Irina Aristarkhova, University of Michigan<\/p>\n
One of foreign language films nominated for the 2015 Oscars was a Russian film,\u00a0Leviathan\u00a0<\/em>(2014), directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. \u00a0Though the film received some government funding, Russian authorities at first refused its screening because they believed the film portrays the country in a negative light. After all, Russians do not drink as much nor are as corrupt as those portrayed in the film, the minister of culture said.\u00a0 People are better, with healthier habits.\u00a0 Services are better.\u00a0 And there are those stunning natural and post-industrial landscapes.\u00a0 The film can be seen around the world, including in Michigan, and, finally, in Russia (at first online and later in theatres that decided to show it).\u00a0 In Russia, the film took a life on its own but not because of the director\u2019s wish to ensure that his own faith and hope in humanity shine (indeed, he seems to have had that intention).\u00a0 That has failed.\u00a0 Rather, the film is too close to home. Somehow, Heemeyer\u2019s gesture of defiance, even by destruction and death, was too foreign for a Russian film. Zvyagintsev\u2019s characters have no sense of personal power to oppose the system.\u00a0 An individual can only contribute to or partake of corruption, to get along or, at least, get out of the system\u2019s way.\u00a0 There is no revenge, nor payback in\u00a0Leviathan<\/em>, only people doing things to other people.\u00a0 And even the death of one of the major figures in the film seems anticlimactic, as it happened for no reason whatsoever, and had nothing to do with opposing the system.\u00a0 Actually, many events do not make sense and the story jells poorly.\u00a0 But somehow it all works together in a magical identification.\u00a0 Even bad parts look good.\u00a0 Hence, the ease with which the film is recognized as hyper-realistic, familiar or even threatening to Russian national identity, is telling: several film critics confessed to personal memories matching those in the film events or settings and uncontrollable tears for \u201call of us.\u201d Less the story makes logical sense, more realistic it looks: such is an effect of director\u2019s restraint with phantasy and his melodramatic style.<\/p>\n In one of the most talked about scenes in the film, a mayor, who moments ago won a lawsuit against the protagonist to seize his house and land through a questionable court order, gets drunk in his limousine.\u00a0 He orders the driver to stop in the neighborhood to express his satisfaction and demonstrate his power to the homeowner, who has just lost his final lawsuit against the township.\u00a0 \u201cAll of this is mine,\u201d the mayor gestures to the house and the surrounding land, \u201cthis, this, and this also.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cTake it,\u201d answers the man, \u201cwill it fit into your limousine?\u00a0 Anything else?\u201d\u00a0 The mayor, barely standing straight in his drunken stupor, answers: \u201cAll of you are insects. You don\u2019t want to get along, and as a result you get drowned in shit.\u201d\u00a0 As he argues with the man\u2019s lawyer (who happens to be a sleek and successful army friend from Moscow), whether or not he has a legal right for entry on premises, the mayor screams: \u201cRemember, you have never had any fucking rights, do not have them and will never have any!\u201d<\/p>\n The film thus elegantly demonstrates that nothing can be done by an individual facing the corrupt and intertwined system consisting of business interests, politics, law and organized religion.\u00a0 Townsfolk, who are more or less part of the system, look jaded (a word that was also used by one of my Michigander students to describe how his generation feels vis-\u00e0-vis poverty in the U.S.).\u00a0 Of course, the town residents do not see themselves as victims of the system, because they are not.\u00a0 It is the system they have built and know well.\u00a0 They know that being \u201cinsects\u201d not only does not prevent them from living their lives, but even adds intensity to their enjoyment of \u201csimple pleasures\u201d as the film portrays them: shooting bottles, gleaning extra warmth from a shared meal, drink and sex.\u00a0 Insecurity and instability are not feared. It is what brings community together. This kind of collective condition, where \u201cbad is good, because we know that the bad brings us together and hence the good will pull us apart,\u201d makes the film\u00a0Leviathan\u00a0<\/em>so painfully familiar.\u00a0 Many critics noted their surprise that the film has become as controversial as it has, since Russians do not learn much new by watching it.\u00a0 There have been plenty of recent comedies and dramatic movies that portray the same Russia we see in\u00a0Leviathan<\/em>. \u00a0 After all, being human is about being weak too, right?\u00a0 Our life is hard.\u00a0 It is not a walk in the park.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n An academic proposed gentrification as a sociological term to describe processes within one urban community she studied.\u00a0 It is not a \u201cgrassroots\u201d term (for a better word).\u00a0 From that particular study in the U.K., gentrification has come to mean displacement of lower income residents by more affluent outsiders. \u00a0Hence, as its usages spread outside of academia mostly by a university-educated public, it has taken on negative connotations. As useful as the term has been to describe and criticize similar-looking processes in other communities, the time has come to consider how far \u201cgentrification\u201d as a notion can take us with this built-in opposition of \u201cus\u201d versus \u201cthem.\u201d\u00a0 It \u00a0presumes that change is forced from the outside and there is little that \u201coriginal\u201d residents can do to stop it (especially in the context of manufacturing collapse and outside business interests). When used as an umbrella term that goes hand-in-hand with the notion of \u201curban renewal,\u201d gentrification\u2019s presence in that negative sense assumes this immediate connection: between positive changes in the community and its displacement by outsiders.\u00a0 Furthermore, as the presence of artists, designers, and other creative makers is often associated with such renewal, they also become associated with the negative connotation of gentrification and are divided into \u201clocal\u201d and \u201coutsiders. \u201d \u00a0I would caution against this divisive underpinning of gentrification as the opposition between \u201cinsiders\u201d and \u201coutsiders,\u201d or between \u201cvictims\u201d of gentrification and \u201cbeneficiaries\u201d of it.\u00a0 Problematically, worrying about \u201cgentrification\u201d in general oppositional terms risks to paternalize the very communities the critics of disempowerment seek to help.<\/p>\n Does it mean I do not believe in usefulness of the notion of gentrification? Of course, not. I only caution against its universal application and quick separation of \u201cus\u201d from \u201cthem.\u201d Gentrification can also be used to discuss important topics of quality of life, public space, social contract, and elements of urban renewal beyond the \u201cus\u201d versus \u201cthem\u201d opposition. Let us contemplate for a minute gentrification as a process that happens within an urban community and imagine what happens if the root \u201cgentle\u201d in gentrification is resurrected from within. \u00a0\u00a0What is \u201cgentle\u201d in gentrification? Initially, the gentle was about \u201cgentile\u201d – the class separation of British aristocracy (where the gentleman comes from too). \u00a0Certainly, we would agree that \u201cgentile\u201d classes and gentle are not the same.\u00a0 I am using the notion of gentleness here to rethink gentrification and imagine it in less negative and divisive terms, albeit without certainty of success vis-\u00e0-vis a corrupt power and its violent history (see above, on\u00a0Leviathan\u00a0<\/em>section).\u00a0 As a reworked definition, I take gentrification to mean any marker in one\u2019s environment that represents a quality of life of one\u2019s community (neighborhood, school district, playground area, etc.).\u00a0 Such markers usually relate to the notion of the public: public lights, public transport, public safety, public sanitation, public parks, public water, public museums, public schools, public art, etc.\u00a0 I am aware that my working definition here differs from more established academic definitions of gentrification that define it as \u201cworking class\u201d areas becoming \u201cmiddle-class\u201d and, hence, leading to a displacement of lower income inhabitants.\u00a0 This article mines gentrification for potential other usages .<\/p>\n When the gentrification discussion is reduced to the question of \u201cus\u201d (insiders) versus \u201cthem\u201d (outsiders), the conversation often circles around the need for vigilance in relation to who is \u201cus\u201d and who is \u201cthem.\u201d\u00a0 Because \u201cthey\u201d (outsiders) can overtake \u201cus\u201d (insiders), those from within who seek the markers of gentrification can at any time become labeled as collaborationists with \u201coutsiders.\u201d\u00a0 The creative class, already under suspicion but also the one that is most visible as a \u201cmarker\u201d of urban renewal, is often in the middle of such divisions as \u201cus\u201d versus \u201cthem.\u201d\u00a0 Such identification is very difficult for an artist– to persuade his or her community that they are not outsiders, of any community.\u00a0 As makers, they are supposedly part of the working class.\u00a0 Often with design or art college degrees, they could be seen on par with engineers: finding solutions to complex problems.\u00a0 But neither the working nor engineering classes accept artists, though artists become essential to any process of the betterment of a public environment.\u00a0 The label of gentrification gets thrown around in situations that touch upon almost any creative transformation of a public environment.\u00a0 Even if good plumbing can been seen with less suspicion, visual quality of one\u2019s surroundings is seen as some kind of \u201cextra,\u201d thus problematically leaving intact an impoverished, built environment driven by corporate decisions and private interests without much regard for the sensory and embodied experience of the public.<\/p>\n Things get complicated when we criticize gentrification as urban renewal with its improvement of public spaces and reduction of necessity to come together to fight everyday problems of walking, driving, or taking public transport for others while at the same time enjoy or advocate similar spaces and services within our own communities.\u00a0 Moreover, the creative class and their presence in a community are seen as alien, as outsiders, un-belonging to \u201cour\u201d community.\u00a0 Currently, in Russia, there is a strong association between creative professions and immorality, feminism, homosexuality, lack of religious piety and traditional family values, as well as a disregard for order and authority.\u00a0 \u201cThose people are not part of us\u201d is a phrase that starts problems rather than gets them resolved.<\/p>\n Artists and writers are easy targets.\u00a0 Hence, it is important to consider that being an artist is already not some \u201cgentrified\u201d choice in a community (in that negative original sense).\u00a0 There is no \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d as most residents operate across multiple identities, families and communities.\u00a0 In situations where they have to choose between \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem,\u201d having a strong international and outside support is both bad and good for an artist.\u00a0 It is a good pitch to funders but also renders an artist and his or her projects vulnerable to charges of gentrification and outsider status.\u00a0 Thus, many tried to suggest in Russia that\u00a0Leviathan\u00a0<\/em>is unpatriotic because it is based on a foreign, American, story.\u00a0 A decision to become part of a creative profession is a very difficult decision, especially when there is almost no public funding (as it is increasingly the case). It is especially sad that one\u2019s own community, one\u2019s own neighborhood, could be against you, since you are rocking the boat and your choice is very different from almost everyone else\u2019s choices.\u00a0 The negative academic nature of gentrification studies needs to account for a more nuanced and flexible notion of a neighborhood, where business and other interests, as well as public art, are not only labeled as \u201coutside\u201d phenomena.<\/p>\n Leviathan\u00a0<\/em>is often described as a film without heroes, despite the director\u2019s intentions.\u00a0 A person ends up rejecting the system because he stubbornly wants to keep his house rather than sell it to the city: he is not an exemplary father, husband, citizen. He is not interested in changing the system.\u00a0 He just wants to continue living in his house.\u00a0 Nothing more.\u00a0 And when he fails, he is almost ready to move on, whatever it might mean (he was an alcoholic prior to these events anyway).\u00a0 The film shows how people become heroes because everyday life requires heroism, which is a problem.\u00a0 Every productive effort or little act of kindness, every gentle action, which would be considered \u201cnormal\u201d elsewhere, implies something extraordinary. \u00a0One puts oneself in danger or on notice by one\u2019s community and family, by police, by friends.\u00a0 If you are not getting along with the most despicable cases of corruption or abuse of power, you are \u201ctaught a lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon’t be a hero\u201d is a common saying in situations where citizens are reminded and remind themselves and others around them that they are \u201cinsects\u201d that have \u201cno rights.\u201d\u00a0 This is reality and one needs to be a realist, one hears often.\u00a0 Therein enters art with its complicated relationship to pragmatism.\u00a0 Whether it is\u00a0Leviathan<\/em>\u00a0or many other cultural products, they become a part of reality.\u00a0 But they are far from pragmatism.\u00a0 They represent gentle choices by those who become heroes because there is no gentrification in sight and where art, imagination, dreams are seen as outsiders.\u00a0 \u201cWhat gentrification?\u201d I ask. Bring it on.<\/p>\n This piece originally appeared in\u00a0an online journal,\u00a0\u221e mile\u00a0<\/em>(infinite mile<\/em>): <\/em>a journal of art+culture in Detroit,\u00a0and has been republished with the author’s permission. \u00a0Please visit the original site at: http:\/\/infinitemiledetroit.com\/What_Gentrification.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Irina Aristarkhova, University of Michigan One of foreign language films nominated for the 2015 Oscars was a Russian film,\u00a0Leviathan\u00a0(2014), directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. \u00a0Though the film received some government funding, Russian authorities at first refused its screening because they believed the film portrays the country in a negative light. After all, Russians do not drink … Continue reading Gentrification<\/span>
\nThe film\u2019s story is based on the eternal premise of \u201can individual squashed by the System.\u201d\u00a0 Andrey Zvyagintsev, the director, said an American story of Marvin Heemeyer partially inspired the film.\u00a0 After a dispute over taxes with a city council and owners of a concrete manufacturing factory, Heemeyer, the owner of a muffler shop in Granby, Colorado, rampaged through the city on a reinforced bulldozer, in 2004.\u00a0 He became angrier and angrier with the mayor, the town council and the factory owners and took revenge on them.\u00a0 The event was televised live, and the vehicle became known as the\u00a0\u201cKilldozer\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 Heemeyer eventually killed himself but not before he destroyed thirteen buildings in two hours.<\/p>\n