The first half of this movie contains some of the most disturbing filmmaking I’ve ever seen. Movies don’t shake me often, but the gruesome and hallucinatory imagery in Hereditary’s first act stuck with me for days.
Plenty of other movies feature intense body horror, but few resonate like this one. In fact, director Ari Aster concocted visuals with similar shock value in his follow up, Midsommar (2019), but that film left little impact on me. I think the difference is that the horror of Hereditary has huge emotional weight. Every horrific event has enormous emotional significance, because every event has enormous family significance, and so many of our greatest fears involve our families. Perhaps Aster’s sum statement is how precarious our family relationships really are.
Any discussion of the greatest movie acting of the decade has to include Collette’s raging, hysterical performance here. Plenty of other critics have said the same. In a genre that often showcases up-and-coming actors, her work in Hereditary shows the impact a veteran can make.
It Follows (2014)
Another one that should go right into the horror canon, It Follows leans on a nightmarish antagonist that George Romero would be proud of. But whereas Night of the Living Dead (1968) eventually settles on the terror of numerical disadvantage, of being swarmed, director David Mitchell keeps his film planted in the peculiar, uneasy horror of that very first zombie—the one that just won’t stop.
And the horror of It Follows rests within an insightful coming of age story. The two lead characters as they enter adulthood learn to accept the permanent presence of…something. To explore what exactly would necessitate a full-length essay. But it has a lot to do with the prospect of death: the slow, marching figure behind them destined to one day close the gap.
It’s no accident that the creature is linked with sex, the activity of adulthood and the thing that creates life. Losing their virginity and now potential parents themselves, the characters of It Follows lose the protected feeling of childhood: they become aware of the always-present dangers—and the inevitable ending—of life. That’s what the creature represents. And director Mitchell effectively conveys the mood of that realization, which is, yes, part horror—but also part triumph.
Get Out (2013)
By far the most popular movie here, this one probably doesn’t need me to sell you on it. The sometimes-awkward experience of interracial dating typically supplies material for comedies. Jordan Peele had the stroke of genius to realize that it could do that and fuel a great horror flick at all once. My favorite scene: Mr. Armitage (Bradley Whitford), who spends his free time removing the cerebral cortexes of Black people, volunteering that he would have voted for Barack Obama a third time: “Best president of my lifetime.”
Cam (2018)
I came across this movie on Netflix one night with no prior knowledge of it and expected a typical Netflix production: half-baked, provocative, pointless. Upon watching it, my only question was why I hadn’t heard of it before. This is one of the best Netflix movies I’ve seen, and I recommend it to everyone.
It’s not the most ambitious film ever made, but its psychological undertones grip you. I don’t invoke his name lightly, but David Lynch is the major influence for the concept and, at times, the execution. Think Lost Highway-lite. (Okay, very lite.) There’s no Toni Collette-caliber acting in the low budget Cam. But Madeline Brewer holds steady in a legitimately strong performance as a young woman who tries to regain control of her webcam channel from a malicious, demonic imposter.
Few movies to my knowledge have seriously engaged with the bizarre, surreal experience of social media exhibitionism—an experience that, by now, most young people can relate to. This movie undertakes that engagement honestly. Sometimes the allegory is facile; sometimes it’s complex. But what better subject for a horror movie? The terror of seeing yourself on-screen and feeling no connection to what you see, of losing control of your own image—again, Lynchian preoccupations—that’s scary stuff.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Some might argue that this doesn’t belong on a list of horror films. I disagree. While raising a bratty kid usually gets comedic treatment in moviemaking, this film, like Get Out, has the guts to highlight the scary side of something long laughed at. Rosemary’s Teenager.
And more than a nightmare about parenting, We Need to Talk About Kevin functions as a convincing nightmare of suburbia in general. Persuaded to move there for the benefit of her fussy baby, Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) finds that no one in her new environment understands or even listens to her, including her husband. Everyone around her has lost themselves in the fantasy of the bucolic suburban ideal. They’re blind to all evil. Only she can see the truth, and she’s first chastised for observing it and later wrongfully blamed for it. She lives in a Twilight Zone world of illogic and ignorance.
The film tempts us with the guise of social commentary, but I don’t think it contains much of value, other than the vision of suburbia I just described. Don’t expect Bowling for Columbine. Still, with its paradoxic claustrophobia—the open space of the suburbs suffocates and destroys Eva—this is probably the darkest film on the list. Only the ending, which I won’t spoil, finally points toward goodness, and it’s a quick pointing. An unpleasant movie that I don’t plan to re-watch any time soon—but that I recommend for a unique horror experience.
The best scene in Beauty and the Beast (1991) is the prologue. Storyboarded with stained glass window panels, it introduces the spell that constitutes the premise of the movie. Watch:
Like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the source of many of Disney’s story concepts, this scene is legitimately disturbing and weird. It’s totally at odds with contemporary notions of fairness or morality, and it therefore pushes us to think a little about those notions.
For instance, it seems grossly unjust that the Prince’s servants have to share in his ghastly punishment. They have none of his flaws—one of them is only a toddler—yet arguably, their fate is even worse than his: I doubt even Belle could fall in love with a candlestick. Why have the servants been included in the spell?
It seems to me that the Enchantress wants to increase the Prince’s suffering by haunting him with poetic sensibility. We can infer that the servants’ new forms reflect how the Prince had viewed them: as mere objects for his personal use. This dark reasoning for the servants’ fate isn’t highlighted in the movie, but it almost certainly torments the Beast, who, remember, prefers to spend his time secluded in the West Wing.
It’s also possible that the Enchantress blames the servants for the Prince’s spoiling. After all, they were in a position to correct his behavior, and they failed to do so. Perhaps she aims to serve poetic justice to them: they witnessed their master’s moral defects but remained quiet, like mere furniture of the castle.
Another strange aspect of the Enchantress’s actions is that she warns the Prince that “beauty is found within” but then reveals that she is, in fact, outwardly beautiful. This only seems to reinforce that beauty is a reliable indicator of value. At most, it teaches that beauty may be initially hidden from view. So it’s not exactly surprising that the Beast later falls in love with the town’s most beautiful woman, whose name literally means “beauty:” the enchantress hasn’t really encouraged him to look beyond the surface. (She may actually value beauty quite highly, possessing it herself.)
Instead, she has used ugliness as a weapon against the Prince. Upon discovering while disguised that it particularly repulses him, she confers it on him as a curse for having “no love in his heart.” Rather than teach him to overcome his superficiality, she uses his prejudice to inflict maximum punishment for his other offenses.
Poetic justice over compassion. Humiliation over education. Dante would approve of this Enchantress.
A final curiosity of the prologue is why the Enchantress intervenes at all. This becomes especially puzzling when the film’s primary antagonist, Gaston, displays the very same characteristics as the flawed Prince but incurs no punishment whatsoever. In fact, Gaston is without a doubt the more egregious offender: whereas the conceited Prince only refuses shelter for a beggar, Gaston is so egotistical that he tries to murder the Beast and force Belle into, essentially, domestic servitude. Why no spell for Gaston?
Perhaps the Enchantress perceives that Gaston is too far gone to be worth an effort to restore his humility. Indeed, after the Beast overcomes Gaston on the roof, leaving him begging for mercy (“I’ll do anything!”), the humbling doesn’t stick: Gaston immediately changes his mind and returns with a dagger. Thus, the enchantress may believe that past a certain age, there’s no going back from being a selfish jerk. Or that certain people are simply too stupid to learn valuable lessons. Judging by Gaston’s actions, she may be on to something.
Given all this reflection from just two minutes of stained glass windows, I’d go so far as to say that the Enchantress is the most compelling character in the entire “Disney Renaissance” oeuvre. She imposes a dark, uncompromising, surreal vision of justice that engulfs the film after she departs, and, like the hunter in Bambi, she never returns to account for her actions, making her that much more inscrutable.
Such a character would never appear in a Disney film today. That may be because we’re more confident in our contemporary ideas of discipline, but—more likely, in my opinion—it could also be that we’re more unsure of them, and thus more averse to the presentation of their bold and terrible alternatives.
–Jim Andersen
For more animated movie exploration, see my piece on Toy Story 3.
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.
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.
This is the second and final part of my analysis of 2001: A Space Odyssey. For the first part, in which I explain “The Dawn of Man” and HAL’s malfunction and demise, go here.
It’s time to give the viewers what they want: an explanation of 2001‘s famously bewildering ending. What happens to Dave in Jupiter’s airspace? What is the “Starchild” that appears in movie’s final shot?
Before we begin, it’s worth noting that the film’s portrayal of man as an “in between” creature waiting for transcendence comes from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. His fiction, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” is about a prophet who encourages mankind to surpass himself, thereby becoming an Ubermensch (“Superman”). In fact, the famous musical motif that recurs throughout the film is Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” a classical piece named after and inspired by Nietzsche’s text. It’s no accident, then, that Kubrick uses this motif to signal major leaps forward.
But simply understanding Nietzsche’s influence doesn’t explain the specific nature of Dave’s transformation at the end of the film. Yes, the Starchild is surely Kubrick’s version of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. But how, in Kubrick’s view, does one reach this state?
To answer, we must consider the many visual cues in 2001 linking space flight with the mechanics of film. For starters, Discovery One’s main chamber looks just like a giant film roll:
The space pods, too, display aesthetics linking them to film rolls. So does the station featured in the opening space travel sequence.
But perhaps the boldest hint that the medium of film is important to the meaning of 2001 is hidden in plain sight: the monolith itself, which, when rotated, resembles a blank movie screen.
This visual similarity between the monolith and the movie screen has been highlighted by other critics, including Gerard Loughlin and Rob Ager. They note that during the famous “Stargate” sequence of dazzling lights, the display initially has a vertical orientation but then suddenly shifts to a horizontal orientation. They interpret this as a subliminal hint that the monolith, too, should be shifted from a vertical to a horizontal orientation to reveal its symbolic significance.
In addition, visuals like the slow zoom shot below appear to emphasize the rectangular shape of the movie screen. This allows us to connect that shape to the monolith’s similar dimensions.
Lastly, the film opens with over two minutes of a solid black screen. On first watch, this opening feels unnecessary or wasteful, but it’s actually yet another subliminal linkage between the shape of the monolith and the shape of the screen. Essentially, Kubrick is forcing us to watch the monolith, rotated 90 degrees.
Importantly, though, this mental rotation isn’t always required to visually link the monolith and the movie screen. That’s because one monolith—the one orbiting Jupiter—appears in horizontal orientation already, exactly like the screen.
This particular monolith, then, is the first to appear in its symbolically “true” form—the most screen-like monolith yet. Combined with the aforementioned film-related imagery during the mission, this suggests an allegorical framework crucial to understanding 2001. Namely, that Discovery One’s journey to find the orbiting Jupiter monolith represents man’s journey toward discovering the medium of film.
This framework unlocks the answers to the movie’s final chapter.
Consider that the monolith on the Moon is associated with photography: Floyd and his group conspicuously gather to take a picture of it. Photography is one technological step away from filmmaking. And indeed, this Moon monolith serves as a checkpoint of man’s technological progress, signaling to Jupiter in apparent recognition of humanity’s readiness for a larger step. Thus, the symbolic meaning of this moment is that if man is taking photographs, he’s ready advance to film—just as, in the literal narrative, once man reaches the Moon, he’s deemed ready to trek to Jupiter.
In fact, in this scene the symbolic narrative is arguably more influential than the literal narrative. After all, the signal from the monolith only initiates once Floyd and his peers try to photograph it—not when they first dig it up.
And the receding of the literal narrative in favor of the symbolic narrative only continues, such that by the time Dave reaches Jupiter’s airspace (“Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite”), the film is completely symbolic with no literal narrative at all. This presents a major viewing challenge—one of the most notoriously challenging in all of cinema. But since we’ve established the correct allegorical framework, we can explain the nature of Dave’s abstract experiences upon arriving there.
As we’ve said, Dave reaching the horizontal monolith orbiting Jupiter represents mankind reaching the cinema screen: Dave has symbolically “discovered” film. Accordingly, the subsequent images he witnesses explore the power of that discovery. Each of the abstract sequences following Dave’s arrival at Jupiter presents a different aspect of the nature and capabilities of film.
The first of those sequences is the aforementioned Stargate. The key to understanding this trippy display is that it conveys the toolkit of filmmaking: color, shape, and music. These formless elements dance around the screen with no context or purpose. They’re the medium’s sculpting clay, waiting to be harnessed by a filmmaker.
The formless elements then begin to crystallize, and Dave witnesses a series of colorful landscape images. These sceneries, several of which include bodies of water, don’t depict the gaseous Jupiter or its rocky moons. Rather, they’re images of Earth, only with neon color schema. This conveys seeing familiar things in a different light: filmmaking allows us a new perspective on the ordinary.
Recall the line from Kubrick’s next film, A Clockwork Orange (1972): “The colors of the world only seem really real when you viddy them on a screen.” Dave, witnessing the unusually colored landscape shots, is seeing things “really real” for the first time, experiencing the ability of cinema to reveal new perspectives.
And hasn’t Kubrick already made good on this filmmaking credo—hasn’t he already shown the world in a “different light?” Recall the thematic statements analyzed in Part 1 of this analysis, particularly regarding mankind’s inherent brutality and the rooting of all technology in violence. Remember, too, our analysis of HAL’s demise, which explored the nature of human deception and touched upon our species’ remarkable drive to brave the unknown. These insightful artistic depictions are excellent examples of the capabilities of film celebrated in the movie’s final chapter.
Plus, Dave’s eye also appears in the neon colors that saturate the landscapes. This indicates that not only does he see the outside world in a different light; he is altered, as well. The takeaway: film can inspire us to change.
After the landscapes, the tools of film that were introduced in the Stargate solidify even further, such that they’re now completely harnessed. A realistic looking sequence ensues inside a strange domestic layout.
It’s tempting to interpret this as a literal occurrence, given its lifelike appearance. But we’re still in the realm of the symbolic, as the scene unfolds in a dreamlike, nonlinear manner. Therefore, by continuing to adhere to our framework of interpreting Dave’s Jupiter experiences as a display of film’s power and methods, we can explain the sequence’s true meaning.
Let’s summarize what happens. Dave, progressing through the strange environment, rapidly ages in a strange way. Three consecutive times, he observes an older version of himself in a different part of the layout, and this version then becomes the focal point of the shot, with the younger self apparently vanishing. The last and oldest Dave appears on his deathbed, and he points to a monolith before transforming into the Starchild, which then surveys the Earth.
The key dynamic of this scene is watching: Dave watches himself age. He doesn’t experience the aging process so much as examine it from a distance—including viewing himself very near to death. Essentially, Kubrick is illustrating that the opportunity to watch ourselves and our species from a detached perspective (via cinema) can help us accept our inevitable aging and death.
Various details of the scene help clarify this vision. For example, Dave ages startlingly quickly, in only a few minutes, gesturing toward the incredible brevity of life. In addition, Dave accidentally shatters a glass, which is shown in closeup, perhaps emphasizing life’s fragility. Finally, Dave advances through the stages of life with no apparent companionship, suggesting a solitary journey. In summary, according to Kubrick, viewing our own lives through the revealing lens of film may teach us the ultimate truth of a brief, fragile, isolated existence.
That may sound depressing, but Kubrick doesn’t see it that way. We know this because after viewing his own aging, Dave becomes the Starchild: the next stage in human evolution. Based on our analysis of this scene and earlier ones, we can conclude that this new stage of humanity is a being with heightened awareness: able to see the world from an enlightened perspective that includes the facts of mortality, thanks to the reflections enabled by the medium of film.
But what might this enlightened perspective entail, specifically? What changes will a heightened awareness of our mortality inspire?
Well, in Part 1 we concluded that Dave’s defeat of HAL seemed to mark the end of the technological tradition that began with the bone-weapon, anticipating a leap beyond that violence to a new human condition. And indeed, Dave’s viewing of his own mortality offers a logical repudiation of violence. After all, why unleash death and destruction, when we’re all destined to die, anyway? Why not live our lives in peace? With proper awareness of the brevity and fragility of life, our drive toward violence may be extinguished.
This newfound rejection of violence and weaponry is made more explicit in both the initial script and Arthur C. Clarke’s tandem novel, which end with the Starchild detonating nuclear bombs orbiting Earth to prevent their use. As mentioned in Part 1, all nuclear references were eliminated from 2001 to avoid repeating Dr. Strangelove, but this original ending would have concretely emphasized that the Starchild is opposed to violence (and even motivated to take action to prevent it). As it is, we’re left to infer this ourselves.
Given that Kubrick had portrayed man as a fundamentally weapon-using, brutal animal in “The Dawn of Man,” the newfound pacifism of the Starchild is a momentous change—a Nietzschean progression, in fact, to a new kind of species. And imagery throughout the film underscores this, especially in “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.”
Consider the images below, which evoke insemination, conception, and the growth of a fetus. They hint that by completing the mission to Jupiter and symbolically discovering film—thereby enabling reflection that leads to the discarding of violent methods—Dave indeed initiates the “birth” of something new.
Consider also the Renaissance art that fills the strange room where Dave witnesses his aging and death—another reference to an imminent “rebirth.”
Finally, two brief scenes involve characters wishing loved ones a happy birthday, yet another presaging of an upcoming “birth” of a new category of organism.
All things considered, it’s clear that the Starchild is Kubrick’s rendition of the Nietzschean Ubermensch: a step beyond man. This “Superman” is, in a word, a filmgoer: one who observes life from the revealing, detached perspective of cinema, gaining enhanced awareness of the hard facts of mortality. Applying this newfound rationality and existential understanding, he or she forgoes humanity’s previous attachment to weapons and violence, promising a new era of peace.
I’ll go ahead and say it: I think 2001: A Space Odyssey is the greatest film ever made. What other cinematic work offers the kind of vision and scope highlighted in this analysis? For a long time I held off on writing this piece, because I worried that I wouldn’t be able to do justice to the breadth of 2001‘s artistry in a readable Internet format. And I still believe that there’s far more to discuss beyond what I’ve covered. But I hope that I’ve opened up the movie for just that kind of discussion, so that I might later come across more analysis that helps me build on my understanding of this masterpiece—and that perhaps brings me a little closer to Kubrick’s version of the Ubermensch.
—-Jim Andersen
For more Kubrickian movies explained, see my piece on Eyes Wide Shut.
This is Part 1 of my two-part explanation of the meaning of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. For Part 2, go here.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) has awed viewers with its vision and craft for over fifty years. Interpreting it, though, remains a notorious challenge. Experts’ attempts to understand the sci-fi landmark’s ambiguous imagery and characters are numerous enough to populate an entire Wikipedia page. If you read the page, though, you’ll see that these interpretations tend to skew toward the arcane, kooky, and even mystic.
What’s lacking is a grounded analysis written for regular viewers. My aim, then, will be to coherently explain the meaning of 2001’s narrative. Of course, this will include a concrete, definitive interpretation of its famous ending.
My main thesis, which I’ll go on to demonstrate, is that 2001 is a statement about the awesome possibilities of the medium of film. More specifically, 2001: A Space Odyssey is an idealistic proclamation of film as an agent for transcending humanity’s violent nature, particularly through its ability to bolster reflection and awareness.
That statement leaves a lot of ground to cover. But we can start with the theme of transcendence, since it forms the structure of the film. 2001 consists of three stages of evolution: 1) apes before the discovery of weapons, 2) man, and 3) the “Starchild” image. These stages are symbolized by the opening title screen, which features a shadowy Earth—behind which rises the glowing Moon—behind which rises the shining sun.
Three destinations, each brighter than the last. This single image foreshadows the course of the film.
Even more important than the evolutionary stages, though, are the transitions between them. Such transitions, it appears, can only occur through interactions with peculiar black monoliths, which appear intermittently throughout the movie. The first such monolith appears to a tribe of apes in the desert, inspiring them to use animal bones as weapons to dominate their rivals. This, as the title card declares, is Kubrick’s rendition of “The Dawn of Man.”
It’s tempting to summarize this sequence as the discovery of “tools.” But this isn’t specific enough. After all, only one tool is used: a weapon. And the introduction of weapons specifically—as opposed to tools in general—initiates human-like changes in the apes. For example, armed with bones, the apes abandon their defensive crouches and walk upright. Plus, with plentiful meat from killed animals, the tribe now eats with newfound ferocity, reminiscent of our habits today. Finally, children now examine and play with bones, evoking modern day childhood fascination with guns and other weapons.
The central statement of this section, then, is that man is fundamentally a weapon-using animal. This is a Kubrickian statement if there ever was one. Consider the director’s earlier films like the antiwar Paths of Glory (1957) and the apocalyptic Cold War parody Dr. Strangelove (1963), which also focus on man’s relationship to war and weaponry.
And just like in those films, the use of weapons in 2001 is portrayed negatively and unsparingly. For instance, when the lead ape of the rival tribe is whacked to the ground, each ape in the first tribe comes forward to administer unnecessary additional blows—a vicious, unsettling scene.
But in 2001, unlike the other films mentioned, Kubrick doesn’t dwell on man’s violent tendencies. Instead, after the weapon-using apes’ victory, he cuts to an orbiting spaceship, and the movie’s focus shifts to the potential for a second evolutionary leap. Thus, while the story of the apes serves to illustrate humanity’s lowly, savage condition, the bulk of the film depicts how we might surpass that condition.
Importantly, there’s no title card accompanying the cut to outer space; we’re still watching “The Dawn of Man.” Kubrick apparently isn’t impressed with our societal progress. Space flight and antigravity toilets notwithstanding, we’re still fundamentally the weapon-using creatures portrayed in the first episode.
In early drafts of the script, this stasis was emphasized even further. The orbiting spacecraft were explicitly identified as nuclear weapons in a multinational nuclear stalemate. These nuclear references were later eliminated to separate the film from Dr. Strangelove, but even without them, nothing in this section of 2001 suggests that the intervening millennia have seen major changes to the human condition laid out early in the film.
However, such a change may be forthcoming. That’s because Heywood R. Floyd (William Sylvester) is on his way to the Clavius Moon base to see a monolith recently dug up on the Moon—direct evidence of alien intelligence. And when that monolith sends a radio signal to Jupiter, humanity wastes no time (only an 18 month turnaround) preparing a mission to the faraway planet to find out what—or who—is out there.
To me, this promptness recalls the moment when the apes quickly surround and touch the monolith, which is wholly unfamiliar to them and potentially dangerous. Perhaps there is one human trait that Kubrick does admire: brave curiosity in the face of the unknown.
Can that curiosity lead us to make another leap forward and shed our species’ cruel and brutal ways? That’s the question of the next and longest episode of the film: “Mission to Jupiter.”
Drs. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) are the protagonists now. They have the momentous task of finding the receiver of the mysterious radio signal. But they run into a major problem: their HAL9000 computer, thought to be infallible, begins acting strangely and ultimately kills Frank along with three hibernating astronauts.
The conventional explanation, which I see no reason to dispute, for HAL’s errant behavior is that he has competing objectives. The scientists on Earth have tasked him with keeping secret the facts about the monolith dug up on the Moon, whereas his programming discourages him from “distort[ing] information.”
Caught between these goals, HAL teeters between revealing the secret and hiding it from the astronauts. He confides to Dave that the “rumors of something being dug up on the Moon” are “difficult to put out of my mind” but then abruptly ends the conversation by reporting a fault in one of the ship’s communication units—a report that appears to be baseless, as per the findings of an identical 9000 computer on Earth.
Adding to the evidence that HAL has misidentified the fault is his later remark to Dave that “you and Frank were planning to disconnect me.” This isn’t necessarily true: Dave and Frank were only planning to disconnect HAL if he were proven to be in error. The remark demonstrates that HAL lacks confidence or even knows his report to be incorrect.
And when threatened, HAL resorts to murder. Thus, the human technological tradition that began with an instrument of violence has culminated in an instrument that carries out its own violence—against mankind. This may have been inevitable. After all, inherent in the original DNA of man’s inventions, as we saw in “The Dawn of Man,” was brutality; therefore, it makes sense that man’s ultimate invention, a sentient AI, would assume that brutal character.
Note that HAL’s eyepiece often appears in a rectangular black frame reminiscent of the monolith. This visually links him to the episode in which apes discovered weapons. Appropriate, since he’s the end result of that discovery.
An interesting point about HAL is that his inability to keep a secret (or at least his discomfort with doing so) is contrasted with the smooth talking of Heywood Floyd during his trek to Clavius. In that section, scientists pressure Floyd to “clear up the great big mystery” of why Clavius has been out of communication. But Floyd stonewalls them, concealing the shocking finding of the monolith. Later, Floyd urges scientists at the base to uphold “absolute secrecy” and has them sign oaths to ensure their adherence to the cover story of an epidemic.
If Floyd and his fellow Clavius scientists can deceive so seamlessly, then why can’t the far more intelligent HAL? Events in the film suggest that it’s because humans, unlike HAL, are aware of their own mortality.
Consider that HAL’s facility with lying increases dramatically after he lip-reads Frank and Dave discussing his possible disconnection, a previously unthinkable development. Whereas HAL had struggled earlier to maintain composure and secrecy during his “crew psychology report” conversation with Dave, after the lip-reading scene he lies constantly with no apparent hesitation.
For example, he states that he doesn’t know how Frank went soaring into space (“I don’t have enough information”) and gives false reasoning for killing him (“This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it”). As his demise approaches, he sinks to pathetic phoniness (“I can assure you, very confidently, that it’s going to be alright again”). Thus, it seems that the materialization of the possibility of death is what affords him the one intellectual faculty he had previously lacked: the ability to lie.
Kubrick therefore provides another major statement about the nature of man: that it’s the specter of death that enables or encourages us to deceive one another. And there’s convincing logic to this. After all, mortality could be said to be the foundation for all fear, and fear may be the essential motive behind all deception. When HAL has no reason to believe that he’ll ever be shut down, he has none of the human fear that would prompt him to ever lie, so he stumbles when tasked to do so. But after learning of his possible disconnection, he becomes more deceptive (and by extension, more humanlike), finally admitting to the basis for his alteration: “I’m afraid.”
If HAL is the culmination of the technological tradition that started with the bone-weapon, and if the emergence of that tradition constituted “The Dawn of Man,” then HAL’s demise, for all intents and purposes, represents the end of man. Technology has run its course, which means that, by definition, so have we. Like the apes before they encountered the monolith, humanity is in its twilight. Kubrick provides visual cues to underscore this, as HAL’s eyepiece evokes the sun rising and setting shortly before mankind’s origination.
Plus, during HAL’s disconnection, monolith-like rectangles emerge from his hardware, recalling the evolutionary leap that founded mankind and suggesting that a similar leap could be forthcoming.
Even Dave’s incredible blast through the airlock harkens back to aspects of the apes’ leap forward. Recall how the apes gather around and touch the strange monolith, their courage outweighing their fear of the unknown. Dave’s gumption in passing through the mysterious vacuum of space without a helmet—which HAL assumes impossible—evokes that same courage. Dave has followed in the footsteps of his distant ancestors, whose boldness led them to a colossal discovery. What, then, is in store for him?
In summary, all signs, both visual and narrative, point to HAL’s death anticipating a major evolutionary leap forward comparable to the one shown in “The Dawn of Man.” And indeed, Dave’s experiences following HAL’s defeat leave him apparently transformed into a spectacular, fetus-like being. It’s clear that man has leapt forward again. But how did this transformation take place, and what is the nature of Dave’s new form?
There aren’t many hidden secrets in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007), the unsettling masterpiece that was recently ranked as the best movie since 2000 by both The New York Times and The Guardian. But there is one mystery in the movie that doesn’t have a ready solution, which is: why is it called “There Will Be Blood”? There’s not much blood, after all, and the source material is Upton Sinclair’s far more appropriately titled novel, Oil!. Why, then, this weird title? Let’s explain, starting off with some brief analysis that will allow us to cover the film’s broader meaning.
TWBB is a story of how greed and obsessiveness, represented by protagonist Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), come to dominate the American spirit, replacing the relatively feeble Puritan ethic represented by Plainview’s chief rival, pastor Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). The catalyst for this transition, as portrayed by Anderson, is oil: once untold riches can be sucked from the ground, those who adhere to pieties and doctrines, like Eli, quickly find themselves at the mercy of ruthless businessmen like Daniel, who will use any means necessary to acquire the available wealth, including crafty lies and even physical force. The two characters’ surnames indicate their respective strength and weakness: Daniel, a Machiavellian pragmatist, truly has a “plain view” of how to get what he wants, whereas Eli is held back by burdensome proprieties such as resting on Sunday, the Lord’s day. Daniel, of course, never rests. He has founded a new religion in which nothing is sacred, and the only fealty is to money. His soon-to-be adopted son is baptized with oil, hinting of the new faith in the making.
The final blow in this fairly lopsided battle of ideals, as per Anderson, is the Great Depression. It leads even Eli to question whether God, in fact, might not be as sturdy a protector as previously thought: he finds the now-wealthy Daniel in 1927 and begs him to buy property for oil rigging, admitting (to Daniel’s amusement) that God has “failed to alert [him] to the recent panic in our economy.” Blubbering tears of confusion, Eli wonders why Daniel, as well as Eli’s entrepreneurial brother Paul, have prospered, whereas he, the faithful one, has floundered. In response, the victorious Daniel takes this opportunity to bash Eli’s brains in with a bowling pin. This outcome removes any doubt about who will be running America going forward. Daniel’s battle cry ensures we don’t miss the allegory: “I am the Third Revelation!”
As I said, not so much to pick apart. But of course there’s more than what I just laid out, and it demands some inspection. In particular, we need to remember that Daniel, although successful, is not a happy man. That appears to be because his greed stems from an immutable narcissism: he can’t bear to have anyone get the best of him. Daniel himself acknowledges to his fake-brother Henry:
Daniel: “I hate most people. … I have a competition in me, Henry. I want no one else to succeed.”
This “competition” of Daniel’s leads him to exhibit some remarkable behavior throughout the film. Time and time again, he rages pathologically at those who disrespect him or give even a passing semblance of condescension. For example, when Henry takes advantage of Daniel by impersonating his brother for personal gain, Daniel kills him in cold blood with scant hesitation. When Daniel’s son H.W. sets a fire to alert him of Henry’s forgery, a (wrongly) perceived act of impudence, Daniel sends him away on a train alone. When Standard Oil rep H.M. Tilford expresses doubt that Daniel can build a pipeline to avoid onerous shipping costs (and incidentally suggests using his newfound free time to spend with his son), Daniel threatens to kill him and proceeds to move heaven and earth to build the pipeline, subsequently taunting a confused Tilford in a restaurant with maniacal glee.
And if Daniel demonstrates outsized anger toward these aforementioned individuals, we can infer that his thoughts toward Eli Sunday are, shall we say, none too friendly. After all, Eli is the only character during the course of the film to truly humiliate Daniel in an intentional, malicious way. The occasion for this humiliation is a baptism, which Daniel has grudgingly agreed to in order to appease William Bandy and thereby obtain permission to build the pipeline through his tract. This presents Eli with his chance for revenge on Daniel, who has repeatedly made a point of snubbing him. Eli doesn’t squander it.
Here’s the clip, which in my opinion is the best scene in the film. Thanks to the brilliant acting of Day-Lewis and Dano, there’s no mistaking that this is the worst day of Daniel’s life, as well as the best day of Eli’s. The relish with which Eli intones, unnecessarily, for Daniel to repeat, “I have abandoned my child!” is something to behold, and he even circles back to the subject after sensing that it particularly pained Daniel. As Daniel seethes helplessly, we can’t help but be afraid of what he might do later in retribution, based on what we have seen him do to others for far lesser offenses.
We might also realize that this is the only scene in which blood, the thing featured so prominently in the movie title, is mentioned. Eli is the first to bring it up, urging Daniel to “beg for the blood” of Christ. And as Daniel gets up after being baptized, the church hymn sings, “There is power in the blood of the Lord.” At this moment Daniel turns back toward Eli, shakes his hand, and says something to him that we can’t hear, but which on close inspection seems to startle Eli (see picture; moment is included in the clip linked earlier).
What has Daniel said to Eli?
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Daniel, of course, has told Eli: “There will be blood.” As in: Don’t you worry about blood, Eli; there will be plenty of blood to come. Daniel, having just been utterly humiliated by his adversary, is promising in this moment to murder Eli one day.
So when Eli dares to seek Daniel’s help at the end of the film, the conclusion is foregone. Daniel hasn’t forgotten his promise; in fact, he soon makes a deft reference to the baptism as if it had happened only recently, gloating to Eli: “I suck the blood of lamb from Bandy’s tract.” This means, in essence, that the real blood of salvation isn’t Eli’s holy water, as Eli had characterized it at the baptism, but rather the oil that has made Daniel rich and powerful. Just like “I am the Third Revelation!” this comment indicates that Daniel perceives his oil business as an endeavor of religious stature, far grander than anything Eli preaches about, and Daniel accordingly makes Eli grovel before him: “I am a false prophet, and God is a superstition.”
Recall the moment early in the film when H.W.’s biological father rubs oil on his forehead in an apparently religious manner, as if it were holy water. Again, this foreshadows the new religion that Daniel promotes convincingly in his final showdown with Eli.
But although Daniel inevitably vanquishes the foe who crossed him most egregiously, what will he do now? After all, nearly all of Daniel’s important actions over the course of the film had been apparently motivated by the desire to revenge himself of perceived wrongs suffered at the hands of others. Now, though, all these wrongs have been avenged, and it’s not clear what he has left to live for. He ends the film, therefore, with with the appropriate words: “I’m finished!”
So while Daniel’s ethic is indeed stronger than Eli’s, it appears to come at a cost, as it springs from an innate “competition” and dislike of people in general. Why else would someone want to accumulate unnecessarily gaudy wealth, other than to feel superior to others? The conclusion of such a quest, even for those who succeed wildly like Daniel, is lonely and sad: we see, for example, that Daniel, as he sends away H.W. for good, flashes back to old times spent together with his son. He’s a human being, after all, and he’ll miss H.W. greatly—but his hypersensitivity to disrespect and his accompanying need for revenge leads him marching down the road to loneliness anyway. Is this the cost of ultimate success in America?
I’ll end this piece by observing that it’s impossible to meditate on the character of Daniel Plainview without reflecting on how similar he is to the real life American who would become president nine years after the release of the film. Echoes of Daniel screaming, unhinged, at his well-adjusted son—“Bastard from a basket! Bastard from a basket!—reverberated over Twitter throughout the four years he was in power, and one wonders at Paul Thomas Anderson’s giftedness in personifying that peculiar brand of American nastiness less than a decade before an actual person managed to encompass it so wholly for the world to see. Like Daniel, that person could never enjoy his success, tormented as he was by the slights of others: his default mode was rage, his rare smiles seemed forced and unnatural. Unlike Daniel, though, that person will never be “finished,” because too many have taunted and jeered him for revenge to ever truly be had.
I suppose, then, that in this day and age, There Will Be Blood carries a certain comfort. Because if we worry, based on what we see in politics and business, that the universe rewards narcissism, we might watch this honest examination of that character trait and how it came to such prominence in America. There Will Be Blood reminds us that the universe, in this regard, may be somewhat more just than we realize.
Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) is on Netflix, which is an opportunity for critical reflection. Specifically, I want to talk about why the movie is so much worse than its classic predecessor, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). So let’s dissect both films and discuss the major differences that have led one film to stand the test of time while the other quickly fades into obscurity.
I. Good Egg
The classic status of the 1971 film, directed by Mel Stuart, is intriguing given the severity of its easily identifiable mistakes. Foremost among them is poor pacing: the movie is supposed to be about Charlie Bucket’s wondrous tour through the magical factory of his idol, chocolatier Willy Wonka, but it takes an excruciatingly long time to get to this stage. Rather than forge ahead to the main event, Stuart dwells tiresomely on the hardscrabble life of Charlie’s family—an especially strange emphasis given that his kin will soon disappear from the film completely, except for Grandpa Joe.
Another major blunder is portraying Charlie with no evident personality traits other than simple humility, resulting in a bland, unrelatable protagonist. In fact, the downgrading of Charlie’s role in the story—reflected in the altered title—so upset Roald Dahl, the writer of the source novel, that he disowned the movie.
Smaller errors by Stuart include thin, poorly acted portrayals of minor characters such as most of the parents, as well as odd aesthetic choices like displaying the Oompa-Loompas’ lyrics on screen and out of frame as if the movie were a kiddie sing-along.
So why, given these glaring problems, has Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory remained in the public consciousness after over fifty years? I think a few inspired elements deserve their dues, but none more than Gene Wilder’s smarmy portrayal of Willy Wonka.
Wilder’s Wonka is a truly unique character in American cinema. At times he demonstrates the idealism we expect from the great visionary earlier hailed by Grandpa Joe; for example, he sings about the great possibilities of “Pure Imagination”: “Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it.”
But more often, Wonka is cutting and cynical, especially when Charlie’s golden ticketmates are in danger. With Violet Beauregarde about to chew her infamous stick of gum, for instance, he warns her not to but then quickly gives up and appears to enjoy her blueberry-ification. With Mike Teavee about to zap himself into, appropriately, a television character, Wonka merely deadpans, “Don’t. Stop. Come back.” Only during Augustus Gloop’s demise does he become upset, and he makes clear that his vexation isn’t due to the departure of the daft Gloop but rather to the unacceptable touching of his precious chocolate by “human hands.”
The effect of these moments is to suggest that Wonka doesn’t particularly like children, which might seem like an unsavory trait, but I actually think it’s the very reason he’s so beloved as a character. The movie, more than anything, is about how terrible kids can be, and Wonka is the hero because he understands, more than any other character, just how terrible.
It’s not that he’s the only one with insight in this regard. Grandpa Joe, for one, calls Violet a “nitwit” for disobeying Wonka. But after Violet is taken away for “juicing,” Wonka goes much further than this, casually observing: “Two naughty, nasty little children gone. Three good, sweet little children left.” Naughty and nasty indeed—who could argue otherwise about Augustus and Violet, the first two to go? Wonka is harsh, but he’s right. And perhaps this film appeals particularly to children because they understand more than adults how right he is: they are the most unbiased evaluators of their peers. It’s the fawning adults who can’t see the monsters their kids have become. But Willy Wonka can, which makes him a hero to good kids.
And I haven’t even mentioned the most terrifying of Charlie’s rivals and the second best character in the movie: Veruca Salt. Played memorably by Julie Dawn Cole, Veruca explodes at the slightest disappointment or concern, like every horrible child. She’s so genuinely annoying that the other kids, accomplished brats themselves, immediately despise her: in one exchange, her insufferable whining is rejoined by Violet: “Stop squawking, you twit!” I’ll admit that Veruca’s heavy-handed “Bad Egg” demise is a little disappointing, but that may be in part because she’s such a formidable presence that we wish she’d stay around longer.
https://youtu.be/MHdF7p4tJN8
It’s a credit to Stuart’s judgment that Veruca is the only child character to get her own musical number; not even Charlie gets one. And there are subtle touches that add interest to an otherwise simple sequence. Keep an eye on Wonka during this song. He makes a point to refuse to look Veruca in the eye—ignoring her, the very response that would help her unlearn her narcissism, if only her parents could muster it. Appropriately, then, Wonka reserves a special ferocity for Mr. Salt, encouraging him, alone among the parents, to join his child’s fate. Again, I suspect that kids grasp the terror of a girl like Veruca and relate to Wonka’s recognition of it more than adults do.
I also suspect that they pick up on the consistency of the aesthetic of Wonka’s factory, which some reviewers inordinately criticized upon the movie’s release. Words like “shabby” and “cheap” were used to describe the set designs. But these criticisms are the remarks of professionals trained to examine parts of a film rather than the big picture. The fact that Wonka’s factory looks like an actual factory is no weakness; rather, it’s one of the film’s strongest elements. Sure, the sets appear limited by budget constraints—but Wonka is a businessman, isn’t he?
I refuse to believe that this goes over kids’ heads. Gene Siskel wrote that the chocolate river “looks too much like the Chicago River to be appealing.” But what kid knows what the Chicago River looks like? And among those who do, which of them can ascribe to it the unsanitary connotations that Siskel is invoking? Kids just want to be able to believe what they’re seeing.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has stuck around for a reason. It’s a kind of horror movie made for kids: a quasi-haunted house tale with villains that children can understand, because they encounter them every day: spoiled brats and their obsequious parents. And it’s all held together by the chocolatier who, long isolated from humanity, has lost the will and perhaps even the ability to apply the coddling, excuse-making filter through which we’re accustomed to seeing school-aged menaces.
II. Bad Egg
Now, on to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the newer film, which, as I indicated in my introduction, is far inferior to the old one. There’s no point in wasting time before naming its central, insurmountable weakness: Johnny Depp’s terrible performance as Willy Wonka.
The aim here appears to be, as with several later Burton-Depp collaborations, to achieve weirdness by any means necessary. Wonka in this film is a human Jack-in-the-Box, donning clownish grey makeup and grinning throughout in a severe, frozen manner. This doesn’t mean he’s always happy, though; actually, he’s petulant and insecure, often appearing wounded by the kids’ mean comments and reflecting on the sadness of his own childhood.
The effect is certainly weird, but weirdness for its own sake is worthless. Weirdness needs to gesture toward something, some recognizable quality or motive. This alien-like Wonka is totally foreign to the human experience, so he doesn’t warrant any emotional investment.
And worse still, the new direction of the character disarms the entire message of the story. Whereas Wilder’s Wonka, as I’ve noted, enjoys the ticketholders’ misfortunes out of relatable moral judgment, thereby inviting us to share in the enjoyment, Depp’s Wonka, on the other hand, enjoys their woes because he’s just as childish and bratty as they are, and he’s therefore in competition with them. This means that Charlie and Grandpa Joe are the only ones above the fray, the only relatable characters. But they don’t suffice, because they rarely speak during the tour. All that’s left is a group of painfully annoying people squabbling throughout the entire runtime.
Plus, Charlie isn’t really a viable moral authority, because he’s too young. At the finale, he’s tasked with educating the clueless Wonka about basic life truths, but this is disappointing, because it feels like a stretch. Charlie is a child; he shouldn’t be teaching the adults; that’s not how life works. Even in the novels of Dickens—the progenitor of Dahl’s aesthetic—children achieve virtuousness by listening to and heeding their wise mentors, advisers, older friends. They’re not tiny sages who correct their elders. Such a presentation rings immediately false.
As for the other children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there’s not much to say about them, because they’re barely in the film. And since Depp’s Wonka is already so childish, they add nothing anyway. Veruca Salt is a shadow of her former iteration. Violet becomes a ten foot high blueberry, perhaps as compensation for her diminished, one-note personality, which was already thin in the 1971 version, but not so thin as to preclude an applause-inducer like, “Stop squawking, you twit!”—which this Violet, with a monotone voice and eyes wide like a robot’s, could never muster.
The aspect of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was most widely praised upon release was the appearance of the factory, which many contrasted favorably with the more industrial look of the 1971 film. But again, this is dutiful professional evaluation detached from the larger vision of the film. The visuals of the new factory are certainly more colorful and elaborate, but they’re obviously computer generated and thus unconvincing as a place that anyone could enter and inhabit. And the CGI responsible for these visuals now looks dated and lame, as do, by extension, the reviewers who celebrated them in 2005.
For my part, I think the factory looks like something from a Dr. Seuss book. That’s not an insult. But as a kid, I wouldn’t exactly have been clamoring for a ticket to see the Lorax.
Plus, Wonka himself shows no imaginative talent at any point, so, in addition to the other visual issues, it’s impossible to believe that he was truly responsible for creating the factory shown on the screen. Instead of taking pride in the fruits of his “Pure Imagination,” as Wilder’s version does, this Wonka spends his time marveling at the creativity of his Oompa-Loompas (who, for a tribal people, have a suspicious affinity for the mid-2000’s pop sound). Who is really the brains of this factory?
You get the idea: one movie is good, the other is bad. There’s actually a third movie in the making now, starring Timothee Chalamet as a young Wonka in the midst of rising to prominence and building his factory. Maybe this time his dad will be a film critic, and as a show of rebellion, he’ll decide to appear in film after film after film, each one worse and more pointless than the last…
–Jim Andersen
For more movie commentary check out my panning of Forrest Gump.
It’s easy to find movies that receive undue admiration at the time of their release. Look no further than the recent Best Picture win of CODA. But such errant acclaim typically flames out within a few years. It doesn’t usually extend for decades.
For Forrest Gump (1994), though, it has. Having recently subjected myself to the unpleasantness of re-watching it, I can only point out its stark defects, speculate on why it remains so well liked, and perhaps forecast when it might finally go away.
The artistic interest of Forrest Gump is supposed to be the ironic contrast between Forrest’s simplistic narration and the more complex version of events presented onscreen. But this irony falls flat, because Forrest is so limited that his interpretation of events is essentially irrelevant. In other words, by setting up this irony, the movie is cheating: seen from Forrest’s viewpoint, anything will be ironic. His mind is such a low bar that anything he tries to understand will seem relatively complex.
The question, then, is whether the events seen outside Forrest’s perspective carry any significance—and the answer is, very obviously, no. It’s true that the historical events Forrest witnesses are worthy of examination, which is why they’ve all been the subjects of numerous pictures. But Forrest Gump adds exactly nothing to this body of historical cinema.
One sequence, for instance, depicts the Vietnam War. Many other films have done so, attempting such varied approaches as elegy (The Deer Hunter), satire (Full Metal Jacket), psychological exploration (Apocalypse Now), and stoic realism (Platoon). Forrest Gump, by contrast, attempts nothing. The sequence’s visual content has the semblance of depth when compared to Forrest’s narration, but compared to any of the other films I listed, it’s visionless and reductive.
The film reaches perniciousness, as opposed to mere badness, in its second half. At this stage, director Robert Zemeckis’s intention becomes clear: to promote Forrest as an American ideal—a savior for our wayward times. To this aim, Forrest’s lack of understanding is cast as not a limitation but as the only authentic response to the catastrophes he witnesses. For example, when shoved onstage at an antiwar rally, Forrest’s mic cuts off so that no one can hear his speech. The crowd erupts, and Abbie Hoffman exclaims: “You said it all, man! You said it all!”
The message here is that for a horror like the Vietnam War, there really is “nothing to say”; therefore, Forrest’s lack of audible response is more profound than any words. This view is wrongheaded and troubling. In fact, the many citizens who have written and spoken about the government’s errors during this period have done the country a great service, since understanding those mistakes may help us avoid them in the future. Words are, contrary to this scene’s takeaway, powerful and necessary, even (or especially) in the face of disaster. Forrest’s effective silence may be the best he can do, but it’s not good enough for the rest of us.
I may be late in making this point, since Wikipedia asserts that Forrest Gump has recently been subject to a negative “reevaluation” on account of its perceived “conservative politics.” I disagree, however, that the film is especially conservative, except in the sense of not being overtly liberal. Rather, it’s merely anti-intellectual, wary of thinking. The best course of action, the film argues again and again, shouldn’t require thought: life is simple, if only we’d stop overcomplicating things. We should all be more like Forrest, who never agonizes, never second-guesses, never regrets.
But are Forrest’s actions above second-guessing? He might not be capable of it, but we are. For instance, to protect Jenny, Forrest repeatedly interferes in her affairs despite her pleas for him to desist. Is this truly the good and noble thing to do? And he rescues a crippled Lieutenant Dan from the battlefield despite his explicit demands to be left to die. Is this moral? The film would have it be so on both counts: later, Jenny apologizes for being “messed up,” while Lieutenant Dan gets rich, finds a fiancée, gets prosthetic legs, and thanks Forrest for saving him.
Convenient—but not convincing. Unfortunately, the right thing to do isn’t always easy to discern, despite what Forrest Gump would have you believe. The corollary, of course, is that those who lack the ability to weigh complicated factors often unintentionally choose wrong.
So be it. Because in refusing to acknowledge this truth, the movie becomes, despite its intentions, patronizing to those with mental handicaps. The marginalization of the intellectually disabled is countered with the portrayal of perfection, rather than the portrayal of humanity. The comedy Tropic Thunder (2008) would later underscore this with some of the most devastating movie-to-movie satire I’ve ever seen: in one notorious dialogue, an acclaimed actor admonishes his peer by emphasizing that, to win an Oscar, one should “never go full retard”—instead, for viewers’ comfort, it’s best to portray a mentally disabled individual as having inexplicable talents. Forrest Gump is referenced specifically.
In 2007, Forrest Gump was rated by the American Film Institute as the 76th greatest American movie of all time. Based on this ranking, it may indeed be the most overrated movie ever made. But I suppose, based on the Wikipedia paragraph I referenced above, a negative reappraisal is already in progress. Even though that appears to be due to a contemporary demand for social consciousness rather than a recognition of the film’s central, insurmountable flaws, I’ll take it. There are few movies I despise more.
People are getting tired of Wes Anderson. In fact, they have been for some time. The knock on him, which has permeated in some way nearly every critical meditation on the recently released The French Dispatch, had already crystalized by at least 2005, when Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote:
“We have grown accustomed to the unassailable claims of deadpan, although Anderson’s detractors might argue that underreaction, having begun as a show of hipness, has now frozen into a mannerism. What chance remains, they would ask, for the venting of genuine feeling? What would it take to harry these controlled characters into grief, or the silliness of bliss, or unconsidered rage?
Lane believes that Anderson’s signature style, whatever its merits, suffers from a stifling drawback: it limits the emotion that can be depicted onscreen. He also implies, rather insidiously, that this limitation reflects a deficiency in Anderson himself: that the filmmaker’s style is a result of his valuing “hipness” over authenticity.
This view, as I said, has now become close to dogma for professional critics, most of whom profess to enjoy The French Dispatch—perhaps suspecting its artistic significance—while having mostly negative things to say about it. Richard Roeper of The Chicago-Sun Times exemplifies the general reception:
“It’s as if we’re in a museum of modern art and we’re silently applauding the latest exhibit, but our tear ducts remain desert-dry.”
Notwithstanding the melodrama of “desert-dry,” Roeper’s—and by easy extension, the critical establishment’s—evaluation of The French Dispatch is plainly off the mark. As the passing of time will surely solidify, this movie is very possibly the best film in the oeuvre of one of the very best filmmakers in all of American cinema.
One theater viewing is not nearly enough to synthesize and delineate the tremendous amount of imagery and wit saturating The French Dispatch. Perhaps once I have the pause button (always a godsend for an Anderson film) at my disposal, I’ll give that project a try. But it’s clear to me that first and foremost, the film is a tribute to being human: to our fallibilities, quirks, and desperations. It takes the form of a compendium of three magazine stories, but the events of the stories themselves, as well as the theme of journalism, are red herrings for anyone looking to make sense of the film.
That’s because we actually learn very little about modern art, culture, politics, cooking, or even magazines from the stories on display. What we do learn about are the characters who tell (write) these stories, all of whom I found funny and lovable, and some of whom I found painfully touching in their offbeat plights—in total contradiction to Anderson’s supposed indifference to human emotion.
This is where the Lanes and Roepers of the world have Anderson completely wrong. What Lane fairly describes as Anderson’s characters’ “underreaction” doesn’t equate to lack of feeling. It only requires that we supply more of what Anderson has deliberately left out to get the catharsis he’s luring us toward. In The French Dispatch, a lonely college professor (Frances McDormand) has an affair with one of her students (Timothee Chalamet), but later encourages him to get a room with his rival revolutionary. At the episode’s conclusion, she stoically types the story in an empty, blank room, her back to the camera. It’s filmed, like everything, in a quick-cutting, whimsical tone—but if your tear ducts are “desert-dry” here, you may not be thinking enough about what you’ve seen.
But what’s Anderson’s larger statement with this new film? You surely don’t need to plumb those depths to enjoy it, but I can’t help myself, so here I go.
The death of Arthur Howitzer (Bill Murray) at the movie’s beginning signifies a cultural change. The character’s most emphasized trait is the freedom he allows his writers, who, we soon begin to learn, have used this freedom liberally to spin wild yarns that indulge their own interests and weirdnesses at the expense of conveying reliable, factual information. Howitzer’s death, then, seems to hint at the demise of a certain kind of artistic liberty, or at least an imminent shift in priorities from style and character to realism and straight reporting. But with Howitzer dead, it seems, stylistic flourish may have lost its champion. Without him, journalism is likely to be shorter, drier, and more accurate. And indeed, the types of stories we see in this film are not exactly the norm in today’s magazines.
Howitzer’s death is placed in 1975, when Anderson was six years old. Surely the auteur is idealizing an older era when, he believes, a writer might have been rewarded for exploring human eccentricities rather than heckled for deviating from realism, as he himself has been upon nearly all of his major releases, including this one. After all, Howitzer’s credo is: “Make it seem like you wrote it that way on purpose,” which could surely double as Anderson’s own standard: surely no one would doubt The French Dispatch as an intentional, deliberate creation.
But perhaps Anderson views himself not as a casualty of changing values—as the magazine’s writers are sadly about to be—but rather the successor of his beloved Howitzer. The film ends with the line, “What next?” What, indeed? Well, the Dispatch might be defunct…but if only there was another, newer medium, where a burgeoning artist might pick up where Howitzer left off and produce work that seems to be made “on purpose”! If only!
–Jim Andersen
For more movie reviews, check out my review of Drive My Car.
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