen. As the fire-devils enter, they ring a bell, matching the tune which summoned them. 

Words obviously don't do justice to the joy of seeing such beautiful animation paired with great, jazzy music. The diegetic rings of the bell enhance the music, giving movement not only to the fire-devils and their truck, but the film itself. Even for a short, the time flies by watching it. The flipped perspective of Hell adds another playful twist, as here we see the 'hose' is in fact a dragon spitting fire, burning the 'Freshmen' into blackened devils. Later we see an ice-cream cone of fire, licked by a large demon, and swallowed with glee. What was good is now evil, and what was cold is now hot.

Boop sings from within a ring of fire a song titled Hell's Bells, as the now off-screen bells ring with her. She dances away, countering two balls of flame with punctuated moves of the hip, as trumpets join her in sync. Three demons continue the beat of the bell-ringing, this time as their tails strike the floor with electronic, Morse code beeps, a fantastically inventive bit of sound design. 

The film enters its conclusion as the devils round on Boop with interest, to which she gives them a literal cold shoulder, visualised as an ice cube, freezing them whole. Her ice-cold stare does the same to the large demon, a stream of ice from her eyes. Betty Boop literally freezes over Hell, and the devils flee, leaving Betty to awake to the cold, her door having been blown off its hinges by the wind. She returns to bed, as blanket after blanket falls atop her, and signs off with her signature catchphrase "Boop-oop-a-doop"! 

If you haven't already guessed, I love every second of this short film. The Fleischers and their animators are rightfully remembered as masters of their craft, and are masters of film. Silent movies, not pre-dating this short by too many years, rarely had the opportunity to synchronise music with the events on screen due to the nature of its performance done live (in most cases). To ask for specificity would be to risk out-of-sync moments ruining the film. But with sound, and the power of animation,  the Fleischers were able in Red Hot Mamma, and many of their other shorts, to use synchronisation as a boon to inventive story-telling and film-making. Ballet did it before them, theatre did it before them, but they were among the first, and the best, in their pioneering work to show just what animation could do when paired with music. The fact that their films have stood the test of time, and are as funny and as joyful as when they were first screened, is a testament to this. Hell's bells indeed! 

Object #77 - ZX Spectrum - Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

Dir. David Slade

Lewis Carroll has Alice enter Wonderland in two ways - through a rabbit hole, or through a looking glass. Two versions of the same process, taking place in two different books. These processes have entered the lexicon of our language, as synonyms for the feeling of entering into a topsy-turvy, confusing world. In Carroll's novels logic is reversed, little makes sense, and magical, impossible creatures like Jabberwockies, Jubjubs, and Bandersnatches roam the land.

In Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) loses his mind within the labyrinthine process of programming a chose-your-own-adventure video game, titled Bandersnatch. Choices loop, intertwine in unexpected ways, and in some cases cannot be avoided at all, restricting oneself to a single path. Within the film itself, the actual act of Stefan's programming is not dwelt on substantially. We do not see much of the decisions he is programming into the game, only the paths written upon countless pages of paper, and brief, basic 2D simulations of a 3D maze. This is because the actual process of accounting for player choice is done by us, the viewers, or should it be players?

It is debatable as to whether Bandersnatch constitutes a film or a basic video game. Full motion video (FMV) games have been around since the 80s and 90s, like the infamous Night Trap, and have even had a resurgence lately in games like Her Story and Late Shift. FMV games were themselves only video extensions to text-based computer games like The Hobbit (referenced within Bandersnatch) or Zork, themselves parallel extensions to classic chose-your-own-adventures books, of which the fictional Bandersnatch is adapted from. Video game developers have since ditched the actual video component, instead rendering the story within a game engine, to great success in examples such as The Walking Dead or Life is Strange. To a player of such games, FMV or not, the 'gameplay' or viewing experience of Bandersnatch is familiar, where multiple choices are presented at specific moments within the narrative, potentially changing events substantially, cosmetically, or not at all. 

It is via this gameplay process that we the viewers experience what Stefan is going through, and in Bandersnatch, writer Charlie Brooker has overtly tackled what some video game developers have not, that being the actual maddening process of chasing the trail of multiple choices to their conclusions. We do not need to focus on the actual choices Stefan programmes via his ZX Spectrum into the Bandersnatch video game, as the meta nature of choosing Stefan's actions, from the minute (what cereal to eat for breakfast) to the substantial (jumping to his death) acts as the most direct way of conveying the themes of the narrative related to choice and more importantly, its absence. 

The absence of choice felt by the fictional Bandersnatch author Jermome F. Davies (Jeff Minter) led to him feeling compelled to brutally murder his wife, as he felt that fate was dictating his actions, not his own free will. This lack of free will is expressed via the 'White Bear' symbol, where two branches converge to one. This symbol predates the film, stemming from the White Bear episode of the show, another narrative where past choices were of key importance, haunting the protagonist and sealing them in a looping, maddening personal hell. At a key moment in Bandersnatch, Stefan cries to us, the controllers of his actions for a sign. The choices presented to us depend on our previous actions, even here reinforcing the theme of the past dictating the future. The most amusing combination pairs the logo of Netflix, the viewing platform Bandersnatch is viewed upon, with the White Bear symbol. 

Either explanation is cryptic to Stefan, and the 'Netflix' route ends in a meta joke to the viewer about boring choices, and the arbitrariness of their choices. However even this can branch, into either an over-the-top fight scene for our amusement, or more poignantly, a scene where even actor Fionn Whitehead is fictional, and is himself struggling to reconcile which choices have been written (or programmed) for the script, and whether he is himself or his character. 

Chasing one branch where Stefan follows famed programmer Colin (Will Poulter) results in his character explaining his theory on parallel dimensions, time being a construct, and the nature of mankind being programmed and controlled. This allows the viewer (provided they've also discussed Stefan's childhood history with his therapist) to, in one scene, have Stefan ponder Colin's words, and choose to travel through a mirror, back into the crucial childhood scene which sealed the fate of his mother's life (Fleur Keith), alongside his own. This literally evokes Through the Looking Glass, here having the mirrored surface act as gateway to the crucial moment where a young Stefan (A.J. Houghton) either delayed or did not delay his mother by looking for a stuffed rabbit. The first of the main five endings I received, apparently the rarest according to Netflix themselves, was to choose, as young Stefan, to go with his mother immediately. However, in typical Black Mirror fashion, the twist is that Stefan's mother will delay for the later train regardless, this being the train that will derail and kill her. By choosing to go with his mother, Stefan removes himself from the maddening process we have been inflicting upon him, and is killed alongside his mother as a young boy.  

Also in typical Black Mirror fashion, this bleak ending is one of the kinder ones, as it leaves Stefan free of our control, his adult body dying in the present day within the therapy room, a representation of the aborted timeline he has rejected. Here, the title of Black Mirror comes into play. In terms of the show, Brooker has referred to the show itself acting as a dark mirror to what paths society could go down. Another interpretation, due to the show's focus on the perils of technology, is that when we stare into a blank, black computer/phone/TV screen we see a distorted, dark mirror image of our faces. However in terms of Bandersnatch the dark mirror which allows Stefan to travel within his mind to his own past acts in a meta nature, surprise surprise. 

With full knowledge of all potential endings, from the mundane - Stefan working on a mediocre game due to mismanagement, to the extreme - murdering his father and chopping his body into pieces, the 'Train' or 'Mirror' ending is the one where Stefan takes control of his own fate. Instead of falling prey to the madness like Jerome F. Davies and lashing out murderously, Stefan's best true ending is to accept that some branching pathways do funnel to one event. He chooses to die with his mother, calling into question whether the entire film was some parallel timeline in the first place. One ending path even questions this, suggesting that Stefan may have been the subject of a program and control experiment, where his memory of the key event is false and implanted by shadowy scientific actors. This seems to be the 'traditional' Black Mirror interpretation, but could just as easily be endemic of conveying the paranoia Stefan has fallen to in reaction to our omnipotent control.

We then are the villains of the piece, and the beauty of the narrative is that the punishment for our cruel actions is to experience what Stefan experiences. The process of restarting the film on Netflix, viewing or fast-forwarding to each choice, over and over again, with some choices locking endings, looping back, or changing the choices presented is slowly maddening. We can, and do, go a little loopy as the Netflix program itself changes presented choices depending on those already experienced, thus even making guides online unreliable. Just like the game within the film, the programming fights back and has ideas of its own. In that sense, it's a beautiful, chaotic interactive art piece, where the deeper into Wonderland we go, the more our own mind fractures in keeping track of these events. The Black Mirror becomes literal, the screen we watch and interact through, just like Stefan and his ZF Spectrum as he programmes, becomes the portal, the transportive black mirror through the malleable construct of time and free will.

The White Bear symbol could not be more important here, as it's purpose goes beyond easter egg, and contributes to this maddened state. In that episode, the plight of the protagonist was a punishment for her past actions, where she was viewed through the cameras of a willing audience, who actively interacted with the event of her punishment. Crucially however, in that episode, all interaction was done distantly, whereas in Bandersnatch the showrunners and filmmakers have succeeded in making that interactive process direct. But, like the FMV games of old, that interaction is limited by the practicalities of programming, scripting, and here, filming. Future explorations of the interactive film genre may be freed by further advents of technology; possibly Virtual Reality, which Black Mirror has already commented upon. For those future endeavours, the lessons of Bandersnatch should be considered, specifically in how the meta process of interaction can leave the viewer with a deep sense of empathy. The act of interacting isn't just a theme of the film, it is the film.