A week after watching the fabulous Doctor Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963)I was left with a number of fantastic thoughts in my head about the film.  Every shot had something interesting that I liked, every joke had some type of humor that I could understand and relate to, and there were even some surprisingly solid action sequences to keep my brain alert and focused.  What stood out to me the most, however, was an outstanding performance from Peter Sellers, something we briefly touched on in class last week but really (I think) needs to break the surface of conversation more than just once.

Seller’s performance wasn’t limited to one or two very impactful scenes, it was dispersed gradually over the course of the entire film as a sort of satirical glue that kept the mood light in the face of apparent seriousness.  Of course, he also wasn’t limited to just one character, as we saw him perform wonderfully as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, and as the iconic Dr. Strangelove himself.  What Sellers accomplished with all of these three characters was a perfect, diametrically opposed perspective from the perspective of the character he was conversing with at the time.  As Mandrake, Sellers plays a light-hearted spritely British captain who functions almost as a counter-point for the surly, cynical and insane Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden).  This opposing character structure is hugely instrumental in providing a balance that keeps the satirical mood in place the way it should be.  The reason General Ripper’s perspective seemed so ridiculous to us was because at every point that Ripper would make a dark, brooding comment on the clear and present danger of the Communists, Mandrake would react in such a way that reduced the paranoid negativity to a simple, perhaps even endearing grumpiness, and then he would proceed to try to make Ripper feel better by keeping a positive attitude.  In his role as President Muffley, Sellers would accomplish the same effect, though playing the opposite side this time.  This time Sellers would be providing the dark seriousness that Ripper provided, and it would be his character’s dark realism that General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) would provide a comical balance with, once again forging the satirical effect.  Finally, in his culminating role as Dr. Strangelove, Sellers becomes responsible for the absurdity that rounds the film off, playing a handicapped German Nazi doctor (or general or scientist or something I really don’t know) who fights back the urge to refer to himself, President Mandrake, as Adolf Hitler.

The amount of responsibility that Sellers had in this movie was pretty unbelievable, especially considering how incredibly the movie turned out.  I guess the point that I want to make is that In the midst of numerous discussions about auteurship and the role of the director in the vision of the film, what makes any film great is big-time execution from big-time actors.  I give Stanley Kubrick a 10/10 for casting Sellers in this multifaceted role, because I’m really not sure that the film would have been as good without him, and while Kubrick scores an A+ as Dr. Strangelove’s Brigadier General, Sellers gets an A++ as the film’s Sergeant.  Every stage of the film is dependent on a classy performance from Sellers; every major hard-hitting satirical moment revolves around him as its nucleus. Really just phenomenal.

In a classic masochistic effort, I decided to watch a horror movie the other night. Armed with pop-corn, a beer, and several deep breathing exercises, I turned on what I had heard to be a great ride – Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick/Eduardo Sanchez, 1999). From what I had heard, there was a distinct realism in this film’s approach that made it so revolutionary, and I had been told numerous times from the mothers of my friends that they walked out of the theatre in 1999 thinking they’d truly just seen found footage of a historical event. What could possibly bring this level of terror to a bunch of clever, educated people in a movie theatre?

It was pretty easy to tell while I was watching exactly what these people were reacting to. The shaky camera captures the world around it as a grainy, pale shadow of itself, contributing to a growing sense of dread before we even know the terrors that lie ahead. Most of all, it makes the footage feel truly authentic, as the characters are armed with the same technology that a pedestrian film maker would be armed with – a jarring realization to make when you find yourself sitting in a 12 dollar theatre seat with a 8 dollar jug of popcorn on your lap. The perfectly borderline-amateur cinematographer and her crew are making a documentary about the Blair Witch, a legend surrounding a small Maryland town, and naturally they want to find footage in the woods where this Witch supposedly lives. I noted immediately that in this sense, right off the bat, this horror movie becomes a movie about making movies, notably exploiting the strength of the documentarian, which is in his/her aggression towards uncovering and revealing the reality of something – a reality which we know in our study of theory is inherently limited by the mechanical capabilities of a camera. These limits define our sense of horror throughout the film, as what we interpret to be the “reality” that these characters are facing is really only what the camera chooses to reveal.

Further, it is interesting to think of this film as a reaction to the campiness and glossiness of many films (not just horror) that were produced in the decades preceding the millennia.  We talked about this aspect a little in class, about how it could potentially be seen as a revisionist genre of sorts, with this attitude of “hey look at us make 240 million dollars off of a 60,000 dollar budget while you struggle to make 10 million off a 50 million budget.”  It seems like realism is often the film world’s reaction to cinema that has become too predictable and too surreal to even have a shot at borrowing reality.  Maybe it’s better just to hit hard and fast with your own vision as Myrick and Sanchez did with The Blair Witch Project if you want to bring about change in the film industry.  After Blair Witch, we saw the ascendancy of shaking and candid cameras in the early 2000’s, culminating (in my opinion) with the Paranormal Activity franchise, which saw budgets around 15-30 thousand dollars produce hundreds of millions in return, as movie-goers were brought to their knees in terror at the simplest oscillations of a few cameras in a dark house.  Pretty brilliant stuff if you ask me.  I really think The Blair Witch Project can be looked at as a significant moment in film history in which the word “reality” was truly ringing in people’s heads as they walked out of the theatre (and hid under their bed for a few days).

I might be arriving a tad bit late to the party but nonetheless a couple comments on Auteur Theory

• Whether or not an actual theory, this discussion seems to me pretty self-evident. Each director has a personal vision of the world – to what degree that vision extends is another matter – and as such their filmmaking decisions, preferences, and interests will reflect this vision.
• The need for consistency in actors makes little sense to me. What purpose this serves I am not sure unless the actor, like mise-en-scéne, camera techniques, motifs, etc., serves to reflect patterns in the artists work. Even so this add-on seems contrived.
• That’s about it with Auteur theory

We spoke a bit yesterday in class about how genre theory emerged partially in reaction against auteur theory. While I can see why this would occur, I also wonder if it is possible for the two theories to work in harmony. Specifically, in the genre theory chapter of Understanding Film Theory, one theorist is highlighted that suggests this possibility. On pages 26-27, the chapter focuses on Edward Buscombe, who wrote about genre theory in the 70s. According to the textbook authors, Buscombe was interested in the semantics portion of a film as a means of assigning it to a genre. However, Buscombe calls the semantics “the outer form” or “formal elements.” The definition, however, remains the same as the one we discussed in class; the outer form is the “setting, clothes, tools of the trade, and miscellaneous physical objects” of a film (27). The authors then write that “these four interlinking elements impact on the narrative framework and dictate to a certain extent how stories are told” (27). Thus, it is the mise-en-scene (or outer form or semantics) that situate a film firmly in one genre. The authors then go on to say that “Buscombe claims that genre enables good directors to excel” (27). Thus, good directors use genre, and its accompanying outer forms, as a blueprint for the film; if they are making a Western, directors know what essential props, costuming, etc. are needed and came work within the narrative framework. They excel when they push the boundaries of a specific genre and approach it in an original manner.

I am wondering, though, if we an extend Buscombe’s argument to reach a connection between genre and auteur. If we were to apply Buscombe’s argument that good directors can excel when working within the confines of a specific genre, one that possesses specific outer forms, to the inner form, or the central themes or ideas, what would happen? Take Scorsese’s body of work for example. As the auteur theory chapter asserts, Scorsese’s films are connected due to their preoccupation with Catholicism. That, I believe, qualifies as a specific inner form or recurring theme across a number of films. While not all of the Scorsese’s films look the same, could they still be contained within the same genre? Could a qualification for an auteur therefore be that they oftentimes work within one specific genre, based on the inner form/theme/syntax of their films? Or, is the outer form of a film more indicative of a genre and taking the themes of an auteur director not enough to say that a director works within one genre?

This was my third time viewing Dr. Strangelove and like many others, I was constantly picking up on film techniques and important aspects of the mise-en-scene that I missed out on the first time around. One of the devices I noticed this third time around was the use of a non-diegetic score every time the film cut to the scenes in the bomber plane. Whenever the stakes were heightened a fast-paced military type score was heard that served to heighten the tension and create an atmosphere in which danger was immenient . Using this device allowed Kubrick to easily show the audience the severity of their Cold War situation without any of the characters having to outwardly say that the decisions they were about to make were important. Another device that Kubrick used to highlight important moments in the plot was quick zooms. Kubrick employed this technique when the message for the bombing first comes in on the plane and then features this again when the pilot of the plane is double checking the bombing request with his code manual. Using the camera in this way allowed Kubrick to create a sequence that was both visually interesting and informative.
Another cinematic element I focused on while watching the film was the coloring of the mise-en-scene. As many people pointed out in class, Kubrick shot the entire film in black and white, an artistic choice that I believe fit the subject of the film nicely. The grey landscape featured in the film is representative of the bleak outlook many had on life duing the Cold War because it was a time in which the main subjects on people’s mindset were nuclear war and death. Had this film been shot in color it wouldn’t have conveyed the seriousness of this moment in history in the way that a saturated black and white mise-en-scene does.

According to Aristotle a tragedy is defined as a “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;… in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.”

He also goes on to say that there are six distinctive elements of tragedy: i) plot, ii) characters, iii) diction, iv) song, v) thought and vi) spectacle.

In class I raised the question…does there have to be death to have something be a tragedy?  I used the example of Gone with the Wind. Branching off of that, I will go through the steps that determine whether or not Gone with the Wind is.

i) plot.  There certainly is a plot in this film and it revolves around big moments and themes — marriage, death, longing, loathing, and of course the Civil War.

ii) characters. There are relatable and strong characters in this film, but maybe this film would have a different outcome if the characters are different.

iii) diction. The diction of the film is that of the time, and there is very dramatic language and tones, which correlates with Aristotle’s idea of diction.

iv) song. There’s a score to the film.

v) thought. Many speeches and monologues reveal the inner nature of the main characters (namely Scarlett).

vi) spectacle. Gone with the Wind is easily one of, if not, the most highly regarded spectacles of all time. It draws viewers in with its flashy sets and costumes, and the amount of people it took to produce such a film.

After going through the pieces that create a tragedy, and the fact the film ends on a heartbreaking/melancholy (yet hopeful) note, I would say that Gone with the Wind is a tragedy.

In lieu of the discussion we had on Friday I would like to bring in an outside source that was given to me by a friend with a similar universally objective take on things in life. He gave me this article from the Washington post http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-progressive-ideas-behind-the-lack-of-free-speech-on-campus/2015/02/20/93086efe-b0e7-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html. The article has, what I’d like think as, a nice take on Identity Politics that sometimes feel as though they been become overly absorbed into our everyday lives. When, or rather if you choose to read this article I would ask that you keep one of the key arguments in Jean-Louis Baudry’s Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus  in mind; the argument which expresses the need to objectively study the cinematographic apparatus. Believing that the ideological surplus that comes with concealing the work lens could be used to dangerous ends if, as spectators, we forget the concealment of the work lens. In the spirit of that fear this article, in my opinion, serves as a wonderful example of the possible consequences in choosing to focus too heavily on identity politics when studying, for the sake of our class in this case, the cinematographic apparatus.

Corrigan and White discuss the utility of breaking down how genres came to be a staple of the film experience by identifying commonalities between films of similar subject matter, collecting them into groupings called genres.  One can find that movies with similar narratives are usually under the same genre because they follow the same “blueprints” as to how characters, settings, etc., are used within the context of the film.  In relation to auteur theory, it is through genres I think that those who are Auteurs can better  define themselves because of the certain privileges and limitations that genres provide.  A movie can fall into any genre, but it is because of that principle that, in reverse, when using the syntax and semantics of a genre as building blocks to a film, an auteur has already been provided the seeds needed to try and stand out from the generic exemplary films of a genre.

I thought Aristotle’s point about the construction of a tragedy added an alternative perspective to how we determine a genre.  He said that a tragedy was a full action that delivered a message and that if not for the correct positioning of events, then the tragedy wasn’t pure.  I find that genre based on construction of a movie is like another filter added to a Netflix search and that, as time has moved on, how genres are perceived have changed as such.  Now instead of looking at the order of events in a tragedy, we look at if a movie has the correct semantics (and loose syntax) to be labeled a tragedy.

It is with this change in distinction of how we determine what genre a movie fits into that I believe we can find an auteur.  Because we know from Aristotle that the order of events of an action are important, and from C&W that there must be some familiar semantics involved to dictate a genre, the combination of both is how I find that an auteur can develop him/herself.  Just as a cook can be distinguished by the order of ingredients s/he uses to what degrees, an auteur can become distinguished in the same way, but instead of using a recipe and eggs and milk, the auteur has Aristotle’s model and Rick Altman’s Semantic/Syntactic approach.

This was the second time I’ve watched Dr. Strangelove, and I’m sure if it was the 10th time I’d still pick up something new that Kubrick has subtly put in the film. This is one of my all time favorite films for so many reasons. It’s funny, exciting, was expertly crafted, and had a very powerful and meaningful plot. Made during Cold War times, this film is terrifying in the idea that we could fall into nuclear war.

One thing I notice when watching Dr. Strangelove is that it’s in black and white, when it did not have to be. Kubrick also did this in Path’s of Glory.  Which makes me believe that Kubrick is trying to make us focus on sounds. The music was a big part of Strangelove. Every time the B52 bomber was shown, a song was playing that I’m pretty sure is called “The ants are marching on” which would mean that soldiers are like ants. Something that may go unnoticed.

There’s almost too much subtlety to cover in this film. Something not as subtle was the billboard saying “peace is our profession.” During the firefight.

I was completely fooled by Peter Sellers’ portrayal of the president. I knew previously that he played two roles, but he is very talented.

The end to this film is one of my favorite scenes in any film ever.  Now, I am a huge Simpsons fan, and I saw this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_p-EEJED-k

before I saw Dr. Strangelove, and when that happened in the film I was very excited. My favorite film we’ve watched so far.

Firstly, Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite Kubrick films – it is expertly shot, written and performed. Each time I watch, I pick up something new. Kubrick is no stranger to brilliance… Paths of Glory, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Barry Lyndon, 2001 to name a few establish him as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. But is Kubrick an auteur filmmaker?

Perhaps the answer to that question is based on personal opinion. Honestly, if we are looking at the classic definition of auteur filmmakers, where there is an overlapping theme, element, or motif that appears throughout the auteur’s life work,  then Kubrick might not fall into the classically defined category. But let’s avoid definitions… The man does bring a common theme to his films… they just don’t glare at us like Hitchcock’s films might.

Obviously, Paths of Glory is quite unlike A Clock Work Orange which is very different from 2001 which does not even come close to the Shining. But what Kubrick does so masterfully is create stories that are character driven, playing off against a strange, yet recognizable world around them. He also begs each of his protagonists (or Anti-heroes) to question their own morality, question the world they live in, and bask in the unique alternative cinematic reality they have found themselves in. Perhaps that is why Kubrick is an auteur. The absurdity of the punishment in Paths… or the lunacy of the War Room in Strangelove does go hand in hand with the dystopia London Alex De Large resides in during Clockwork or the spaceship Dave calls home in 2001. None of these characters react to the world they live in. That satirical approach to the absurd, often masked in not only beautiful images, but hyper violence, intense sexuality, and aggressive language only forces the illusion to go further. His characters stand out even more given their vast backdrops.

Thus, I would argue Kubrick is an auteur. He made 13 films in his career, nearly all of which are critically acclaimed. Whether we look at the opening 40 minutes of Full Metal Jacket or the final scene of Spartacus, Kubrick’s common theme throughout his films is how his characters (often larger than life) respond to the world around them (often so riddled with troubling absurdity) that we can’t help but see the point glaring us in the face. Coming back to Strangelove, the satirical characters allow us to see the scary absurdity of nuclear war or even war in general! Kubrick basically asks us to look at these people and say “Really? What the hell is the point?”