Month: October 2015

October 27, 2015 / Talia Amorosano / 1 Comment

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In public settings, dim, artificially-lit places are usually associated with illicit activity, secrecy, and the frightening unknown. Shadows become real-life homes for imagined fears; dark spaces where terrors become validated just by remaining undiscoverable. However, through photographing within dimly-lit enclosed domestic spaces, I’ve noticed that while these similar lighting conditions retain the ability to obscure and warp visual elements, they often take on unexpectedly positive visual representations, evocative of solitude, introspection, and comfort.

In this photo series, through a muted color scheme, emphasis on negative space, and attention to where elements fall within linear structures, I hope to convey the therapeutic effect of shadowy areas inside naturally-lit indoor spaces. To show that when faced willingly from within a zone of security, the dark is more transcendent than it is terrifying.

Meaning That Matters: George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road

October 21, 2015 / Noah Fusco / 0 Comments

Mad Max: Fury Road is the best political film of 2015. The pleasure I take in saying that is more immense than I can explain coherently. My father raised me, cinematically speaking, on the masterpieces of the 1970s—All the President’s Men, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon—and if nothing else, what is apparent in those films is a steadfast political atmosphere. Today, for better or worse, the films we see on screen are politically noncommittal. One either has to dig for any political subtext, or it exists as middle ground between two more devoted extremes. George Miller, the veteran filmmaker (of the previous Mad Max films, as well as both Happy Feet—fun fact), directs Fury Road, whether he admits it or not, fully aware of the feminist charge that electrifies the entire film.

The film begins with the eponymous hero, Max (Tom Hardy). He provides us with expository detail, and as soon as we understand the post-apocalyptic context, he is appropriately done away with—captured, branded, and turned into a human blood bag, used to energize the War Boys, who do the bidding of the savage patriarch Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). The narrative push of the film—entirely predicated upon the road/chase genre—is that Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), an elite soldier, assists Joe’s wives in escaping to the paradisiacal “Green Place.” Joe and his War Boys promptly follow them: Joe values above all else the wives and their fertility. It is a combination of Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote cartoons with the Western civilization’s eternal yearning for Eden.

The society constructed in the film is the exaggerated extreme (though not without its truth) of the 1% vs. the 99%. Joe and his enslaved wives, along with other fraternal figures, control an apparent endless flow of water, which they eek out to the rest of society infrequently. What is continuously amusing is the vehicular quality that the patriarch has. Cars, engines, chrome—these are the things that the War Boys cherish and worship. Displays of machismo are what they live for: any particularly valiant or courageous or stupid act is preceded by spraying their mouths chrome and calling out, “Witness me!”

Antithetical to that patriarchal, self-righteous calling of “Witness me!” is the graffiti’d “Who killed the world?” echoed by Furiosa and the Wives throughout the film. And this is echoed even more powerfully, in a scene that brings to mind the universe creation sequence in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, by a nuclear dust storm that rages around Furiosa, Max (who gets strapped to the front of one of the War Boy’s cars), and her other pursuers. It is a great scene, masterfully handled that could be and should be studied by all other action filmmakers today. I remember reading a critique of modern action films that said that they now consist of incredibly large explosive sequences following each other; the result: desensitization. There’s no awe anymore, because it’s so monotone. Miller keeps the awe in, elevating the tragedy of the situation to transcendent levels. For a moment, we see, unfiltered, what it means to kill the world. It is beyond us, and it is horrifying.

The other striking quality about Fury Road is the silences Miller allows. When he wants to, Miller makes the action non-stop: we get extensive sequences of highly choreographed explosions and car chase gun shootouts, and just when we think it’s over, something even bigger, even more mind-blowing occurs. But Miller is adept at drama as well, and moments of quiet human tenderness keep Fury Road grounded. If superhero movies, for example, are predicated on a hopelessly unachievable everyman (or rather everyperson) desire to become greater than ourselves, to be super, then Fury Road’s human core is a return to a world where the value of life is still worth something on a fundamental level, and not because those with power determine it.

That’s the feminism of the film. The common misconception of feminism that is used to make it marketable is that it is the empowerment of women; therefore, films with strong female characters are referred to as feminist simply because a woman has agency. But feminism as a politico-social movement moves beyond that, and its true goal is the deconstruction of gender roles, and therefore patriarchy. Furiosa and the wives lead the film towards that goal. The masculinity glorified in the film is damaging, and any intelligent viewer will know this. A powerful moment comes when Joe’s son is delivered stillborn. Joe and the rest of the War Boys immediately glorify him, being a son. From day one, from birth, there is a rigid, violent, and non-negotiable male gender role enforced by this society that exists to perpetuate men just like Immortan Joe.

This is what “movies” should aspire to. The most pessimistic phrase one can say about movies is: “It’s just a movie.” And it is always used to excuse films for not doing enough; it is an excuse for the lackluster. Why can’t all big-budget blockbuster films be like Mad Max: Fury Road? Why can’t they all be technically sound, reliant on practical special effects and use CGI only if necessary or as a gloss? Why can’t they utilize the visual for storytelling in addition to spectacle? And, most importantly, why can’t we use the medium of film to say something, regardless of what it is? The best films, whether it’s Fury Road, or The Tree of Life, All the President’s Men, or Star Wars—we leave these films feeling profoundly changed, because we have experienced something that mattered: we have experienced that those who made these films have something to show us, something that has meaning. Not the backwash of opinions, diluted by a desire to please everyone. Fury Road is an angry, impassioned, uncompromising, eloquent film—made with meaning, and made by people who thought the meaning mattered.

Postscript: Mad Max: Fury Road was edited by Margaret Sixel, predominantly a documentary editor. The art of editing is under-recognized, as are the accomplishments in, and contributions to, the art of cinema by women, who have been making and working in films just as long as men.

Thoughts on Force Friday

October 21, 2015 / Theo Xenophon / 0 Comments

A little over a month ago, a huge bomb went off in the Star Wars community, as merchandise for the newest film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, hit stores a whopping three month in advance, an event lovingly called “Force Friday.” Shelves were flooded with action figures, board games, apparel, and even notebooks, all for a film that hadn’t even been released yet. Stranger still, is that Force Friday was a huge success. Crowds of people showed up, waiting in lines and saving spots, all to buy merchandise for characters, vehicles, and worlds they don’t even know much about. In fact, much of what was released hadn’t even been seen until that day. Being both a fascinated scholar and a huge nerd, I realized I’d have to investigate.

Much like Black Friday, stores opened at midnight with freshly stocked shelves and a hoard of shoppers lined up at the doors. Being located in Carlisle, far from urban shopping epicenters, I believed that going after class during the day would be adequate for both finding people to interview as a scholar and stuff to buy as a fan. On both counts I was wrong. I arrived at the local Target at the end of the day to find nearly empty shelves and almost no Star Wars shoppers. I had clearly underestimated the ravenous and dedicated nature of my people.

Still I did manage to get some opinions on the matter, both through my own experience and through conversations with other fans. Force Friday was an incredibly impressive feat to pull off in a marketing sense, and I honestly can’t think of many other franchises that could’ve executed a campaign of this magnitude without a hitch. Not to mention the majority of advertising was done via the Internet, with little to no television ads for it. Most of the shoppers I interviewed had learned about the event via YouTube.

As for Force Friday’s overall effect on the franchise as a whole; my feelings are a little more mixed. On the one hand, this event was incredibly inclusive, catering to both long time fans and newer, more casual ones. It also generated a lot of hype, and I know that I personally was excited to see all the new stuff for the film and to get my hands on some Legos once I got to Wal-Mart and found a set in my price range. It’s fun to speculate on what the role of these characters and items will be in the story. However on the other, I can’t help but worry a bit about how easy it is for marketers to sell Star Wars merchandise without fans even seeing the movie. In a way, it insures the film will be a success even if it winds up being awful. If all they made were trailers for example, then they would still be turning a profit even if no movies were ever released.

Even with the best intentions however, assuming that Disney is really trying to make the best film they can, there’s still an issue I see developing. When speaking with fans, I had a chance to geek out and ask them what they thought the movie was going to be like. I heard some awesome theories as we exchanged ideas, and I can honestly say I hope some of our guesses were right. There lies the best and worst thing about Force Friday, however: making attachments and building up hope. The reason I feel fans are so ready to buy these early releases is that we are handed tons of material, but little to no rules on how to engage with it. For the months leading up to the film we get to tell this story ourselves, and we get to decide who characters like “Kylo Ren” (picture above) are, how events like “the battle of Jakku” will go, and even how the new ships operate and fly about. All the while, we’re making connections to facts and characters that might not be true, and our expectations are being set the impossible standards of our near infinite imaginations. We aren’t getting connected to a story, but instead to the things related to it, which means even at its best, people might wind up being somewhat let down when the movie doesn’t accomplish everything they had a chance to imagine.

I’m not saying The Force Awakens is going to be a let down, and in all honesty, I am excited to see it. I also think building hype is both a valuable asset to filmmakers and a fun experience for fans. My concern is something that stretches a little farther out than Force Friday, or even the Star Wars franchise as a whole. A lot of these franchises, like Star Wars, Marvel, etc., start off with a lot of heart, and people have gotten incredibly attached to them as icons of pop culture. While I still think these titles have a lot of that potential left, my fear is that we as fans are so hungry for more, with our constant need to generate buzz, to look up cast lists, to watch and rewatch trailers, and to just constantly demand more, that we’re draining these things. Disney already has six Star Wars films planned out, and fans have already started speculating and writing articles about all of them. Marketers can be blamed for some of this, but we’re the ones who’ve developed a fan culture allowing marketers to do what they do. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and our impatience may be leading us closer and closer to the day when a new Star Wars movie becomes something that makes us sick to our stomachs.

October 3, 2015 / Noah S. Thompson / 2 Comments

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Every year Dickinsonians make a journey around the globe, whether it be for a semester or year, to continue working on their liberal arts education and cultivating a better global perspective. Lead by David Strand, Professor of Political Science and East Asian Studies, a group of juniors including myself managed to navigate the thousands-year-old city of London. Departing each day from our hotel in Bloomsbury we set out on daily adventures to places like St. Paul’s Cathedral and poet John Keats’ house in Hampstead. For someone studying photography, it is difficult to resist taking photos and coming across as an obvious tourist with their lens clicking at every possible opportunity. Fortunately, my self-imposed restraint created an opportunity. Rather than taking photographs of everything I saw, I had to look with earnest, selecting only a few objects or areas.

Walking around London there is something extraordinary on almost every corner, such as an incredibly fat pigeon or a tavern from the 16^th century, but when you are trying to document the city you have to think about what images work with each other. Not much of Roman London (or “Londinium” as it was known then) remains save for the wall by the Tower of London, so I tried to find a balance between the cliché and candid originals. However, it is also perfectly fine to take photographs of the overshot landmarks, but it can also be interesting to portray them from a different perspective.

Instead of just clicking away, I suggest taking a moment to look around and find something unexpected, something no one is paying attention to. The Tube provided wonderful opportunities for candid portraits. The British tend to keep to themselves on the underground, but that silence and stillness helps isolate potential subjects, and while you might receive some weird looks for having your camera out, the results are worth the final product. Always be prepared for the unexpected, for you never know how the most mundane of moments can turn out to be extraordinary. I’ve left London behind for the eastern coast, but there is still more to see, and even more to be documented.