This article was written as a response to a number of people I know who didn’t see much anything worthwhile in the film in question. I liked it a whole bunch, and basically just wanted to state, as cogently as I could muster, why. Any feedback, dissenting or otherwise, would be wonderful.
In Clint Eastwood’s pivotal Boston-noir piece Mystic River (2003), Tim Robbins plays a broken man named Dave who was, as a young boy, abducted, abused and raped by a couple of pedophiles. In the wake of the murder of his childhood friend’s daughter, Dave’s long-fragile psyche begins a tragic descent into complete psychosis, and after his wife arrives home late one night to find him watching “some vampire movie” in a despondent slump, he makes the following desperate and disjointed attempt to explain things to her:
Know what I was thinking about? Vampires… [t]hey’re un-dead, but I think maybe there’s something beautiful about it. Maybe one day you wake up and you forget what it’s like to be human. Maybe then it’s okay… They [the kidnappers] were wolves, and Dave was the boy who escaped from wolves… They took me on a four-day ride. They buried me in this ratty old cellar with a sleeping bag. And man, Celeste, did they have their fun… Dave’s dead. I don’t know who came out of that cellar, but it sure as shit wasn’t Dave. You see, honey… it’s like vampires. Once it’s in you, it stays.
Please note; this essay was written for a history department and, with that in mind, there was an assumption of complete unfamiliarity with cinematic analysis. As a result it covers some ground which is probably familiar to you. However, rather than interrupt the flow of the essay by removing such material, I have decided to leave it in. It never hurts to have a refresher.
One may even speak of a culture, in which senseless killing and violence now belong to the Serbs’ sense of themselves: as a wounded people that keep on wounding themselves, and even their best friends and neighbours. We can apply Mark Seltzer’s notion of America’s “wound culture” to modern Serbia. The wound stands paradigmatically as a metaphor for a culture that is traumatized by endless war and everyday violence, and morbidly obsessed with it.
-Igor Krstic, Serbia’s Wound Culture: Teenage Killers in Milosevic’s Serbia. p. 101
The social and psychological impact of genocide on a people is undeniable. In the wake of such a catastrophic event, the mind must attempt to process the hows and whys of what has happened and find a way to live in the aftermath of those events. The pain and suffering of the genocide become a part of the cultural identity of both victims and perpetrators and the evidence of this newfound component of their cultural identity trickles down through all levels of society. An excellent example is the media which a culture produces in the wake of genocide. The artists who create these creative works are not any more or less affected by the genocide than any other members of society and, deliberately or subconsciously, their works of art will reflect the changes that have occurred in the wake of genocide or other devastating cultural event. In this paper we use Srdan Dragojevic’s Rane(which translates as “The Wounds”) as a case study to explore the role of film and media in understanding the advent and consequences of genocide to a people. Due to the restriction of space, we will assume that the reader has a general familiarity with the Bosnian genocide, though all information pertinent to the examples given from the film will be included. While, optimally, we would spend a thousand words on both the Bosnian genocide and critical film theory, this would prevent us from achieving the level of analysis required to answer the question. We will also assume that readers have seen Rane and a copy has been included with this submission. Let us begin with a short summary of the interpretive methods we will use to analyse Rane. Read the rest of this entry »
By virtue of much academic deliberation, it is legitimately possible to separate screen violence into two distinct periods: that of classical and modern film (spanning roughly from the nineteen-thirties to the nineteen-fifties), which was imbued by its elegance and theatricality with innate meaning, and that of post modern film (the late sixties onwards), which was simply too obsessed with the act itself and how that violence could be exploited to have any of the classical meaning of its historical predecessor. Through example of three films: Raoul Walsh’s White Heat(1949), David Fincher’s Fight Club(1999) and Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale (2000), this essay intends to show how valued judgments about the measure of ‘meaning’ present in a depiction of violence based upon opposing classical or post modern cinematic treatments is entirely too insensitive to the subjective and philosophically nuanced nature of meaningfulness. Read the rest of this entry »
Here at pleasantfluff.com, we’re all massive fans of Fight Club and today marks the 10th anniversary of its general release in cinemas. In order to celebrate, we’re going to publishing Mr. Bailey Smith’s article on it and (one of) its Japanese counterparts, Battle Royale. We had hoped to get it out by today, but we’re all bogged down in the end of semester quagmire.
Enough bleating! Happy Birthday Fight Club, may you inspire many more young men to adopt an iconoclastic stance in our increasingly alienating world.
Mulvey’s psychoanalytic feminist film theory had many implications for the study of cinema, and this essay aims to first delineate the way in which these implications have influenced and challenged feminist film theory. Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” raised several issues which have been taken up by feminist film theorists since; as primary examples in relation to horror cinema I use Barbara Creed and Carol Clover, whose works on the monstrous-feminine and the slasher film (respectively) are both seminal and deeply indebted to Mulvey’s theory. The examination of those sources in relation to Mulvey’s theory concludes Part I of this essay.
Part II will analyse two modern horror films which, I argue, take as their subject woman and the feminine in ways which challenge and oppose what Mulvey calls “the language of the dominant patriarchal order” (Mulvey 485). This essay will argue that it is now possible to attempt an analysis of some – by no means all – modern horror cinema, which occupies a position outside of traditional or mainstream patriarchal codification, a position referred to (and henceforth described) as primal sisterhood.1Read the rest of this entry »
As a metaphor for the problematised feminine subject, this term and the concepts which I argue it invokes representsan attempt to describe and theorise the female subject and the female unconscious without recourse to a strictly phallocentric theory. This is a possibility which, in the climate of theory in which Mulvey was working at the time of writing “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, did not readily exist, but which I argue does so today. ↩
This latest article comes courtesy of guest writer, William Boyle. Carl Jung’s religious writings propose a highly unconventional revision to our understanding of God. Religion, Jung asserts, must take into account humanity’s potential for evil. His psychological approach attributes evil to the compensatory function of the shadow, expressing urges repressed by the ego. In this sense, the repressive function of religious morality is directly responsible for evil. Writing in the first half of the 20th Century, Jung perceived evil manifested through the unbridled violence of two World Wars. Faced with such devastation, Jung believed that religion must abandon its repressive function and incorporate an understanding of God that responds to the darkness in humanity. In his autobiography and the essay, “Answer to Job” Jung suggests that the Judeo-Christian tradition once incorporated an understanding of God’s darkness, but that understanding has since been severed. In spiritual terms, therefore, the incorporation of divine darkness represents the reawakening of the primal aspects of God. Jung’s claims would suggest that visions of this primal god should resonate throughout what he calls the collective unconscious. Indeed, W.B. Yeats’ The Second Coming,Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu could all be interpreted as visions of the reawakening of some dark and primal god.
Jung’s understanding of individual evil is not a supernatural one; rather, he defines evil as something people are capable of. Individuals are not, themselves, evil. The personal nature of evil, he claims, simply consists of characteristics and urges rejected by the ego, or consciousness. Such inclinations are repressed by the ego, as it cannot countenance that within itself which it regards as evil. These characteristics then constitute the shadow, therefore “to become conscious of [the shadow] involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality” (1951: 145), that which the ego calls evil.
This essay arose when Bailey and I (both long time Cronenberg fans) had an opportunity to write an essay about him in the same class. Naturally, a competition ensued. Here was my entrant:
For Cronenberg sex represents intimacy, betrayal, sublimation, absorption and the merging of identities all at once. Cronenberg has stated that the body is the “first fact of human existence” (Günberg 95). For Cronenberg our physicality and sensual experience of the world is all that we can know for sure (Günberg 95) and, because it is perhaps the ultimate physical act, sex is the intersection of thought, identity and biology. Any pretence of a higher, non-physical person is subsumed in this act of raw physicality and passion. Videodrome, Naked Lunch and Crash are excellent case studies in Cronenberg’s obsessive pre-occupation with human sexuality because each features a central character whose latent sexuality blossoms over the course of the film, for better or worse. This essay will examine the methods Cronenberg uses to expose and explore the expansive and polymorphous entity that is human sexuality in his films. Read the rest of this entry »
Columbus’ first action on Caribbean soil was to plant a flag and claim the land in the name of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. This action was the first to take place with both Europeans and Taino present and both would have viewed the event in a completely different light. The Spanish would have seen the planting of the flag as very significant and reflective of the way in which the Feudal system of Spanish governance operated. This is evident in the special attention that is placed on the planting of the flag in the accounts of the occasion, in which particular emphasis is given to the King and Queen that the land is being claimed for. Columbus himself notes in his journal that he “had taken possession of the island … for his sovereigns.” This theme of claiming land and resources continues strongly through the Journals and they make many references to “Your Highnesses”, indicating that they were written for the Monarchy who had funded the voyage. Read the rest of this entry »
Depictions of Native Americans in film have existed since the beginning of the film industry and similar depictions existed before film in the form of wild-west shows. Historically these depictions have been created by and for Euro-Americans and, as a result, present a skewed and stereotyped image of Native American people. While Native people have been involved in the film industry for over a century, it took until 1998 for a completely Native American production to arise with a Native writer, director and crew. Smoke Signalspremiered at a time when, regrettably, many people thought that Native Americans no longer existed as a distinct culture or people. This essay will explore how Smoke Signals challenged contemporary and historical views of Native Americans in American film. However, before we can understand the significance of Native American depictions in Smoke Signals we must first gain and understanding of how Native Americans have been historically depicted in American films and entertainment and why such depictions are significant. Read the rest of this entry »
When we consider the modern sexual politics of the Catholic Church they are, in comparison to those of the broader secular world, quite conservative. What many don’t realise is that much of what makes up the contemporary sexual politics of the Catholic Church stems from the works and thinking of one man: St. Augustine. This essay will explore the life and works of St. Augustine and how it was that he profoundly affected the thinking of both the Catholic Church and the broader secular community right up to the present day. Read the rest of this entry »
premiered at a time when, regrettably, many people thought that Native Americans no longer existed as a distinct culture or people. This essay will explore how Smoke Signals challenged contemporary and historical views of Native Americans in American film. However, before we can understand the significance of Native American depictions in Smoke Signals we must first gain and understanding of how Native Americans have been historically depicted in American films and entertainment and why such depictions are significant. 
