Crime and Noir
The crime and noir genres have played an important role in cinema since the 1910s. Gangster films featured a lot during the 1930s, then, in the 1940s there was a shift away from the gangster and towards the hardboiled detective film. It is thought that the three principles of crime films are detective, gangster and suspense thriller.
The 2005 Hollywood movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, directed by Shane Black and starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer is an example of a film which employs key techniques and plot devices seen in the noir genre. Downey Jr. is Harry, a small time thief, who while committing a crime, finds himself auditioning for a part in a crime film. He is cast in the role, and at a party meets a private investigator who is enlisted to help him prepare for his role. What follows is a ridiculous chain of events, including Harry being reunited with his high school friend Harmony, and somehow managing to get involved with a ‘real-life’ crime investigation.
Harry’s character makes references to old hardboiled novels, possibly the kind discussed in Peter Stanfield’s essay ‘’‘Film Noir Like You’ve Never Seen’: Jim Thomson Adaptations and Cycles of Neo-noir”. Shane Black’s movie contains witty dialogue, as well as unexpected violence between male and female characters, and at some points there seems to be an element of male/female role reversal, such as when Harry throws Harmony out of his room as he is hurt by some previous behaviour of hers, and this is something which you would usually expect to be the other way around in this sort of situation.
The character Harry can be considered a ‘tragic hero’, a noir element which Peter Stanfield also mentions. He writes:
‘The transient antiheroes of 1930s and 1940s fictions and films were economic exiles from the American dream of plentitude. Their ‘outsider’ status is marked against a coercive cultural consensus formed around material acquisitiveness, moral conformity, political and sexual conservatism.’
This statement applies to Harry as although he has carved out a life around petty crime, he can be viewed as having very high morals, such as is displayed when he pulls Harmony’s skirt down to hide her modesty when she is unconscious.
This film can be considered noir, or possibly a noir spoof, as it contains the following aspects. The opening titles are written and use images in black, white and red; colours associated with the crime and noir genre. It also contains scenes that are divided into chapters.
Science Fiction
Contemporary science fiction can be divided into the following types: space opera, planetary romance, future cities, disasters, alternative histories, time travel, alien intrusion and comic infernos. The 2007 film I Am Legend is a prime example of a modern Hollywood science fiction blockbuster, and would fall under the category of disaster movie.
The film was directed by Francis Lawrence and stars Will Smith as Robert Neville, the supposed last man on earth, after a virus that was first used to cure cancer, but eventually turned the human race into vampire/zombie like creatures. Robert was a scientist who managed to create a cure for the virus, but after miraculously meeting another human woman and her child, dies defending them. The only love and companionship he had in his life was his dog, who he eventually had to kill, and the music of Bob Marley.
I Am Legend is an inversion of typical Hollywood traditions as the hero is a black man, and this is especially different as Robert’s character is meant to be the last man on earth, therefore highlighting black culture as the future, as normally lead roles in science fiction movies are assigned to white, male leads.
This is one of the main points made by Christine Cornea in her article ‘Alien Others: Race and the Science Fiction Film.’ She comments that science fiction can be considered metaphorical for the fear that we have towards ethnic minorities, and uses blacks and Orientals as prime examples. Cornea backs up her argument by talking of the ‘noble savage’ in relation to Predator, saying that this character is a sort of representation of the white man’s dark side. She also speaks of orientalism in Blade Runner, and the fear that Hollywood has of being less superior. Therefore, I Am Legend has turned this tradition on its head by having a black protagonist, something very rarely seen in a science fiction film, and perhaps an indication of a move away from these social and cultural fears in the future.
Romantic Comedy
William Paul’s article ‘The Impossibility of Romance: Hollywood Comedy, 1978-1999 gives a brief account of how the romantic comedy went into decline during the 80s, and was replaced instead by what is named the ‘Animal Comedy’. This refers to films which focus on the ‘sex comedy’, and revolve around a group of friends rather than a romantic couple. These films are usually situated in a school, summer camp, etc, and are defined by their ‘grotesque’ characteristics. Also mentioned in this piece is the emergence of the ‘buddy comedy’, and notes the biggest male comedy stars of this era: Bill Murray, Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphey. None of whom are considered stars of the romantic comedy genre, Murphey considered to focus more on family orientated movies, which is said to have seen an increase in the early 90s, with films such as Moonstruck, Hook and Mrs Doubtfire all doing well at the box-office.
However, the 90s also saw the return of the romantic comedy and bankable female stars, such as Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz.
This week’s second reading, Karen Hollinger’s ‘From Female Friends to Literary Ladies: The Contemporary Woman’s Film’, has a lot more in common with this week’s screening, The Devil Wears Prada. Hollinger says that the ‘woman’s film’ is hard to categorise, but that it centres on issues that will seem important to a female audience, such as the ‘career woman’s’ film and films based on female friendship, such as Thelma and Louise.
David Frankel’s 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada falls under the career woman’s comedy/drama. It is based on a novel of the same name written about Vouge magazines, ice queen editor. The movie stars Anne Hathaway as a young journalist who lands a job as an assistant to fashion magazine Runway’s editor, Miranda, played by Meryl Streep. Miranda is known for her ruthless nature, and main protagonist Andy is considered to be unfashionable and very unsuitable for the job. However, she undergoes a makeover which begins to impress her boss, but at the same time loses her friends and boyfriend as her personality starts to change.
This ties in with the idea that having a career and romance is unobtainable, and that sacrifices must be made. The titles gives the idea that fashion goes hand in hand with the devil, and that a moral lesson must be learnt (eventually Andy realises she does not want to become the person she is changing into and leaves her job).
War Films
Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraqi war drama The Hurt Locker is a recent example of a war film which has failed to find a wide audience, this coincides with the idea that films based on wars that are still being fought are doomed to failure, and that Iraqi war films are a “toxic genre.”
The Hurt Locker focuses on the idea that combat in war is addictive. Its main protagonist, James, is introduced as a reckless soldier who gets a rush from being in the field. Another character, Sanborn, struggles with being so far away from his family and eventually is returned home. After a number of incidents which seem to affect James, including him finding a body of a young Iraqi boy who he thinks to be someone he knows, he returns home to his family. However this way of life clearly is not enough for him as at the film’s end we see him back in Iraq, proving that for some, “war is a drug.”
This film relates to some ideas in Michael Hammond’s article ‘Some Smothering Dreams: The Combat Film in Contemporary Hollywood’. In this Hammond comments that Hollywood war films depict a thin line between good and evil. The Hurt Locker touches on this by comparing war to an addiction and that soldiers reach a high which they cannot attain any other way. Although this is central to the narrative, I don’t think the film glorifies war, and actually shows the adverse effect this behaviour has.
Hammond also points out some trends in war films, such as military fantasies like Rambo in the 1980s, and it is possible these films helped to boost morale after the Vietnam War. He writes that Hollywood continues to pursue a realistic depiction of war, however looking at the most successful combat movies such as Top Gun, it would appear that audiences would rather indulge in fantasy than view the reality of war. I find it interesting that the only real Iraq war based success story is Michael Moore’s anti-war documentary Farenheit 9/11, which had a budget of $6 million and grossed $119 million in 2004.
Horror
There are a few things that I found interesting about Diablo Cody’s ‘cheerleader zombie’ film Jennifer’s Body. It is clear that Cody has a good knowledge of the tropes of the horror movie, and the film can be categorised under all seven types of cinematic horror: the gothic, supernatural, psychological horror, monster movies, slasher, body horror and exploitation cinema. I also liked how this movie seems to turn the standard ‘female as helpless victim’ role which is so often seen in horror movies on its head, and instead has a female character who is to be feared. The films ending is also interesting as although Jennifer is killed by her best friend, she is considered by everyone else as innocent, and it is Anita who pays for her crimes.
Jennifer’s Body fits in with what Andrew Tudor refers to as ‘Paranoid Horror’. Components which he claims make up paranoid horror are:
Failed human intervention
Ineffective expertise
Authorities as unreliable
Escalating disorder
‘internal’ threats
Victim group organisation
Diffuse boundaries
Open narratives
In this film the ‘bad guy’ is someone who is not an outsider and who does not really pay for her crimes. The authorities can be considered unreliable as they punish Anita, who is considered the ‘good guy’ instead of Jennifer, and she remains loved by all after her death.
The movie also uses some of the technical conventions of horror to create an atmosphere, such as lighting, unusual angles and zooms, and shock cuts. For example, just before Anita first discovers Jennifer’s new zombie state in her house, the camera follows her walking down her stairs. Shooting Anita from behind, in a narrow staircase with dim lighting, helps to create a suspenseful and scary atmosphere. Although the film gained much criticism on its release, I think the comedy aspects and its homage to the tropes of the horror genre make it a good example of horror pastiche.
Alternatives to Hollywood
The components that define American capitalist ideology are:
- Capitalism
- The work ethic
- Marriage
- Nature
- Progress / technology / the city
- Success and wealth
- Portrayal of class
- Near compulsory happy ending
- Ideal male / ideal female
- Settled husband / father / the erotic woman
Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin is a film which most definitely does not conform to the Hollywood ideals. In this film none of the above components apply. Its plot contains a very unsettling depiction of sexual abuse on young children, and shows how the two young victims, Neil and Brian, react to this abuse in different ways as they grow up. The film can be very unsettling at times, and we are not left with an uplifting outcome. The fact that Neil actually enjoys his encounters with his baseball coach is unnerving, as is his attitude towards sex as he gets older. He also seems rather naïve which is highlighted when he moves to New York and by his lack of awareness about the dangers of casual sex. These issues, along with his prostitution as a means of earning a living are not the kind of themes that are usually explored in Hollywood, and this especially applies to this film as there does not really seem to be any moral outcome.
Brian on the other hand is described as being almost asexual, his reaction to his abuse is by forcing himself to believe that he was abducted by aliens as a child. He rejects his sexuality altogether and it is not until the two boys meet again many years later that they both begin to come to terms with what happened to them.
The amount of graphic sex portrayed in Mysterious Skin would not allow it to be recognised as a Hollywood movie. The idea that sexual orientation does not interfere with friendship, for example both Neil and Brian’s separate friendships with Eric, are also highly unusual.
Glyn Davis’s article discusses the idea of ‘camp’ and what camp really means. For me Mysterious Skin does not seem like a camp film in the way that camp is usually seen as meaning. Some of the examples Davis gives are the music of Kylie Minogue and the film Titanic.
Davis also talks about some of Araki’s other films in relation to Queer Cinema, though not Mysterious Skin, and points out that the five aspects of ‘queer campness’ which can be seen in Akari’s films are: 1. Performance style, 2. The role of trashy ephemera, 3. The use of parody, 4. Political aims, and 5. References to earlier ‘queer’ camp filmmakers.
I think all these elements are true of Mysterious Skin. The performances are quite over the top, especially those by Gordon Jason-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg, and there is an element of trashy which is displayed in the hair of the characters Eric and Wendy. I am unsure what the references to other queer filmmakers are but there are certainly film references to be found, such as in the alien posters on Brian’s walls.
Although it is unsettling, it leaves you with something to think about, which I think many Hollywood films do not.
