Film Reviews – June 2012, Slides of History

Download Film Reviews – June 2012 and more Slides History in PDF only on Docsity! Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies Issue 23 June 2012 1 Film Reviews – June 2012 Table of Contents Jane Eyre A review by Catherine Paula Han ........................................................... 2 J Edgar A Review by Serena Daalmans ............................................................ 13 Andy Hardy Collection, Volume I A Review by Judy Beth Morris ............................................................. 18 The Avengers A Review by Brady Hammond ............................................................. 25 A Dangerous Method A Review by Charles Andrews ............................................................. 33 The Shore A Review by Andrea Grunert ............................................................... 39 Film Reviews 2 Issue 23, June 2012 Jane Eyre Dir. Cary Fukunaga, UK/USA, 2011. A Review by Catherine Paula Han, University of Hull “[W]e’ve had at least as many adaptations as the Brontës had hot dinners” was The Telegraph’s Tim Robey’s response to Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre (Robey: 2011). Robey’s jibe emblematises the challenge of breathing fresh insight into Charlotte Brontë’s novel. Despite being “poor, obscure, plain and little”, Brontë’s heroine has captured the attentions of filmmakers from the silent era onwards (Brontë, 2001: 216). As the 2011 production’s publicity website acknowledged, since “1910, there have been over 30 film and television adaptations, as well as a score of theatrical ones” (Focus Features 2011a). This review examines Fukunaga’s attempts to reinvent Brontë’s narrative for contemporary audiences and considers how the production dealt with its screen predecessors. In the 2011 adaptation’s publicity, the filmmakers emphasised the studio era Jane Eyre (dir. Robert Stevenson, 1944), starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, as a significant inspiration. Throughout, I will compare the two versions to interrogate the filmmakers’ advertised debt to Robert Stevenson. Furthermore, I use Stevenson’s work as a reference point to identify the most inventive elements in Fukunaga’s interpretation of Jane Eyre. As I shall argue, two specific aspects inject interest into an uncontroversial rendering of Brontë’s novel. Firstly, the treatment employs a chronology that eschews the novel’s structure. Secondly, the film evinces an emotional pitch that differentiates it from earlier remakes. An emotional and stylistic reserve permeates Jane Eyre (2011), characterising the production’s use of genre, actors’ performances, and aesthetic. Moreover, the review also briefly discusses the near-contemporary BBC miniseries Jane Eyre (2006). Due to the 2006 television adaptation, Fukunaga’s subsequent effort suffers from an unfortunate belatedness. Yet the cultural déjà vu also suggests why Jane Eyre’s (2011) personnel chose to emphasise the 1944 production’s influence. Anticipating responses such as Robey’s, the 2011 film’s marketing acknowledged the existing adaptations in a calculated manner. The Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 5 dullness, and later compresses it into one chronology for the ensuing, tightly paced, revelations: Jane’s inheritance; St John’s marriage proposal; the immolated Thornfield; and the lover’s reunion. Furthermore, the chronological device contributes emotional poignancy to a film that avoids high-pitched outpourings of feeling. Buffini identified repression as the novel’s key tone: “Much of what goes on in Jane goes on inside of her. She’s so self-controlled – it’s the challenge of any adaptor of that book to get under her skin and to hint at all this passion inside” (Cathy IdeasTap: 2011). Hence, the editing functions to belie the adult heroine’s subdued exterior. As well as implying unspoken sentiments, the structure creates a continuity of characterisation that the 1944 version lacks. In the earlier treatment’s linear temporality, the rebellious child (Peggy Ann Garner) has limited consistency with Joan Fontaine’s cipher (who reflects wartime gender constructions in her portrayal [Brosh, 2008: 45-64]). Contrastingly, the 2011 adaptation uses thoughtful juxtapositions to construct effective analogies between the lonely orphan and the isolated woman. For example, the film develops the friendship between the young Jane and fellow student Helen Burns (Freya Park) in Lowood. The latter’s death heightens the abandonment of the child heroine’s situation. Economically, the chronology transfers the pathos and applies it to the elder Jane’s circumstances. As the child Jane realises that Helen has died, the scene segues into the later timeframe to show Diana Rivers (Holliday Grainger) and Mary Rivers (Tamzin Merchant) departing to become governesses. The sisters’ exit consigns the mature Jane to the company of their dutiful but unaffectionate brother St John. Though Jane fails to express her suffering, her ongoing lovelessness resonates across the time shifts. Though using an unusual structure, the 2011 production construes Brontës’ novel as a straightforward romance. To achieve this interpretation, the film seeks to contain the narrative undercurrents caused by Rochester’s first wife. Her existence implies Rochester’s potential abusiveness to complicate the central couple’s happily-ever- after. The 1944 film represented Bertha as an unfilmmable horror to justify the hero’s domestic mistreatment. Yet in 2011, the adaptation attempts to cohere Rochester’s imprisonment of Bertha with his status as a loving husband for Jane. The portrayal refrains from demonising his first wife and garners understanding for the male protagonist. Unlike Stevenson’s silhouetted monster, Fukunaga’s version shows her as elegantly dishevelled to highlight her husband’s humane treatment. He Film Reviews 6 Issue 23, June 2012 depicts their marriage: “Her temper ripened, her vices sprang up, violent and unchaste. Only cruelty would check her, and I’d not use cruelty.” Under duress, he displays a modern sensibility to mental illness. His words stress how Bertha has caused him to suffer, an emphasis that transforms Jane Eyre into a tale of a young bride who heals her husband of his traumatic sexual past. Privileging Jane Eyre’s romance, the production draws upon but ultimately allays the source text’s gothic content to nullify the disturbing nature of Rochester and his household. The film’s publicity emphasised this generic aspect but the Thornfield setting operates to establish the heroine’s fearful reactions as paranoia. Fukunaga stated his excitement at the “spooky elements” and “the idea of pushing that side of the story further than in previous adaptations – not full-blown horror, but a definite vibe" (Focus Features 2011b). The adaptation appears to conform to a recognisable gothic formula, in which “tenebrous settings and mysterious places victimize heroines as fully as do villains and other specific perils” (da Vinci Nicholls 1983: 187). Yet the treatment diminishes the horror and attributes the feminine menace to the protagonist’s subjectivity. At her first arrival, a disquieted Jane experiences the location as a series of candle-lit passages. In the next scene’s first shot though, a shallow focus foregrounds the heroine’s doll in morning light to imply a female-friendly and safe space. Comparison with Stevenson’s version further underlines Fukunaga’s restraint. The 1944 film uses chiaroscuro and shadow throughout to maintain the site’s uncanny potential. Yet in the 2011 treatment, the neutralised setting conjoins with the first wife’s humane incarceration to invalidate any objections to the final marriage. Even as a romance, the film negotiates a unique emphasis in the couple’s relationship and resists generic excess. Fukunaga’s direction instils the love story with a downbeat nuance that differentiates this production from previous versions. In the 1944 film, the triumphal couple walk into the distance as the heroine’s voice-over foretells the birth of their first son and the return of Rochester’s vision. Yet the 2011 film’s most romantic scenes exude a trance-like quality that functions as a prolepsis for subsequent melancholy. After the characters’ engagement, the editing combines jump cuts, soft focus and shaky cam to consolidate Jane’s description of events as “unreal” and “phantom-like.” The cinematography suggests that the couple will achieve contentment but not unqualified happiness. In the final moments, a blind and weakened Rochester describes her return as a “dream” whilst both gently weep. Their relieved and chaste kiss illustrates the finish to mutual trauma rather than passion. Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 7 The lead actors’ performances underline the pervasive restraint. Wasikowska and Fassbender construe Jane and Rochester in a subdued manner that contrasts with the Fontaine and Welles’ more overt characterisations. Though Fontaine’s performance is chiefly notable for its passivity, whilst Welles’s star persona and booming voice ensured an over-the-top Rochester. Contrastingly, the 2011 lead roles accentuate the suppression of emotion. In the unusually charged proposal, Rochester and Jane declare their love. Wasikowska’s almost weeping delivery manages to communicate an impressive self-control that checks her hysteria. Fassbender also highlights Rochester’s battle for composure. When Rochester asks Jane to live with him unmarried, he holds her throat and mentions his superior physical strength to communicate his desperation. Though he verges on violence, his sudden curtailment evidences his self- mastery. In addition, his inability to dominate Jane clarifies her iron will, which grants a greater significance to her few tears. In conjunction, the performers’ composure enhances the gravitas of their rare outbursts. Nevertheless, the production may have benefited from a more varied pitch. Several reviewers questioned the actors’ onscreen chemistry, such as The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who stated: “I kept waiting for a blaze of emotion between Jane and Rochester, and it somehow never quite came” (2011). Bradshaw’s comments suggest that the production’s careful rendering fails to deliver full satisfaction at key romantic moments. The film’s reserve also permeates its aesthetic, as attested by the costume design. The wardrobe choices visually entice and complement the developing narrative but never function as “spectacular interventions” (Bruzzi 1997: xv). Dissimilarly in 1944, Welles wore “slimming and glamorous coattails and heightening heels” and “monarchical dressing gowns and cloaks decorated with dazzling chains” (Sadoff, 2010: 76). His outfits reflected his cultural reputation and suggest his domination of the production both in the front of and behind the camera (Sadoff, 2010: 76). However in the 2011 publicity, Michael O’Connor highlighted his costume design’s “authenticity” to stress its seamlessness with characterisation or plot (Focus Features, 2011b and Lopez, 2011). Discussing Wasikowska’s final outfit, O’Connor pointed out that the actress wore a shawl dating from the period and that he sourced nineteenth-century straw for her bonnet (Focus Features, 2011b and Lopez, 2011). This delicate ornamentation indicates her newly wealthy status, yet the drab rust colours underline the scene’s autumnal atmosphere. O’Connor engineered Film Reviews 10 Issue 23, June 2012 to the tone, detail and character development of Brontë's triple-decker Victorian novel, and I think they're probably right” (2011). Though French remains fixated on fidelity and fails to identify any specific television comparison, his comments remain illuminating. His evaluation suggests that the 2011 filmmakers’ cinematic homage operates on a spectator not only familiar, but intimately so, with both the source text and its screen legacy. Additionally, the reworked 2011 ending underlines how the 2006 treatment incorporated Brontë’s epilogue. Even when highlighting its celluloid pedigree, the 2011 film creates an inadvertent reminder of the television adaptation’s approach. Moreover, its cerebral subtleties are unlikely to become seared into the cultural imaginary. In contrast to Stevenson’s version, future adaptors are unlikely to reference the 2011 Jane Eyre as an iconic inspiration. Bibliography Brontë, Charlotte [1847] (2001) Jane Eyre. New York: Norton Critical Edition. Bradshaw, Peter (2011) Jane Eyre—Review. Guardian. [online] 8 September. Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/08/jane-eyre-film-review> [Accessed 1 December 2011] Brosh, Liora (2008) Screening Novel Women: From British Domestic Fiction to Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bruzzi, Stella (1997) Undressing Cinema: Clothing and identity in the movies. London, New York: Routledge. Cartmell, Deborah and Imelda Whelehan (2010) Screen Adaptation: Impure Cinema. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cathy IdeasTap (2011) Moira Buffini: Writer. IdeasTap [online], 15 September. Available at < http://www.ideastap.com/ideasmag/the- knowledge/moira-buffini-interview> [Accessed 23 November 2011] da Vinci Nicholls, Nina (1983) Place and Eros in Radcliffe, Lewis, and Brontë, in Juliann E. Fleenor (ed.) The Female Gothic. Montreal, London: Eden Press, pp 187-206. Focus Features (2011a) Unlocking Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: An Interview with Screenwriter Moira Buffini. Focus Features [online], 15 March. Available at: Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 11 http://focusfeatures.com/article/unlocking_charlotte_brontes_jane_eyre?f ilm=jane_eyre [Accessed 23 November 2011] Focus Features (2011b) Jane Eyre: A Passionate Adaptation of a Classic Novel. Focus Features [online], 17 March. Available at: http://focusfeatures.com/article/a_classic_novel___a_passionate_adaptat ion__the_production_of__?film=jane_eyre [Accessed 26 November 2011] Focus Features (2011c) Jane Eyre Superstar: From Brontë to Fukunaga. Focus Features [online],n.d. Available at: http://focusfeatures.com/article/a_classic_novel___a_passionate_adaptat ion__the_production_of__?film=jane_eyre [Accessed 26 November 2011] French, Philip (2011) Jane Eyre—Review. The Observer. [online] 11 September. Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/11/jane-eyre-philip-french- review> [Accessed 1 December 2011] Lopez, John (2011) Michael O’Connor’s Sumptuous Period Costumes in Jane Eyre, in Vanity Fair. [online] 25 March. Available at: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2011/03/the-costumes-of-jane- eyre [Accessed 23 November 2011.] Robey, Tim (2011) Jane Eyre Review. The Telegraph. [online] 8 September. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8750162/Jane- Eyre-review.html> [Accessed 1 December 2011] Sadoff, Dianne F (2010) Victorian Vogue: British Novels On Screen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sconce, Jeffrey (1995) Narrative Authority and Social Narrativity: The Cinematic Reconstitution of Brontë’s Jane Eyre, in Janet Staiger (ed.) The Studio System. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp 140-62. Filmography Jane Eyre. 2011. Dir. Cary Fukunaga. Focus Features Jane Eyre. 2006. Miniseries. BBC Jane Eyre. 1944. Dir. Robert Stevenson. Twentieth Century Fox Film Reviews 12 Issue 23, June 2012 Jane Eyre. 1996. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Miramax Jane Eyre. 1983. Miniseries. BBC Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 15 Tolson and Judi Dench as Hoover’s domineering mother Anna Marie light up the screen. The beautiful cinematography, by Tom Stern, works its magic on viewers who can almost smell the cracked leather and polished hardwood floors of Washington in a time gone by. The secrecy and repression that marked Hoover’s life, both professionally and personally, is accentuated by Stern’s subtle use of low-lit rooms and faces that are partly concealed in shadows (Goldman, 2011), while the use of desaturated colors also reveal a stylistic connection to film noir. The movie is flawed in a couple of significant ways, the most important being the script. Scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black, whose work on the biopic of Harvey Milk earned him an Oscar, delivers a much more uneven script for director Clint Eastwood to work with. The fast pace of the movie as well as the use of non-linear flashbacks is agreeable for most of the movie, although at some points it takes away from the gravitas of the scene at hand. In his effort to humanize Hoover, Black also glosses over Hoover’s questionable involvement in the McCarthy hearings as well as the aid he provided Nixon in the Alger Hiss case. The prosthetics and make-up used to age all the actors, in order for them to play the characters during the course of their lives, are so bulky and unrealistic that it literally weighs down the performance of the actors. DiCaprio spent a reported six to seven hours in the make-up chair, and the crew was amazed that they did not need CGI to age the characters (Snead, 2011). With CGI they could have aged the characters much more convincingly, which was stunningly and award-winningly done in for example David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) (Seymour, 2009; Sydell, 2009). All in all, the film is a mixed bag. The work demonstrates a steady directorial hand, excellent acting and beautiful cinematography, but also a rather uneven script and bad make-up and prosthetics. In the end, the acting and storytelling do deliver an intensely captivating film, which will no doubt disappoint some and enamor others, but on the whole gives us insight into the secrets of a hugely influential man obsessed with keeping and harnessing other people’s secrets for his own purposes. A man who like no other shows us that there is immense power in secrecy. Film Reviews 16 Issue 23, June 2012 Bibliography Farber, Jim (2010) Leo will act, Frank will sing: Martin Scorsese on casting Leonardo DiCaprio in Frank Sinatra biopic. New York Daily News [online], 18 February. Available at: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010- 02-18/entertainment/27056652_1_leonardo-dicaprio-scorsese-shot- frank-sinatra [Accessed: 30-1-2012] Goldman, Michael (2011) Stepping into the Shadows: Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, shot by Tom Stern, ASC, AFC, puts an infamous American center stage, but not exactly in the spotlight. American Cinematographer: The International Journal of Motion Imaging, 92 (12) [online]. Available at: http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/December2011/JEdgar/page1.php [Accessed: 30-1-2012] Powers, Richard Gid (1987) Secrecy and Power: The Life of J.Edgar Hoover. London: Hutchinson Seymour, Mike (2009) The Curious Case of Aging Visual Effects. FX Guide [online], 1 January. Available at: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the_curious_case_of_aging_visual_effe cts/ Accessed: 30-1-2012] Snead, Elizabeth (2011) How Makeup Transformed Leonardo DiCaprio Into ‘J.Edgar’. The Hollywood Reporter [online], 11 February. Available at: <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-makeup-transformed- leonardo-dicaprio-256090> [Accessed: 30-1-2012] Sydell, Laura (2009) Building the Curious Faces of ‘Benjamin Button’. NPR [online], 16 February. Available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100668766 [Accessed: 30-1-2012] Filmography Catch Me If You Can. 2002. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Dreamworks Distribution Dirty Harry. 1971. Dir. Don Siegel. Warner Bros. Pictures Gran Torino. 2008. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Warner Bros. Pictures J Edgar. 2011. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Warner Bros. Pictures Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 17 The Aviator. 2004. Dir. Martin Scorcese. Miramax Films The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 2008. Dir. David Fincher. Warner Bros. Pictures Film Reviews 20 Issue 23, June 2012 an expensive meal at a fancy New York restaurant as he waits to see the “number one debutante” who is expected to dine there. He soon finds out the meal costs nearly five times the eight dollars he has in his pocket, and, to exacerbate his troubles, he loses Betsy’s father’s four-hundred- dollar pearl shirt stud. After Andy fails to make amends on his own, his father steps in and pays for the meal and recovers the shirt stud at the end of the film. The series repeatedly drive Andy toward failure, humiliation, and a recognition of his true state as a child, dependent on others for success. Andy simply is not allowed to succeed, at least not on his own. He repeatedly steers the plot toward bobbysoxer “crises” but must rely on others to extricate him from these same crises. At the end of Love Finds Andy Hardy, Betsy snidely compliments Andy on his helplessness, “You’ve got to be smart to get into as much trouble as Andy does!” she says to Polly, Andy’s girlfriend. Andy then thanks Betsy for her help, saying in a babyish voice, “Anybody else [who] had my troubles wouldn’t be able to figure a way out.” Of course, the joke is that he is not the one who figured the way out, though he appears to believe he masterminded it all. Only in Life Begins for Andy Hardy do we see him successfully navigate the set of obstacles he finds himself in, and this occurs only when he hocks his new car and succumbs to hunger, fainting on his boss’s office floor (after which the staff feeds him a meal). Even in this film, after reaching a pseudo-level of independence, he finds adult life too overwhelming because of the apparent suicide of a friend, the costs of living on one’s own, and the demanding expectations of his low-paying job. So he returns to his hometown of Carvel by the end of the film, gladly stepping back into the role of son, child, and household consumer. In viewing the series as a whole, Andy seems to age at a snail’s pace, rewarded when he acts as a teenager but punished or humiliated when he attempts to take on genuine responsibilities of a “man.” In two of the films in the box set, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and Life Begins for Andy Hardy, Andy suffers defeats of character pride and then career when he goes to dark and scary New York City. In Life Begins, he begins dating an older woman who works as a switchboard operator in the office where he himself is an office boy. Sophisticated and good-looking, Jenitt’s designs are not as wholesome as the small-town girls back in Carvel, we are lead to believe, when, in an early sequence, she tricks the beauty- blinded Andy into buying her an expensive bottle of perfume. Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 21 Ironically, when the films do present a single, working woman in the form of Jenitt, she is vilified. Though Jenitt lives alone and earns her own living as a humble switchboard operator in the big city, she is after much more. She is promiscuous, attempting to lure Andy to her lair when her divorce has yet to be finalized. Jenitt also uses men and their money, as when she buys a fur coat on her husband’s credit without him knowing about it. Towards the end of the film, Jenitt lures Andy into her apartment in order to seduce him. Andy follows; he appears to be eager to lose his virginity. Yet Jenitt’s self-seeking, man-manipulating ways are revealed to Andy before anything can happen and Andy has a change of heart, which allows him to retain his boyish innocence and the series to continue. Andy must not have sex now or for years to come, even if he wants to or is capable of it. No, that would be a fast and furious initiation into “manhood” and childhood would be forever lost and irretrievable. The Hardy series was determined to hold Andy in a state of suspended teenage animation. The only females deemed acceptable for him are the harmlessly girlish Polly Benedict (Ann Rutherford) and the sweet but more-of-a-sister-or-gal-pal, Betsy Booth. The makers of the Hardy series seem to play with the idea of manhood, dangling it in front of the character of Andy like a carrot never to be grasped. The films parody the very concept of masculinity (though inadvertently), just as they mock and humiliate Andy in his pursuit of it. Andy never really achieves maturity or reaches his idea of manhood, unless one counts the forgettable Andy Hardy Comes Home reunion-style picture from 1958. Even in Life Begins, a film that allows him to experience some autonomy in New York, Andy eventually is pulled back down to regain his original status as a dependent. In fact, the film’s ending echoes this ongoing dilemma of Andy as an adolescent who wants to be a man but is trapped in a series that continually draws him back home to mother. At least Andy’s entrapment in adolescence is made more palatable by the inclusion of tender scenes that would later become obligatory rite-of - passage rituals in family movies and television sitcoms: the father-son talk. Andy typically finds himself in a mess and goes to have a “man to man talk” with his father, who straightens everything out or threatens the appropriate punishment (such as a weekly allotment taken from Andy’s allowance—like in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante) by the end of the discussion. Of course the “man to man talk” is an amusing cover for what is really going on; it is an unspoken agreement which allows Andy to be Film Reviews 22 Issue 23, June 2012 open in revealing his current catastrophe and, in turn, makes Dad promise to deal with him honestly and fairly—as he would with another man. But Andy would not have needed the man-to-man talk if he had truly been a “man” and acted responsibly in the various situations that lead him to assume the hot seat before his father. The “man to man talk” is really a wink at the audience, who realize that is precisely the opposite of what is going on. Eventually, even Andy realizes this himself in Life Begins for Andy Hardy, when he says there is “a funny thing about that man-to-man business. When you’re a kid you always want to talk to your father man to man, but all of a sudden you realize that only a kid would want to do that.” Immediately after saying so, however, he goes home with his father in order to move back into his room (after his returning from the “trial” of living on his own in New York City). Andy wants to remain a kid, after all. Judge Hardy’s lectures to Andy were often eloquent statements that captured dearly held American values and respect for American institutions, as when he urges his son to retain his virginity in Life Begins for Andy Hardy by saying: “Marriage is the one happiness in the world that can be spoiled by anticipating it. Many marriages are ruined just that way.” When Andy asks for clarification, the Judge urges him to remain sexually pure and faithful to the girl he will one day marry. “How could a fellow be unfaithful to a girl he hasn’t even met yet?”, Andy asks. The judge replies: Well, it’s very easy. Why, entering into an illicit romance, you’re just inviting yourself to the habit of unfaithfulness. Infidelity is a habit all too easy to acquire, if it begins before marriage. The habit of transferring one’s affections from one girl to another is very apt to destroy the ability to bestow those same affections permanently on your wife. Though Andy dutifully follows Dad’s advice on chastity in the rest of the series, he and other teens do “play house” and pretend to be adults without performing any actual work or responsibilities. In Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary, Andy indirectly refers to Polly as his “wife” and says her “place is in the home.” While the family is in New York City in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Andy attempts to enter high society and eventually succeeds to some degree, after his father pays for the expensive meal mentioned earlier and Betsy provides the appropriate formalwear and introductions. Andy, though only sixteen or seventeen, cavorts around the city in Betsy’s family’s chauffeured towncar and attends a coming-out ball where he dances with New York’s number one debutante. Meanwhile, his Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 25 The Avengers Dir: Joss Whedon, USA, 2012 A Review by Brady Hammond, Independent Scholar The events of September 11, 2001, permanently changed the psyche of the United States. The homeland was no longer viewed as a sanctuary, but instead as a territory which needed to be defended. While Hollywood has sparingly dealt with the actual events of the day in films like World Trade Center (2006), the approach it has favored has instead been a fantastic revision of the events. Spider-Man (2002) and its sequels, for instance, met with enormous success by giving New York City a guardian that fought off the domestic threats. Other blockbusters have continued this theme of defense such as The Dark Knight (2008), and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), which both showed heroes protecting cities. The Avengers (2012) does as well, but by relocating the action to Manhattan, and presenting the destruction as the result of a foreign invasion, something with which Spider-Man did not contend. It creates a scenario that vividly recalls the events of 9/11 and the heroism that followed. Yet the film revises rather than recreates the attacks of 9/11, a process which is not unusual for Hollywood cinema. This is evident with a film like Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), which revised the trauma of the Vietnam War. It did so, however, from the vantage of Reagan-era politics (Kellner 1995: 65-67). Similarly The Avengers presents 9/11 from the perspective of the contemporary nation and its mythic identity. Specifically, it revises 9/11 by exploring American exceptionalism in relation to the partisan politics that have become the hallmark of post- 9/11 politics, suggesting that the United States needs to enter a post- partisan state. Given the record-breaking success of the film in the United States, including the largest domestic opening weekend ever at 207 million USD, it is apparent that the simultaneous exploration of these themes has struck a chord with audiences and, as a result, reveals much about the United States and its relationship to its recent history, including the War on Terror. The Avengers begins with Loki, the primary villain, coming to Earth and stealing an object which will open the doorway to another world, permitting an alien army to invade. From this introduction the film begins its first act in which the heroes, who include Iron Man, Captain America, Film Reviews 26 Issue 23, June 2012 Thor, and the Hulk, assemble. The conflict, the central theme of this part of the film, grows out of the differing personalities of the characters and the ways in which they wish to reclaim the stolen object. The film progresses to its second act when those tensions erupt into overt hostility, making the heroes vulnerable to scheming of the villain. Eventually the heroes realize that they must work together to win, and the film subsequently enters its destructive climax in Manhattan where the Avengers suffer through an enormous onslaught, but ultimately win the day. As this brief synopsis demonstrates, much of the film focuses on the disunity of the heroes, rather than the larger alien threat. This plot structure suggests that the revision of 9/11 in the film is not based on the fear of terror, but instead is informed by the dire partisanship which has marked both the Bush and Obama presidencies. Yet even as the film espouses a post-partisan rhetoric that mends the post-9/11 political divide, it also communicates regressive notions that undermine the progressive post-partisan ideas it advocates. To understand the ways in which The Avengers does this, it is useful to first consider how the theme of partisanship is established not just in the first two acts of the film, but in the franchise itself. Each of the main heroes of The Avengers has already starred in a film solely devoted to them. This began in 2008 with the releases of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, continued in 2010 with Iron Man 2, and finished in 2011 with the Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Although The Avengers clearly works hard to ensure that viewers need not have seen any of those five movies to know what is happening, the characterizations of the heroes in those films inform the conflict of its first two acts. This is evident when the swaggering Iron Man crafted in his two films is almost immediately pitted against the duty-bound World War II veteran Captain America introduced. Yet the positioning of The Avengers as a simultaneous sequel to five films elevates the film from a simple conflict about characters who disagree to one that is enmeshed with the partisan division in the contemporary United States. The film dramatizes these political positions through its depiction of American exceptionalism. Each of the films that preceded The Avengers was part of a cycle of superhero films that became prominent after 9/11. Films in this cycle function to showcase American exceptionalism (Dittmer 2011: 115-117), the idea that the United States has a global duty and destiny to spread its Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 27 democracy-based ideology. Superman Returns (2006), for example, presents American exceptionalism which parallels the “religiously themed notions of manifest destiny” (Dittmer 2011: 121), and Iron Man shows “an icon of American technological innovation and the hierarchies of domination it permits” (Dittmer 2011: 122). In all of the films which preceded The Avengers, different types of American exceptionalism were on display from the stubborn resilience of the Incredible Hulk to selfless heroism of Thor. The first two acts of The Avengers emphasize that although America is exceptional in many ways, its exceptionalism can be the cause of disunity, rather than its solution. The narrative that emerges, then, is one where the divided Avengers realize that their strength comes through unity and that they can only win the day when they move to a post-partisan state. This realization comes at the end of the second act, after their infighting causes the death of a friend and nearly costs the Avengers their own lives. Confronted with their loss, they commandeer vehicles and travel immediately to New York City as a group. This transformation to post-partisanship is emphasized through dialogue between Iron Man and Loki where the maverick Iron Man self-identifies as part of the team. Once the film permits this re-entry into New York, they are able to defend both the physical city, and the ideals it represents. Importantly, this position of acceptance makes the boundaries of exceptionalism permeable, enabling each hero to adopt the qualities of the other heroes. Hulk, for instance, takes on the humanitarianism of Thor, and Iron Man assumes the more messianic persona of Captain America by putting the safety of the city above his own. The post-partisan ideals attached to the American exceptionalism in the film are, however, undermined through the use of divisive stereotypes. Susan Jeffords argues that 1980s action films featured white male protagonists with hard bodies which “enveloped strength, labor, determination, loyalty and courage” (Jeffords 1994: 24). It is these bodies which are on explicit display in the final act of the film. While the bodies in the film do deviate somewhat from that model—Thor is not American, Iron Man has an exoskeleton, and Black Widow is a female— the implication of their victory is that the qualities of the hard bodies of the film are symbols of a post-partisan United States. This link is strengthened through the contrast of these hard bodies with the body of Loki which is slender, lithe, and even able to create illusionary duplicates, emphasizing its insubstantial nature. While the film avoids labeling him as Film Reviews 30 Issue 23, June 2012 collection of exceptional, but separate individuals. To show the group what they are fighting for, Nick Fury presents a stack of Captain America trading cards. These cards, Fury tells them, were found in the possession of one of the SHIELD agents Loki killed. The trading cards are covered in blood and Fury explicitly states that they represent the faith that citizens of the United States have in the people who embody American exceptionalism since those exceptional individuals fight the fights that the average citizens cannot. In this way, the film directly connects American exceptionalism with the War on Terror, suggesting that the former is necessary to defend it from enemies foreign and abroad. It underscores this by having the Avengers finally realize their higher calling and assemble to repel the invasion. After they depart, however, the film reveals that Fury manufactured this evidence. In so doing, it endorses the position that the ends of patriotic defense of the homeland justify the fabrication of cause to do so. This is the very tactic used by the Bush administration in the lead up to the Iraq invasion when it presented forged documents and exaggerated evidence regarding Saddam Hussein and his supposed attempts to acquire materials of mass destruction. This parallel strengthens the connection between the film and the War on Terror even further, effectively shaping the climactic fight with the history of the post-9/11 United States. However, by setting the entire climax of the film in a Manhattan under alien attack, everything becomes indelibly linked to the events of September 11. Unlike the real 9/11, though, where heroism emerged in the aftermath of the attacks, the heroics of the Avengers, as in a film like Spider-Man, take place during the attacks and successfully protect the city. This revision to the actual events is most evident in the architecture of the city. The post-9/11 skyline of New York City is marked by the absence of the World Trade Center towers, but the skyline of the city in the film is noteworthy for the unexpected presence of the digitally inserted Stark Tower, the fictional headquarters of Iron Man. Although it is only a single building and not as tall as the Twin Towers, the connection between those and Stark Tower is strengthened through its role in the climax of the film. This is because Stark Tower is the focal point of the attacks on the city in the film, just as the World Trade Center buildings were on 9/11. Unlike the World Trade Centers, though, Stark Tower does not fall. The heroic intervention of the Avengers keeps it standing tall. What is more, while it was once emblazoned with the name “Stark,” symbolizing the self- centered and partisan nature of Iron Man at the beginning of the film, the Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 31 attacks destroy all parts of the sign save for the letter A, which simultaneously stands for Avengers and America, suggesting that the two are the same. That the film closes on the image of the building underscores its message that a post-partisan United States, while unable to avert an attack, could instead protect the country and its citizens. The power of American exceptionalism to defend and heal has been a standard trope in superhero films since 9/11, and it continues to meet with box-office success. However, as films become further removed from the events of 9/11 and the War on Terror, they must find new ways to remain relevant. The Avengers has seemingly solved this problem for itself by focusing on the partisanship which has become a prominent part of culture and politics in the United States. By dramatizing the shift to a post-partisan United States, where exceptional individuals work together for the benefit of the many, the film presents a vision of a more perfect union. Yet unlike the aisle crossing in real life which would involve voices from left, right, and center, the film skews its own message to the right, emphasizing policies and procedures which came into effect after 9/11 during the War on Terror and which often reinforced divisive partisanship. The result is a film which itself fails to cross the aisle. Yet this failure still reveals much about the current culture in the United States and the rhetorical power the themes of American exceptionalism hold, particularly when they are used as a lens through which history can be viewed. The final comments made by Nick Fury speak to this point, as he frames the Avengers not as a statement of the power of the United States, but a promise to the world and potential aggressors that, as the name of the group and the film suggest, the nation will be avenged. In essence, Fury points to the War on Terror. Since the five planned sequels to the film will build upon The Avengers, just as it did with the five films which preceded it, these films will very likely play out that promise and see the Avengers not just revise 9/11, but the culturally divisive War on Terror. For that reason the films and the franchise as a whole will continue to have great relevance to understanding contemporary culture in the United States. Bibliography Bogle, Donald (1989) Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. Expanded ed. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company Film Reviews 32 Issue 23, June 2012 Dittmer, Jason (2011) American Exceptionalism and the post-9/11 cinematic superhero boom, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29, pp. 114-130 Jeffords, Susan (1994) Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press Kellner, Douglas (1995) Media Culture: Cultural studies, identity and politics between the modern and the postmodern. New York: Routledge Filmography Captain America: The First Avenger. 2011. Dir. Joe Johnston. Marvel Studios How the Grinch Stole Christmas. 2000. Dir. Ron Howard. Universal Pictures Hulk. 2003. Dir. Ang Lee. Universal Pictures The Incredible Hulk. 2008. Dir. Louis Leterrier. Marvel Studios Iron Man. 2008. Dir. Jon Favreau. Marvel Studios Iron Man 2. 2010. Dir. Jon Favreau. Marvel Studios Little Shop of Horrors. 1986. Dir. Frank Oz. Warner Bros. Pictures Rambo: First Blood Part II. 2005. Dir. George P. Cosmatos. TriStar Pictures Shrek. 2001. Dir. Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson. DreamWorks Pictures Superman Returns. 2006. Dir. Bryan Singer. Warner Bros. Pictures Thor. 2011. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Marvel Studios Transformers: Dark of the Moon. 2011. Dir. Michael Bay. Paramount Pictures World Trade Center. 2006. Dir. Oliver Stone. Paramount Pictures Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 35 about the future of this new therapy. Much of the dramatic tension in the latter half of the film derives from the history of psychoanalysis itself as Freud grows increasingly anxious over the corruption of his methods by Jung’s exploration of a collective unconscious. This erudition emerges partly from the several sources Cronenberg adapts. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton was based on his play The Talking Cure which was itself based on John Kerr’s popular historical study A Most Dangerous Method. The film exhibits another kind of focus on language as well through its constant attention to writing, story-telling, and interpretation. Letters exchanged by Speilrein, Freud, Jung, and Jung’s wife become the source of disputes that propel each of their relationships. A great deal of the conflict between Jung and Freud is expressed through their combative interpretations of each others’ dreams. In the end, the attention to language and the moralizing of A Dangerous Method coalesce as the unwillingness or inability of the characters to compromise and collaborate on their scientific project leads to the destruction of their relationships. As a parable about several men seeking to control the bodies and life stories of others, Cronenberg’s latest work is remarkably consistent with his earlier studies of bizarre obsession. A Dangerous Method clearly demonstrates that the stereotypical Cronenberg film full of splatter and revulsion is only one branch of a three part oeuvre. To the casual film-goer, and perhaps to certain types of fan, the “Cronenberg film” means the organic and venereal horror movie with its rupturing bodies and bursting viscera. In the 1970s and 1980s Cronenberg specialized in this kind of movie, earning the moniker “Baron of Blood.” Notable examples of this type include Shivers, Rabid, Scanners, Videodrome, The Brood, and The Fly. In all of these films the body is an uncontrollable site of betrayal that no amount of virtue or right-thinking can restrain. Heads explode, abdomens erupt into vaginal VCRs, flesh grows black and oozing, and on and on in a litany of unforgettable images that explore the limits of creative make-up and effects as well as the outer realms of human fears about illness, corruption, and sanity. The moralizing in these films is sometimes quite clear, as in the STD allegory Shivers, and sometimes more opaque, as in the female hysteria of The Brood. The erudition of this first Cronenberg style may not always be as apparent, but a standout in this vein is Naked Lunch, his adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s stories which employs the body horror of his other movies in an examination of Beat drug culture. Film Reviews 36 Issue 23, June 2012 The second style is directly related to the first, and has been the mode of his more recent films, though its roots go back at least as far as the 1980s. It is like a bridge between overt body horror and the comparably more restrained A Dangerous Method. This second style has less splatter but is equally surreal and focuses much more on the mind’s relation to the body, the ways in which mental warping can manifest in struggles with physical control. This category would include The Dead Zone, Dead Ringers, A History of Violence, and perhaps Eastern Promises, which makes the cut for its handful of shocker scenes but lacks the full-blown surreality of the other films in this list. The payoff for Cronenberg fans who relish the first of his styles is still possible in these films with their gruesome moments like bizarre gynecological devices, squishy gunshot wounds, and all-nude knife fights. However, the focus of these movies is not those extreme moments, but rather the mental states that make those moments possible. All the main characters in these films attempt to live different lives more fully wholesome than the ones their disordered personalities gravitate toward. The moralizing in these movies seems, perhaps, more social, since it is society that produces the split personalities of the main characters. A Dangerous Method is a leading example of Cronenberg’s third style which is often overlooked or disparaged. In these films, the grisliness is all but eliminated in favor of an examination of minds that are struggling with themselves and the demands of bodies. This type of film would include obscure works, such as his racecar movie Fast Company and his adaptation of David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, as well as his higher-profile, schizophrenia thriller Spider. Each of these films has been seen as a kind of deviation from what Cronenberg does, or at least what he does best, and many of them have been panned. The more staid tone of A Dangerous Method has led to a widespread critical view that the new film is dull and stagey, content to showcase downplayed performances of actors in lush sitting rooms dialoguing. However, this effect works to Cronenberg’s advantage by keeping a certain wary intensity simmering throughout the film since viewers may expect everything to go haywire at any time. This expectation is part of the film’s point, since the competing demands of the characters’ desires combine with their impulses toward repression and expression to create the frothy stew that psychoanalysis serves. All of these sitting-room conversations reveal subtle pains, drives, and exaltations roiling in the unconscious but barely acknowledged on the surface. In this context, we do not need a splattered body when a cigar flick and a stifled grimace will do. Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 37 If A Dangerous Method has a limitation, it is not its lack of the shocker elements beloved by Cronenberg fans. Rather, it is its overly stylized structure that pits several psychoanalytic tropes against one another without letting the characters breathe quite enough to become full and complex. One of the highlights of the movie is Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross, a struggling psychoanalyst who comes to Jung for assistance but manages instead to convince his therapist that sex with fragile female clients is perfectly acceptable. Gross is all about gratification without regard for others, and as such he is little more than Id personified, stealing his pleasures and theorizing this hedonism. Contrasted with Cassel is Viggo Mortenson’s delicious, layered performance as Freud, constantly relishing his cheroots and sternly, jealously admonishing Jung. From behind smoke clouds savored in ways that make the viewer wonder if indeed a cigar is “just” a cigar, Freud proffers guidance to his protégé which Jung tries but fails to accept. This version of Freud as a Yahweh in a pillar of smoke fits neatly—too neatly, perhaps—into the unconscious triad as the Superego, placing strict commands upon the Ego, who is manifest as the Jung character. Michael Fassbender’s Jung is a brilliantly restrained, quietly tortured figure battered by his attractions to the Id and pricked by the demands of the Superego. As a structuring device on paper, this is all somewhat interesting, but as rendered in the film, it accentuates the staginess and the contrivances of Christopher Hampton’s stage-play upon which the screen-play is based. The character who escapes this Freudian triad is Miss Spielrein, whose virtual disappearance presents the other problem with the film’s structure. Of course, Hampton is sticking fairly closely to the historical record in having her become involved with Jung and then flourish elsewhere as a therapist married to another man. But this development in filmic terms means that Jung remains far and away the central figure of the film, the one whose ideas about therapy sound the least self- interested, the most plausible, and whose actions, though occasionally sorrowful, are never really interrogated. Jung comes off a bit too clean in the end, and Spielrein is essentially written out and left as an example of a road not taken rather than given much of a personality at the conclusion. Similarly, Freud is petty, narrow, obsessive, and altogether unable to consider other peoples’ views. Again, this version of the man may accord with the historical record, but in the film the shallowness of Freud undercuts the dramatic tension in scenes where he and Jung argue about their differing beliefs. Jung is too much the hero and Freud’s views are not given enough nuance to seem plausible. Film Reviews 40 Issue 23, June 2012 hidden past is disclosed in a long dialogue sequence with his daughter. Ciarán Hinds’s facial and bodily expressions make the protagonist’s strong emotions tangible. His attention to detail underlines the character’s inner turmoil, revealing its remorse and the fear resulting from it. Performance becomes the signifier of the protagonist’s state of mind and his inner feelings, endowing the foregrounding realist texture with unexpected depth. Humour is very clearly utilised to enrich the characters, exploring the psychological dimension in an entertaining way. Throughout the film Paddy is shown to be a witty man who cannot resist an ironic remark at the social security office when he is asked if he has worked during the last few months. The scene with the horse rider is the most vivid and hilarious moment in the film. Its slapstick-like comedy changes the film’s pace unexpectedly after the highly emotional scene between Mary and Jim. Moreover, the humour contributes to the portrayal of a specific landscape - the County Down countryside (most of the filming was done in the village of Killough) - and the people who inhabit it. Terry George’s protagonists are warm-hearted, hospitable and quick- witted people who like to sing and make merry as at Jim’s homecoming party, for example, and in the last sequence when Jim, Paddy and their friends and family are happily reunited. The glimpses of everyday life and the humoristic moments counterbalance the idea of terror and oppression related to Northern Ireland over a long period and present more light- hearted visions of the six counties and of the social or ethical themes (e.g. unemployment, guilt) dealt with in the film. What could have been a tragic moment - the reunion of the two friends - dissolves into laughter and gives way to a new beginning. The unexpected twist avoids sentimentality and suggests that sometimes problems could be resolved easily if people are willing to talk and that misunderstandings, once revealed, can be overcome. The Shore is not a nostalgic vision of Northern Ireland like the coming-of-age films Titanic Town (UK, 1998, Roger Michell) and Mickybo and Me with which it shares a similar sense of humour. The humour and the realism, highlighting human behaviour, prevent George’s short film from generic conventions. If the real tragedy lies in the gap created between the two protagonists as a result of very personal decisions they themselves have taken, the Troubles are not absent from the story. Unlike Wild About Harry (UK/Ireland/Germany, 2000, Declan Lowney) in which the civil unrest is Film Reviews Issue 23, June 2012 41 erased from the amnesiac protagonist’s memory, The Shore refers to the Troubles, revealing through dialogue how much they have impacted on the lives of the two friends: Jim had to leave his home town because of his involvement in the Troubles; Paddy lost an arm. If politics had not intruded into everyone’s life, they would not have been separated and life would have taken another turn. The film’s story is not set in the period of the Troubles, but subtle allusions make this short cinematic narrative a highly symbolic discourse on the specific Northern Irish context. A black and white photograph of the two teenage boys cross-fades to a general view of Belfast, connecting the private with the political, the individual with the general, the past with the present. The long dialogue between Jim and his daughter is shot on top of a hill, with the two characters sitting on a bench overlooking the city below. It is another peaceful image; two individuals sharing a moment of privacy. This is the point when, surrounded by the beauty of nature, Jim starts confronting his past, talking for the first time about his Belfast childhood. The shot is very different from the standardised impressions of the Northern Irish city repeated in many films about the Troubles and reproduced in recent productions such as Five Minutes of Heaven and Fifty Dead Men Walking (UK/Canada, 2009, Kari Skogland). There are none of the usual rows of (rundown) brick buildings or stretches of wasteland. The natural setting literally becomes a scene of liminality in which the present takes over the past and the universal is connected with cultural connotations. The general shot of the landscape with Belfast in the background reveals in the most discreet way the omnipresent socio- cultural context of which the individual is part. One subtle allusion to the politics underpinning everyday life in a story which is less mundane than it first appears is made in the hilarious sequence with the rider. Seeing the horse coming towards him, Paddy’s one thought is to run away. Out of breath, he soon has to give up and, on his knees and with his one hand in the air, sighs: “I surrender!” In the context of (Northern) Ireland, this exclamation has more profound implications, ironically evoking its opposite, the no-surrender motto of Ulster Protestants (Bruce, 1994: 63). Intransigence was not restricted to the loyalists however, as Marc Mulholland recalls it: “Ulster is remarkable for the tenacity of its communal divide.” (2002: 1) In The Shore, the “I surrender!” is playfully used as another comic allusion implying several meanings with regard to political and personal reconciliation. Film Reviews 42 Issue 23, June 2012 The Troubles are an ideal subject for cinematic reflections on guilt and forgiveness, misunderstandings and the very notion of secrets, the lack of communication and the idea of a past one cannot come to terms with. The refusal to talk and hardened positions on both sides made a political solution impossible for many years. George has already dramatised this situation in Some Mother’s Son (UK/Ireland, 1996), which deals with the IRA prisoners’ hunger strike in the Maze prison in 1981, denouncing both the intransigent attitude of British government representatives and Sinn Féin’s opportunism. The Shore questions the very notion of truth, showing that truth may not be the same for everybody. Jim fails to tell his vision of the truth to Paddy who in turn needs to confess what he believes the truth to be. The very notion of truth as fragile and undetermined creates another link with the political situation in Northern Ireland, reminding us how each group involved in the conflict claimed to be the guardian of the one and only truth. In contrast, The Shore’s protagonists are able to resolve conflict through dialogue. It is through dialogue that Jim and Paddy escape the vicious circle of silence which separates them. Although it is Pat, the representative of a younger generation, on her first visit to Belfast, who convinces her reluctant father to face his deep-rooted fears after twenty-five years of silence and misunderstandings. In addition, The Shore refers to social issues such as unemployment. The question of daily survival is very real for Paddy and his three friends who are less afraid of violence than they are of the law. The men’s lives are very frustrating because the daily catch is far from satisfying as Paddy complains when coming home. It is clear that Paddy’s difficult economic situation is a direct consequence of the Troubles which have made him their innocent victim. Jim remembers young Paddy as an excellent apprentice carpenter who was shot and lost his arm when he was an innocent bystander. The terror topic is still looming large in the British and Irish consciousness as shown by productions such as Omagh (Ireland/UK, 2004, Pete Travis) or Mickybo and Me and more recently in Five Minutes of Heaven, Hunger (UK, 2008, Steve McQueen) and Fifty Dead Men Walking. The mere evocation of Belfast still recalls the troubled past of the province, with sectarian violence as the thematic concern as opposed to the romanticised vision of Ireland, the bucolic Emerald Isle. George’s film alludes to stereotypes in order then to depart from them in a story full of subtle turns, revealing multiple layers of meaning. The documentary style of the filming and the naturalistic acting make it a very real experience,