Powell and Pressburger’s classic film The Red Shoes though at first glance seems to be a run-of-the-mill plot from a melodrama (or a so-called “Can’t Handle The Truth” Thursday afternoon special on Lifetime), but it offers so much more. Aside from the obvious elegance and grace of Victoria (Vicki) Page (Jean Short); the brilliant score by Brian Easdale; and the technical brilliance of Powell and Pressburger’s cinematography, there is an overall conflict that extends further the aesthetic “death-match” between the cinema and the performing arts. This tragic conflict, in the fullest sense of the term, can be fully explained, but most of all, appreciated, through good old Friedrich (Freddie) Nietzsche’s theory of tragedy, that is, the conflict between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The ultimate question is, of course, So what? For one thing, if all the critical theory holds true, then The Red Shoes is as well put together as any novel or any “heady” movie like Inception, Donnie Darko, The Matrix, etc. And, so it goes, I will prove the unthinkable: The Red Shoes, a story about a woman with a dream to be a dancer is much more “heady” than Inception…

The overall plot of The Red Shoes is about Victoria Page’s rise as a ballet dancer from relative obscurity to fame of astronomical proportions by the help of her Russian impresario, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). Not much is talked about Lermontov’s background, but one can safely assume that he was once a great dancer, and now finds pleasure and financial success in directing ballets and talent. There are a whole slew of ballet-folk that adds color to the film ranging from set designers to prima donna ballerinas, etc. But among them, the main person of interest is a young composer (and Vicki’s future husband) named Julian Craster (Marius Goring), who later falls in love with Vicki, and sets the dramatic wheels in motion for its tragic collision. The conflict of desires is, of course, the love of her husband and her love to dance. Narrative-wise, Vicki seems to be entire devoted to dance. There’s a short, terse dialogue between Lermontov and Vicki that cements her place as a potential Dionysian figure:

Lermontov (spoken with the German “W”): What do you want from life? To live?

Vicki: To dance.

The subjects of Vicki’s desires are represented via Lermontov and Craster to the theory of tragedy I mentioned earlier. Lermontov and Craster are exact stand-ins for Nietzsche’s notion of the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Nietzsche writes:

That the continuing development of art is tied to the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian: just as procreation depends on the duality of the sexes, which are engaged in a continual struggle interrupted only by temporary periods of reconciliation…the Apollonian art of the sculptor and the imageless Dionysian art of music: these…drives run in parallel with one another…continually stimulating each other to ever new and more powerful births…only apparently bridged by the shared name of “art.” (The Birth of Tragedy…)

In other words, the Apollonian arts/artist is completely embodied in Craster. He knows who he is, and what music he creates: Craster focuses on his compositions, his creative voice and individuality. He does not lose himself in the grandeur of art, but practices discipline both as an artist and as a person. Though music is supposed to be an inherent part of Dionysian art, I think Nietzsche, when he refers to music in general, is talking about the act of listening and experiencing music as opposed to its composition. It is akin to the club music that Snooki or “The Situation” from Jersey Shore fist pump to. The craft and skill to making the beats is more akin to sculpting than my Jersey Shore metaphor. And so, Craster is the embodiment of Apollonian art and sensibilities, which again, sets the wheels in motion for a collision, of which Nietzsche calls “attic tragedy.”

Lermontov is quite the opposite. The Dionysian sensibilities that he represents stem from intoxication, loss of identity, and sexual excess. To paraphrase Mr. B. Clinton, “I [Lermontov] did not have sexual relations with that woman [Vicki].” But, this is not to say that there wasn’t an intimacy between Lermontov and Vicki: The love, an all-consuming at that, of dance. There is a short scene in which Vicki mentions to Lermentov that her life’s purpose is to dance. Dance, as we know in our vulgar, uber-Dionysian times (just visit any nightclub or watch an episode of Jersey Shore) seems to be a stand-in, or a kind of foreplay, for sex and joviality. The ballet scenes, regardless it is Les Sylphe or Petrushka or The Red Shoes, all replicate these Dionysian ideals. This is her world, but of course with the cosmic meeting between the three, Lermontov, Craster, and Vicki, which connects the Dionysian to the Apollonian. The ambivalence is there, and has been territory writers and philosophers called home. (Sophocles’ Antigone and Romeo and Juliet are the classic example, and so is Fatal Attraction. Take your pick.) This is where the true tragedy comes out.

And so, faced between the two aesthetic forces, Vicki is forced to make a decision. Once Craster and Vicki become married, it seems that Vicki acquiesces to his career and wishes, which are the embodiment of Apollonian ways. But Vicki, pledging her allegiance to the cause of dance, tries to mediate between her two aesthetic lives each in the name of “art” as Nietzsche mentions; however at odds Craster and Lermontov are with each other. These drives make Vicki insane during the climactic final scene (which I won’t spoil here, but if you’ve read, or are going to read, James Joyce’s short story “A Painful Case” you’ll get the idea) where she takes her own life.

All the subtleties which play off of Nietzsche’s theory are short, but plentiful. Lermontov, when he is about to fire Craster, says about Vicki’s performance, “Because neither her mind or her heart were in her work. She was dreaming. And dreaming is a luxury I never permitted in my company.” This dialogue is perfectly Nietzschean in design, and further supports his position as anti-Apollonian and pro-Dionysian. These moments, though seemingly subtle in design, add to the complexity of the film. And so, good reader who have travelled this far, watch the movie and think about the conflict, it’ll be good for you.

This movie is not about the struggle of Anglican nuns who settle in a remote area of the Himalayas. Black Narcissus is about sex. The film’s plot treads on a thin wire: A group of nuns lead by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) inhabit a former “guesthouse,” intended to house an old general’s concubines, to establish a nunnery, school, and pharmacy. However, sexual tensions arises when Mr. Dean (David Farrar), who is the source of attraction for many of the nuns especially the troublemaker, Sister Ruth (Kathleen Ryan). There are a number of implied sexual, or at the very least, lustful relationships between each character. Though, this Lifetime-esque plot device has an effective problem which undercurrents the entire film, that is, colonization. Mr. Dean –who does act like a dean or a principal, of sorts– makes wry remarks about the nuns’ attempt to “civilize” the “happy native.” The racial stereotypes are many, and comparable to that of in Birth of a Nation. But why watch this film?

In a refined, British way, this film is similar (in all honesty) to American Pie or Porky’s. These films are all structured in which the main character(s) seek(s) for sexual fulfillment. The reasoning behind this, of course, is the idea that sex creates an “oneness” between two people. (You can basically insert any romantic cliché here). But, of course, the path to “oneness” is difficult, and if not, impossible. The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once posited, “There is no sexual relationship.” And, this is exactly what the Anglican nuns in Black Narcissus have to endure: No sexual relationship, in any respect.

The cinematography, albeit all shot on a sound-stage, elucidates this idea through the juxtaposition of the settings. At the top of town of Mopu is the convent –keep in mind it is a former brothel (with a client of one…)—which is seen as the literal version of an “ivory tower” or in Freudian terms, “phallus.” The life and vegetation of the valley below, which stands for life, procreation, sex, etc., is where pleasure rests. (Read Samuel Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”) Whereas, as in any ivory tower, the substitution of pleasure to utility (or usefulness) leads to a bad case of sublimation, sterility, and jungle fever, as it were. Mr. Dean (who wears Daisy Dukes…) becomes the only sex object around for the nuns, and frankly, for mildly prejudiced reasons. Sister Ruth becomes enamored by Mr. Dean, one could argue, just because he was the only white male around: The young quasi-effeminate Young General (Sabu) is only attracted to young non-white females. But, oddly enough, Mr. Dean seems to have his pick of women in the town of Mopu. One can infer from his interactions with the young peasant girl, Kanchi, that Mr. Dean is “not that innocent” as B. Spears would say; so almost everyone is guilty for being tempted towards engaging in sex, or at the very least, entertaining the thought.

Staunch Sister Clodaugh herself feels guilty for reminiscing on living the good life of material possessions and sexual love. This is where the marriage between psychoanalysis and filmmaking meet into one sophisticated sandwich. The scene in which this phenomenon readily shows is when Sister Clodaugh is praying the chapel at Mopu. Wind is blowing through the sterile, cold nunnery. While this happens, Sister Clodaugh looks up at the window and notices some vegetation growing and penetrating the window-space like wild grass on a pavement. Then, the next scene is a flashback to Sister Clodaugh’s relationship days in Ireland. And so, the vegetation as I mentioned earlier represent growth for a person, intellectually, and physically. The Mother Superior, who is Sister Clodaugh, does not play the same frigid, stereotypical nun: We see her former decadence. But, unlike Sister Ruth, she can generally control herself. Sister Ruth on the other hand…

Sister Ruth is one of the more interesting characters in the film because she is almost depicted as a “real,” in the sense of the everyday, person. One must assume she chose to become a nun for a reason, at least, at first. But she realizes that physical, secular love for her is what gives her life balance and meaning. In a naïve way, she does pursue that physical, secular love, but literally (and literarily), is unable to handle the pressures of students and sexual longing. The scene in which Sister Ruth is gazing upon Mr. Dean through her classroom’s window is emblematic of this naïve sexual longing. The child teaching the village children how to speak English, specifically, the names of weapons (i.e., gun, cannon, etc.), makes Sister Ruth’s longing both comical and a bit sad.

The most iconic scene is where Sisters Clodaugh and Ruth are sitting next to each other, basically testing each other’s religious piety harking back to Jesus’ prayer vigil in the garden, with a twist: Sister Ruth has shed her white habit for a form-fitting red dress, a sign of her newly-found sexuality. But even more so, is when Sister Ruth puts on her red lipstick, slowly. This symbolically sexual gesture is the final nail, as it were, to the religious piety that Sister Clodaugh subscribes to. Watching this scene in Technicolor with her bright red lips, even without knowledge of Sister Ruth’s failed midnight rendezvous with Mr. Dean, can give one a shock.

My only problem is that Sister Ruth’s character is terribly one-sided: A repressed nun who flowers into a sex vixen. There is a bit of the deus ex machina at play throughout the entire film, but it’s only appropriate, I think.

And so, to watch this film and enjoy it thoroughly takes a bit of a dirty mind to enjoy. The cinematography, setting, and music you can see nods to from an Indiana Jones film to the latest Wes Anderson offering. Don’t watch the movie expecting gratuitous sex, or even a tittle of titillation. Rather, watch it filling in the blanks of every character, and the striking landscapes that Technicolor provides. Then watch American Pie or Porky’s, and you’ll see what I mean.

Here is the article this piece is referring to.

This is every filmmaker’s worst nightmare. It’s hard to boil down the lifetime of emotions that come from this quote, but imagine if you had worked excruciatingly hard to craft a career in a field that is incredibly competitive and creativity based. Which, of course means that any and all accomplishments and achievements thereof are subjected to scrutiny by your competition and are very opinion based (often by those who should be less inclined to give their opinions from lack of knowledge). Now, you do all that hard work just to become moderately known. Then, you help eschew in a new era. A wonderful decade of filmmaking arises around yourself and others. By the time that ends, you have become a household name and that name carries quite a bit of earnest respect to it. Then, you marry your adopted daughter, and your films go from being solid to extraordinary to a literal roller coaster of good taste and bad filmmaking. By that time, your name begins to sink from lack of consistency. To have all that work over your lifetime crash and burn must be awful, but why?

Well, Allen mentioned something about lack of industry. What he’s saying is quite straight forward, but if we were to look between the lines at this perhaps we can get to the bottom of what really happened. Taking historical instances of the subject aside and replacing him with a young director that will be the personification of a directors career. The studio system is an awful, abomination of creative output. What started out as a few guys with camera in the middle of the desert has spiraled into the cesspool of strange known as Hollywood. From that, we got the Golden Age of Cinema. The studios were what made that era and there is no argument against that here, but this was in a time when films meant escape. People needed escape from what was around them (which was anything from war to depression to famine and poverty). It was a business, but it was a business done properly with the dollar only being the bottom line; not the driving force. By the late 60s the studios had collapsed and a slew of young filmmakers and small time producers decided to fill the gap with uniquely visioned films. This was the time when guys like Woody flourished. There were still people looking over your shoulder as you worked, but those people were only there to make sure you didn’t screw everything up tremendously (more of a guiding hand than a gripping force). As long as someone made it a moderate amount into the black on a film and were happy with their results, they were happy. Then, a confluence of events culminated to create what is the studio system that we know of today: films like THX 1138 and McCabe and Mrs. Miller flopped tremendously (and later left the somewhat tight-knit group of filmmakers whose fault it was that had made this new era of American cinema fail), George Lucas, and Jaws. Jaws made a huge amount of money in theaters; breaking many records. Star Wars followed suit. Soon, the star system was back in play and the bottom line dropped something short of good taste. Studios didn’t want to take the chances on guys like Allen and, over time, began to squeeze tighter on the necks of auteurs to produce a certain kind of product. Now, queue films like Bullets Over Broadway and Mighty Aphrodite.

So, is it entirely Woody Allen’s fault that his career flattened so far near the end and his legacy be ruined? No. Not at all. To be honest with you, Woody Allen shouldn’t be worried. Before becoming a filmmaker, he had a good comedy career that has influenced some of the most interesting comedians in recent memory. One can’t help but wonder what other filmmakers have squandered similar creative fortunes as Allen has and what filmmakers are missing their chances from the affects of the aforementioned.

Photo By: Jane Brown

Repo Man and Reagan Era Nuclear Paranoia 25 Years Later

Under the nascent reign of our new pragmatic, intellectual, (relatively) liberal mixed-race president it might seem like an odd time to be talking about Reagan, that spokesman for a nostalgic (and therefore atavistically conservative and white) vision of a United States that only ever really existed in Hollywood fantasy.  The current global depression appears to have disproved the Hayekian economic principles of cutting domestic spending, lowering taxes and–most disastrously–removing regulations that Reagan espoused.  And when it comes to foreign policy, both Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have recommitted the American government to policies that encourage the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.  Nevertheless, we can all remember the praise of Reagan’s leadership for which Obama was so criticized during the campaign last year, and both men are among the most telegenic communicators who have ever occupied the White House.  What’s more, so long as there are bombs out there in the world that can immolate an entire city at the temperature of the sun’s surface – and don’t worry, there are plenty, volatile Pakistan alone has 150 – there will always be some measure of nuclear paranoia nibbling at the edges of our collective consciousness.  And so I take you back to the middle 1980s, a period in many ways admittedly very different from our own, but also in many striking way no different at all.  Our point of entry will be one the decade’s finest films, certainly one it’s most unique: Repo Man, celebrating the 25^th anniversary of its American release this week.

Cultural and artistic texts, especially mass media like films, tend to reflect the reigning social and economic conditions from which they emerge, while at the same time participate in forging the ideologies on which those conditions are based, through either endorsement or censure.  The cult success of Alex Cox’s film Repo Man (1984), a low-budget, genre blending, post-modern bricolage, provides an apt illustration of this creative tension between a work and its context.  The film’s cult success can be partly attributed to the interest generated by brisk sales of its bad ass punk rock soundtrack—featuring a theme composed by Iggy Pop—which, due to a regime change at distributor Universal, had been released prior to the film’s distribution (Davies 38).  However, this economic explanation by media convergence is too reductive, and fails to account for the film’s sustained viability.  Rather than its unintentionally synergistic marketing, Repo Man was successful because it tapped into certain aspects of American national psychology and provided a humorously anarchistic critique of early 1980s United States culture, a critique made possible by the film’s independent production.

Critical discourse around Repo Man tends to concentrate on its trenchant satire of consumerism and capitalist commodification (try to say that three times fast), and on its depiction of the struggle to maintain a personal ethical code amidst a modern society that valorizes material gain.  While these are both important themes, an examination of events concurrent to the film’s production and release reveals Cox to be engaging in another important critique.  The film both reflects and ridicules America’s absurd resurgence of paranoia about nuclear apocalypse; an atmosphere of dread largely manufactured by the Reagan administration and subsequently reinforced by the entertainment industry.

Repo Man’s rambling narrative depicts the intersecting lives of unusual characters on the margins of society.  The story centers on the misadventures of a young Los Angeles punk named Otto (Emilio Estevez) who is tutored in the trade and philosophy of auto repossession by a world-weary repo veteran named Bud (Harry Dean Stanton).  A $25,000 reward is offered by a shadowy government agency for a Chevy Malibu driven by lobotomized scientist, J. Frank Parnell (Fox Harris).  The car contains the glowing bodies of two aliens in its trunk, and anyone who looks at them is incinerated by an atomic flash of light.  After a number of car chases and tumultuous relationships among Otto, Bud, a cute UFO enthusiast named Leila, and Otto’s former punk friends, the Malibu eventually ascends into outer space with the repossession company’s mystical handyman, Miller (Tracey Walter), the only one who understands the true nature of the craft and its contents.

The scientist J. Frank Parnell is an important secondary character who both provides the narrative’s driving force and embodies the film’s paranoid, almost demented sensibility.  He is clearly inspired by nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the architects of the atomic bomb who was forever haunted by the consequences of his research.  In the scene when Otto finally catches up to Parnell, he explains that he and a colleague who invented the neutron bomb – a weapon that melts people but leaves buildings undamaged – were nearly driven mad by the immorality of working on such diabolical weapons and thus relieved their guilt by being lobotomized.  Meanwhile, Parnell decries “half-baked, goggle-box do-gooders” who spread “pernicious nonsense” about the harmful effects of radiation.  Cox is showing here the hypocrisy of those who would attempt to justify creating such a destructive force.  (His point, incidentally, was apparently lost on the actual inventor of the neutron bomb, Sam Cohen, who years after its release contacted Cox to complement him on his film, citing Repo Man and Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) as his two favorite films (Cox “Feature Commentary”).)  Parnell’s discussion of the neutron bomb is placed in a key scene which sets in motion the final burst of action before the climax of a narrative propelled by the quest for a glowing atomic mystery – an acknowledged allusion to Robert Aldrich’s paranoid noir masterpiece Kiss Me Deadly (1955).  The context of the film, both political (Reagan’s efforts to reinvigorate the military) and cultural (Hollywood’s renewed concern about nuclear war), helps to illuminate the importance of Parnell’s speech to the film’s social critique.

Most histories of the period inevitably tend to focus on the personality and policies of President Ronald Reagan.  This metonymic approach is necessarily problematic, especially when discussing the 1980s; a decade that witnessed postmodernism’s fracturing of the concept of historical unity and bourgeoning multiculturalism.  Nonetheless, Reagan was an extremely influential force in defining the times, and focusing on him has a limited validity.  Throughout his first term, Reagan enjoyed high approval ratings, embodying for many Americans a “nostalgic 1950s view of America—patriotism, conservative family values, and conspicuous consumption,” which characterized the decade (Batchelor and Stoddart 3).  The president’s influence was perhaps most keenly felt in his foreign policy platform, which was based on a deeply held belief in the evil of Communism.  (Substitute the word “terrorism” and the rhetoric the American public has been force fed in recent years is pretty much the same as it was then.)

The prominence of the Cold War and nuclear weapons during Reagan’s tenure represents another, darker parallel to the 1950s.  The president returned anti-Communism to the forefront of U.S. foreign policy, advocating substantial bolstering of American military prowess.  During the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan continually attacked President Jimmy Carter for rejecting the B-1 bomber and the neutron bomb (Patterson 146).  By making the neutron bomb and other weaponry a salient issue of the campaign, Reagan revived popular anxieties about the tenuousness of the Soviet-American détente.  Once elected, he resumed development of the B-1 as well as securing funding for “a new B-2 bomber, cruise missiles, the MX missile, and a 600-ship navy,” eventually increasing defense spending 34 percent over the course of his first term (200).

A substantial amount of this national defense money went to Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), popularly referred to as “Star Wars”.  Announced in 1983, the same year Repo Man was in production, SDI was a space-based system of defensive weapons—essentially nuclear-powered lasers—that, in theory, would be able to thwart an attack of incoming Soviet ballistic missiles (Patterson 201).  The scientific feasibility of such a project was dubious, and some critics even raised questions about the president’s soundness of mind for pursuing it, but many historians would later characterize SDI largely as a psychological attack intended to make the Soviet government anxious about U.S. military strength and intentions.

The propagandistic effect of SDI would also infect the collective psychology of American pop culture, including texts like Repo Man, in a similar way to the science-fiction films made in the aftermath of the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan.  In an interview, Cox cited the influence on his work of “a whole sub-genre of science fiction films” from the 1950s such as Them! (Gordon Douglas, 1954) and This Island Earth (Joseph M. Newman & Jack Arnold, 1955), that were “the only films that addressed the issue” of nuclear arms testing and buildup and the “military-industrial complex” (Davies 33).

Hollywood also participated in the renewed concern about nuclear war.  The fourth highest grossing film of 1983 was the suspenseful drama starring Matthew Broderick, WarGames (John Badham), which depicted a teen computer geek nearly initiating world annihilation when he hacks into a secret Army computer “game” called “Global Thermonuclear War”.  The film’s script, which ends with a lesson about the futility of nuclear combat, was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay.  Also that year, the disturbing TV movie The Day After (Nicholas Meyer, 1983) contemplated the effects of nuclear holocaust on one Kansas city.  It was followed the next year by the even more powerful British TV movie Threads (Mick Jackson, 1984), which tells a very similar story but amplifies the horror by employing a pseudo-documentary style.  Even the escapist James Bond entry for the year, Octopussy (John Glen, 1983), featured a plot centered on a renegade KGB agent trying to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe.  With Reagan pushing for the militarization of space to obviate an atomic attack, and the entertainment industry vividly representing apocalyptic scenarios, “fears of nuclear catastrophe had seldom seemed more pervasive” (Patterson 205).  It was in this fearful, paranoid atmosphere that Repo Man was made and released.

Repo Man participates in this discourse about nuclear war and its effects but, being an independent film, engages the subject from an outsider’s perspective.  Cox and first-time producer Michael Nesmith, of the pop band The Monkees, convinced MCA-Universal to option the film as a “negative pickup,” meaning it would be paid for after its completion as long the final product stuck to Cox’s original script.  The film was eventually shot over six weeks for 1.5 million dollars (Davies 25).  Its relatively low-budget and independent production adds an almost nuclear fallout-burnt authenticity to the film’s fringe locales and subterranean characters.  Moreover, because it was made outside the mainstream studio structure, Cox was less beholden to dominant ideology, both liberal and conservative.  As a result, Repo Man could afford to raise issues like nuclear weaponry without providing the comforting answers typical of a more commercial production.  The film ends ambiguously, lacking the moralistic tone of the $12 million WarGames.  Indeed, the force and uniqueness of Cox’s social critique is derived, at least in part, from the film’s mode of production.

Repo Man is one of the most significant independent films of the 1980s.  Its merits are many, including masterful cinematography by longtime Wim Wenders collaborator Robby Müller, deft acting by the entire cast, especially Harry Dean Stanton, and an evocative sampling of the early ‘80s L.A. punk music scene.  In addition, the film provides a biting satire of 1980s culture, from televangelism to the glorification of greed.  The film’s lingering influence is apparent in movies by later independent minded young directors like Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) and Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999).  But one of Cox’s most fascinating achievements in Repo Man is the articulation of an aspect of collective neurosis in the United States during Reagan’s first term as president.  The disheartening thing is that the threat of nuclear catastrophe might be even legitimate today, with unstable states trying to get in the nuclear game, than it was when Repo Man was released 25 years later.  Well, at least we’ll always have Otto, Bud and whole the motley repo crew to comfort us with their roguish intensity, because, never forget, “a repo man’s always intense”.

Works Cited

Batchelor, Bob and Scott Stoddart.  The 1980s.  Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.

Cox, Alex.  Commentary track.  Repo Man (DVD), dir. Alex Cox.  Focus Features, 2006.

Davies, Steven Paul.  Alex Cox: film anarchist.  London: Batsford, 2000.

Patterson, James.  Restless Giant: the United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Thompson, Graham.  American Culture in the 1980s.  Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.