Is Armond White Just a Professional Troll?

Can I immediately say that this is not intended to be a personal or direct attack on anyone, not even the subject of the article? Nor is it based purely on opinion, it is instead based on certain aspects of the subjects particular methods, basis for criticism and stated comments (this is beginning so sound like a terms and conditions agreement).

For those of you who don’t know, allow me to elaborate. Armond White is a film and music critic renowned for his provocative and idiosyncratic film criticism. What that basically means is that White’s opinion of a film will repeatedly and frequently be in direct contrast to the widespread opinion, this year alone he praised ‘Taken 3’, ‘Get Hard’ and ‘The Cobbler’ while denouncing ‘Spotlight’, ‘The Martian’, ‘Inside Out’, Bridge of Spies’ and, perhaps most bizarrely, shunning ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ yet somehow finding time to praise ‘Furious 7’ as ‘action movie utopia’.

But opinion alone is not enough to criticise someone (at least when it comes to something like movie criticism) and it would be out of order to say that one critic is forbidden from liking one film and hating another. As when it comes to film, nothing is universally above criticism and the main point of the profession is to inspire debate and discussion. It would be a pretty boring world if everyone felt the exact same way about everything.

That is not my main issue with White’s writing. My main issue comes firstly, from what he advertises himself as. White claims to be a ‘truth teller’ against the ‘oppression of modern criticism’ due to his opinions. In his opinion every other critic is merely following the crowd instead of actually registering true views on the quality of movies, apart from White of course, as he clearly stands alone against the dictatorships of IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Once again, this is a valid argument, as after all, it must take courage to go against the general opinion based on your personal views even if you know you may take heat for it. But White takes this a step further, he argues that the only reason his reviews are disputed is because of underlying racism within the scholarly circle, and the other film reviews are not actual opinions, but rather a direct reaction to his review in a deliberate attempt to oppress him because of the colour of his skin. Right…. I will immediately say that I can never claim to understand the prejudices certain people endure repeatedly, but I find it hard to believe that such prejudice can be found over something as relatively menial as a movie. Also, racism certainly is not going to end if you use it as an instant defence against every differing opinion over movies instead of actually admitting that you contrast the accepted opinion. There is nothing wrong with going against the widely accepted opinion (in terms of film criticism), so why someone needs to play the racial card is beyond me.

 My point is, according to White, if you loved ‘Toy Story 3’, then you are harbouring racist beliefs (which is shocking as it has a 98% approval rating on RT). But for someone who is quick to point out how other people attack him merely for having different opinions, White is very quick to attack others simply for having differing opinions on film. He has informed his readers not to trust the 98% of critics that enjoyed ‘Toy Story 3’, personally insulted Roger Ebert multiple times (more on that later and god forbid you try to write a comment of differing opinion on his reviews’ internet page as his devout readers will swiftly insult and demean you.

Of course, White will point out an incident of persecution against him, when he was expelled from the New York’s Film Critics Circle for allegedly heckling Steve McQueen (director of ’12 Years a Slave’), despite White arguing that the story was a fabrication. Now, I am not in a position to dispute or support either claim, I have not looked into the case, am unaware of what evidence was used and have little interest. I will simply say this, is it not slightly odd that an Oscar winning director would fabricate a story to punish one specific critic that disliked his movie when a majority and the Academy of Motion Pictures deemed it a masterpiece. The fact that White condemned ’12 Years a Slave’ for its ‘depiction of violence concerning slavery’ is in itself bizarre. What would his ideal movie depiction of slavery be, oppressed people happily skipping through a meadow without any of the brutality and cruelty documented in history? This comment holds even less validity given that White has also critiqued ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and ‘The Hateful Eight’ for historical inaccuracy, while hating ’12 Years a Slave’ for its historical accuracy.

This is part of a much more frustrating part of White’s writing for me, the hypocritical nature of it. This shines through in virtually every single review from a week-to-week basis. One moment he can be despising ‘Birdman’ for copying the psychological analysis set in the movie industry of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and ‘8 ½’, and then hailing the latest Adam Sandler movie despite the rehashed plot, characters and comedic stylings (that are all, in my opinion, AWFUL) from every other Adam Sandler movie or whatever Luc Beeson has to offer even if it as generic and clichéd as every action film prior.

 Not only that, but even his ethnic ideologies seem to be contradictory of themselves. As someone who has hated ‘Dope’ and ‘Selma’ for their ‘racial stereotypes’, White has never been uncomfortable with crossing into that territory himself in an often insulting and offensive way. In his review of ‘Birdman’ he referred to the Mexican directors Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Inarritu as ‘the three amigos’. As well as that, in Inarritu’s latest film ‘The Revenant’, White censured the film for not including any material on the Mexican-American war of 1846, despite the fact that the film takes place in 1823, so the only reason it could be associated with that conflict at all is the fact that it has a Mexican director. That’s like saying every modern British film has to reference the Falklands Conflict. Even more offensively, he disregarded 'The Danish Girl' on the grounds of being a 'politically correct tear jerker' that promoted 'freakdom'. I'll just let that statement speak for itself.    

This leads to another key issue that I have with White’s writing. While he claims to judge movies on their ‘political context’ his political viewpoint seems to be very specific, specifically on the right. White has singularly hated any movie that dares to criticise America or American values, he deemed ‘Foxcatcher’ to be ‘the worst film of 2014’ due to its ‘un-American values’, a term he also used to condemn the Edward Snowden documentary ‘CITIZENFOUR’. For years White championed Steven Spielberg (which I am actually in agreement about, I can say now that I loose respect for any critic that looks down on Spielberg simply because he directs blockbusters) but lately he has taken a dislike to Spielberg’s films such as ‘Lincoln’ which criticised the U.S method of law making as it chronicled a devoted man lifelong struggle to pass a Constitutional Amendment, and ‘Bridge of Spies’ which highlighted the paranoid nature of U.S government in the Cold War. As for any films that recreate documented and proven corruption within U.S government such as ‘All the President’s Men’, well shockingly White also detested them.  

This warped political ideology from which White judges films can best be found in his two articles that chronicle the ‘destruction of culture’. According to White, our film culture was destroyed in 2004 due to the divisive reaction to Mel Gibson’s deeply Christian, subtly (if not intentionally) anti-Semitic ‘Passion of the Christ’ and the commercial and critical success of Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’. So according to White, culture was destroyed because people had differing opinions of religion and politics (because obviously that has never happened before in all of human history, and in case you cannot tell, SARCASM!) and also has nothing to do with how the George W Bush, the subject of Moore’s documentary started an illegal war, while Mel Gibson was recorded saying ‘the Jews are responsible for all world wars’. I’m sure neither of those factors played a part in each films reception.

The next article was a lit of twenty films that, according to White, ‘destroyed art, social unity, and spiritual confidence. They constitute a corrupt, carelessly politicized canon’ but also represent that right wing viewpoint of White. The films that White condemn include ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ and ‘Che’ (two films that portray or sympathise with communists or those suspected of communism), ‘WALL-E’ (the Pixar film that values environmentalism) ‘Frost/Nixon’ (another film dealing with U.S government corruption) ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (I wonder why a right-wing viewpoint would hate a film about a poverty stricken Indian man portrayed in a positive light?) as well as the already mentioned ’12 Years a Slave’, ‘Lincoln’ and ‘Inglourious Basterds’. Also, White denounces ‘There Will Be Blood’ for its ‘anti-Christian values’ (perhaps failing to recognise that there are other religions and beliefs other that Christianity) and adds that ‘The Dark Knight’ promotes ‘anarchy’ (which is a trait shown by the Joker, but maybe White forgot he was the villain of the film, whereas the hero, Batman, upholds order).

 Going back to this direct attack against certain people, I want to highlight his insults to Roger Ebert in particular. According to White, what many see as the most renowned film critic of all time ‘destroyed criticism’ and he seems to hold some grudge against him, despite Ebert’s praise for White’s talent as a writer and publically apologising for referring to him as ‘a troll’ in an offhanded comment. Reading White’s review of ‘Life Itself’ (a documentary about Ebert’s life and final days as he succumbed to illness) is frankly sickening. He seems to gloat over Ebert’s death, mocking his terminal cancer, demeaning his friends and relatives as they grieve, insulting the critics career as well as the work of the documentary maker that made the film. It is utterly sickening and repulsive that a professional would stoop that low and disguise it as film criticism.   

Speaking of which, some of White’s writing, above all else, simply comes across as poor criticism. In a recent review of ‘The Martian’ White used three paragraphs to summarise the film, two of which were used to discuss the soundtrack and the other pointed out how it was similar to other films (these similarities included the fact that the film features the planet Mars, and features a stranded astronaut).

Additionally, some of his comments just seem so random and provocative it would be hard to deny that they are deliberate. In his review of ‘Gone Girl’ (which he also hated, shockingly) he referenced previous movies of Ben Affleck’s career, maybe his early work in ‘Good Will Hunting’, his critical disappointment in ‘Pearl Harbor’ or his directorial resurgence in ‘Argo’? No, instead White refercned the much forgotten and widely loathed ‘Gigli’. Then in his ‘Bridge of Spies’ review he referenced the Spielberg scene that even his most loyal fans will likely roll their eyes at due to its ridiculous nature, the nuclear fridge from ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’. Then when he was once asked to name the best films of 2013, White gave his answer, ‘Pain and Gain’ but then without any prompting added that he thought it was ‘much better that ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, randomly comparing a widely reviled film with a widely praised one.

There also seems to be a distinct pattern to the way he dishes out praise and criticisms. I have yet to see a film by PT Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, David Fincher, Sofia Coppola or Pixar Studios that he liked. While you would also be hard pressed to find a film by Adam Sandler or Michael Bay that he dislikes. White annually publishes ‘Better-than-lists’ in which he compares ten underrated movies and ten overrated movies. Without even looking at 2015’s upcoming list I am going to guess inclusions such as ‘The Cobbler > Cinderella’, ‘Furious 7 > Mad Max: Fury Road’, ‘Get Hard > Straight Outta Compton’, ‘Burnt > Carol’ and how about ‘Black Mass > Sicario’? These are likely to be wrong but I find it mildly amusing to guess. Can you imagine if they were right?

What I am trying to say here, is that though I think White writing itself is of a high and skilled level and think he has an excellent knowledge of cinema history (as opposed to his knowledge of real history) and there is nothing wrong with displaying differing opinions on film, even from a right-wing standpoint, the fact that he advertises himself as a truth teller (and his readers believe him) is what infuriates me. White is essentially one of the prejudiced and politically warped critics he claims everyone else is. Perhaps the best thing to do is just ignore him I just wish his reviews were not so unintentionally hilarious.
So that's about it, find me on Twitter with @JoshuaPrice97. Thanks and bye.

From Cowboys to Communists; Hollywood and the Cold War

With the release of ‘Bridge of Spies’ acting as another film in the line of tackling the Cold War, I thought about writing an article about various films to deal with the Red Scare in a direct matter. But something about that just seems too easy, too straightforward. What is fun is to examine some well-known films and see if you can find any allegories to the communists and McCarthyism (my idea of fun is quite different to most people). So in the fifties genres such as science fiction, westerns and epics were flourishing and though they seem to have little to do with the Cold War there are a few hidden meanings behind some incredibly popular films.

Elia Kazan, an exceptional director from Hollywood’s classic era and often credited for launching the career of Marlon Brando with his two seminal dramas ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and 1954’s ‘On the Waterfront’. That second film has a complex and convoluted history, as does its director. In 1952 Kazan was brought before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), they were basically a witch hunting organisation that encouraged people the name and shame any suspected communists, and some of the most heavily targeted areas were those liberal thinking writers of course (Arthur Miler used his play ‘The Crucible’ to draw comparisons between the HCUA and witch trails). To many the stories of proud artists upholding their integrities by not naming any of their colleagues is well known and admired, but the same does not apply for Kazan. He named eight colleagues in the film industry to the committee and was subsequently shunned by a number of other colleagues who he did not even name, including Miller himself who had even penned an early draft of ‘On the Waterfront’.

 For those who have not seen the film, it involves around corruption within the longshoremen community and the moral turmoil experienced by one worker, Terry Malloy (Brando) as he must sum up the courage to use the information he knows to bring the corrupt system down, at the risk of his own personal safety or personal ties with the mobsters, his brother Charlie is a key player in the criminal activities. You can probably see the parallels already, for Kazan the film was a way for him to justify his actions before the artistic world and how even though he walked away with no place on the blacklist or criminal charges, he was badly affected by the ordeal.

But Kazan was not the first director to do this, as a battle of cowboys and communists was about to erupt in Hollywood. It began in 1950 with ‘The Gunfighter’ was keen to emphasise the values of American life, with tight communities banding together to uphold authority and supress violence and rebellion, with the help of a fearless and bold leader, in this case the titular gunfighter (Gregory Peck). The security through unity aspects are heavily emphasised, almost as much as the dangers of change and outsiders. This was hardly the only western to do so, but the significance of ‘The Gunfighter’ is how it was directly challenged and contradicted by ‘High Noon’ two years later.

The writer of ‘High Noon’ was Carl Foreman, another artist brought to trial by the HCUA and chose to make a strong challenge to the American government in a way that hurt it the most, through a western. The upshot it this, a sheriff (Gary Cooper) has one day to either leave town or be gunned down by bandits, though he asks the townspeople for help he is unsuccessful and must face them alone. The film gained an appreciation by the lift wing due to what they interpreted as an allegory for the American people being too afraid to stand up for their own beliefs and values and the few that do are at risk of being persecuted and punished for their courage. It also suggests that the best way forward for America is to maintain a mix of individual freedoms and self-determination.

 ‘High Noon’ was unsurprisingly quite divisive at the time, mostly along political lines. Where the left admired it, the right hated it, no one more so than Marion Morrison, better known by his stage name John Wayne. Together with director Howard Hawks, Wayne set out to make a response to ‘High Noon’, a film that in Wayne’s opinion promoted a ‘leftist’ image or collectivism, a departure from good old fashioned American ideals, for Wayne ‘High Noon’ was something a commie would make, not a manly and masculine American man, with manly ideals and other male… stuff. Wayne and Hawks made ‘Rio Bravo’ that emphasised rugged individualism in the face of unprecedented adversary as Wayne stands alone against numerous bandits, except he doesn’t do what a sissy like Gary Cooper would do and ask for help, he stands alone and takes them down with just his two buddies (a self-described cripple and youngster), cue ‘America….. F**** Yeah! This lends itself to the idea that for more conservative filmmakers, America had to be portrayed as not only withstanding the outside threat of communism but being alone in the fight, because that is more compelling. If you take the idea that the bandits are communists and Wayne is America, ‘Rio Bravo’ becomes essentially a propaganda film.

However, it wasn’t just westerns that got their allegories for the red scare in their story. ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ came out in 1956, and we’ve already talked about it here. But for the sake of sustaining and padding out this article I’ll mention it again (because no movie franchise was ever ruined by repetitiveness). This science fiction film involves a man discovering that his entire town has been replaced by alien life forms known as pod people as they slowly invade his town like a creeping infection. So it is fairly obvious that these pod people are interpreted to represent communists, a new race of people replacing American ideologies one by one as they entrap normal citizens and drag them into their system, all the while spreading their disease even further (at least according to Joseph McCarthy). Speaking of McCarthyism though, an alternative interpretation of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ comes from the fact that as the crisis worsens, the man becomes a nervous wreck, running through the town in a blind panic and not knowing who to trust. So does that make the man McCarthy, a delirious and paranoid person, accusing everyone left, right and centre of being an enemy?

But the following year there was an even heavier political allegory in the form of one of the most iconic historical epics of all time. It was one of Stanley Kubrick’s earlier and decidedly least Kubrick-like film, ‘Spartacus’. The historical epic is still very good, but there are few differing interpretations, trippy visuals or mind bending plots. Or are there? Having been scripted by Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston in an upcoming movie) under a pseudo name as he had been blacklisted for refusing to name any colleagues suspected of communist sympathies before the HCUA, well surely if you remember anything about the film, especially its finale, you may already be drawing parallels. The film is about a slave revolt led by the titular ‘Spartacus’ and in the most iconic scenes of the film the slave army is defeated and offered an ultimatum by the Romans; Give up and turn in their leader Spartacus, or die. What do the slaves do? Well as Spartacus steps up to turn himself in, another slave stands up and announces himself to be Spartacus, then another and so on until the entire army is claiming to be Spartacus. This may be a work of genius by Trumbo as a script to highlight his own resentments towards the government and blacklisting, to make the climactic and most memorable moment of his film one where individuals refuse to name a specific person, accepting whatever personal risk comes their way before proving their strength as a united force. You have to admit, for a script by a man blacklisted for communist sympathies, it is one hell of an allegory.  

Did the Watchmen Movie Work?

Given that he is leading the way in DC’s own cinematic universe I thought this would be the opportunity to write something about one of his previous works ‘Watchmen’, perhaps one of the most divisive comic book adaptations ever. At the risk of inciting the rage of the internet (a rage unlike any other on earth) I have to say that I do not have any fondness of this film at all. The comic remains one of my favourite if not the single best comic of all time in my opinion. Though there are many interesting additions to the film there are several major flaws that in my opinion, not only make it a superficial adaptation, but maybe a mediocre film as well.
  I should immediately add that there are probably a few issues that are resolved with the Director’s Cut of the film, but I wouldn’t know as I have yet to muster the strength to sit through all 186 minutes of it, in short I know it patches up a few differences but even with them I believe my central point still stands on each issue, so for the sake of generalising, it’s theatrical cut only.
Before that though, history lesson. The comic by Alan Moore was published in 1986 and a movie version was instantly conceived by 20^th Century Fox, but the idea never came to fruition. Then in 1991 the rights went to Warner Brothers who hired Terry Gilliam to direct their version, but once again the concept fell through, with Gilliam himself declaring the project to be ‘un-filmable’, at the very least he felt it should have been a six hour miniseries. In 2008 Warner Brothers agreed to try again with Zac Snyder in charge and released the finished project in 2009.
The first issue is related to the lack of the comic within a comic from the comic (YES I KNOW IT’S IN THE DIRECTOR’S CUT) The Black Freighter comic is not included in the theatrical version and beyond the allegorical nature of it, the reader of the comic is a local youth hanging out at a newsstand and through this we get a glimpse into the everyday lives of normal citizens living in this world. We see their smaller dramas, fear of nuclear war and superheroes on a ground level. All of this helps to further draw a reader into Moore’s world, to become soaked in its culture and gain an understanding of what it means to live within it. Furthermore it heightens the tragedy of the final chapter of the comic in which New York is destroyed, we have known these characters and were given complex snapshots into some of the many lives that are instantly snuffed out.
But back to The Black Freighter. It is a horror story that draws a parallel to the actions of Ozymandias and questions the morality of his decision and the regrets he has to live with. The omission of the comic means that the film lacks the concept of Ozymandias regretting what he did. Speaking of regrets, the film also fails to include my personal favourite moment for the comic, and one that is also pretty important. When all is dealt with Ozymandias has a private and quiet conversation with Dr Manhattan in which the king of kings momentarily doubts himself and questions whether or not he was right to do what he did ‘in the end’ to which John replies ‘Nothing ever ends’ before departing forever. This takes away another notion of regret and the film tries to compensate by having John and Silk Spectre share a passionate kiss before he leaves, and then she repeats the quote, none of which is really consistent to the fact that she is supposed to be over him and in a relationship with Nite Owl (I mean has anyone ever gone ‘I know how to start this new romance, kiss your old boyfriend before quoting one of his famous phrases to remind me of his presence, yay).
   But Ozymandias’ regret is not the only way in which his character seems underdeveloped. He is basically a standard comic book villain, oozing with sociopathic tendencies and only seems mildly disturbed by his actions. Comic book Ozymandias is a symbol of hope for humanity, the best of what mankind can be, compassionate, intelligent and physically fit. This makes his betrayal and role as the villain all the more shocking.
Ozymandias is not the only character that endures a significant change. Though they remain aesthetically similar they all differ with their characteristics. Movie Manhattan seems much less compassionate and there is little sense of his struggle between losing his humanity and giving in to the chaos of the universe that he foresees. As opposed to being determined and headstrong Silk Spectre comes across as whiny and shallow, moving from one giant naked blue guy as a lover to another lover dressed as an owl on what seems to be a whim. Her resolute and commanding nature in the book (notice she is the only one that stands up to Rorschach from the start) makes her true parentage and upbringing more poignant, as someone who acts like she has total control and independence is revealed to be someone who in reality has a predetermined life that she only knows partially, with her mother pushing her into super-heroism, her father really being a murderous war criminal and her lover being incapable of displaying any emotion.
Her other partner is of course Nite Owl, who’s character arc is almost completely removed in the film. In the comic he goes from being a nervous man that lives in the past and fears the future, he lets Rorschach break into his house and steal food and is extremely nervous when Manhattan arrives back on earth (I mean he is two timing a guy that could separate every atom in his body by blinking). It is only at the end where he gains a sense of confidence and finally stands up to Rorschach, letting the vigilante know exactly what he thinks of him. But in the movie he is standing up to Rorschach from the beginning and still does at the end, nothing changes.
The comic also takes time to delve into the backstory of each character such as Rorschach’s crappy upbringing and Silk Spectre’s mother issues. This highlights how it is almost ludicrous to allow what are clearly severely damaged individuals that just happened to put on costumes. Rorschach’s psychosis is also much more severe, for example, instead of simply hacking the child murderer to death he chains him to the stove and sets the house on fire with the option of sawing off his arm or burning alive. The Keane act almost makes sense, and speaking of which the comic also goes into more detail of how society changed with the acts implementation, once again it draws you deeper into Moore’s world.
  Then there are the finer details that make the characters more human, such as Spectre reaching the truth of her parentage through unearthing suppressed memories instead of Mahattan manipulating her mind to remember (I mean if he can do that then why not just make the Russians and Americans like each other with his powers, or make everyone forget that they think he accidentally gave them cancer). There is also a scene in which Silk Spectre confronts The Comedian about the attempted rape of her mother in a flashback. When she verbally attacks him there seems to be a moment of insecurity and vulnerability, as if he is this close to revealing the truth but doesn’t, hinting that maybe he is not completely sadistic after all. It never happens in the film.
But speaking of The Comedian, what about his death scene, the event that kicks the whole saga into action. In that fight alone we see a character (who we can assume is in his late fifties) thrown through a table, smashing solid walls with his bare fists and having his head smashed through a marble countertop, yet he continues to fight. This ties in to perhaps my biggest issue with the film, Snyder essentially made all of the characters superheroes. They also seem to be more eager to engage in violence as instead of using their disguises as a way to expend vent up frustration and anger with their normal lives.
The only one with real superpowers is Dr Manhattan and this once again highlights his departure from humanity, his power, his place in the political world and how none of the other Watchmen know how to cope with him. Moore made a point to see beyond the abilities of his heroes, he wanted to expose their insecurities and personalities and the film failed to capture that. Hence the issue I have with it. It’s easy to make a superhero that easily dispatches their enemies but where Watchmen is unique is where it makes its heroes pathetically flawed and openly mortal. The point is further proven by how they don’t save the day and defeat the villain in the end, they must accept their failure and live with that guilt forever.
On that lovely note, what did you think of the film/comic, which one is better, did I have a point or am I an insane fool? Leave a comment below to let me know, I leave it entirely in your hands (reference).    

Why Do Movies Bomb?

Despite the undeniable brilliance of ‘Steve Jobs’ (and when I say undeniable I mean to essentially everyone other than Armond White, though I guess it’s fine if you hate it, but it would to fierce argument to convince me… anyway) the film has actually underperformed in America, whether it will do better in Britain and other markets is unclear, but so far the biopic has failed to even recoup its production budget. So this raises a question of why certain films bomb, and when I use the term here I mean purely on a commercial level, as many films have proven that critical acclaim is far from a guaranteed box office draw.
The first option might simply be that the film is simply not good. Though one can only cough in a manner that sounds like ‘Transformers: Age of Dark Moon and Revenge of Extinction of the Fallen’ (long cough) to highlight how sometimes awful films can still generate a large income. But do not doubt how quickly bad word of mouth and bad reviews can sink a film. This year alone we have had ‘Pan’ that may have gathered an audience had it not received universal hatred from anyone that either valued the original incarnation, or film in general. Then observe ‘After Earth’ despite a frankly excellent marketing campaign in which the advertisement never once mentioned the name of M Night Shyamalan, the poor quality of the film translated to such a bad audience reaction that having started out at the number one box office spot on its opening day, it dropped down by one spot the next day, another the next until it dropped off entirely within just a few weeks. Then look at ‘Tomorrowland’, certainly not a terrible film (depending on who you ask), it was fun and fine, but it did not set the world on fire and did not create enough media buzz or rave reviews to inspire anyone to go and see it.
  In a similar vein, a quick question. Who in Britain is looking forward to the ‘Jem and the Holograms’ movie? To the one person who said yes, bad luck because you probably never will. Universal pulled the film from distribution across the United States well ahead of schedule, meaning that they are unlikely to risk further financial setbacks by distributing it anywhere else and allowing it to bomb again. I can’t say whether the film is bad or not as I have not seen it, but what I do know is this, having been based off an animated series from the 1980s it tried to appeal to the nostalgic nature of the adults who had watched the show in their youth, but for some baffling reason they did away with multiple elements of the source material and shifted its focus to appeal to newer audiences. Instead of striking a balance between the two is alienated both parties, with new viewers having no idea who or what this film was about, and older fans experiencing anger over its disregard for the original series. Once again ‘Tomorrowland’ is an example of how the film eliminated its target audience, with various sequences that look like a fun children’s film in its marketing but still emphasising the role of George Clooney in the film who is an actor that most children will not recognise. Such a decision does not appeal directly to any potential audience member.
  But there is a theme running through this discussion though, marketing and advertising. Sometimes this can play a key part in the film’s gross regardless of its quality. It is ultimately down to the studio to decide how much they spend on advertising a film, and sometimes they do not know how to. How could you advertise something like ‘Cabin in the Woods’ as something unique without giving away the entire film? How could you sell ‘Kingsmen’ as anything other than a generic spy film in a two minute trailer? The answer is you can’t, ‘Cabin in the Woods’ displayed every cinematic cliché in existence but the trailer did not give it a chance to demonstrate how subversive and intelligent it would ultimately become, and the trailer for ‘Kingsmen’ made it look like something on par with Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Man from UNCLE’ when one is infinitely better than the other. As well as that a studio can have no faith in the film and want to release it as quietly as possible in order to minimise their financial losses, this year alone saw the disastrous opening of Adam Sandler’s ‘The Cobbler’ which received universal hatred and earned just $24,000 from a budget of $10 million.
  Marketing can also lack a hook to drag people in, or big names to attract others. Even original projects like ‘Cloverfield’ used the trailer to get people talking, ‘Inception’ used Christopher Nolan’s name as well as the fact that both were pretty good, and when I say pretty good I mean one of them is alright and the other is fantastic. Guess which one I mean. If your concept is too vague or you have no big names to attract attention you will struggle to draw a crowd, even more so if your film is not good.
Though of course big names can harm a film just as quickly as they can herald it. Some actors are pushed as big stars by the studio, only to fall out of public favour and be faced with a restricted gross for whatever movie they are in. Remember when Sam Worthington was the next big thing, or Taylor Kitsch? Then others have simply declined gradually and are now dragging down respective films just with their names attached, there’s Sandler and Murphy, who were huge box office draws a couple of decades ago. But one too many bad choices have left a slight scar on our subconscious. This can even apply to directors, we have already mentioned Shyamalan. Put it this way, if a new action film starring Channing Tatum comes out at the same time as Taylor Kitsch’s triumphant return, which would you see?
You would probably see whichever one was part of a franchise is the answer. Now look, I like and respect great franchises, it is not nearly as easy as one would think to make a reliable, entertaining and consistent story across as many as ten or even twenty films but it does seem as if an original film will struggle to compete amid the slew of franchises coming around year after year. Reboots can be even worse, no matter how much you complain when they make a ‘Back to the Future’ reboot, or a ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot or a reboot of Indiana Jones (though to be honest most studios would hopefully put a creative spin on it, as they have already done with ‘Ghostbusters’ and are hoping to do with ‘Indiana Jones’) you will still go an watch it, even if it is just to complain you will still watch it.
  There are few things sadder though, than a failed franchise. A film that is so obviously trying to establish a cinematic universe that it forgets to focus on the film they are currently making that audiences stand up and shout ‘enough’. ‘Fant4stic’ is one, ‘Amazing Spider Man 2’ is another, then you have painful continuations of old franchises well past their prime like ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Terminator’. Although some remakes are useful to draw crowds, others are not as we have seen with remakes of ‘Red Dawn’, ‘Total Recall’ and ‘The Wolf Man’.
The reason for this is that some genres of film just completely fall out of public favour, so a remake in that genre will stand little chance of succeeding. As for an original idea that tries to adopt the concept of, say, a western, god help them. There are exceptions and who knows, with the recent success of ‘Django Unchained’ and the sure to be success of ‘The Hateful Eight’ and ‘The Revenant’ maybe it could make a comeback. Until Adam Sandler comes along with whatever terrible western he is making next and ruins it for everyone.
But none of these reasons explain the commercial failure of ‘Steve Jobs’. The only answer I can give is that there are various exceptions to all of these reasons and every now and then something may come along to completely up haul the rules of why movies bomb. But until then you can look at a film or its trailer or its very concept and make some judgement, just prepare to be surprised.

Can Horror Movies Reflect Society?

Halloween is approaching (as if you hadn’t noticed). So naturally you’ll be searching for various horror movies to watch over this sort-of-holiday. It does get you thinking though as you examine various horror movies, how some manage to provide you with a cheap scare and yet others stay with you for far longer than their running time. Why is that? Well to sound slightly pretentious, society. Every now and then a horror film, by design or accident, latches on to a trend in society and exploits the fear that it generates. Where cinematic horror was once a celebration of how different its creatures were from us, filmmakers soon began to use it as a way to reflect the fears its audiences held about society and mould it into a memorable sense of horror.
   Back in the earlier days of cinema one of the most notable aspects of the business was censorship that in America was upheld by deeply Christian groups. So as a result one could make an incredibly horrifying film with two resources, themes that went against Christian values, and implied imagery. By doing these two things it was virtually guaranteed that you would frighten the censors who are paid to analyse every detail and decipher every suggested frame of your movie. ‘Nosferatu’ of 1922 was a German expressionist film a genre that lived off implying its themes through imagery. By directly defying so many of the values of the censorship boards the film earned itself a condemnation, the movie itself became more frightening than anything it was depicting. It did not matter how frightening it actually was, as long as everyone was telling you it was scary, you would be wary of said film.
History lesson (don’t worry I’ll hold your hand through it, actually that sounds worryingly creepy). In the 1950s World War 2 was over, but for most American people there was another fear within society. It was communism. Whether this fear was justified or not, government heavyweights like Joseph McCarthy worked to fuel those fears and emphasised the identification and subversion through what was later called The Red Scare. Movie time now, as ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ stuck to the popular genre of the time with science fiction. The plot involves a man who is horrified to discover that people in his town have been replaced with alien duplicates known as pod-people. His delirious ramblings attract attention from the townspeople and soon he is unsure who is real and who is a duplicate.
So who represents who? Well pod-people are the communists in this scenario (obviously this is relative to how the public perceived them at the time), a festering race of aliens that will absorb you into their society, and you in turn will do the same to everyone you know and will spread across the world. But in that respect, does the man who discovers them represent McCarthy, deliriously running around, accusing his neighbours and friends of being traitors? Did ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ even intentionally use this fear of communism, or was it just a coincidence that one can only see in retrospect. As well as that of course the film could be an allegory that criticises The Red Scare or justifies it.
Danger in disguise was the main message of horror now, and no one epitomised that better than a young man known as Norman Bates. You know the story of Psycho, so let’s go straight into analysis. Following two world wars on an industrial scale many people were now witnessing first hand psychological damage, but though it was becoming a more accepted ailment, the average person still had little understanding of it and usually found the notion of one person undergoing a complete personality change rather frightening. These murders are unmotivated and committed with a sudden and violent rage that basically said to people that anyone can kill you at any time.
By 1968 the Civil Rights movement was still taking place, and arguments about racial equality and desegregation were raging perhaps more than ever. But when a zombie invasion takes place (I am talking about films now, you did not miss a page of your history textbook about zombies) the few survivors must band together regardless of racial prejudice because they are all that is left of humanity. ‘Night of the Living Dead’ definitely had a lot to say about how humans can be more destructive to themselves than any of the undead, with just a few handfuls of people left abrasive personalities turn on each other. The whole point is only further emphasised by the films ending, spoiler ahead. Our black protagonist Sam is shot by another survivor (either mistaking him for a zombie or in a more sinister interpretation, seeing it as a chance to kill Sam out of racial hatred), unless we put these prejudices aside we will ultimately destroy ourselves. Then there is the fact that the zombies arise from a nuclear fallout, where did that idea come from I wonder?
   A lot of bad stuff had gone down in the 1960s, to such an extent that by 1973 many people were stating that the classic American dream and its ideologies was dead. Households were no longer whole, religion was a source of conflict not unity and even children were left exposed to the evils of the world. Did I hear ‘the power of Christ compels you’? Yes The Exorcist, the one and only. For all the reasons I just listed this satanic horror had a profound impact on so many moviegoers. Parental negligence and a broken home was why Linda Blair was left vulnerable to being possessed by Satan and as a key part of religious teachings, the idea that religion brought so much fear and pain to a home only further damaged that notion of the death of classic America. And the subject of that possession is a little girl. How much more cynical can the outlook get? Well the fact that other religious horrors about family like ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Omen’ came out just hammered that point in further.
The evil of ‘The Exorcist’ also penetrates homes, leaving no safe haven. What else did that in the 1970s? Of course, Mr Michael Myers. By 1978 there was a growing fear that nowhere was safe, the Zodiac Killer brought on a serial killer craze and even the President was capable of scandal and conspiracy (the remake of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ served as a metaphor for closed door conspiracies). But aside from that, John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ popularised the slasher genre as a perfect metaphor for both of those. An unstoppable and unmotivated killer slashes through victims, invading their homes at random selection (sounds familiar to ‘Psycho’, well wrap your head around the fact that ‘Halloween’s’ star Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of Janet Leigh, star of ‘Psycho’, that cannot be an accident).
   Finally, has any horror film provoked as much analysis and deliberation as ‘The Shining’. Initially the film was received harshly (even nominated for a few Razzie Awards) but over time gained a huge following and acclaim. Why? Well I would be one of many to try and decipher what this film means (there is even a movie called ‘Room 237’ specifically devoted to finding out what it means). Maybe, just maybe that is the most frightening thing about ‘The Shining’. As society became more concerned with what it knew and the information age took over, to be presented with something that had so many deeper meanings and possible interpretations is almost unnerving, and if the blood filled elevator, slaughtered twins, carpet patterns, locked vault doors and eerie photographs from 1921 all actually mean one conclusive thing, I shudder to think of what hellish nightmare it could be. Even though I think Stanley Kubrick may the most unique and ingenious directorial mind of all time I admit it would be a stretch to say that he predicted the rise of the internet. But I think he understood that sometimes allowing things to fester within people’s minds generates more terror than anything you can show them. If you ask them to draw a conclusion for themselves it can serve as a metaphor for their own personal fears, regardless of the context in society or culture that they first see his movie. Kubrick did the same thing for science fiction with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, he did it with crime in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and he did the same thing for horror with ‘The Shining’, perhaps that makes it the most timeless horror film of all time.
So those are my ramblings on horror movies but I would love to hear yours. Feel free to leave a comment below, thanks and bye.  

How has the American Dream been Represented in Cinema?

Movies act as a way to represent certain attitudes and social opinions on a wide and potentially ultra-subliminal level. If there is one theme that has been repeated and altered time and time again it is the American Dream. The way it is represented in cinema can demonstrate and entire nations attitude, sometimes hopeful, cynical or accepting. It has evolved several times over the years and has been reiterated time and time again.  
James Stewart was no stranger to representing the American every-man. He displayed it once with ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ in which he told the story of living and its value for even the most ordinary citizen. His next project was ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’ and it rallied the theme of the American Dream to a political level. One key aspect of this dream is good old American democracy (as if that would ever be violated or questioned over the next century). Maintaining such an ideology against corruption and self-servitude is essential here, as Senator Smith defends what he believes in (and what his audience believed in) against corrupt government officials. But at the same time he also argues that just because their political system is flawed it is worth fighting for, reaffirming how the system works despite the exploitative actions of some. Quite a hopeful, good vs evil, viewpoint, andan effective one.
But in just a few short years Orson Welles would bring forth his seminal masterpiece ‘Citizen Kane’. For half of the film it’s the classic American Dream, a self-made man from humble origins is given a chance to build his own empire and succeeds. But it’s as this empire spirals out of control that Welles makes his point of how his fortune is at the expense of Kane’s own happiness, and is always reminiscent of his childhood. Not only that, but by the end of his life, he sees only an empty abyss dominated by his own image, yet no one else’s. In short ‘Citizen Kane’ is a much more cautionary tale of success, personified by his valuable possessions and palace that may appear to be the ultimate sign of freedom, but end up resembling a prison entrapping Kane.
So that’s how adults handled the American Dream to that point, but what about the youngsters, how do they view this limitless potential and freedom. Well as ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ pointed out in 1955, they’re not sure what to do. Instead of taking the route of how naivety is where dreams are most likely to occur, James Dean’s character is torn at the crossroads of independence. He notices the flaws of his parents, the difference between their generations and is unable to find a reason for various actions he carries out. The quintessential rebellious youth spoke to an entire generation of baby boomers in the 1950s, conceived out of a fresh perspective on living, then criticised for trying to do it themselves.
The New Hollywood Movement had its fair share of takes on the American Dream, yet none are quite as epic as ‘Easy Rider’. It’s classic counterculture and classic critique of everything that America valued at the time. After earning a huge amount of money from a drug deal, two friends go on a road trip to a new life where they can spend it. Not only does it point out the immoral way the two earn their success, is highlights how even without knowing their method of success, the rest of the world seems to resent the friends for their success. It would appear that while everyone wants to achieve the American Dream, no one wants to see anyone else achieve it.
‘Rocky’ may appear to be a one dimensional tale of the American Dream, down on his luck hero gets chance and earns his dreams. But remember Rocky Balboa does not win his fight with Apollo Creed (spoiler, but then again it came out nearly forty years ago so, what are you doing instead of watching it?) In fact, one could say that ‘Rocky’s’ version of the American Dream is a parallel to ‘Citizen Kane’s’ version. Instead of getting success without happiness, Rocky achieves happiness without total success (until all of that was undone in the sequels where he becomes the world heavy weight champion, ends the cold war and does the MOST MONTAGES EVER). Of course what Rocky does get is Adrian, and rather than the girls acting as a side note to the main victory, but for Rocky, Adrian’s love is the main victory. Sylvester Stallone pretty much did the ‘Rocky’ story himself to make the movie, and wanted to ensure that though Rocky does not win, he succeeds on his own terms.
Crime is a way to tell an American Dream story better than anything else, especially crime movies by New Hollywood. Coppola and Scorsese are both great at this, but perhaps the most quintessential version of it comes from Brian De Palma’s ‘Scarface’. The tagline says enough ‘He loved the American Dream with a vengeance’. Tony Montana’s American Dream, like all versions of it through crime, is a falsification of it and displays the immorality of his quest to get to the top, as well as the glorification of it. This egotistical side of Tony is his inevitable downfall, which perhaps says more about how this dream can ultimately be an illusion.  
Illusion can be the strongest asset in deciding whether or not you have succeeded. In 1997 PT Anderson brought forward his take on stardom and the American Dream, ‘Boogie Nights’. The artificial nature of this world his brought forward time and time again, we watch how Mark Walberg, by sheer luck manages to find his one large attribute (you know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it) which erodes all of his failures in academia and real world knowledge. PT Anderson could have just used any area of the film industry to set his story, yet he chose the porn industry. For one simple reason only, it draws more attention to how the characters’ success is simply on a primal level, reliant completely upon their viewers literal idolisation of their bodies, nothing else. This American Dream is all artificial and completely shallow, yet for them it is success and by the end of the film, when Walberg has his fortune and legions of fans, it’s difficult to argue with it.
Until this point these stories had been staged on epic and unique settings, like political showdowns, drug fuelled biker road trips. Cocaine empires and porn stars. But Sam Mendes wanted to redefine the American Dream with suburbia, he did so in 1999 with ‘American Beauty’. It’s not about trying to achieve the dream, it is about what you do afterwards. Lester Burnham is bored with the mundane nature of his life, and seeks to embrace a counterculture lifestyle that’s thirty years out of date. There’s a deep hollowness to the dream here, and one that is only partially redeemable by a more optimistic ending. Yet that message still speaks strongly today.
PT Anderson was back with his own take on the ‘Citizen Kane’ story. In ‘There Will Be Blood’ Danial Plainview is a self-made man, like Charles Kane. But rather than merely sacrificing his happiness for success, Plainview sacrifices his entire humanity. The animalistic aggression, vile hatred within him and sheer primal rage seep through in Daniel Day Lewis’ performance as he not only seeks to triumph over his competitors, he wants to destroy them, devalue their beliefs and morals, ruin their finances and personally assure their absolute decimation. It’s a tale of how the American Dream can become a mad and desperate struggle for victory, in which all that makes a person human can be lost.
Not a positive way to end, and it only gets worse. Martin Scorsese brought forward another take on the American Dream in 2013, and may be his most disturbing yet. In ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort lives on pure excess, he is fuelled by drugs and pleasure and we as an audience witness it first-hand. Not only do we admire him, partially, we want to be him. His world of gluttony and fortune is appealing despite the immorality of it, and as he delivers that sale seminar by the end, just like Belfort’s audience we are left in a mixed state of disgust, but more worryingly, awe. What does that say about our dreams?
But what do you think, is there a movie that wasn't on the article, one that was but shouldn't have been. Leave a comment below if you think so, thanks and bye. 

Dead Comedy: Part 2 - Spoof Movies

So now I move on to Part 2 of my series about dead comedy in cinema. Obviously like all comedy sequels it will be significantly worse than the first but you’re here now and you might as well read on, just be thankful that at least I warned you in advance unlike ‘Hangover 2’ or ‘Ted 2’ or any other less than stellar comedy sequel. Last time I looked at screwball, but the other dead form of comedy today seems to be parody. Where did all the parody films go?
Satire goes as far back as Charles Chaplin (because by the 1940s he was formal and grown up, slightly) with his first talking film ‘The Great Dictator’ that originally spawned because someone made a remark that Chaplin looked a bit like Hitler, and given that he was famously an outspoken critic of the Nazis long before World War 2, when war finally arrived in Europe Chaplin made his satire film about a dictator who was almost, not-quite-but-we-all-know-that-he-really-is, a complete caricature of Hitler. It was a huge hit (even more so today as back then there was some criticism, mostly from Germany) not just because of the jokes or the mockery it was due to the fact that Chaplin really did look like Hitler, a dictator reigning over an entire country, and this just made the idea of him being a complete buffoon even more hilarious, like giving a warlike speech that just turns into uncontrollable coughing or juggling an inflatable globe but all in the shape of someone so notorious.
Then the next serious parody was Mel Brooks’ ‘Young Frankenstein’. This had a similar brilliance to it in the sense that it took something very frightening and familiar in people’s minds and made it hilarious. Once again it came from the fact that Brooks was able to recreate the atmosphere and the mood of the original ‘Frankenstein’ so well that any silly or humorous modifications to it weren’t just amusing, they were hysterical. If you could sum it up in one way, I wouldn’t even say the comedic figures are idiots, they just happen to display some of the more notable flaws of humanity in the most serious of circumstances. You’ve got the fact that Igor is in such denial he does not even know he has a deformed spine, or instead of being called Frankenstein the Doctor insists that his students pronounce his name as Frank-en-steen. The contrast pf putting something so humorous next to such a detailed recreation of horror is what makes it truly special.
Mel Brooks had yet more success by parodying westerns with ‘Blazing Saddles’ and ‘science fiction with ‘Space Balls’. Then there were new arrivals with the Zucker Brothers/Abrahams team that would make ‘Hot Shots’, ‘The Naked Gun’ and of course ‘Airplane!’ They were all huge successes and seen by many as a new age in comedy that would last for a long time, they were seen as money makers came out as fast as they could. And that is exactly what killed them. Many imitators sprang up and thought they could nail this success with a simple formula; some references, slapstick, a bit of satire and you had it. In fact that first one seemed to be especially important, as it was theorized that the more references you could get into a movie, the more money it would make.
The problem with this tactic was that there wasn’t always something interesting or funny to say about these references, they were there for the sake of making it look like another movie instead of having something genuinely comical to do with it. Furthermore it made the movie feel crowded, more episodic and more like a TV series than a movie. The comedy was not focused, clever or very comedic. The result were poor efforts such as ‘Spy Hard’, ‘Wrongly Accused’ and even Mel Brooks seemed to be lacking in ‘Dead and Loving It’. Then the Zucker/Abrahams team went their own ways and found little success on their own, gradually making less and less money.
And so, parody movies were dead…. Until the summer of 2000 with ‘Scary Movie’. This one was different, not only did it make fun of horror films it paid special attention to the horror films of recent years to the movie’s release. They didn’t bother to see if the film would stand the test of time, they just went after it specifically while it was still fresh in people’s minds. Watching ‘Airplane!’ today, it’s still funny, watching ‘Scary Movie’, I don’t even remember half of the jokes or references. As well as this they weren’t just going after a specific genre either, sure they had parodies of horror like ‘The Exorcist, ‘The Sixth Sense’, ‘The Shining’ and ‘Scream’. But they also threw out references to ‘Thelma and Louise’, ‘Boogie Nights’ and even ‘Schindler’s List’ (yeah because that’s a subject that’s ripe with potential humor). It also took a leaf out of the ‘American Pie’ book and injected a lot of gross out humor (and I mean really over the top, s**t in your face kind of gross out). But it was a huge success, so regardless of whether its quality rivalled Mel Brooks or not this was how parody movies could be successful again.     
The only problem is it launched imitator after imitator and I will say now, I hate ‘Scar Movie’ even as a singular film. What I hate even more is what it launched, a decade of horrible comedy movies and the worst franchise in cinematic history ‘The Movie Movies’. They were all hastily made, horribly written, terribly acted and deliberately outrageous. By now they were not satirizing any particular film, any specific movie series or even a certain genre. They just threw in references to everything that was popular. None of it was clever or funny. Just look at this as an example, Epic Movie combines satires of ‘Borat’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ‘Narnia’, ‘X-Men’ and ‘Harry Potter’. What do any of those movies have in common other than the fact that they were all popular in 2007? Then you had ‘Disaster Movie’ that referenced ‘Juno’, ‘Iron Man’, ‘Amy Winehouse’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda’. Finally I’ll give you ‘Vampires Suck’, you’d think it would be pretty easy as there’s a lot of ‘Twilight’ and recent vampire craze related topics to poke fun at. But instead you have references to ‘Saturday Night Fever’, The Kardashians and Barack Obama. Why are they related, does ‘True Blood’ go hand in hand with the President of America, or am I just missing something?
I heard rumors that the writers didn’t even watch the movies they were parodying. They just saw production photos and made it look like that, then threw in every lazy, obvious, easy and zeitgeist related joke they could, maybe throw in an excrement or penis joke while you’re at it. This links in to another massive problem I have with these films, there’s just no love for the source material. Mel Brooks loved westerns and horror movies and even went as far as to ask George Lucas’ permission to make a ‘Star Wars’ parody. With the ‘Movie Movies’ the style just feels, if anything, mostly spiteful, as if the makers are hoping to use their films to demean the work of more talented filmmakers. Whereas the Zukcer Brothers had an affectionate and appreciating attitude towards their source material, they seem to make movies out of disdain, a contempt that they’ll never make anything as good as ‘The Shining’, ‘Inception’ or ‘Pulp Fiction’.
So parody may be dead on film, but it is still alive online. You have great comedy groups like ‘How It Should Have Ended’ or ‘Screen Junkies’ Honest Trailers’. Then there are TV shows like ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Mock the Week’, or the terrific work Dan Harmon is doing with ‘Community’ and ‘Rick and Morty’. Movie makers could really learn a lesson from them, as the best satires come from a real understanding of your source material, knowing what makes it work to capture its métiers while playfully recognizing its imperfections.

Dead Comedy: Part 1 - The Screwball Comedy

Comedy is a very interesting genre in movies, it’s probably the most diverse and accessible variety of movies that can range from any age group and virtually any style. Think about it, you’ve got a comedy of manners, slapstick, screwball, parody, anarchy, fish out of water, gross out, black-comedy or romantic comedy, then you’ve got the limitless hybrid genres that allows comedy to integrate itself with virtually any kind of film such as action, horror, fantasy, drama or science fiction. Today most of these deviations of comedy are still alive and kicking in cinema today, some may not have their own genre anymore and are merely combined with other forms of humour but for the most part each aspect of that is still present in our modern movies.
However, some of the ones I listed appear to be completely dead and buried and would need a complete overhaul or a great comedic mind to bring them back. This is something I’m going to look at with these articles. The first one seems to be the screwball comedy. Early pioneers of cinema like Howard Hawks and Frank Capra shined in the genre, but today no one seems to make them anymore, the closest thing you’ll find is homage or an assimilated form. What happened?
The screwball genre is defined as being ‘fables of love masquerading as hostility’. Many have drawn parallels with film noir as well, except screwball distinguishes itself with a number of elements such as its comedic tone and its escapist and farcical themes. It’s also a reversal of the stereotypical positions of power put forward by gender roles and social classes. During the Great Depression, there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes.
All of this basically means that in screwball, the woman dominates the relationship. It challenges the masculinity of the man and makes way for a comedic battle of the sexes involving romance, courtship, bedroom farce and marriage. The question that one may ask here is, why mask those themes under a comedy or film-noir style, why not just make a drama involving them? Three reasons, one was that this was all taking place during the great depression and audiences wanted escapism, not heavy handed emotional rollercoasters. Secondly, women’s suffrage had ended and they now finally had the right to vote so someone immediately had the brilliant idea of capitalising on this by placing the women in their films in positions of power. Thirdly, you had the Hayes Code. This prohibited films touching on the subjects of violence, religion and especially sex. To incorporate the more risqué elements of their films, studios used the genre as a disguise to appease the censorship boards.
How? They used the verbal sparring between two genders as a metaphor for the physical sexual tension between them, a sex comedy without the sex. It was subversive and superbly executed. As time went on though censors began to latch on to what these writers and studios were doing and tried to crack down on them, meaning that the creative minds behind the pictures had to think of increasingly inventive and ingenious ways of conveying innuendo and euphemism without the censors catching on. In other words the screwball writers always had to remain one step ahead of the censors while still making an artistically viable picture and ensuring that it would entertain audiences so it could generate a profit and allow them to do it all over again, talk about a busy workload.    
So the style evolved and developed as any successful genre does. Perhaps the most successful screwball director was Ernst Lubitsch, who crafted many of the standouts of the genre such as ‘Trouble in Paradise’, ‘If I Had A Million’ and ‘That Uncertain Feeling’. Then you had ‘The Philadelphia Story’ or ‘Bringing Up Baby’ and ‘His Girl Friday’. Even legendary director Alfred Hitchcock dabbled in the screwball genre with ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’.
Then a new generation came to take up the genre and the biggest name of this screwball era was Billy Wilder. He basically built his early career off of this genre, especially with his very first American movie ‘The Major and the Minor’. This movie revolved around a young woman that quits her career to return home but only has enough oney for a child’s ticket and therefore does the logical thing of posing as a schoolgirl only to become entangled with a Major who is increasingly worried by his attraction to what he believes is a young schoolgirl. So as the word Major in the title takes on a different meaning you can already guess what its accompanying noun was referring to, let’s move on before this becomes any more awkward. Wilder even used screwball in his more dramatic work like ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in which a struggling screenwriter agrees to assist an aging actress get her career back on track.
Wilder then made a direct return to the genre in 1959 with ‘Some Like it Hot’, the greatest cross dressing film of all time (sorry ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’). Named by the American Film Institute as the greatest comedy movie of all time and the quintessential screwball comedy, Wilder even set it twenty years ago during the thirties in order to make the environment more in tune with the screwball themes. Two musicians witness a gangland murder and must hide out by disguising themselves as women, though it pretends to have commentary on violence and greed, make no mistake, this movie is about sex. It’s only become more obvious as time goes on, becoming blatantly subversive (contradiction in terms) and starred the ultimate iconic sex symbol herself Marylyn Monroe. Trust me, watch the movie and make it a fun drinking game by taking a shot with every euphemism and innuendo you see.
So with the genre this successful, why did it die? Simply because as Bob Dylanput it the next decade, the times they are a changin’. Censorship in movies is a thing of the past by the time the 1960s roll around and now filmmakers don’t need to disguise the sexual tension in their movies, they can just outright show it. Nothing was off limits any more, with rating systems it meant that appropriate audiences could see appropriate films so there was no need to have a sex comedy without sex. So the screwball comedy is well and truly dead.
That’s not to say that the genre is completely buried. There are still various homages and tributes to the type, the work of Billy Wilder can still be watched and appreciated today and most of the individual artistic choices are still being used today in some form. The genre died out not because audiences grew board with it or the quality began to dip, but the change in cinematic society rendered it irrelevant.