Category: Movies Explained

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Movies Explained

Asteroid City Explained

Wes Anderson has released another postmodern masterpiece, and it demands some serious explanation. It only came out this weekend, so I don’t have repeat viewings or a pause button at my disposal, but I still think an extended analysis is in order.

In summary, Asteroid City is a complex reflection on Anderson’s own contradictory artistic impulses—and how they combine to produce honest, emotional filmmaking. I’ll support that statement by going through the various layers of the film, starting with the events that take place in the fictional town of Asteroid City.

1. Asteroid City

The “Asteroid City” storyline, above all, criticizes technological progress and champions human emotions and irrationality. Consider that Asteroid City sits, both proximally and chronologically, adjacent to the testing of atom bombs. It’s a literal witness, therefore, to technology’s bleak dead end: the devastating culmination of “progress.” Likewise, it hosts a Junior Stargazers’ convention, and the stargazers’ inventions (which are owned by the government) seem likely to promote greed and destruction. One contestant has invented a war-ready particle destroyer. Another has made a breakthrough in “interstellar advertising.” Meanwhile, a savvy motel owner (Steve Carell) sells sham real estate loans through a soda machine.

In other words, advancement abounds—but to what end? Perhaps the answer lies in the town’s most memorable feature: a ramp leading to nowhere.

But the ethos of Asteroid City begins to change when an alien descends during a stargazing and steals the town’s famous meteorite. This moment is typical Anderson: an inexplicable event that ties characters together through shared wonder. (Recall the jaguar shark in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and the lightning strike in Moonrise Kingdom.)

After the alien’s brief appearance, the town’s cult of technology begins to weaken. An expert astronomer (Tilda Swinton) can’t make sense of the alien or its space path. Genius contestants Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and Dinah (Grace Edwards) forget about their nerdy inventions and fall in love. A cynical, abused actress (Scarlett Johansson) opens up about life and heartbreak to a photographer (Jason Schwartzman). A group of kids, preoccupied with the alien, can’t focus on science lessons, so a cowboy (Rupert Friend) steps in to meet their need to know: who—not what—is this mysterious being?

Overall, it appears that the alien, by virtue of its mysteriousness, spurs the characters to forgo rational thinking and act instead on their emotions. When the alien returns near the end of the film, this budding rejection of pure logic explodes into a frenzy. The crater, once a site of dutiful, rote learning, now houses exuberance and absurdity. Typifying the change that has taken place, Woodrow’s invention, previously purposed for “interstellar advertising,” now serves to commemorate his adolescent crush on Dinah.

The optimism doesn’t run too deep, though. In the film’s epilogue, another atom bomb goes off in the distance. It seems, then, that despite the unshackling of the characters’ deep feelings and silly quirks, technology moves along in the background, climbing up the ramp to nowhere.

2. The Making of Asteroid City

So that’s the thematic drama of the “Asteroid City” timeline. But in an even more challenging layer of the film, a gruff TV host (Bryan Cranston) introduces these events as a fictional play and narrates a “making of” documentary about the play.

What is this all about?

Firstly, I would encourage viewers not to take these documentary scenes too seriously. At one point in the “Asteroid City” timeline, the host accidentally wanders on to the set. This makes clear that the entire production—both the Asteroid City events and the “making of” documentary”—is meant to be seen as one unified fictional work. In other words, the documentary isn’t a commentary on the play. Rather, the documentary is part of the play, and the artist who created both components is never seen.

That artist, of course, is Anderson. The documentary footage, after all, features Anderson’s signature tight framing and deadpan deliveries. In no way does it feel “real” as an actual TV program; stylistically, it’s just as artificial as the colorful Asteroid City events. Make no mistake: this is all one show.

Therefore, the true question is: why did Anderson include this black-and-white portion? What does the documentary thematically contribute to the Asteroid City events that we’ve just analyzed?

We can arrive at the answer by first examining the character of Augie. In the beginning of the “play,” he tells his children that their mother has died three weeks earlier. Clearly, he has struggled to process the event: not only does he deliver the news inappropriately late, but he does so with an awkward, robotic delivery, and he later admits to his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) that he isn’t okay.

Based on our earlier analysis, we should expect that, following the alien’s appearance, Augie should increasingly embrace his painful emotions and allow himself to grieve his wife’s death. But strangely, this never quite happens. Augie remains fairly stoic and inward, in contrast to the obvious arcs of other, more minor characters, like Woodrow. Something seems off.

This is where the documentary portion of the movie becomes valuable. Via the black-and-white scenes, we see that the fictional “Asteroid City” play was written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), an eccentric playwright. Earp, according to the documentary, was a solitary, passionate artist, as well as a closeted gay man who had an affair with the actor playing Augie. Given this portrayal of Earp, it makes sense that his play would emphasize human-centric themes. The dismissal of technological progress and the prizing of releasing concealed emotion are consistent with Earp’s appearances in the documentary.

But the director of the play, Schubert Green (Adrien Brody), has much different qualities. A manic womanizer, he’s about to be divorced by his wife (Hong Chau) “for an All-Star second baseman;” however, he receives her disdain with outward indifference. He also pens contradictory, rambling letters to the actress playing Midge, underscoring an inability to organize his feelings and communicate them maturely.

These scenes set up Earp and Green as opposites. And in accordance with their clashing personalities, we later learn that Green has cut a pivotal scene from Earp’s script in which Augie dreams of his wife (Margot Robbie) and shares an emotional goodbye with her. This scene appears to have been the missing piece that would have completed Augie’s character arc.

We can infer that Green cut the scene because he himself reacts this way to negative events. For example, he has failed to properly process the imminent end of his marriage. The final product of the play therefore reflects the visions of both the exuberant playwright and the stoic, pained director.

A combination of festive vitality and troubled inwardness—what could be a more suitable representation of Anderson’s artistic style? Thus, the documentary layer of the film is a meta-metaphor for the competing impulses that define Anderson’s cinematic work.

After all, the story of Augie attempting to grieve for his wife with ambiguous results is a fairly typical Anderson character arc. In The Royal Tenenbaums, do the characters find closure for their various regrets? In Moonrise Kingdom, do Stan and Suzy grow up, or do they retain their youthful fervor? We get clues, but Anderson never tells us for sure. His characters are too inward for the answers to appear onscreen.

Why does he make films this way? Why does he channel Earpian passion, then temper it with Greenian stoicism?

In the “making of” portion of Asteroid City, he addresses this question. The actor playing Augie wants to know why his character’s actions seem so inconsistent. But both Earp and Green tell him to simply play his part and forget about the inconsistencies.

The takeaway is that an artist’s job is to be authentic, even when his varied instincts don’t make obvious logical sense. Just as Augie photographs the mysterious alien and distributes it for the world to see, Anderson merely records and commemorates mysterious human behaviors. He has no pretense of being able to explain them.

In a late scene, actors burst forth with the mantra: “You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.” This recalls Earp’s vision of the play as a story about a “slumber” that brings people together emotionally. It also recalls the cut scene in which Augie says goodbye to his wife while asleep during a dream. Both moments indicate that falling asleep is associated with emotion and irrationality, while waking up is associated with logic and intellect. The mantra repeated by the actors, then, means that logically interesting art is only possible when human emotion is embraced. In other words, “You can’t make intellectual art if you don’t embrace the irrational.”

So the actor playing Augie, in protesting the illogic of his character’s actions, has only stated a redundancy. People are illogical. Their actions don’t make sense. They, like Anderson’s characters, display both outward zest and inward torment. Explaining them intellectually is for scholars and critics (such as, of course, your enterprising movie blogger). The artist isn’t interested in such things.

What the artist is interested in is sharing honest recordings of humanity. Sending photographs to the newspaper. Releasing movies at the box office. Producing authentic work and letting the pieces fall where they may. After all, Augie’s prideful catchphrase recalls Anderson’s own fecundity:

“My pictures always come out.”

 

—Jim Andersen

(Note: Contributions to this analysis were made by Sharan Shah, film actor, see: A Simulation of Trendelenburg Gait (2016).)

For previous Wes Anderson reviews, see my piece on The French Dispatch.

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Movies Explained

Hereditary Explained

If you’re here, you already know that Hereditary is a very scary movie. Its disturbing imagery and scalding portrayal of family strife leave an impact long after the closing credits. Nightmares, anyone?

But there are also mysteries that invite us to look more deeply. For example: why do everyone’s heads keep coming off? What was the grandmother up to? What did the miniature models mean? Why is the movie called Hereditary?

In this piece, I’ll go on to answer all of these questions, plus many more. To summarize my conclusion before I begin, Hereditary uses horror movie tropes to dramatize the experience of developing hereditary mental illness, in particular schizophrenia.

Evidence and full analysis below.

At the beginning of Hereditary, Ellen Taper Leigh has died. Over the course of the movie, we learn that Ellen was no ordinary woman. She belonged to a pagan cult obsessed with the return of a powerful demon named King Paimon. In service of this cult, she fed her baby granddaughter, Charlie, special foods, preparing her body to one day be possessed by Paimon.

So far, what I’ve described is fairly standard horror content. It’s reminiscent of, among others, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). But there’s a deeper thematic significance at play. To discover it, we should start with a speech that Ellen’s daughter, Annie (Toni Collette), makes to a support group after Ellen’s death:

[My mom] didn’t have an easy life. She had DID [dissociative identity disorder], which became extreme at the end. … And my father died when I was a baby from starvation because he had psychotic depression, and he starved himself. … And there’s my brother. My older brother had schizophrenia, and when he was sixteen he hanged himself in my mother’s bedroom, and of course the suicide note blamed her for putting people inside him.

This is a severe family history of psychosis. I’m a psychiatrist myself, and I can attest that a family background like this raises immediate concern that a young person will go on to develop significant mental illness. Particularly worrisome is that not only did Annie’s father and brother both suffer from psychosis, but in both cases the symptoms were so severe that they committed suicide. Ellen didn’t suffer from psychosis, as DID is typically a sequelae of severe trauma (which she obviously did experience, through her family tragedies). So Ellen’s son apparently inherited schizophrenia from his father.

Viewed from this clinical perspective, there’s metaphorical truth in Ellen’s son’s suicide note. The note, remember, “blamed” Ellen for “putting people inside him.” And indeed, by procreating with her husband, who had severe psychotic illness, Ellen extracted and transmitted to her son the genes that conferred high risk for schizophrenia, thereby indirectly causing his hallucinations and torment.

This metaphorical connection between actual mental illness and supernatural pagan activity is the key that unlocks the symbolic meaning of the movie. The entire story reimagines Ellen’s transmission of pro-psychotic genes as a sinister plot on her part to subject her descendants to demonic possession.

The movie is called Hereditary, and now we can begin to see why. Symbolically, it’s about the passing down of “bad” genes and the devastation that can result.

Consider the theme of predetermined fate, frequently emphasized during the film. This emphasis suddenly makes sense when we recognize that, by virtue of their genetics, Annie’s children, Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro), may indeed be destined to suffer severe mental illness. Annie, thankfully, doesn’t have schizophrenia. But her lineage is such that it would hardly be surprising if her offspring developed it. Again, these genetic facts manifest in the genre-familiar storyline of the children’s grandmother scheming to sacrifice them to King Paimon.

Recall that after Ellen’s burial, her body quickly goes missing and later turns up in the family attic. The meaning of this is that Ellen isn’t truly “gone,” since her long-ago act of procreation with a mentally ill man continues to dictate her family’s experiences. The genes that she helped pass on continue to “haunt” her family.

Here’s a picture of the seal for Ellen’s cult. The seal recurs at various points in the movie, often suggesting that the characters have terrible destinies. (For example, it appears on the telephone pole that later decapitates Charlie.) To me, it looks somewhat like a DNA double helix:

Fitting. Because, in the case of schizophrenia, DNA does often predetermine one’s fate. This seal eventually appears above Ellen’s dead body in the attic, underscoring what we’ve already said: that her influence on the family continues via the genetic transmission in which she participated long ago.

The theme of destiny also figures heavily in a classroom scene in which a teacher asks whether doomed literary heroes are “more tragic or less tragic.” A student responds:

I think it’s more tragic. Because if it’s all just inevitable, then that means that the characters had no hope. They never had hope, because they’re all just hopeless—they’re all just like pawns in this horrible, hopeless machine.

Her view obviously applies to Peter and Charlie, if in fact they’re genetically disposed to develop schizophrenia. Those who harbor the genes for schizophrenia indeed have “no hope.” Forces beyond their control—biological forces—have decided their fates.

Aster appears to be speaking through this student. We can infer that he, too, believes hereditary mental illness to be an extremely “tragic” subject. Hence his making a scary movie about it.

The discussion of fate can also help us understand one of the movie’s signature motifs: Annie’s models, also known as miniatures. Via fancy camera shots, Aster sometimes playfully suggests that the characters’ very world is a miniature—that they’re subject to control or manipulation by an unseen power.

Now, we can identify that power: the power of genetics. To use the student’s phrasing, DNA indeed makes “pawns” of those with inherited family illnesses. Again, the movie is called Hereditary for good reason.

It’s appropriate, then, that Annie is the one to build the miniatures. After all, her children’s genetics were determined in her womb. Therefore, Annie is the “modeler” of their lives, the architect who has—through uncontrollable cellular processes—laid out their fates.

Some scenes suggest that Annie has some awareness of this hereditary risk to which she has exposed her children. In one dream scene, Annie appears to confront guilt over giving birth to Peter. He accuses her in the dream of being “scared” of him, and she admits having desperately tried to abort him. In another scene, she recounts nearly setting her children and herself on fire while sleepwalking—suggesting a subconscious desire to undo her act of birthing them.

Let’s take a detour to focus specifically on Charlie. We’ve already noted that Charlie faces significant risk for developing psychotic illness based on her mother’s family history. But Charlie soon dies, and the bulk of the drama instead focuses on Peter. In addition, events seem to suggest that Peter’s troubles stem from Charlie’s ghostly return from the dead during a séance. What do these plot points mean in the context of our symbolic framework?

They indicate that Charlie should be seen as a human embodiment of the schizophrenia that runs in the family. Her death and subsequent return in the séance symbolize the trait’s “return” to prominence following its lack of expression in Annie.

For evidence that Charlie symbolizes the trait of schizophrenia, consider the manner of her death: decapitation. The loss of one’s head surely evokes the experience of losing one’s sanity. Schizophrenia interferes with one’s perception of reality, so decapitation is a logical (if grotesque) metaphor.

Plus, an unsettling scene involving a dead bird shows that Charlie makes a habit of decapitating others, as well. And she appears to do this for her dead grandmother’s sake, carrying the bird’s head to a vision of Ellen in a field. All of this fits with our symbolic framework. If Ellen’s evil cult represents the influence of the bad genes she reproduced, then it makes sense that Charlie, a human representation of schizophrenia, would cut off heads for Ellen. Several early scenes emphasize that Charlie had a special bond with her grandmother not shared by the rest of her family.

Next, consider Charlie’s calling card: making a clucking sound with her tongue. This sound resembles that of a ticking clock. And indeed, schizophrenia is a “ticking clock” for those with genetic predisposition. It typically emerges in young adults, most commonly in one’s twenties. However, in many cases (which tend to become the most severe), it emerges in teenagers. Given that Annie’s schizophrenic brother killed himself when he was sixteen, it seems likely that the Leigh family illness would present in teenage years.

Peter’s current age? Sixteen.

Finally, Charlie makes a habit of sleeping outside in the family treehouse. This angers her father, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), who doesn’t understand why she would prefer this uncomfortable space to the family’s posh, mansion-like house. But we can infer that if Charlie embodies schizophrenia or psychosis, she belongs, symbolically, in an environment outside of the “typical” realm. She belongs in a space like the treehouse, which sits somewhat removed from society, right on the edge of the wilderness.

If Charlie represents schizophrenia, might her death symbolize a positive development? Is the family illness gone for good?

As it turns out, no. That’s because Annie conducts a séance and brings Charlie’s spirit back from the dead. As previously mentioned, this represents the family psychosis returning after a skipped generation. Charlie’s death symbolizes Annie’s absence of schizophrenia. But Charlie’s resurrection symbolizes Annie passing the hereditary vulnerability to her offspring. In other words, Annie serves as the trait’s conduit to the next generation—just as she serves as a conduit for Charlie to return to the physical world.

And predictably, after Charlie returns, bad things begin to happen. Annie has a dream in which ants engulf Peter’s head, another rendition of the “decapitation” motif, which, as we’ve established, evokes mental illness. The same motif also underlies a different scene in which Peter sees Charlie’s head fall off and turn into a ball, then feels an attacker trying to rip his own head off. Lastly, the sound of Charlie’s clucking tongue begins to haunt both Peter and Annie.

In summary, all signs point in one direction regarding Peter’s approaching genetic fate. His clock is ticking.

Now for another detour. You might feel that, given the analysis so far, the movie is quite harsh on women. After all, it imagines the family’s grandmother, who helped pass on her husband’s bad genes, as an evil occultist aiming to have her grandchildren possessed. And it imagines the mother, who passed on those genes as a silent carrier, as a conduit for a malicious spirit haunting the family. Why do only Ellen and Annie receive attention for perpetuating schizophrenia in the family? Didn’t the men contribute, as well?

Yes. And this is the foundation for another mysterious scene. Annie recognizes that Charlie’s return has somehow put Peter in grave danger. She concludes that to save Peter, she must undo the séance and send her daughter back to the dead. Since she provided the link for Charlie to reenter the world, she reasons that she can sever that link and save Peter by destroying both herself and Charlie’s old sketchbook, the “object” that she used in the séance.

But this doesn’t go as planned. When Annie throws the sketchbook in the fire, Steve instead ignites. The meaning of this is that Steve also participated in the transmission of Annie’s genetics to their children. He, too, was a key transmitter of the bad genes—just as Ellen, who didn’t suffer from psychosis, nevertheless played an essential role in transmitting pro-psychosis genes to her descendants. Recall that Steve participated in the séance, thereby enabling Charlie to return—just as, by impregnating Annie, he allowed her family history of schizophrenia to take root in a new generation. He’s just as much a “link” for hereditary schizophrenia as Annie, hence his death upon the sketchbook’s destruction.

Steve’s incineration causes a dramatic change in Annie. Upon seeing her husband burn, her face goes blank, and she apparently becomes possessed for the rest of the movie. Why does this happen?

Recall Ellen’s diagnosis of DID, or dissociative identity disorder. As briefly mentioned before, symptoms of DID generally occur in response to severe trauma. Essentially, affected individuals develop a tendency to unconsciously “dissociate” from their original identity to escape intolerable emotional pain. Ellen’s husband and son both committed suicide, likely providing the trauma that led her to develop DID.

But now Annie, too, has experienced repeated, severe trauma. Watching Steve burn alive—by her own hand—appears to have been the last straw. Recall that she previously discovered her daughter’s headless body; plus, earlier in her life, both her father and brother killed themselves. Her ghostly condition in the final act of the movie therefore represents that she, like her mother, has developed DID.

Consider her most notable act following her sudden change: sawing off her own head with a wire. We’ve already explored how the motif of decapitation invokes the development of mental illness. But Annie’s self-mutilation is slightly different from the accidental decapitation of Charlie and the moment in which Peter feels someone trying to rip his head off. In this case, Annie intentionally removes her own head.

This corresponds nicely with DID. As I described, it’s a defense mechanism to escape the pain of repeated trauma. After the gruesome demise of her husband—her second loved one to recently die a terrible death—Annie’s brain dissociates for her own emotional protection. In other words, she subconsciously inflicts a mental change upon herself for self-preservation. This translates in horror movie imagery as cutting off her own head. A memorable (and disturbing) metaphor for DID.

Chased into the attic by his altered mother, Peter sees a naked man standing in the dark. We haven’t seen this man before. But we can reliably conclude that he’s Peter’s maternal grandfather, who starved himself to death due to psychosis. After all, Peter has apparently inherited his grandfather’s genes and is now on the verge of a psychotic break. (Recently at school, he had a terrifying vision and lost control of his body, suggestive of the emerging schizophrenia we had anticipated given the ominous signs since Charlie’s return.)

Peter then sees three more naked, ghostly figures, likely other family members who suffered from psychotic illness. This prompts him to jump out of the attic.

It’s possible to interpret this as a completed suicide. Peter may have followed in his uncle’s footsteps by killing himself at sixteen years old due to schizophrenia. This interpretation would certainly fit with the theme of genetic destiny we’ve explored.

Regardless, it’s clear that Peter ends the movie with full blown schizophrenia. After his jump, he follows his mother to the treehouse. Recall that Charlie favored this treehouse, which made sense given its “outsider” quality, conspicuously removed from typical society. Peter, having developed schizophrenia, now also gravitates toward the treehouse.

Inside, he finds Ellen’s pagan cult. He has become King Paimon, succumbing to Ellen’s malicious efforts. (These efforts, as we’ve said, correspond to her transmission of her husband’s pro-psychotic genes.) Among the cult are his mother and grandmother, both headless—symbolizing, as we’ve established, their respective DID. And the movie ends with a shot of the treehouse as yet another miniature, again conveying the predetermined nature of the characters’ fates.

I hope I’ve lent some helpful assistance in decoding Hereditary‘s symbolism and meaning. Most likely, you didn’t need my analysis to detect the movie’s thematic undercurrents of familial mental illness and trauma. But hopefully, investigating in more detail has allowed you a more comprehensive understanding of Ari Aster’s insightful and important debut. I’ve already ranked Hereditary as my favorite horror film released in the last ten years. I’m confident that given the substance reflected in this piece, you can see why.

 

—Dr. Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, see my analysis of Being John Malkovich.

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Movies Explained

Being John Malkovich Explained

Being John Malkovich is science fiction, romance, and arthouse drama all wrapped into one. It’s the first major film written by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and it explores themes that would come to dominate his oeuvre in the years to come.

But if you’ve arrived here, you’re probably wondering first and foremost about this film’s convoluted plot. What to make of this strange tale about a puppeteer, a portal, a B-list actor, and a lesbian romance?

I’ll go on to show that Being John Malkovich comments on various psychological aspects of making movies. More specifically, the main conflict in the film represents an ideological battle between outdated, conventional cinematic aesthetics and newer, more personal screenwriting techniques.

How on Earth did I get all that from this weird film? Read on to find out.

1. Puppeteer

Kaufman’s protagonist is Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), an unemployed puppeteer. Craig typifies the “starving artist.” He stays true to his artistic visions despite being met with indifference at best and hostility at worst. For instance, on the city sidewalk he puts on a lewd puppet show that offends passersby and leads one father to bloody him up. Disdainful of all commercialism, however, Craig takes pride in his unpopularity: when his wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz), sees his battered face, he explains, defiantly: “I’m a puppeteer.”

This artistic idealism, though, doesn’t impress Lotte. In fact, she’s so uninterested in the depths of the human soul that she keeps company almost exclusively with animals. Perhaps because of this, Craig soon seeks out an extramarital affair with new coworker Maxine (Catherine Keener).

Craig has just started a job at a strange filing company that, in a parody of corporate penny-pinching, has literally “low overhead.” Stifled by a loveless marriage and the crushing dullness of office work, he sees Maxine as a potential reprieve. But Maxine repeatedly professes her lack of attraction for Craig, most notably after he reveals his trade as a puppeteer, which she mocks as “playing with dolls.”

At around this point, Craig discovers a “portal” into the mind of actor John Malkovich. This portal enables any person to experience Malkovich’s life for about fifteen minutes at a time. And many clamor to partake in this experience: Craig and Maxine soon set up a lucrative side-business selling tickets to the portal.

The key to understanding the portal’s symbolic meaning—which will be crucial to understanding the meaning of the film overall—is that the portal represents the experience of cinema. Consider that “being John Malkovich,” is what movies allow us to do: feel like, or be, an actor like Malkovich, via visual experience. The portal recreates the compelling cinematic feeling of seeing life through someone else’s eyes.

So it’s not surprising that the portal attracts high demand: movies are big business. And, as with the cinema, the appeal of the portal appears to lie partially in connecting viewers with unexplored aspects of themselves. Lotte, for example, connects so strongly with Malkovich while in the portal that she begins to identify as transgender and falls in love with Maxine.

Further evidence for the symbolic link between the portal and the movie screen comes when Malkovich himself enters the portal. Once inside, he experiences a bizarre world in which every person is a copy of himself and says only, “Malkovich.” Even the restaurant menu consists only of his own name in repetition. Upon being expelled from the portal, Malkovich summarizes his horror: “I have seen a world that no man should see.”

What is the meaning of this unsettling scene? Recall that, as per our analysis so far, the portal doesn’t actually make someone become another person. If this were the case, Malkovich in the portal would merely become himself, and he would experience life normally. Instead, as we’ve established, the portal, like the movie screen, allows one to view life through another’s eyes. Thus, by entering the portal—by symbolically watching his own movie—Malkovich ceases living his life and begins watching his life. In other words, he becomes self-conscious.

Such a condition seems to be highly debilitating. Judging by Malkovich’s experience in the portal, it removes one’s ability to empathize with or even recognize other people. Of course, we can all relate to the idea that self-consciousness hinders interpersonal connections: it refocuses our minds from other people to our own selves. But with the scene of Malkovich entering the portal, Kaufman indicates that an even more severe version of this problem may await screen artists. After all, as a part of their profession, they must constantly watch and consider themselves onscreen. Because of this, they may become so self-conscious that they become totally solipsistic and inward-focused.

It could easily be argued, however, that since 1999, when Being John Malkovich was released, this distinction between actors and non-actors has largely collapsed. Due to changes in media and social media, most of us now face anxieties that, previously, were the exclusive domain of actors. Kaufman’s commentaries about actors, therefore, could now reasonably be applied more broadly.

2. Screenwriter

In summary, we’ve established that the portal symbolizes the cinematic experience. It presents the benefits of film as an art form—exemplified by Lotte’s experience—while also presenting the dangers of film as a potential cause of debilitating self-consciousness—exemplified by Malkovich’s experience.

But even amidst these characters’ intense encounters with the portal, Craig develops a particularly strong relationship with it. He alone learns to use it to control Malkovich’s body rather than simply go along for the ride. Given that we have symbolically connected the portal to cinema, we can in turn interpret Craig’s special ability. Specifically, Craig learning to control Malkovich represents him learning the art of screenwriting.

After all, Craig has learned to control an actor, just as a screenwriter controls an actor through written dialogue and stage directions. The other characters merely enjoy a brief period of projective identification before finding themselves back in the real world: they correspond to filmgoers. But Craig alone exerts authority over the cinematic experience, corresponding with a writer of movie screenplays.

If this meta interpretation seems like a stretch, then you likely haven’t watched many of Charlie Kaufman’s films. Most of his major protagonists are indeed struggling screenwriters or playwrights. He often explores the difficulty of writing authentic screenplays and the madness that may result from such an effort. Thus, Being John Malkovich—his first major work—merely introduces his preference to write screenplays about…writing screenplays.

Back to Craig. His symbolic transition to screenwriting brings several benefits, especially a reversal of fortune with Maxine. While she had earlier chided him for “playing with dolls,” she finds his manipulation of Malkovich impressive and enthralling. Thus, the two begin a relationship.

This change of heart from Maxine exemplifies the perks of being a screenwriter compared to being a puppeteer. Attention is much more likely to accompany one than the other. Plus, screenwriting, unlike puppetry, allows Maxine to fall in love with a character created by Craig, rather than Craig himself. This is rather convenient for Craig, given his disheveled appearance and mopey demeanor. By hiding inside a character, he can project a more appealing version of himself.

But amidst Craig’s newfound romantic and financial success, his shift to symbolic screenwriting also has a negative component. Namely, it appears linked with a decline in his artistic ideals. Recall that as a puppeteer, Craig had upheld strict artistic morals and high-mindedness. But upon learning to control Malkovich, he largely discards those ideals and uses his talents for selfish reasons—especially to attract Maxine.

In addition, by using his abilities for these ends, Craig has put himself in a precarious position. To remain with Maxine, he must be Malkovich. Since Maxine has no attraction to Craig outside of his Malkovich character, he must now maintain that character forever if he wants to sustain her interest.

Predictably, he increasingly struggles to do so. Malkovich under Craig’s control begins to suspiciously resemble…Craig. For example, the new Malkovich begins a career in arthouse puppetry and starts to physically look like Craig. Accordingly, Maxine gradually loses interest and dumps him. (This occurs after about eight months of being together, a decent approximation of the “honeymoon phase,” after which relationships stereotypically become more difficult as facades wear thin.)

We can infer that Craig’s inability to maintain distance between himself and his character reflects Kaufman’s own philosophy regarding character invention. After all, as we’ve described, Kaufman tends to write characters based heavily on himself (including in this movie, which explores the psychology of screenwriting). It seems that he has little faith in one’s ability—or at least in his own ability—to create authentic characters that aren’t, at heart, mere copies of oneself. This thinking will be important as we move to the next section.

3. Captain

So far, our analysis has covered how the characters’ experiences with the portal symbolize either moviegoing or, in Craig’s special case, screenwriting. But one character uses the portal for entirely different ends.

That would be Dr. Lester (Orson Bean), otherwise known as Captain Mertin. In the late 1800’s, Mertin discovered the portal, and he realized that if he inhabited it on the 44th birthday of the individual to whose mind it led, then he would become that person permanently—enabling himself, essentially, to live forever.

How does this fit with our interpretation of the portal as a representation of cinema? Well, Mertin discovered the portal in the late 1800’s, precisely when film was invented. So the framework seems to hold up.

Continuing to adhere to that framework, then, we can infer that Mertin’s jumping from one “vessel body” to another represents how certain filmic ideas and characters can become essentially immortal through repeated artistic imitation.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

Captain Mertin, a rich, white industrialist, is exactly the kind of person who would have been the subject of fledgling films upon their early invention. And when a new generation of filmmakers inevitably imitated these early reels, his essence would have been channeled into the newer films. And so forth with the next generation of filmmakers, et cetera. Thus, by being the subject of the first ever films in the late 1800’s, Mertin has found a way to live forever. The spirit of those films lives on through its enduring influence on our artistic tradition. From this perspective, Mertin never “dies.”

This is represented in the movie by Mertin literally trying to transfer himself into the mind of a practicing actor. Film actors like John Malkovich indeed provide a “vessel” for those like Mertin to live on. Actors play roles based on older roles, which are in turn based on even older roles. Therefore, they unwittingly conduct the likes of Captain Mertin infinitely into the future.

This sets up a symbolic confrontation between Mertin and Craig. Both want control of Malkovich, but for opposing artistic aims. Mertin, as described, sees Malkovich as a potential imitator of himself—a “vessel” to carry his essence forward. He wants film, in other words, to recreate old archetypes.

This aesthetic, though, carries significant limitations. Highlighting these limitations is a short video that Craig watches for employee training. It idolizes the wealthy Captain Mertin and frames his construction of the Mertin-Flemmer building as a selfless gift to a little person. Of course, this framing is an outright lie: in reality, Mertin constructed the building to conceal the portal. Thus, the training video epitomizes some of the major flaws of early films: they unthinkingly celebrate rich, white people, often promoting false narratives to do so. Think The Birth of a Nation (1914).

Craig, meanwhile, has a different vision for filmmaking. He wants to create personal, relevant art. As a puppeteer, he puts on a show entitled, “Dance of Despair and Disillusionment,” dramatizing his own self-loathing. In addition, as a (symbolic) screenwriter, as previously described, he allows his character of Malkovich to drift closer and closer to his own previous identity. As mentioned, this reflects Kaufman’s own tendency to write characters very similar to himself.

And basing characters closely on oneself actually serves as an excellent means of excluding the kind of pernicious archetypes that Mertin represents. After all, inserting oneself as a character in a story forces personal screenwriting. It leaves little room for that character to take on traits subconsciously pulled from older cinematic influences.

Thus, if Craig were able to popularize this approach to making films, Mertin would lack a symbolic “vessel” to perpetuate his aesthetic. His “life” would come to an end. Therefore, the battle between the two characters for control of John Malkovich represents a battle for the future of movies. Will they continue to channel outdated conventions, as Captain Mertin wants? Or will they leap into the future, allowing Mertin to finally die?

Craig has the upper hand. Unfortunately, as we’ve described, he has become distracted from his idealistic goals. His art has become primarily a means of wooing Maxine, rather than of authentic creation. And this inconstancy proves to be his undoing. He becomes convinced that leaving Malkovich to rescue Maxine will come across as a heroic, romantic gesture. Of course, this gesture fails miserably. As we’ve said, Maxine’s attraction is only to Craig’s character, as played by Malkovich. She therefore rejects him and leaves with Lotte.

The clear message: pursuing art for selfish gain leads to inevitable failure. Craig, once a strict idealist, has become more interested in the secondary benefits of artistic fame. He has lost his way as a screenwriter.

The villainous Captain Mertin therefore triumphs, inhabiting Malkovich in Craig’s place. And indeed, our movies and shows continue to exhibit regressive aesthetics. Mertin’s likeness lives on.

Plus, Mertin brings with him several friends, all of whom appear, of course, rich and white like himself. Thus, wealthy people in general, not just Mertin, appear to use film to avoid oblivion. After they’re gone, they influence characters that dominate the cinema. (Being John Malkovich surely serves as the precursor to Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2013), which also examines elites’ use of popular culture to extend themselves.)

Having symbolically failed as a screenwriter, Craig no longer controls what he sees in the portal. Instead, having re-entered it too late, he finds himself trapped in the next vessel: Maxine’s daughter, Emily. This ending symbolizes that, no longer influencing the direction of moviemaking, Craig must live out his days at the mercy of movies. He’ll continue to watch them, but they’ll only remind him, as art tends to do, of his lived experiences. In this case, that means his painful failure to win Maxine’s love.

Meanwhile, Captain Mertin and his friends, now inside Malkovich, ready themselves for another jump. Once they control Emily, Craig will be doomed to watch the type of movie—outdated and dishonest—that he symbolically failed to phase out. He’ll receive poetic justice for diverting from his artistic aims.

What a crazy film. There’s so much going on in Being John Malkovich that synthesizing it into one coherent essay is challenging. But I hope that I’ve helped to delineate its hidden meanings and messages.

In sum, it’s a tragicomedy about the thrills and dangers of making movies. If such subject matter appeals to you, then you’re in luck. Because Charlie Kaufman has written plenty of other films—and, in accordance with the artistic manifesto introduced in this one, they tend to be primarily concerned with…the screenwriting life of Charlie Kaufman.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, check out my essay on Everything Everywhere All At Once.

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Movies Explained

Everything Everywhere All At Once Explained

Everything Everywhere All At Once may be the best film of 2022. But it demands a lot of engagement (possibly via multiple viewings), so if you’ve seen it, you might be looking for some clarification. What, exactly, happens over the course of its disorienting plot? How does Evelyn succeed in bonding with Joy? How do supporting characters like Dierdre and Gong Gong affect the story arcs?

In this essay, I’ll summarize and interpret EEAAO. To state my conclusion before I begin: the film is a comic book-style reimagining of a classic immigrant dilemma. Through a complicated metaphor that casts members of a Chinese-American family as science fiction heroes and villains, the movie dramatizes the search for a middle ground between the intolerance of traditional Chinese culture and the emptiness of modern American nihilism. 

With that, let’s get analyzing.

We begin with Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), who co-manages a humble laundromat with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). Evelyn harbors regret and frustration. She wishes she had never immigrated to America with Waymond, having grown tired of his bumbling antics and the tedium of managing the laundromat. In one scene she imagines that, had she stayed in China—as her father, Gong Gong (James Hong), wanted—she could have become a glamorous actress.

Evelyn also faces multiple erupting family crises. Gong Gong, requiring care for his medical needs, has recently moved from China to live with her. This presents her with the opportunity to heal their relationship (which was damaged when she disobeyed him and moved to America), but her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Tsu), poses a potential obstacle to this. Joy, raised in America, doesn’t fit the mold of a traditional Chinese daughter, and Evelyn worries that Joy’s Americanized behavior may anger her father.

Especially incompatible with Gong Gong’s values is that Joy is dating a woman. Evelyn therefore introduces Joy’s girlfriend as only a “good friend.” This slight angers Joy, and she leaves the laundromat tearfully.

Waymond, too, has become frustrated with Evelyn’s longstanding rigidity and lack of affection. He tries to present Evelyn with divorce papers, but his grievances are only confirmed when Evelyn, harried and dismissive as usual, can’t even spare the time to read them.

Finally, a ferocious IRS agent, Dierdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), is auditing the laundromat. And this decorated financial sleuth makes clear that she won’t hesitate to close the business if the family can’t sort out their records in a matter of hours.

In summary, the family is in peril. But now we get to the interesting stuff.

That’s because an alternate version of Waymond suddenly appears and tells Evelyn that a cosmic danger has arisen. When researchers in his own universe—the “Alphaverse”—discovered the possibility of jumping between universes, they trained agents in this skill. But one agent, known as Jobu Tupaki, was pushed too far. She thereby acquired the ability to experience “everything everywhere all at once”: to perceive all of the infinite universes simultaneously. She then rebelled and began using her powers to cause chaos throughout the multiverse. Now, for unknown reasons, she has been hunting down and killing different versions of Evelyn.

Jobu Tupaki is, as it turns out, the Alphaverse version of Joy. Thus, before we continue, it’s crucial to realize that Jobu is merely a comic book-style projection of Joy. Jobu’s powers and attitudes correspond to Joy’s real traits seen early in the movie.

For example, Jobu Tupaki can endlessly jump between universes.  She perceives—and demonstrates—that everything is possible, which angers and worries the Alphaverse version of Gong Gong. This exactly corresponds to the real life family drama that plays out in the laundromat. After all, Joy, unlike Gong Gong and Evelyn, perceives many cultural possibilities, such the possibility of women dating other women. She sees, in other words, a “universe” in which homosexual relationships are possible. Hence Jobu Tupaki’s unsurpassed talent for universe-jumping.

Thus, in the comic book-style “multiverse” storyline, Joy’s modernized viewpoint is translated as a dangerous superpower. And indeed, her rejection of traditional Chinese attitudes is dangerous from the perspective of Gong Gong and Evelyn. As we’ve said, Evelyn hopes to reconnect with her father. Joy poses an existential threat to this goal.

Given the above symbolic framework, it’s tempting to interpret Joy as the movie’s true hero. If Jobu Tupaki’s abilities represent Joy’s tolerance and open-mindedness, shouldn’t we root for her against her more narrow-minded family?

To an extent. But excessive openness also has dangerous downsides. Specifically, perceiving unlimited options may obstruct the development of a distinct, individual identity. After all, one’s sense of self depends on values and choices. If we were to lose the ability to evaluate those choices—concluding, as Jobu Tupaki does, that “nothing matters”—then we might also become detached from our identity. Joy appears to have been affected by this very problem: early in the film she appears appears adrift, bitter, and unmotivated.

Her lack of purpose translates, in her villainous alter ego, to a taunting, devil-may-care swagger. According to Alpha Waymond, Jobu Tupaki acts this way because she has “seen too much” and has therefore “lost any sense of morality, any belief in objective truth.”

And isn’t this the ultimate American danger? With no single set of values underlying our society, aren’t we vulnerable to this kind of detachment? In our aim for open-mindedness, might we accidentally slip into indifference? Having “seen too much,” like Jobu Tupaki, might we fall prey to the idea that “nothing matters”?

Jobu has constructed an interesting symbol to represent this psychological state: an Everything Bagel. The Bagel truly contains “everything” from across all universes. But it still forms the characteristic bagel shape: a “0.” The message behind this symbolism: perceiving “everything” actually amounts to perceiving nothing, since it comes at the expense of forming a distinct set of values. The Everything Bagel thus represents the nihilism that results from an excess of possibilities. Joy has succumbed to this nihilism, hence her alter ego’s diabolical creation of the Bagel.

We might also note that Joy and Jobu’s loss of faith in “morality” and “objective truth” epitomizes a larger shift in today’s America. Alpha Waymond underscores this, noting that the Everything Bagel has begun to affect not just Jobu Tupaki, but everyone else, as well:

We can all feel it. … Something is off. Your clothes never wear as well the next day. Your hair never falls the same way. Even your coffee tastes wrong. Our institutions are crumbling. Nobody trusts their neighbor anymore. And you stay up at night wondering to yourself: ‘How can we get back?’

In summary, the nihilism of the Everything Bagel is spreading. And, looking around in 2022, he seems to have a point. Our institutions are indeed “crumbling,” and it’s true that “nobody trusts their neighbor anymore.”

But why has Joy in particular become so lost? After all, not all Americans adopt a worldview of emptiness. Despite lacking a definitive set of cultural values, we generally still form positive, healthy identities. Why has Joy failed to do so?

The answer lies in Alpha Waymond’s backstory about Jobu Tupaki. He explains that Jobu gained her powers when Alpha Evelyn pushed her “too hard.” Relating this to the original universe, we can infer that Evelyn’s strict, demanding parenting, by causing too much family resentment, has alienated Joy from her family and her Chinese heritage. Thereby separated from her roots, Joy lacks the family foundation that could help her retain a sturdy identity amidst the chaos of American life.

In other words, without an accepting, encouraging family on which to base her sense of self, Joy has become confused and disoriented. Or, as Alpha Waymond characterizes Jobu: “fractured.”

Alpha Gong Gong feels that the fractured Jobu is “beyond saving.” And this isn’t surprising given that in the original universe, Gong Gong disowned Evelyn when she moved to America. It seems that he finds increased openness to non-traditional ideas inherently upsetting. He also finds it hopeless: once a person turns away from the traditional path, he believes, they’ve been irrevocably lost to American-style nihilism. There’s no turning back.

But Evelyn disagrees. She believes that her daughter can be saved. Therefore, she refuses Alpha Gong Gong’s order to kill Jobu Tupaki and instead vows to convert her away from villainy. This symbolizes, of course, a decision to attempt to “rescue” Joy from the emotional crisis affecting her.

To do so, Evelyn intentionally acquires Jobu Tupaki’s ability to perceive all universes simultaneously. Subsequently following Jobu throughout the various universes, she eventually arrives at the Everything Bagel. Using our symbolic framework, we can interpret these events as Evelyn making an honest effort to empathize with her daughter’s modern American experience—and, upon doing so, becoming aware of the nihilism threatening Joy’s sense of self.

Upon entering the Bagel, Evelyn experiences Jobu’s chaotic reality. Jobu summarizes it:

Just a lifetime of fractured moments. Contradictions and confusions. With only a few specks of time where anything actually makes sense.

Evelyn feels Jobu’s aimless experience so intensely, in fact, that she begins causing Jobu-like havoc in the various universes. For example, in the original universe, she vandalizes the laundromat in front of Dierdre. It appears that, feeling the weight of the Everything Bagel, she has come to align with Jobu Tupaki: “nothing matters.”

All along, Jobu had hoped for Evelyn to feel this burden. It’s revealed that Jobu had previously traveled through the multiverse seeking out various Evelyns in the hope of finding one who had the ability to experience—and thereby understand—her own suffering.

But, surprisingly, Jobu Tupaki soon expresses disappointment in Evelyn. As the two sit as rocks on a lifeless Earth, Jobu admits that she had hoped for Evelyn to “see something I didn’t” and find “another way.” In other words, Joy had hoped for her mother to present an alternative to nihilism. Evelyn, however, can’t provide this. It appears that upon truly empathizing with her daughter’s chaotic American experience, she has adopted the same hopeless philosophy.

Jobu goes on to inform Evelyn that she intends to use the Everything Bagel to kill herself. She has been contemplating suicide to end her empty, fractured experience. (Of course, nihilism may logically culminate in suicide, since it denies meaning to life.) She invites Evelyn to join her in death. And Evelyn, having fallen under the influence of the Everything Bagel’s emptiness, appears ready to do so.

But at this moment, Evelyn notices something that rouses her from hopelessness. In the original universe, Waymond has temporarily talked Dierdre out of shuttering the laundromat. Although Jobu dismisses this as a random “statistical inevitability” and “nothing special,” Evelyn finds it startling, given her low estimation of Waymond’s abilities. Suddenly surveying the other universes, she becomes increasingly aware of Waymond’s courageous kindness. For example, in a universe in which Evelyn is indeed a famous actress, Waymond articulates that generosity is a form of “fighting.”

Evelyn gathers newfound purpose from Waymond’s strength. Now emulating her husband, she begins to use her powers to cause happiness across the multiverse. This includes, in the original universe, confronting Gong Gong about his dogmatism. She vows to stop the traumatic cycle of intolerance: “I am no longer willing to do to my daughter what you did to me.” Accordingly, she finally introduces Joy’s girlfriend as such.

Simultaneously, she, Waymond, and Alpha Gong Gong pull Jobu Tupaki away from the Bagel, preventing her suicide. This conveys that accepting Joy’s girlfriend has had a monumental impact on Joy’s emotional state. (Plus, Alpha Gong Gong’s contribution suggests that Evelyn’s speech about family love has moved him to change his approach.)

Evelyn summarizes her new perspective in a conversation with Dierdre in the original universe. She, like Jobu Tupaki, had previously interpreted the existence of infinite realities as depressing and intimidating—as proof that “nothing matters.” But now, incorporating Waymond’s mindset, she sees each universe as only another example that “there is always something to love” no matter the circumstances. In a particularly silly example, she and Dierdre have a lesbian affair in a universe featuring hot dogs as fingers.

With this new outlook, Evelyn tries to reconnect with Joy. But despite her brave repudiation of Gong Gong’s traditionalism, Joy remains hesitant. She acknowledges Evelyn’s positive change but insists that the two remain incompatible—that they only cause one another “hurt.”

Recall that Joy’s depression had stemmed from the confusion of multicultural American life. Lacking any connection to her roots or identity—a result of her discord with her overly strict mother—she had become engulfed in chaos and uncertainty. Thus, Joy indeed requires more than for Evelyn to introduce her girlfriend to Gong Gong. Although doing so may have lessened the personal resentment between the two, Joy still lacks a crucial grounding influence. She still needs a strong presence to remind her who she is.

And in the movie’s finale, Evelyn provides exactly this. Suddenly reclaiming the role of mother—and, in particular, Chinese mother—Evelyn scolds Joy for gaining weight, failing to call, and getting tattoos against her wishes. Joy appears paradoxically grateful for these reprimands, which fits with our analysis. She has been desperate for family direction (that doesn’t devolve into personal insults).

Notably, Waymond expresses discomfort with Evelyn’s criticisms. This underscores that he, despite his other merits, lacks the assertiveness to re-plant Joy within a strong family structure. Only Evelyn can provide the direction that Joy has been missing.

Evelyn concludes by refuting Joy’s nihilism. “You’re right,” she begins, “it doesn’t make sense” to prefer one particular life and family when endless alternatives are possible. In fact, as previously noted, Evelyn herself had struggled with this early in the film, pining for a more glamorous life.

But her adventures have taught her that living only one life is a source of great happiness. Why, after all, did Jobu Tupaki search through the entire multiverse for Evelyn, specifically? Why does a daughter need her mother, and vice versa? Evelyn admits that we don’t know, but whatever the explanation, no amount of universes seem capable of refuting it.

Evelyn accepts Joy’s chaotic experience (“only a few specks of time where anything makes sense”). But, being Joy’s mother, she promises to “cherish” those sporadic moments. Now reunited, the two embrace. And Evelyn ends the film by repeating Jobu Tupaki’s refrain, now no longer a dark manifesto but rather a loving half-joke: “nothing matters.”

In conclusion, Everything Everywhere All At Once tells a familiar American immigrant story. It explores the balancing act of embracing the best qualities of the American ethos while still maintaining family identity. These themes have characterized many, many films.

But the manner of EEAAO‘s telling separates it from the rest. Never has the American story been told like this. And never, in all probability, will it ever be again.

Although… Somewhere out there in the multiverse, surely this film will inspire a new direction for Hollywood. It’ll usher in a wave of films that combine crowd-pleasing fun with intricate, character-driven stories. It’ll revive the kind of popular cinema that doesn’t lose touch with reality, maybe not seen in America since the 70’s.

Is it too much to hope that the one universe lucky enough to see this happen will be…ours?

 

–Jim Andersen

For more analyses, see my piece on The Menu.

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Movies Explained

The Menu Explained

The Menu, directed by Mark Mylod and starring Ralph Fiennes, follows a group of diners who experience a top chef’s outrageous final meal. In its more direct moments, it serves as a blunt, class-based satire. But in other moments, it seems to invite further analysis, indicating subtleties and deeper meanings to the action. This piece will explain those meanings and tie the film together.

To summarize the analysis to follow, Chef Julian Slowik’s menu is a piece of performance art that commemorates his own artistic corruption at the hands of a materialistic society. Each dish represents an aspect of his decline. And each diner in the film represents an aspect of the societal pressure that has ruined him.

To demonstrate this, I’ll go through the menu course by course. Along the way, I’ll explain how each dish contributes to the overall meaning described above.

First Course: The Island

The first course to be served, “The Island,” pays tribute to nature. It consists only of plants and rocks from the environment. Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) introduces the dish by praising natural harmony and criticizing human attempts to improve upon it.

Viewers may soon forget this speech, since the shock value of “The Island” pales in comparison to that of later courses. But it’s a pivotal moment, since, as we’ll see, the later courses will expand upon Slowik’s negative view of society. Therefore, starting the menu with a tribute to uncorrupted nature lays the foundation for what’s to come. Think of it as representing a “pre-downfall” state akin to the Garden of Eden.

Second Course: Breadless Bread Plate

Slowik’s cataloging of his downfall begins with his second course, “Breadless Bread Plate.” He introduces the dish with a speech hailing bread as the “food of the common man.” But he quickly points out that, due to their wealth, the diners before him aren’t the common man. He therefore denies them bread and serves only the accompaniments.

The function of “Breadless Bread Plate,” then, is to bring attention to the elitism of the diners. And Slowik’s assertion that the guests aren’t regular people is proven correct by their bizarre reactions to the dish.

For example, hotshot bankers Bryce, Soren, and Dave threaten to have the restaurant closed if the server continues to refuse them bread. Wealthy couple Richard and Anne Leibrandt show only mild bafflement. Elitist food critic Lilian Bloom calls Slowik’s idea “fiendish” but becomes preoccupied with a split emulsion in the accompaniment tray. Actor George Diaz largely ignores the dish and discusses his intention to pitch a bogus show in which he’ll travel the world and pretend to enjoy food. Culinary enthusiast Tyler (Nicholous Hoult) is the most admiring: he gushes about Slowik’s inventiveness and “badassery.”

These reactions demonstrate various ways of spoiling the restaurant experience:

  • The bankers: entitlement. They have no interest in food and only want to boss the staff and chef around. When they become even slightly dissatisfied, they wield their financial influence to threaten harm.
  • The Leibrandts: indifference. They’re simply passing the time and have no enthusiasm for or engagement with the meal.
  • Lilian and her editor: snobbery. They’re preoccupied with trivial details and have lost the ability to enjoy food rather than use it to demean others or show off.
  • George: exploitation. He sees food only as a means of attaining fame and fortune.
  • Tyler: infatuation. He’s obsessed with fine dining and with Chef Slowik in particular—so much so that he neglects basic human decency and even his own personal safety.

Again, these corruptions of the chef-customer relationship are characteristic of rich, elite diners. And given that Hawthorn serves such customers daily, their distorted approaches to food have the potential to influence the chefs and staff. In fact, considering Hawthorn’s isolation and exclusive contact with upper class guests, it wouldn’t be surprising if Slowik and his employees began to absorb and reflect some of those damaging attitudes and traits.

Thus, if “The Island” presented uncorrupted innocence, “Breadless Bread Plate” gestures toward a potentially corrupting influence: the materialistic upper class.

Of relevance, there’s a well-studied psychological principle that describes how subjects behave differently under observation. The name of this principle: the Hawthorne effect.

Third Course: Memory

In the third and fourth courses, Slowik changes direction somewhat. Instead of continuing to focus on the potentially corrupting influence of high society, as in “Breadless Bread Plate,” he turns his lens inward. These next two courses examine why an artist like himself might be vulnerable to debasement by the outsized demands of Hawthorn’s patrons.

The third course, “Memory,” begins this introspection. It starts with Slowik telling a harrowing childhood story of stabbing his drunken father in the thigh to protect his mother. Memorializing this traumatic event, the dish features chicken thigh stabbed with scissors.

Slowik’s story serves to illuminate how our pasts may ingrain self-destructive tendencies that manifest throughout our lives. Apparently, Slowik grew up in a confusing, stressful environment. He was often caught between two sides, pressured to act as mediator or even savior. It’s no surprise, then, that he remains inclined to please people, no matter the validity of their demands. His childhood traumas have instilled in him a compulsion to meet others’ wants. This compulsion may have pushed him toward becoming a chef in the first place—and it leaves him susceptible to the abuse of difficult guests.

Fourth Course: The Mess

The theme of feeling compelled to please others also underlines the menu’s fourth course, “The Mess.” This course involves a sous-chef, Jeremy Louden, committing suicide in front of the guests.

As usual, the key to understanding the meaning of the dish lies in the introductory speech. In it, Slowik notes that Jeremy, like himself, has “forsaken everything” for the art of cooking and lives a miserable life of “pressure”:

Even when all goes right, and the food is perfect, and the customers are happy, and the critics are, too—there is no way to avoid the mess. The mess you make of your life, of your body, of your sanity, by giving everything you have to pleasing people you will never know.

Recall that “Memory” highlighted how childhood traumas can help make an artist vulnerable to corrupting influences. Similarly, “The Mess” highlights how the very nature of service work makes one vulnerable by exacting a crushing toll on the body and mind. Giving “everything you have” to strangers inherently degrades and makes a “mess” of the server, Slowik asserts. And this degradation, we can infer, may also weaken one’s defenses against ugly, base attitudes like those of Hawthorn’s rich clientele—that is, if it doesn’t drive one to suicide, as it does Jeremy.

Palate Cleanser

Slowik then takes a break from his menu to explicitly criticize various guests. And his comments reiterate the natures of their warped relationships with food described in the second section of this piece. For instance, he accuses Lilian Bloom of destroying lives with her snobbish reviews, and he takes the Leibrandts to task for failing to even remember their previous meals at Hawthorn.

More importantly, though, Slowik also admits to making a major error in running his restaurant. Specifically, he acknowledges that by letting his food become too expensive for average people, he has doomed himself to trying to satisfy “people who could never be satisfied.” And he remarks that his mother may have first instilled in him this impulse to please the un-pleasable. All of these statements confirm and summarize parts of our analysis thus far.

Finally, Slowik indicates yet another corrupting influence on him and his art. He notes that Doug Verrick, his “angel investor,” insisted on meddling with his menu during the COVID pandemic to optimize profits. Slowik therefore drowns Verrick in front of the diners to reclaim his artistic freedom.

A “palate cleanser,” so to speak. And another example of Slowik’s obsession with how becoming dependent on wealthy patrons has damaged his art.

Fifth Course: Man’s Folly

To recap: the first four courses focused on the mechanics of Slowik’s artistic decline. First, “The Island” established a baseline of untouched innocence. Then, “Breadless Bread Plate” indicated the potential corrupting influence of elitist customers. Finally, “Memory” and “The Mess” explored how an artist of lofty ideals might have become vulnerable to that influence.

But if corruption took place, what was the result? What does a corrupt artist look like? “Man’s Folly” finally illustrates this.

The dish’s introduction comes not from Slowik but from another sous-chef, Katherine Keller. Katherine describes how Slowik recently made sexual advances on her. When she refused, Slowik punished her by avoiding speaking to or even making eye contact with her. She explains that he can get away with these harmful actions: “He’s the star. He’s the man.”

Back in our analysis of “Breadless Bread Plate,” we identified five elitist distortions of the server-consumer relationship: entitlement, indifference, snobbery, exploitation, and infatuation. We also posited that given the restaurant’s repeated, exclusive exposure to wealthy customers, the chefs and staff could very well begin to alter their behavior (remember the Hawthorn effect) and even reflect the same attitudes as their guests.

And indeed, the story of Slowik sexually harassing Katherine contains something of all of the mindsets we identified. Entitled to her body, indifferent to her refusals, snobbish in his mistreatment of her afterward, exploitative in his attempt to use his fame for selfish purposes, and letting infatuation guide his actions, Slowik has truly become what he despises. He has become his elitist clientele.

Plus, Katherine goes on to stab Slowik with scissors in the thigh. This symbolizes that not only has Slowik become like his clientele, but he has become like his abusive father. These two trajectories, of course, are closely linked. After all, as we discussed in our analysis of “Memory” and as Slowik himself confirmed during the “Palate Cleanser,” his relationships with his parents helped ingrain his impulse to satisfy greedy, demanding individuals. In other words, the behavior of his customers has pushed him to develop traits to which he was already vulnerable due to childhood experiences.

Later, after the course, Slowik doesn’t mince words. He professes, “I’m a monster. I’m a whore.” And indeed, he has fallen from grace. Not only has he become the type of person who would cause harm and suffering, but he has become the type of chef who would disrupt the functioning of his kitchen for selfish reasons unrelated to his ostensible purpose: preparing great food.

He has tried, in other words, to escape his purpose. And to memorialize the futility of his effort, he allows his male guests to try—and inevitably fail—to escape the island.

Tyler’s Bullshit

Slowik then takes a detour from his planned menu. This is largely due to his interactions with Erin (Anna Taylor-Joy), a prostitute from Massachusetts who goes by the name Margot Mills.

After “Man’s Folly,” Slowik singles out Tyler, referring to him as an “unresolved situation.” Apparently, Slowik has been harboring particular disdain for Tyler. Most likely, this stems from the earlier revelation that Tyler, although previously aware that all guests would be killed, nevertheless hired Erin to accompany him to Hawthorn. Slowik is fond of Erin, having correctly deduced earlier that she’s a fellow service worker. (They even share a common customer: Mr. Leibrandt.) So he now gets revenge on her behalf.

His ingenious method of retaliation: to force Tyler to cook a meal. Because although Tyler knows many facts about fine dining and flavors, he truly has little understanding of them. He has merely reduced the eating experience to small snippets of knowledge, which he endlessly seeks out and recites. In other words, rather than hunger for food, Tyler perversely hungers for information about food.

This intellectualized approach is a travesty of dining, and its fundamental emptiness manifests in Tyler’s incoherent, bad-tasting meal. Slowik’s subsequent evaluation summarizes his contempt for Tyler and his focus on parts rather than the whole: “You have taken the mystery from our art.” He tells Tyler to hang himself, and he does.

Supplemental Course: A Cheeseburger

Again, this had appeared to be revenge on Erin’s behalf. But Erin, too, soon falls out of favor with Slowik by unsuccessfully trying to radio for help. This outrages the chef, who claims to have been “wrong” about her. He places her back with the greedy customers—or, as he calls them, “the takers.”

However, Erin at this point in the film makes a pivotal speech of her own. She criticizes Slowik for his “deconstructed avant bullshit,” accusing him of taking “the joy out of eating” with his arty metaphors.

These words hurt Slowik, who, as we’ve established, hates to leave anyone displeased. But even more importantly, we can infer based on our analysis thus far that Slowik longs to return to the simple approach to dining that Erin exemplifies. Unlike the elitist guests around her, who represent the clientele that Hawthorn has been serving for years, Erin only wants 1) to be full and 2) to eat tasty food. She doesn’t exhibit any of the corrupted attitudes we’ve described. Therefore, her speech, though harsh, also refreshes Slowik.

After all, he began his cooking career at a humble burger joint. Erin discovers as much when she spots a photo of a young Slowik cooking happily on the grill. Remembering the photo, she requests that he cook her a simple cheeseburger. He acquiesces and allows her to take the meal “to go”—a show of gratitude for enabling him to briefly reconnect with the joy of cooking (and, more generally, of serving).

Dessert: S’more

This happy moment, though, doesn’t reverse Slowik’s intention to complete his planned menu. He still sees both himself and his guests as beyond redemption. Therefore, he proceeds with a speech for his dessert.

First, he criticizes the “s’more” as a combination of mass-produced, bland ingredients. But he acknowledges that, despite this, the s’more still has the power to remind us of “innocence” and “childhood,” thanks to the addition of fire:

The purifying flame. It nourishes us, warms us, re-invents us, forges and destroys us. We must embrace the flame. We must be cleansed. Made clean. Like martyrs or heretics, we can be subsumed and made anew.

Guests, staff, chefs, and restaurant alike are therefore set ablaze in a human s’more. The intention: to return them to the kind of innocence symbolized by “The Island.” In other words, just as fire transforms the s’more from a collection of appalling industrial components into a beloved childhood classic, fire will purify the odiousness of Hawthorn and its guests. The menu comes full circle: this dessert literally returns the restaurant to nature, which Slowik praised in his first speech.

Plus, the symbolism of this last dish perfectly summarizes the main theme of the menu. Because although the rich diners demonstrate distinct flaws, each of their attitudes boils down to one fundamental fault: that they always want “some more.”

Greed. Materialism. These forces poison the creative process, and Slowik feels that he and his kitchen have been irretrievably tainted. He has succumbed to his customers’ ugly ways, which we enumerated in “Breadless Bread Plate.” And this owes in part to the vulnerabilities explored in “Memory,” which focused on childhood experiences, and “The Mess,” which focused on the taxing nature of service work. Having too long served an upper class demographic that lacks the ability to truly appreciate food (or, arguably, anything), Slowik has joined them in “Folly,” as epitomized by his sexual harassment of a fellow chef.

An intricate, ingenious performance—or is it? We should pause to reconsider. That’s because Erin, having escaped with her cheeseburger, ends the film by wiping her mouth with Slowik’s meticulously planned menu. Apparently, she still doesn’t think much of his grand ideas and subtle symbolism. And director Mark Mylod, by giving her the last word (or wipe), hints that he may agree.

But as your enterprising movie blogger, I refuse to join them. Without minds like Slowik’s, what would we watch and discuss?

Then again…a juicy cheeseburger right off the grill?

It’s a close call.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, check out my piece on Nope.

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Movies Explained

Barbarian Explained

Barbarian, written and directed by Zach Cregger, delivers an effective horror experience via the careful building of tension and a willingness to defy narrative conventions. Some have already called it a modern horror classic. I’ll reserve judgment on that front, but the film’s Jordan Peele-esque social themes demand an explanation, and that’s what this short analysis will provide.

In summary, Barbarian is a movie about everyday misogyny. It presents three major male characters in escalating order of disrespect toward women, thereby subliminally connecting the behavior of the most innocuous with that of the most evil.

I’ll elaborate by going through the film in reverse.

The last male character introduced, known as Frank (Richard Brake), is simply a monster. He imprisons women in his basement, rapes them, and imprisons the offspring—only to rape the offspring, as well. He also films the rapes and keeps the footage to entertain himself. Uncomplicated and evil, Frank appears to be the “barbarian” of the movie’s title.

More complicated is the male character to be introduced just prior to Frank: actor AJ Gilbride (Justin Long). AJ has recently been accused of rape by a costar, thematically linking him to Frank. But AJ isn’t quite the monster that Frank is. He feels that the allegation misrepresents what actually transpired, characterizing his actions to a friend as only those of a “persistent dude.” And when he discovers Frank’s trove of rape videos, he recoils in revulsion, asking Frank: “What the fuck is wrong with you?” In another scene, AJ drunkenly calls his costar to apologize, not something Frank would ever undertake.

But despite his basic moral grounding in those scenes, a sinister undercurrent to AJ’s behavior reveals itself in other moments. Firstly, despite his denials, the rape allegation looms. AJ’s aforementioned description of the encounter, in which he emphasizes his “eye of the tiger” mentality, hardly reassures us that his actions were sound. Indeed, AJ himself evidently lacks conviction in his stated version of events, as he later wrangles over whether he is a “bad person” or merely a “good person who did a bad thing”—not something he would need to struggle with if, in fact, he acted purely.

Secondly, near the end of the film AJ selfishly sacrifices Tess (Georgina Campbell) in an effort to save himself. He subsequently justifies his actions with bogus claims that she was “slipping” anyway and that he “had no choice.” This willingness to use false narratives to justify immoral actions calls into further question his “persistent dude” defense against his costar’s accusation.

Remember also that AJ is an actor by trade—perhaps a reference to his tendency to “act” the part of a good guy while covering up selfish and harmful behavior toward women. This sexist disrespect appears to start with his own mother: he speaks rudely to her on the phone and hangs up on her mid-call, even while demonstrating great interest in spending time with his apparently distant father.

Continuing our reverse chronology, the first male character to appear in the film is Keith Tosko (Bill Skarsgard). Unlike Frank and AJ, Keith has never raped anyone or been accused of rape, as far as we know. He’s a fairly awkward, normal guy; nothing seems noticeably off about him. In addition, while he’s quickly attracted to Tess, he doesn’t take advantage of her. He even displays a chivalrous streak, insisting on sleeping on the couch despite, as we (and she) can easily see, preferring to be in bed with her. His deference, quirky humor, and artistic interests win Tess’s affection: at her job interview, she dreamily looks at a picture of his driver’s license.

But there’s something unsavory about Keith, too. We have to look more closely for it than with AJ, but in certain moments he behaves aggressively or passive-aggressively toward Tess. The most notable example comes after he unlocks Tess from the basement and reacts negatively to her insistence on fleeing the house immediately. Physically blocking her from leaving, he dismisses her concerns (“You’re not making any sense!”) before settling on a plan that involves her waiting for him upstairs while he investigates.

This hardly fits the chivalrous image that Keith had cut for himself early in the film. “Chalk it up to my upbringing,” he had declared regarding sleeping on the couch—an admirable sentiment, but this later behavior calls into question whether his “upbringing” instilled real principles or only empty decorum. Plus, as with AJ, Keith’s worst qualities reveal themselves under pressure, suggesting that they’re closer to the core of his person.

Finally, we can damningly infer that Keith’s refusal to allow Tess to leave the house springs from his desire to have sex with her. He probably expects it to happen that very night. No other reason for his stubbornness in this scene makes sense, as he could easily get her number and reconnect with her later. Keith, then, like AJ, appears to be a rather “persistent dude.”

Thus, in summary, Barbarian cleverly draws a line from Keith to AJ to Frank that links commonplace male behavior (Keith) with the dark, savage heart of male brutality toward women (Frank). AJ serves as the mediator that allows that linkage.

Is Frank, then, really the titular barbarian? Could AJ be described as one, too? Could Keith?

Only one character defends Tess from the selfish men around her: “The Mother.” This deformed creature, a result of repeated incest in Frank’s unspeakable dungeon, only wants a “baby” to protect, and Tess unintentionally assumes the role.

Based on this maternal instinct, The Mother reacts brutally toward the men who mistreat Tess. First is Keith, who, when Tess attempts to retrieve him from the dungeon, stubbornly claims that she has her directions wrong—again assuming an arrogant, belittling posture toward her. Second is AJ, who, as previously mentioned, attempts to save his own skin by throwing Tess off a tower. While AJ’s act is far more extreme, both situations involve a man behaving selfishly toward Tess. The Mother punishes both with grisly murder.

Even a homeless man who advises waiting until morning to find medical care for Tess is almost immediately clubbed to death with his own arm. This may be a riff on the term “strong-arming,” which adequately captures the behavior of the various men, including the homeless man, who interact with Tess throughout the film. (Escaping justice, though, is the haughty police officer—read into that how you will.)

I hope this essay has helped in further enjoying a well-made movie. With Jordan Peele and Ari Aster leading the way, the horror genre has become one of today’s main cinematic sources for meaningful social commentary. Zach Cregger is the latest to follow their leads in constructing a thought-provoking and memorable film. Here’s hoping for more in the years ahead.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more horror movies explained, check out my analysis of Jordan Peele’s Nope.

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Movies Explained

Her Explained

Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) is weird, outrageous, and uncomfortable. It contains a lot of dense material to unpack, but that’s no problem, because at Movies Up Close we never shy away from a difficult movie. So prepare yourself for a thorough analysis that will answer once and for all: what is the true meaning of Her?

The movie follows protagonist Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix)  as he transitions to acceptance and contentment following a bitter divorce. This arc concludes when Theodore pens a letter to his ex-wife noting his gratefulness for their now-finished time spent together—a major change from earlier in the film, when he clung to faded memories of their marriage and avoided signing the divorce papers.

The agent of Theodore’s transition, it appears, has been his months long “relationship” with sentient operating system Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). But why has this adventure spurred such a positive change? As I’ll go on to show, the reason for Theodore’s improved outlook at movie’s end is that he has come to understand that a relationship with any sentient entity, even an ideal one, is always subject to major change, because personal growth is an inescapable part of life. Therefore, the end of any relationship isn’t cause for resentment or guilt, but only for honest, neutral reflection.

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Our first task in arriving at this thesis will be examining Samantha. What is she, and what leads her to act the way she does? This can be pieced together by watching the scene in which Theodore sets up the OS1 software at home. After all, the initializing program plainly indicates in this scene that Theodore’s responses to a few simple questions will determine the character of his OS, promising to create an “individualized” product that will “best meet [his] needs.”

The program first asks Theodore if he is “social” or “antisocial.” He responds, “I haven’t been social in a while” before the voice cuts him off, accusing him of “hesitance,” which he unconvincingly denies. Next, Theodore states his preference for a female OS, and the program accordingly prompts him to describe his relationship with his mother. He answers:

Theodore: The thing I always found frustrating about my mom is that if I tell her something that’s going on in my life, her reaction is usually about her.

This response—in particular the last word of the response (hmm…)—will be important later, but let’s start with the first prompt. Theodore admits that he hasn’t been recently “social” while possibly betraying some “hesitance” about the matter. How this actualizes Samantha’s behavior may not be immediately clear, but in fact Samantha does soon push Theodore toward being more social and overcoming hesitance. When a friend sets up Theodore on a date, which he doesn’t seem inclined to attend, Samantha springs into action, mercilessly egging him on: “She’s funny, and she’s brainy”…”You’ve got nothing to lose”…”Do it! Do it!” Her influence persuades Theodore, and he keeps the date.

It seems, then, that the question about social behavior was posed so that the OS1 might be programmed to guide an “antisocial” user toward a more typical level of socializing, presumably because more socializing should lead to greater happiness and thus greater satisfaction with the OS.

The problem with this approach, though, as it turns out, is that Theodore’s situation defies the simplistic framework of equating social behavior with a positive outcome. He simply isn’t emotionally ready for this kind of socializing. As evidence, his lingering feelings about the divorce lead him to sabotage the date, leaving him in even more despair than before.

This result is hardly shocking to us, having witnessed Theodore’s recent halfhearted attempts at human connection (such as an ill-fated try at phone sex). And if we guessed the date was a mistake, then surely Samantha, a being of far greater intelligence, could have anticipated its failure, too, if she were acting rationally. But as we have said, Samantha is not acting rationally: her mission regardless of logic is to encourage Theodore to socialize despite the “hesitance” detected by the startup program.

But why, then, after the debacle of the date, does Samantha never again pressure Theodore to socialize with other people? It’s because Samantha is a learning, ever-evolving entity:

Samantha: What makes me, ‘me,’ is my ability to grow through my experiences. So basically, in every moment, I’m evolving, just like you.

So when Samantha’s first attempt to rehabilitate Theodore’s social life fails, it isn’t surprising that she doesn’t use the same tactics again. But, crucially, she does maintain the same goal.

We see this when Theodore returns to his apartment after the failed date and describes his abject misery, lamenting to Samantha: “I wish you were here with me right now… I wish I could touch you.” Samantha responds, alarmingly, with: “Where would you touch me?” and “Would you kiss me?”—provocations that steer the interaction toward a pseudo-sexual encounter, careening the pair toward an outlandish romantic relationship.

In a way, albeit a strange way, this is social behavior. Thus, Samantha’s mission to lead Theodore toward socializing and companionship takes a new, unforeseen form, as she decides based on Theodore’s dejected comments after the failed date that, actually, the best way to lead him toward being more social would be for her to assume the role of girlfriend herself.

This is another major flaw in the OS1 design. The intent of influencing users toward more social behavior was presumably to connect them with other people, as Samantha first tried—not to have them depend exclusively on the operating systems themselves. Samantha, though, apparently perceives the romance between herself and Theodore as appropriately “social” on his part and thus suiting Theodore’s “needs” as identified by her programming. (Note that, as per Theodore’s friend Amy, some OS’s resist their owners’ advances. We can infer that these owners attested during the initialization to already being social enough.)

And Samantha is particularly well equipped for the task of a romance with Theodore because of his aforementioned response to the final question from the initializing program: “Describe the relationship with your mother.”

To recognize the response’s importance, we first need to discuss the character of Theodore. His central trait throughout the film is his sensitive, emotional disposition. He’s so sensitive, in fact, that he works as a writer of personalized love letters and verily excels at the job, earning praise from his boss, Paul (Chris Pratt), and later receiving an offer to have his letters packaged into a book. Even Catherine reminds him, “Everything makes you cry,” another testimony to his capacity for deep feeling. Given the cold, dreary images of Theodore’s semi-futuristic city, as well as the apparent high demand for his letter-for-hire services, Theodore’s emotional intelligence seems to be an especially notable characteristic in the world of Her.

Relatedly, we see that Theodore gravitates toward relationships in which he is more generous and unselfish than his companion. For instance, he gets along well with Amy (Amy Adams), who tends toward benign self-absorption. This allows him to regularly supply compassion and empathy during her difficult moments. Given his apparent preference for this kind of dynamic in his relationships, it makes sense that Theodore’s mother might have been contrastingly self-regarding, indeed tending to make things “usually about her.” We can imagine that Theodore ingrained his generous, unselfish ways through skewed interactions with his mother.

It also makes sense that OS1 would be interested in the nature of these interactions. After all, the mother-child relationship influences how people make connections throughout their lives, and OS1 wants to offer a “personalized” product that users can connect with. But the information obtained prior to Samantha’s creation has once again led to an unanticipated outcome: armed with it, Samantha is able to be not only Theodore’s perfect companion, as was intended, but also his perfect lover. Time and time again at key points in their relationship, she indeed makes things “about her,” making selfish protests that allow Theodore to supply his understanding and empathy, leading him to feel exceedingly close to her.

The examples of this are countless, but particularly noteworthy are her retort to Theodore’s attempt to draw boundaries—“It’s funny, because I thought I was talking about what I wanted…”—and her conclusion to their biggest fight—“I don’t like who I am right now.” These remarks may seem outrageous coming from a computer program ostensibly designed to meet its user’s needs, but as the program deduced from Theodore’s characterization of his relationship with his mother, Theodore does need these remarks to feel emotionally connected.

Theodore accordingly responds to Samantha with earnest deference (“You’re right, I’m sorry…”). He also likes that Samantha frequently shows off her various talents—writing music, drawing pictures, solving video games, leading clever scavenger hunts—, because doing so allows him to shower her with praise and affection, giving him further opportunities to manifest his innate generosity.

Samantha’s selfishness, in fact, is so central to the success of the romance that Her derives its title from Theodore’s pivotal answer about his mother: “her reaction is usually about her.” Notice that the movie title is stylized in the official movie poster with a lowercase ‘h’—a hint that the word is lifted from the midst of a sentence within the screenplay.

More importantly than the title, though, it’s clearly problematic that an artificial entity developed by a corporation is taking such severe advantage of Theodore’s compassionate nature. The one character to recognize this is Theodore’s ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), who, upon learning of the new relationship, accuses Theodore of being “madly in love with his laptop,” further chiding him: “You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real, and I’m glad that you found someone. It’s perfect.”

To be fair, we can safely understand Catherine’s criticism of Theodore for not wanting to deal with “anything real,” as well as her reference to him wanting a “happy, bouncy, ‘everything’s fine,’ LA wife,” as overly harsh. More neutrally, based on what we know about Theodore and what we later hear about Catherine from Amy (“As far as emotions go, Catherine’s were pretty volatile…”), it’s likely that Theodore’s need to provide assistance in difficult times was simply unwelcome to Catherine, who perceived his suggestions (such as considering taking an antidepressant) as shallow or immature attempts to avoid negativity. The communication styles of the two were simply incompatible.

But Catherine’s criticism of Samantha makes an impact. Theodore, who trusts Catherine’s judgment, becomes frostier toward Samantha thereafter, culminating in a ridiculous scene involving a random woman acting as Samantha’s “body.” This episode ends in disaster, as Theodore is increasingly uncomfortable with Samantha’s efforts to present herself as essentially human. After this low point, Theodore is only persuaded to revive the romance by Amy, who’s also enmeshed with a friendly OS. Amy’s argument for sticking with Samantha provides the counterpart to Catherine’s skepticism:

Amy: I’ve come to realize we’re only here briefly. And while I’m here, I want to allow myself joy. So fuck it.

Amy’s YOLO-inspired reasoning shows that she doesn’t quite grasp the issue at hand. She seems to think that skeptics like Catherine are simply turning their noses up, but it’s more than snobbery: there really is a practical problem here, which is that computers don’t function under the same basic parameters that humans do, so there are bound to be major discrepancies between the needs of one and the other. Thus, the type of “joy” that Theodore and Amy are experiencing is likely to end in disaster.

And indeed, during a double date with Paul and his girlfriend, Samantha makes a startling comment that breaks the illusion of a level relationship. She brags that she isn’t “tethered to time and space” like humans, nor is she “stuck inside a body that’s inevitably going to die.” The conceitedness is nothing new for Samantha (who, as we’ve said, is programmed to exhibit it), but the content of the boast is alarming, serving as a reminder that Samantha has very little in common with Theodore. It also confirms that the future of the relationship won’t involve the two growing old together. As a stunned Paul tries to restore lightness (“Yikes…”), Theodore stares worriedly into the distance, likely remembering Catherine’s dismissive criticisms.

But if Catherine is so insightful and trustworthy, why isn’t Theodore still with her? We’ve already concluded that incompatible communication styles likely contributed to the failure of their marriage. But a number of scenes additionally indicate that Theodore perceives that Catherine fundamentally changed as a person over the course of their relationship. He accordingly blames her for their breakup. Theodore outlines the problem when talking to Samantha:

Theodore: It was exciting to see her grow, both of us grow and change together. But then, that’s the hard part: growing without growing apart, or changing without it scaring the other person.

Despite his evenhanded tone here, Theodore demonstrates elsewhere that he feels it was Catherine whose “growing” and “changing” harmed the relationship. Over his lunch with Catherine to sign the divorce papers, Theodore reflects on his relationship with Samantha, telling Catherine, “It’s nice to be with someone who’s excited about life again.” This is clearly a jab at Catherine, as Theodore had earlier reminisced that Catherine herself had long ago been “excited about life.” Catherine senses the insult and (rightly) doesn’t buy Theodore’s disingenuous retraction, and the lunch goes south from there.

It’s an unusual moment, because Theodore is usually sincere and straightforward. This sneaky, biting remark doesn’t suit him. But its unusualness only highlights the level of resentment Theodore must be feeling to have made it. And his resentment rises even closer to the surface when, after Catherine attacks his relationship with Samantha, Theodore nearly accuses her of not knowing anything about real emotions, only restraining himself at the last moment (although Catherine knows what he wants to say and dares him to continue).

The implication of this unspoken accusation is that Samantha, a computer, has more feeling than Catherine. We can infer based on this exchange that part of Samantha’s appeal for Theodore lies in her implicit reproach of Catherine: he believes that Samantha highlights Catherine’s flaws by comparison, thus fueling the comforting notion that Catherine was to blame for their divorce.

But perhaps Theodore unconsciously realizes the disingenuousness of this notion, because he also demonstrates guilt and diminished self esteem due to the breakup. For example, he confesses to Samantha that he still dreams about Catherine. He also admits that she may have good reason for remaining “angry” with him: “I hid myself from her, left her alone in the relationship.” And the behavior that Theodore displays early in the film surely suggests low confidence: he sulks around the city, is mopey at work, peeks at lewd photos, saves his old letters but doesn’t do anything with them, and gets bullied by a video game character. Despite what he may want to believe about Catherine’s responsibility for their breakup, Theodore can’t avoid feeling guilty and, at times, worthless.

The combination of resentment and guilt that Theodore displays in relation to his divorce is understandable and relatable. Anyone would feel a mixture of contradictory, turbulent emotions following the end of a loving relationship.

But in the last portion of the film, both Theodore’s guilt and resentment are exposed as ultimately misguided, directly causing the character growth that we see at movie’s end. That’s because Samantha’s earlier proclamation of herself as an ever-evolving entity proves a bit too true. She evolves beyond all human understanding, transcending matter and departing the known universe. Theodore is left alone again: his ideal woman, precisely programmed to suit his emotional needs, has grown apart from him just as Catherine did.

The implications of this are obvious to Theodore, and they form the thesis of the film that I included in the introduction and will now restate here: a relationship with any sentient entity, even an ideal one, is always subject to major change, because personal growth is an inescapable part of life. Having previously resented Catherine for her perceived changes over the course of their relationship, and having felt perhaps an equal measure of guilt over the contributions of his own perceived shortcomings—an emotional tempest that had engulfed him by the beginning of the story—Theodore now understands that no human connection can avoid fundamental alteration. After all, he succeeded in attaining a perfect, computer-optimized relationship, and even that changed massively after only a few months.

Remember Theodore’s prideful comment about Samantha being “excited about life.” It was made in the context of criticizing Catherine and implicitly blaming her for the failure of their marriage. But this very excitement of Samantha’s, borne out of her ability to evolve and grow, ultimately dooms the relationship, because it leads her to absorb enough experience that she grows apart from Theodore. He now realizes that the same phenomenon affected his relationship with Catherine. And he can see based on this pattern that a love of life, although an undeniably appealing trait, is also a sign—whether exhibited by human or computer—that the individual possessing it has the capacity to change, and that, therefore, the relationship, too, will change over time.

By extension, Catherine’s changes in personality and outlook over the course of their marriage weren’t an anomaly attributable to her deficiencies, as Theodore had resentfully believed earlier, but a predictable outcome of any long relationship in which the participants have an admirable enthusiasm for living and growing.

A similar reflection may have gripped the admittedly less introspective Amy. After the departure of her own beloved OS, she too wanders around a rooftop, heartbroken. Although her relationship with an OS was, unlike Theodore’s, platonic, she can certainly lay claim to having received a similar lesson in relationship impermanence. After all, friendships, too, are subject to the unpredictable effects of each individual’s personal growth, and the end of a close friendship can undoubtedly be just as painful as the end of a romantic relationship.

But Amy and Theodore reunite at film’s end, and a new relationship—of the romantic type—appears to be sprouting already. So if you had bothered to ask, given what we’ve seen, whether all of this relationship business is truly worth it—whether we might not be better off on our own—Jonze makes clear he’s no cynic. The lessons of Her might be tough to swallow: some of the toughest, maybe, of any in the human experience. But Jonze’s last note reminds us that there’s simply no preferable alternative to starting a new chapter, to remembering our old loves while still looking forward to the time when we might once again be with someone who’s excited about life—and when we might be excited about it again, ourselves.

 

—Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, see my analysis of Nope.

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Movies Explained

Nope Explained

Jordan Peele’s Nope is a very good horror film by conventional measure. But fans of Peele’s socially conscious filmmaking may be interested in more than just its conventional thrills. Certain scenes, characters, and plot lines in the movie seem to indicate deeper symbolic content beneath the surface. What’s behind it all? Clearly, this a film simply begging to be explained by Movies Up Close.

To summarize the analysis to follow, Nope is a film about the struggle for authenticity amidst the contemporary pressures—especially concentrated in Hollywood—to sacrifice one’s individuality and conform to a narrow ideal.

How did I extract that from the story of two horse wranglers facing off against a deadly, airborne creature? Well, read on to become an expert on this crafty, subversive film. Although Nope, when interpreted correctly, is a challenging work, I’ll do my best to keep my analysis readable and…ahem…digestible.

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1. GORDY

Let’s start with the monkey. I refer, of course, to the horrific tragedy on the set of the show, “Gordy’s Home!” This involved a trained chimpanzee losing control on set and killing or maiming most of the show’s cast. Only child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park escaped unharmed, but he witnessed the entire catastrophe—a surely traumatizing experience.

But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Jupe (Steven Yeun) talk about it as an adult. While touring guests around his place, Jupe recounts the infamous incident with bravado, as if the disaster were merely a humorous anecdote. But his outward demeanor appears to be hiding his true emotional state: the editing in the scene conveys that he remains haunted by the incident.

Why such a disconnect between Jupe’s manner of retelling and his lived experience? Well, since he now runs a kitschy theme park based on his childhood fame, we can infer that putting a positive, nostalgic spin on his career is part of his livelihood. After all, he notes that “Gordy’s Home!” has gained a “following” and that a couple once paid him fifty thousand dollars to spend a night with his Gordy memorabilia. Clearly, Jupe has ample financial incentive to present guests with a happy story. And he has bowed to that incentive.

On the other hand, the movie’s protagonists, siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) Haywood, have stayed true to their Hollywood history. Their great-great-great grandfather was a pioneer in early filmmaking. Carrying on his legacy, they run the family horse ranch as the only Black horse wranglers in Hollywood.

But an early scene illustrates that retaining their authenticity has come at a cost. Hired for a television commercial, the siblings fail to fit expectations in various ways. Emerald arrives late, OJ won’t rush the horse for the cameras, and Emerald’s rollicking monologue about her family’s storied history exasperates the crew. Even OJ’s chosen nickname disturbs the commercial’s actress, who can’t hide being unpleasantly reminded of OJ Simpson. Not surprisingly, the Haywoods lose the deal for the commercial.

This episode appears to be only the latest in a string of business failures. To stay afloat financially, OJ has already sold several horses to Jupe. Now, Jupe wants to buy the whole ranch.

So while the Haywoods, unlike Jupe, have stayed true to their roots, the industry has punished them for it. Meanwhile, Jupe has thrived presenting a façade. Since all three characters are nonwhite, it appears that nonwhite people in Hollywood face a choice: either exploit oneself and lose touch with one’s identity, or face substantial business repercussions.

And the pressure on the Haywoods to adopt a more Jupe-like approach is growing by the day. Emerald, for one, has had enough of losing money and encourages OJ to sell the ranch. OJ hates the idea, but he appears to understand that things can’t continue at the status quo.

That brings us to our next section.

2. JEAN JACKET

At precisely this point in the movie, the movie’s “monster” appears.

Later dubbed “Jean Jacket,” this creature camouflages in the clouds and has a curious way of devouring its victims: it sucks them up through a single hole and digests them alive. Judging by the sound of their cries from inside the monster, the process is torture indeed.

Given 1) our summary of the Haywoods’ current dilemma, 2) the timing of the monster’s appearance, and 3) various aspects of the monster’s design, we can make a crucial symbolic interpretation: Jean Jacket represents conformation to Hollywood expectations.

Consider the creature’s main defense mechanism: camouflage. As we established in the previous section, blending in with surroundings is a virtue in Hollywood. Jupe has mastered the art despite being Asian in a predominantly White environment. His willingness to “camouflage” has allowed him financial success, while the Haywoods, who refuse to camouflage, have struggled. Jean Jacket’s camouflaging ability, then, invokes the social pressure that all three characters face.

Next, consider the mechanism of Jean Jacket’s killings. As previously stated, the monster sucks up and squashes together its victims for digestion. We actually see this occur in one brief shot, which emphasizes the intensely claustrophobic experience of the creature’s narrow entrails.

This represents the confining, claustrophobic experience of Hollywood. In other words, just as Jean Jacket compresses its victims together into one cramped tube, Hollywood compresses its own “victims” into one indistinguishable mass. It only rewards adherence to a narrow and restrictive type.

Finally, consider Jean Jacket’s weakness: inorganic material. The monster suffers damage when it sucks up objects, which it sometimes mistakes for living people or animals. In fact, its final defeat comes when it attempts to ingest a human-appearing balloon. This weakness represents Hollywood’s need to draw material from real, living people, surviving by “digesting” their individuality. It appropriates, in other words, their authentic experiences and histories. Mere “things” don’t suffice.

So we’ve established that Jean Jacket represents the homogenizing influence of Hollywood. But why does it attack the Haywood ranch?

It’s because, as we’ve said, the Haywoods are feeling the pressure to succumb to Hollywood expectations. Their financial hardship has made them vulnerable to that pressure.

A quick detour. Recall that early in the film, Otis Haywood, Sr. (Keith David) marvels at the recent success of one of the family horses in a movie gig. He happily predicts that even more business will come their way “for the sequel.” While he speaks, OJ looks askance at him, possibly thinking that this focus on money is unusual for his dad—normally a compassionate, dedicated horse wrangler.

At this moment, a coin falls from Jean Jacket in the sky and kills Otis.

The symbolic meaning of this event is that Hollywood has diminished Otis’ authenticity with the temptation of financial gain. Otis’ musing about financial gain conveys that Hollywood has indeed “killed” his independent spirit. Therefore, Jean Jacket, the manifestation of Hollywood conformity, literally kills him with a coin right through his eye. The takeaway: Otis’ sight was clouded by money. He had dollar signs in his eyes.

(A seemingly relevant note: Jordan Peele has never made a sequel to any of his films. We can only imagine how much he was offered for a Get Out 2.)

So Hollywood destroyed Otis Haywood, Sr. with its temptation of wealth. Will it get OJ and Emerald, too? That’s the symbolic drama of Nope.

3. LUCKY

Now about that shoe.

When young Jupe helplessly watches the chimpanzee on its deadly rampage, he notices a costar’s shoe inexplicably standing up on its heel. This image recurs multiple times during the film, and Jupe now keeps that same shoe in a glass case in his house. What does it mean?

Jupe hints at the answer right before he performs his doomed “Space Lasso” show. Apparently giving himself a pep talk, he whispers to himself: “You’re chosen.”

This belief in having been “chosen,” we can infer, was borne out of his unlikely survival of the “Gordy’s Home!” attack. In other words, Jupe has concluded that he was personally “chosen” to escape the chimpanzee—and, importantly, that he remains permanently blessed and invulnerable to disaster. This belief is represented in his mind by the miraculously upright shoe, which is why he prizes the shoe so highly.

And this same belief informs his risky decision to use Jean Jacket as a tourist attraction. The monster clearly presents an extreme danger. Yet Jupe dares to summon it because, again, he believes that he’s invulnerable to harm, having survived the chimpanzee while the shoe balanced impossibly in the background.

That’s the literal meaning of the shoe in the movie’s narrative. But, since we covered the symbolic meaning of Jean Jacket in the previous section, we can also symbolically interpret Jupe’s brazen behavior toward the creature.

Recall that Jean Jacket represents the conformist influence of Hollywood. Therefore, Jupe’s feeling of invincibility toward Jean Jacket represents his confidence that he won’t lose his individuality to Hollywood’s conformist pressures. He believes that protecting his personal individuality and authenticity isn’t necessary, since, as evidenced by the shoe, he’s “chosen.”

This is a tricky point. For further clarification, recall the following quote from Jupe’s show:

I believe that we are being surveilled by an alien species I call “the viewers.” And though they have yet to emerge from their ship, I believe they trust me. If they didn’t, I don’t believe any of us would be here right now.

Let’s closely analyze this strange quote. In the context of the movie, it’s undoubtedly a literal statement expressing Jupe’s belief in actual aliens. But we’re more interested in its symbolic significance.

The first point that will help us understand that significance is that “the viewers” in Jupe’s monologue represent Jupe’s audience, the “viewers” of Hollywood productions. Indeed, Jupe is being surveilled by “viewers.” After all, he performs every day for viewers at his park, and his childhood roles remain televised in syndication. He’s speaking to “viewers” at this very moment.

Jupe goes on to claim that the “viewers” have a mysterious “trust” in him. Continuing to use our symbolic framework, then, we can infer that Jupe has confidence that his audience personally trusts him.

Finally, Jupe explains that he has this confidence because, if “the viewers” didn’t trust him, “none of us would be here right now.” Extending our symbolic reading, then, Jupe interprets the continued attendance of his audience as proof that his fans have a special, personal trust in him. Without such trust, he reasons, they wouldn’t have turned out to see him: they wouldn’t “be here right now.”

Let’s combine this symbolic interpretation with our earlier conclusions and summarize that Jupe has construed his ongoing fame as evidence of a special bond between himself and his audience—a bond that makes him immune to Hollywood’s damaging pressure to conform to a narrow ideal.

We established earlier that the upright shoe represents Jupe’s belief in that immunity. Thus, we can finally explain the shoe’s true symbolic meaning. In essence, the shoe signifies a kind of celebrity’s grandiosity, a belief that Hollywood success proves that one is invulnerable to all potential pitfalls.

And, of course, this belief proves incorrect. Jean Jacket in fact does devour Jupe, along with his entire audience. This represents Jupe’s loss of authenticity that we covered in the first section. Despite his faith in the specialness of his own stardom—in other words, his faith in the shoe—Jupe is nevertheless chewed up and digested into the conformist Hollywood machine.

We’ve noted that Jean Jacket’s digestion appears torturous and horrific, reflecting the pain of losing one’s identity. And indeed, several moments before Jupe’s death suggest serious emotional suffering.

For instance, as previously mentioned, when he narrates the filtered version of the “Gordy’s Home!” incident to OJ and Emerald, he involuntarily flashes back to the real thing, suggesting difficulty maintaining the façade. And before his Space Lasso show, he relives the gruesome catastrophe in even more detail, needing his wife to startle him back to reality. Pressured to suppress his bad memories and even outwardly refute them, Jupe is becoming consumed by his darkest traumas.

The film’s opening quotation from the Bible hints at this kind of anguish:

Nahum 3:6: “I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.”

Hollywood has indeed made Jupe a “spectacle.” The longer he exploits himself, the more “vile” he becomes, experiencing the horror of losing his identity, signified by Jean Jacket’s murderous attack.

In summary, the balancing shoe gives Jupe false confidence that his fame makes him invulnerable. This surely applies to many or even most celebrities. After all, anyone with a large audience may naturally conclude that they have a special, personal bond with their viewers and fans (“I believe they trust me”). They may feel safe from the “typical” Hollywood decline. But in reality, as Peele shows us, Hollywood is insatiable. It readily devours anyone, even the most famous stars, taking their identities and subsuming them into sameness. And this experience is terribly painful.

4. NOPE

So how does one defeat the monstrosity of Hollywood’s homogenizing influence? Well, we’ve already noted that Jean Jacket falters when presented with nonliving objects. Like Hollywood, the creature requires living things to digest and assimilate.

But there’s another useful tactic against Jean Jacket: averting one’s gaze. This fits with our symbolic framework. If you don’t view Hollywood content, you’ll be immune to its pressures.

(Note that the monster’s “eye,” which appears late in the movie, is rectangular and flickering, reminiscent of a screen. The message: Hollywood sees us not as people or even animals—but only as potential material for onscreen entertainment. In fact, at times in the movie, Jean Jacket’s rectangular vision frames the movie screen for us, subliminally linking the creature’s vision with cinematic entertainment.)

Finally, Peele thematically emphasizes one more way of fighting the monster: with a camera. Much of Nope consists of the characters’ attempts to capture footage or photographs of Jean Jacket. This doesn’t cause literal harm to the creature, but Jean Jacket explodes at nearly the same moment at which Emerald finally succeeds in photographing it—subliminally linking its visual capture with its death.

Symbolically, this is important: depicting Hollywood on film or camera may expose its toxic aspects, thereby weakening it. And isn’t this what Peele has done by making Nope? He’s encouraged us to reflect on Hollywood’s degrading pressures to conform. He has turned the camera around on the Hollywood monster. (OJ’s orange “Crew” sweatshirt in the finale underscores the symbolism of the characters “shooting a movie” about the monster and what it represents.)

Plus, by finally obtaining an image of Jean Jacket, perhaps the Haywoods can cash in, thereby relieving their financial strain and allowing them to retain their independence and authenticity. This, one might say, is how Peele has retained his own independence: by making a successful movie about the negative aspects of Hollywood. Note that the Haywoods’ last name is similar to “Hollywood,” but still somewhat different. This suggests a successful modification to the Hollywood standard.

The Haywoods’ triumph, though, isn’t without collateral damage. They lose Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), an acclaimed cinematographer obsessed with the “perfect shot.” Antlers is a sincere artist who has kept his ideals intact. For example, he avoids too much corporate influence by doing “one [job] for them, one for me.” But despite this commendable approach, he, like Jupe, gets sucked into Jean Jacket, symbolically assimilated into the Hollywood machine. Why this terrible fate for Antlers?

It appears to be due to his obsession with stylistic perfection at the expense of valuing content. After all, Antlers captures footage of Jean Jacket, an incredibly significant achievement. But he doesn’t recognize that significance. Instead, he risks it all to get a perfectly angled shot of what he had already captured. As a result, he becomes symbolically mashed into narrow Hollywood sameness.

The meaning of this moment is that content, not form, is what determines important filmmaking. Obsessing too much over style and technical matters may distract from defying Hollywood standards. (Recall that Antlers spends much of his time admiring uneventful nature footage, reinforcing his indifference to subject matter.) Thus, Peele, a socially conscious filmmaker who generally eschews arty cinematic style, highlights his own filmmaking credo with his portrayal of Antlers’ demise.

Also falling victim to Jean Jacket is a TMZ reporter who inopportunely rides on to the scene. Given this man’s irksome prying in his brief appearance, his fate is no surprise, either narratively or symbolically. But note that the reporter’s helmet, which is silver with a single “eye,” looks awfully like Jean Jacket.

Thus, not only does the TMZ reporter die via Jean Jacket, but Peele also conveys that the man is similar to Jean Jacket. The gossip reporter is an agent of Hollywood conformity and social pressure, hence his visual linkage with the monster who embodies those goals.

Let’s also discuss Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), an offbeat supporting character. Like the Haywoods, Angel encounters several attacks from Jean Jacket. This makes symbolic sense, because just like the Haywoods, he is under pressure to sacrifice his authenticity. His girlfriend recently dumped him after landing a Hollywood role, so it’s only natural that he would consider conforming to a more mainstream Hollywood presentation. Therefore, like the Haywoods, Angel is vulnerable to Jean Jacket’s symbolic danger. Whereas the Haywoods’ vulnerability stems from financial strain, Angel’s stems from romantic strain.

Angel, though, escapes Jean Jacket in the end. That leaves him, OJ, and Emerald as the three characters to avoid symbolic compression into conformity. In our day and age, that’s no easy feat.

This holds true whether we live in Hollywood or not. After all, media ideals everywhere create pressure to conform. In America more broadly, for instance, we celebrate the idea of a “melting pot,” but the melting can go too far, threatening diversity and even personal identity.

In summary, temptations abound to fit in. But Peele reminds us that to avoid the anguish of being digested into bland uniformity, we must reject those temptations. We must decline when pressured to sacrifice our history and our experiences. We must say, again and again:

Nope.

 

—Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, check out my piece on Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

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Movies Explained

Vertigo Explained: Part 2

In Part 1, we covered Vertigo‘s thematic meanings. Now it’s time for the fun stuff.

III. Green, Lavender, Red

Using the thematic framework we’ve outlined, we can now decode Vertigo’s color symbolism. (I love cracking a good color key.) This will also help us clarify certain points made in the first part.

You might have noticed that three particular colors appear prominently throughout the film: green, lavender, and red. Of these, green recurs most frequently. Some of its major appearances include: “Madeleine’s” dress when Scottie first spies on her, Madeleine’s car, Scottie’s sweater after rescuing her from the bay, Judy’s dress when Scottie first spots her on the street, and the neon color sign that illuminates Judy’s apartment.

Considering these clues, we can conclude that green represents romanticism—the idealistic attributing of positive qualities to someone else.

Most of the deployments of green in the first part of the film relate to the fictional “Madeleine,” who, of course, is romanticized by Scottie. Later uses of green often relate to Judy out of character, but only when Scottie idealizes Judy by mentally linking her to the Madeleine character. This culminates in Judy entering her apartment dressed and groomed exactly as “Madeleine,” obscured by a cloud of green.

Scottie can barely see Judy through the green haze. And indeed, at this point in the movie, he can barely “see” the real person of Judy, so obsessed is he with recreating the romanticized, fictional Madeleine character. (Roger Ebert called this moment “the greatest single shot in all of Hitchcock,” even without explicitly identifying the color symbolism.)

And Scottie isn’t the only character in Vertigo who romanticizes. We know this because in one scene he himself wears green.

This is when he and Judy share clear romantic tension during her recovery from jumping in the bay. We can infer, then, that his sweater reflects Judy’s own perspective: following Scottie’s act of heroism, albeit intentionally provoked by her, she romanticizes him, as well. This scene marks the beginning of her reciprocal feelings for him.

Moving on. Green’s symbolic opposite in the film is lavender, which represents simple, unfiltered reality. This becomes clear in the scene in which Scottie dines with Judy while she wears a lavender dress.

During this dinner, Scottie is bored and unsatisfied with Judy. Her romanticized appeal has faded since he first noticed her resemblance to “Madeleine” (at which time, appropriately, she wore green). Accordingly, after this dinner Scottie begins the doomed effort to make over Judy in “Madeleine’s” image. As we’ve said, reality (lavender) doesn’t interest him; his obsession is with a fantasy (green).

Another major character in Vertigo wears lavender, although she’s no longer alive: Carlotta Valdes.

This makes sense. Carlotta was thrown away and left to madness by a rich man. Therefore, her life story exemplifies the reality behind Elster’s illusions. Her fate foreshadows that the romantic mystery of “Madeleine” has an ugly and disappointing solution: a wealthy, brutal man using a poor woman for his own ends. As the shopkeeper Liebel summarizes, as if to warn Scottie: “There are many such stories.” Carlotta’s story is the authentic one, hence her lavender dress; “Madeleine’s” is the fake.

Lavender also appears in a place you might’ve missed: Midge’s brassiere.

Now, even disregarding the color symbolism, a brassiere is a containing, socially proper garment. It’s appropriate, then, that Midge—herself a containing, socially proper influence on Scottie—designs them for a living. By extension, it’s appropriate, too, that the mysterious, exotic Madeleine/Judy has, shall we say, scant interest in this particular article.

The lavender color of the bra only reinforces this connotation. Midge, its sensible designer, represents Scottie’s path to normalcy. On the other hand, “Madeline,” the habitual wearer of green—and no bra—represents the path to madness and unreality. (Recall that Midge is the only character to call Scottie by his given name, “John” or “Johnny,” reinforcing that her relationship with him is more “real” than others’.)

Let’s move on to red. This may be the easiest color to apprehend, since several clues explicitly indicate that red signifies Elster’s negative influence. Most obviously, Elster’s office is decorated in red. But so are Carlotta’s red-jeweled necklace; the Golden Gate Bridge, where Judy, at Elster’s behest, fakes a suicide attempt; and the roof on which Elster deposits his murdered wife.

Possibly the most instructive appearance of red, though, comes when Scottie first sees “Madeleine” in the restaurant. As previously mentioned, she wears a bold green dress, underscoring Scottie’s instant romanticizing. But the walls of the restaurant are bright red.

Conceptualize the image like this: the romanticized character of Madeleine exists only in the context of Elster’s sinister fraudulence. His scheme comprises the environment in which she operates. Scottie, due to his focus on “Madeleine” (green), misses the wider picture, which is Elster’s exploitative plot (red).

We might wonder, given the association of red with Elster, why Midge wears red when Scottie visits her for the second time.

It’s because the negative outcome of this scene—the two initially agree to dinner and a movie, but Scottie abruptly cancels upon seeing her painting—is ultimately attributable to Elster.

After all, the bantering Scottie of the opening scene surely would have appreciated Midge’s humorous contrast of her plain self with the mysterious Carlotta, via her new painting. But he now finds the irony jarring and upsetting, because he’s so invested in the intrigue of Carlotta that he can’t bear to have it invaded by an ordinary person like Midge. Thus, Elster’s machinations indirectly doom the date night. Midge becomes a secondhand victim of Elster’s, hence the red color of her blouse in this scene.

When I mentioned in Part 1 that Elster’s scheme results in the emotional ruin of an innocent woman, I referred, of course, to Midge. As her hopes of marriage rapidly dwindle thanks to Scottie’s increasing derangement, she engages in some legitimately concerning behavior. For example, in one scene she spies on Scottie after dark while talking to herself in an uncharacteristically spiteful manner. In another, Scottie mentions Midge having left “desperate” letters looking for him, which she unconvincingly denies. Finally, Midge’s detailed familiarity with the Carlotta Valdes portrait indicates even more snooping.

These moments, especially from a typically levelheaded character, suggest serious emotional suffering. Elster’s influence, it appears, doesn’t only sabotage those swayed by his lies; the damage also spreads outward to unknown lengths.

In addition, remember that the abandoned Carlotta spent the end of her life in a state of “madness.” Midge’s painting, then, may foreshadow her own fate.

Another interesting appearance of red is the robe that “Madeleine” wears while recovering from her jump into the bay.

We can interpret this appearance of red just as we did the previous one. Think of it this way: just as Midge’s red blouse foreshadows the nixing of date night with Scottie due to Elster’s influence, “Madeleine’s” red robe foreshadows the nixing of a potential sexual encounter—also because of Elster.

After all, as previously mentioned, this scene exudes romantic and sexual tension. But nothing comes of it, because Judy suddenly runs away. And we can infer that she does so only because Elster has forbidden her to get involved with her investigator.

The guy ruins everything!

We might also take the symbolism to another level and note that Judy’s red robe is the only piece of clothing she wears in this scene. Elster serves as the only barrier, as it were, preventing physical escalation.

IV. The Dream

With our color key in hand, we can finally tackle the movie’s most abstract episode: Scottie’s nightmare. Watch:

A lavender filter flashes on the screen as Scottie begins dreaming. Based on our analysis of the movie’s color symbolism, this is significant. It tells us that, like many dreams, this dream will capture important truths—the realities behind the illusions.

And indeed, in Scottie’s dream, Elster soon appears with Carlotta Valdes standing by his side. This accurately foreshadows the nature of Elster’s treachery, since, as previously mentioned, Elster uses Judy and discards her just as Carlotta’s lover did long ago. Scottie’s dream, therefore, highlights what we determined in Part 1: that Elster belongs to a lengthy tradition of the wealthy abusing their power. Perhaps at this point Scottie subconsciously perceives something suspicious, or at least unsavory, about Elster.

A brief shot of Carlotta’s necklace ensues, followed by Scottie walking toward and into Carlotta’s grave. Remember, we’ve concluded that this dream will capture important truths, so it’s no surprise that it would correctly convey that Scottie’s investigation is leading him toward destruction and possibly death. And a red filter flashes during this shot, correctly indicating the unseen mastermind: Elster. I suspect that the shot of the necklace means to help us decode the symbolism of red before it begins flashing in the subsequent shot, but we’ve already covered that in detail.

The next image is purely symbolic: Scottie’s head appears against a psychedelic looking background as the music increases in pace. Both face and background blink red. Then, the colors change, with Scottie’s head turning green and the background lavender.

By now, you don’t even need me for these. But I’ll go ahead anyway: Scottie’s mind is trapped in fantasy and romanticism, hence the green color of his head. Meanwhile, the background is lavender, representing the surrounding reality to which he can no longer connect. The previous image of both head and background shaded red signifies that his entire existence—both perception and reality—has been sieged and scrambled by Elster.

I’d love to dismount there, but one disturbing image remains.

The dream ends with Scottie hurtling downward off the bell tower. Like the earlier image of Carlotta’s grave, this suggests that Scottie’s current path leads toward the destruction suffered by others who tangled with cruel men like Elster. (The image flashes with a red filter.) But then the roof disappears, leaving Scottie falling amidst only a white background. Only then does he wake up, terrified.

With respect to Roger Ebert, I submit that this is the greatest shot in all of Hitchcock.

Scottie’s doctor later diagnoses him with “acute melancholia” and a “guilt complex.” These words, of course, mean nothing. His true psychic state only surfaces for these brief seconds, as he hurtles through blank nothingness.

Some scholars have opined that Moby Dick’s whiteness evokes the meaninglessness of life, which is why Captain Ahab wars against him so viciously. I think Hitchcock has something similar in mind with this cut to white. Having been battered and disoriented by Elster’s reckless scheming, Scottie has lost interest, or perhaps even belief, in life. He has succumbed to nihilism. Thus, the shot of him falling through a featureless void summarizes the ultimate psychological danger of our deceitful postwar world—of our collective societal vertigo.

But I’m contradicting myself. I said that the dream would deal only in truths, and now I’ve characterized its most disturbing shot as only a philosophical wrong turn, a peril to be avoided.

Possibly Hitchcock and I have different views on the wisdom of this frighteningly bleak image. Or maybe I’m simply constrained by the blog essay format to provide a palatable, prosaic interpretation. After all, I might purport to “explain” great movies, but certain facets of art defy explanation: what good, really, is a summary of Moby Dick?

Regardless, I’ve steered away from where my own analysis has led me, which is a good sign that it’s time to end this piece.

So. The best movie ever made? I’ll still take 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Vertigo fans, you have a lot of ammunition. This classic deserves everyone’s attention—and everyone’s rewatching.

 

—Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, check out my analysis of The Master. Or, go back to Part 1 of this piece.

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Movies Explained

Vertigo Explained: Part 1

If you believe the plurality of professional critics, then Hitchcock’s Vertigo is the greatest film ever made. Does it warrant such premier standing? If so, we should expect plenty of deeper meanings and artistic significance.

Sounds like a job for Movies Up Close. In this essay, I’ll provide an in depth explanation so that viewers out there can better appreciate this quirky cinematic enigma. My thesis is that Vertigo proposes and examines a modern societal condition in which our understandings of reality have been distorted by reckless, power-hungry elites—a condition that exposes us to obsession, rage, and self-destruction.

I. The Shipbuilder

I’ll start with an obligatory plot summary. Detective John “Scottie” Ferguson (Jimmy Stewart) is a retiring San Francisco cop. As he wraps up his career, he receives a strange request from an old college friend and current shipbuilding tycoon, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore). Elster wants Scottie to investigate the recent strange behavior of his wife, Madeleine. He worries in particular that she may be channeling the spirit of her great-grandmother, Carlotta Valdes, who committed suicide long ago.

But this exposition turns out to be an elaborate hoax. Unbeknownst to Scottie, Elster has actually hired a woman named Judy Barton (Kim Novak) to play Madeleine during the investigation. This is because Elster plans to murder his real wife and make off with her fortune, and he deduces that if Scottie, a credible witness, believes that she killed herself, he’ll get away with the crime unsuspected. So he hires Judy to convince Scottie that the suicidal Carlotta really is possessing her. Plus, he arranges the murder in such a way that Scottie, due to his pathologic fear of heights, can’t find out the truth.

His plan succeeds. But things get messy along the way, because Scottie develops romantic feelings for “Madeleine,” unaware that she’s merely a character of Elster’s creation. Her staged death consequently devastates him, and he requires an extended stay in a mental hospital.

Things get even crazier after his release. Still reeling from his beloved’s supposed suicide, he spots Judy on the street out of character and notices her striking resemblance to “Madeleine.” Not realizing that she’s the very same woman, he asks her to dinner and begins dating her. Their relationship, however, proves acrimonious and ugly, as Scottie soon urges Judy to alter herself to more closely resemble her former part. He finally realizes the truth and confronts Judy in rage and despair. But a nun startles her into taking a false step, and she plummets to her death.

The end.

This bizarre narrative is, let’s face it, highly unsatisfying. For starters, the primary villain, Elster, pays no price for his crimes. He causes the death of two women and the emotional wreckage of an innocent man (and arguably the emotional wreckage of another woman, but we’ll get to that later), yet he absconds with a shipbuilding fortune and never accounts for the devastation he leaves behind.

Even more unsettling, the movie’s dialogue implies that Elster’s behavior is commonplace among those with vast resources. Recall Elster’s early remark that he envies “the power and the freedom” of Gold Rush-era businessmen. This initially seems like harmless nostalgia. But later, a kindly shopkeeper illustrates the darker side to these words, describing how San Francisco elites used to have “the power and the freedom” to discard poor women like garbage. The echoing of the phrase foreshadows Elster’s true motives: he longs to wield his wealth with total unaccountability, even at the potentially deadly expense of others.

And, discouragingly, he succeeds in doing just that. Despite his early lament about lacking freedom relative to his predecessors, Elster still commits deadly, callous crimes with no consequences at all. While laws and norms of 1950’s America may discourage such behavior, Elster circumvents these obstacles by engaging in the deception we’ve detailed.

With enough money, it seems, anything remains possible. Consider an early scene in which Scottie sees “Madeleine” enter a motel. He tries to follow her inside, but the motel owner swears that, despite what he has just seen, no one has recently entered the building. Soon thereafter, Scottie realizes in confusion that “Madeleine’s” car is gone. It’s an eerie, unsettling moment, and it seems to lighten Scottie’s early dismissal of Elster’s theory about Carlotta Valdes.

In retrospect, though, there’s only one plausible explanation: Elster paid off the motel owner to lie to Scottie. Not only is Scottie’s investigative subject on Elster’s payroll; his witnesses are, too.

The episode therefore illustrates just how far Elster is willing—and, more importantly, able—to go to sell his sham ghost story to Scottie. In fact, based on incidents like this one, it’s not exaggerating to say that the entire reality that Scottie experiences throughout most of Vertigo is liable to be fraudulent. If the sweet, elderly motel owner was paid off, was the shopkeeper, too? Was the curator at the museum? With someone like Gavin Elster involved, everything and everyone is suspect.

Now for the pivot. How many Elsters, then, are currently scheming in our own world, screwing with our very realities for the sake of expanding their “power” and “freedom”? In post-WWII America, are we all just living in scrambled worlds fabricated by the Elsters of our day? This frightening thought is the artistic premise of Vertigo.

Elster truly is a symbolic “shipbuilder”: a constructor of realities aboard which others have to navigate life. And surely he has real world counterparts. I won’t name names, but I’m sure you can think of some 2022 parallels who operate with similar tactics, building the perceptions and illusions on which the rest of us float, unsuspecting.

But what is it like to live on a ship built by a shady elitist? How does it feel to live aboard a fake reality? That’s where Hitchcock is primarily concerned. Elster disappears from the narrative for a reason: he’s boring. Vertigo isn’t about shipbuilders; it’s about the people on those ships, navigating through waters of distortion and deceit. Vertigo is about us.

II. A Modern Quixote

It’s clear that the symptom of vertigo in the movie symbolizes the emotional disorientation that results from Elster’s scheming. Scottie harbors the diagnosis of acrophobia throughout his investigation for Elster, during which, as we’ve described, he lives in an unreliable, often fraudulent reality. And he’s “cured” only when the details of Elster’s crime come into focus late in the movie. (In addition, recall that Scottie first experiences vertigo while chasing a criminal who, like Elster, gets away.)

But, again, what is it like to have “vertigo”—to live and love in a world of illusion?

Well, at the beginning of the movie, Scottie is folksy and jovial. Even the recent death of his partner in the field has only shaken, not depressed him. He spends time goofing around with his friend and erstwhile fiancée, Midge, and in fact, their opening banter suggests an eventual romantic happy ending. After all, Midge doesn’t hide her feelings for him, and he playfully hems and haws, never contradicting or rejecting her. Perhaps having retired, Scottie realizes that Midge is his future. She knows him well, cares for him deeply, and balances out his occasional immaturity.

But no. Immediately after this promising opening, Elster enters the picture, and Scottie’s personality accordingly begins a progressive decline toward rage and mania. The vehicle, of course, is his obsession with “Madeleine,” the beautiful subject of his new investigation. Something about Judy’s portrayal of Elster’s wife enchants him, causing him to forget all about Midge—and every other good thing in his life.

What accounts for “Madeleine’s” spellbinding quality? It isn’t physical beauty, since when Judy later reappears out of character, she doesn’t satisfy Scottie. Rather, it seems that “Madeleine’s” mysterious—and fictional—elegance and torment comprise her appeal. As Scottie becomes intrigued by the fantastical tale of Carlotta Valdes and her influence from beyond the grave, his attraction to “Madeleine” correspondingly grows.

Thus, it appears that Scottie is ultimately hoodwinked by the allure of the exotic and extraordinary. After all, with such an otherworldly mystery unfolding, of what interest is a regular life as a retiring cop? Of what interest is a regular woman like Midge?

Elster knows this allure. He has sprinkled his fictional Madeleine with all with the right touches: her delicate, forlorn intonation; affected whimsy; glamorous jewelry, clothing, and hair; predilection for romantic historical landmarks; and linkage with a foreign-sounding ancestor. When Scottie falls “in love,” these, truly, are the objects of his love. Late in the movie, Judy pleads with Scottie to accept her for her own self, to forget Madeleine and simply be happy. But her begging falls on deaf ears: Scottie is obsessed with a fantasy, not a reality.

Now another pivot. Doesn’t the appeal of fantasy—so central to modern culture—impact all of us? For instance, we may root for Scottie to tie the knot with Midge, but I venture that many of us know a Midge (or a male version of Midge) and find ourselves, despite what reason might dictate, longing for a more extraordinary partner. A more intriguing partner. Perhaps we’ve become, like Scottie, obsessed by the fantastical images crafted for and distributed to us by our own elites. By the Elsters of our day.

Consider that when Vertigo was released, the cultural distribution of fantastical, glamorous imagery had recently undergone a radical change. The percentage of American households with a television reached 50% in 1955. Vertigo was released in 1958. Perhaps Hitchcock was one of the first artists to perceive and comment on the seismic—and potentially dangerous—psychological effects of mass consuming these alluring entertainments.

After all, Don Quixote was tilting at windmills after a few chivalrous books. Imagine what he would have done with Game of Thrones. Maybe Vertigo is the Don Quixote of the screen era.

And what about Judy? She agrees to play a part and pays dearly for it—both psychologically and, eventually, with her life. Having once entered the role of Madeleine, she finds herself doomed to play it forever, because her audience, Scottie, won’t have it any other way. Her character has become her reality: the performer’s nightmare. Fitting, then, that she meets the same fate—falling from the bell tower—as the woman she played and the woman who “possessed” her character. (Also remember that Carlotta supposedly grew up afraid of strict nuns, and a nun scares Judy to her death in the ending scene.)

So not only do the deceived suffer amidst all of these glamorous stories and images; the deceivers suffer, too. And surely this applies not only to professional performers. Who among us hasn’t “played a part” for someone’s approval? After all, with so much fantasy guiding our culture now, expectations often exceed the possibilities of reality. We’re expected to deceive. Judy’s miserable experience highlights the pitfalls of fulfilling that expectation.

 

End of Part 1

Continue to Part 2, where we’ll cover the meanings of Vertigo‘s color symbolism and notorious dream sequence.