I have grown disenchanted with superhero films: perhaps inevitable due to the genre's ubiquity (never a good way to keep my affection), but a bit disheartening when I remember how much I really appreciated superheroes once upon a time. Whether because I always liked the X-Men or whether the films simply grabbed me when I was young enough, the first two X-Men films have remained my favorite. Yes, even the first one (it's got issues, but every superhero movie ever has issues and I cannot be bothered to care about much beyond personal affection).
It's fairly obvious ("Have you tried... not being a mutant?") that the two films intentionally reference gay rights, what with gay rights being the most topical civil rights struggle of the time, the director being openly gay, and Ian McKellen's presence as Magneto. It's obvious with Bobby Drake and his parents, with Magneto's rants, with Senator Kelly trying to ban mutants from schools or Rogue having a traumatic first sexual experience that she doesn't understand and has difficulty coping with (and my favorite... that moment in Alaska when "mutants" come up on the TV and Rogue's eyes dart to it and Wolverine's eyes dart to it, and they notice each other and they know...).
Which brings us to Nightcrawler, a.k.a. Kurt Wagner, played by Alan Cumming. His immersion in the gay subtext is instantly obvious from the casting, but the character is where the real matter lies: a very religious mutant with a visible, unalterable mutation who is used and exploited, forced into acting against his kind, feared equally by both sides, yet holds confidently and gently to both his body and his faith: seeing no discrepancy with evolution or his demonic appearance; seeing no war, only forgiveness. The strength of the portrait may have been borne home more if the film had given Stryker any religious correlations, like the comics, but Kurt isn't really a lead anyway, and there's no point in giving Stryker religion if the guy's just supposed to be Wolverine's backstory.
The thing is: even though it's subtext, even though the character of Nightcrawler isn't actually gay (we know this from the comics), even though he's a very minor character... has there been a better example of a gay Christian, man or woman, in film? Or other fictional mediums? Maybe I'm forgetting something? Because I'm drawing a blank. Most projects I've seen that actually use gay Christians tend to make them hysterical hypocrites, delusional frauds, shallowly sketched foils for atheists, or doubters who lose their faiths in order to more fully embrace their sexuality. All of which can be, I'm sure, valuable characters, but none of which reflect anything I'm interested in seeing. Even Angels in America starts out creating a complex, gay Mormon, investing him with weight and emotional heft, only to use him as a punching bag in scene after scene of the second play, no longer a protagonist, but a scapegoat to bear the full brunt of everyone's judgment and/or self-loathing.
I'd like to think there's something I'm forgetting, or there's too much I haven't seen yet. Otherwise, I'm just in awe of how important X2 really is to me... and how ridiculous it is that a superhero movie, of all things, has given me the closest cinematic representation of one of the most significant combinations in my life.
Which is, I guess, what superheroes are there for?
Whatever. I'll take it.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
1920s Footwear
When I'm not watching three year old movies, I watch ninety-three year old movies. The Blot is a 1921 film directed by Lois Weber, once thought of as one of the greatest directors in Hollywood. She has since been largely forgotten, with barely any of her films surviving. Because sometimes the critical establishment sucks.
A social message picture about wealth and class, Weber was the perfect director for it. For one because she obviously cares about this message a great deal, and nothing will kill a message picture faster than a creative team that doesn't believe the message. The other reason is more interesting: one thing that makes Weber unique among silent film directors I've seen is her incredible facility with using silent film techniques to show communities. Not just undifferentiated extras, but communities full of individual members, each of which has his or her own standing and relationships within that community. It was one of the remarkable things about Hypocrites, her 1915 fable, and it's almost entirely the point in The Blot.
The most frustrating thing about the film (besides that I can't help but think Amelia ends up with the wrong guy, even if he is the lead and the other actor doesn't even get credited... seriously, silent film records, you are the worst) is that it just has too many intertitles. Later message pictures' key flaw of Too Much Talking About the Issue is the one thing you'd expect to get away from in a silent film, because, hey, silent. The difference is that instead of being repetitive, they're superfluous. Weber tells us everything we need to know with the production design.
Distressingly (again, silent film records), there is no credited art director, production designer, set dresser, costumer, or anything. Not even a crew. So I don't really know who to give credit to, except whatever random people Weber had working for her production company. Because the sets in The Blot are fantastic: a fine middle class house that's disintegrating before your very eyes; another middle class house on its way up the pay grade; a minister's small, dark, but very cozy den; a country club that seems expensive without seeming especially exciting, a fascinating counterpoint to the art deco fantasias belonging to 1930s heiresses. And Weber and her DPs (Phillip R. Du Bois and Gordon Jennings) know exactly when to give us a closeup on the ratty chair, the hole in the carpet, the characters' contrasting shoes. It's not so much attention to detail as it is devotion to detail. You know from the cars, the kitchens, and the shoes everything you need to know about the income differentials of these people. You know which characters notice these things, which characters are insecure about them, and which characters hardly notice it at all. No one needs intertitles.
Of course, it seems like exactly the kind of thing easily dismissed by the kind of manly critic who refuses to take Douglas Sirk seriously (a message picture about shoes? Not a chance). But as I grow less and less enchanted with plot-based storytelling (plot descriptions are inevitably my least favorite part of any movie review), I grow more and more intrigued by artists who let other elements do their storytelling. And any film director who can make magic out of a closeup of shoes has to be doing something right (in a way, this film really is kind of all about shoes).
A social message picture about wealth and class, Weber was the perfect director for it. For one because she obviously cares about this message a great deal, and nothing will kill a message picture faster than a creative team that doesn't believe the message. The other reason is more interesting: one thing that makes Weber unique among silent film directors I've seen is her incredible facility with using silent film techniques to show communities. Not just undifferentiated extras, but communities full of individual members, each of which has his or her own standing and relationships within that community. It was one of the remarkable things about Hypocrites, her 1915 fable, and it's almost entirely the point in The Blot.
The most frustrating thing about the film (besides that I can't help but think Amelia ends up with the wrong guy, even if he is the lead and the other actor doesn't even get credited... seriously, silent film records, you are the worst) is that it just has too many intertitles. Later message pictures' key flaw of Too Much Talking About the Issue is the one thing you'd expect to get away from in a silent film, because, hey, silent. The difference is that instead of being repetitive, they're superfluous. Weber tells us everything we need to know with the production design.
Distressingly (again, silent film records), there is no credited art director, production designer, set dresser, costumer, or anything. Not even a crew. So I don't really know who to give credit to, except whatever random people Weber had working for her production company. Because the sets in The Blot are fantastic: a fine middle class house that's disintegrating before your very eyes; another middle class house on its way up the pay grade; a minister's small, dark, but very cozy den; a country club that seems expensive without seeming especially exciting, a fascinating counterpoint to the art deco fantasias belonging to 1930s heiresses. And Weber and her DPs (Phillip R. Du Bois and Gordon Jennings) know exactly when to give us a closeup on the ratty chair, the hole in the carpet, the characters' contrasting shoes. It's not so much attention to detail as it is devotion to detail. You know from the cars, the kitchens, and the shoes everything you need to know about the income differentials of these people. You know which characters notice these things, which characters are insecure about them, and which characters hardly notice it at all. No one needs intertitles.
Of course, it seems like exactly the kind of thing easily dismissed by the kind of manly critic who refuses to take Douglas Sirk seriously (a message picture about shoes? Not a chance). But as I grow less and less enchanted with plot-based storytelling (plot descriptions are inevitably my least favorite part of any movie review), I grow more and more intrigued by artists who let other elements do their storytelling. And any film director who can make magic out of a closeup of shoes has to be doing something right (in a way, this film really is kind of all about shoes).
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Coming Out Is So Three Years Ago
I finally (three years late) caught up with Pariah, the first feature of writer/director Dee Rees. It's good. Really good. Too flawed to be great, perhaps, but the direction, cinematography from Bradford Young, and lead performance by Adepero Oduye are all thrilling achievements.
The thing is, Pariah is the most cliched gay story imaginable: the coming out story. When it was new and anyone at all was still talking about it, the unoriginality of the film came under some scrutiny: "sure, it's good, but it's just another one of those. Can't we get a bit more creative?"
I resent this. I don't dispute it: the coming out story is not original. It was, not too long ago, but it isn't anymore. No, I dispute the idea that it should be more original. The coming out story is as original as romance. Or tragedy. Or a coming of age story. Because, effectively, it is a coming of age story. We've had millions of those. We will have millions more. The thing about a coming of age story (or any other broad plot structure), is that it's basic. It's a common experience upon which infinite variations can be played. There can be as many coming of age stories as there are adults; as many romances as there are couples; as many coming out stories as there are people who come out.
The exciting thing is that the coming out story is uniquely gay. Sure, the language has been co-opted to mean any time anyone reveals something that was secret, but that doesn't make it less gay... that just makes our culture that much gayer. Romances can be straight, gay, whatever. Coming of age is something anyone can go through. Coming out? That's gay.
Unique among minorities, the LGBTQIA community is not visually separated from the dominant culture, but internally separated. It's a great, terrifying, empowering, painful moment when an individual finally leaves the closet. Can't we treat that moment with respect? Can't it exist in infinite permutations, being told and retold again and again and again? No one should silence a lesbian from telling her coming out story just because they've heard coming out stories before. That's prejudice disguised as aesthetic judgment.
Hopefully, in the future, the closet becomes less of an issue. As society grows more tolerant, it becomes easier than ever for younger and younger people to come out. This doesn't negate the coming out story: it transforms it. No longer the slow, extended torment of the closet, of double lives and lying. Instead, the sunny confusion of adolescence, the alternating timid and brash explorations of sexuality and identity, the multiplicity of LGBTQIA experience. What other character study (a coming out narrative is, fundamentally, a character study, since by necessity it kind of has to be more about character than plot) is devoted almost exclusively to our community?
It seems like every time another celebrity comes out these days, they are greeted with cries of, "eh." On the one hand, this is a sign of tolerance, that whether or not you're gay is not your defining quality, that sexuality isn't an important issue. It's progress. Inevitably someone will say some variation on "Big deal. Who cares?"
I care. Because sexuality may not be a big deal anymore, but it's important. Because sexuality does not define us, but it is part of us. Because there can never be too many coming out stories.
As with most story structures: the key is not "do it differently." The key is, "do it well."
The thing is, Pariah is the most cliched gay story imaginable: the coming out story. When it was new and anyone at all was still talking about it, the unoriginality of the film came under some scrutiny: "sure, it's good, but it's just another one of those. Can't we get a bit more creative?"
I resent this. I don't dispute it: the coming out story is not original. It was, not too long ago, but it isn't anymore. No, I dispute the idea that it should be more original. The coming out story is as original as romance. Or tragedy. Or a coming of age story. Because, effectively, it is a coming of age story. We've had millions of those. We will have millions more. The thing about a coming of age story (or any other broad plot structure), is that it's basic. It's a common experience upon which infinite variations can be played. There can be as many coming of age stories as there are adults; as many romances as there are couples; as many coming out stories as there are people who come out.
The exciting thing is that the coming out story is uniquely gay. Sure, the language has been co-opted to mean any time anyone reveals something that was secret, but that doesn't make it less gay... that just makes our culture that much gayer. Romances can be straight, gay, whatever. Coming of age is something anyone can go through. Coming out? That's gay.
Unique among minorities, the LGBTQIA community is not visually separated from the dominant culture, but internally separated. It's a great, terrifying, empowering, painful moment when an individual finally leaves the closet. Can't we treat that moment with respect? Can't it exist in infinite permutations, being told and retold again and again and again? No one should silence a lesbian from telling her coming out story just because they've heard coming out stories before. That's prejudice disguised as aesthetic judgment.
Hopefully, in the future, the closet becomes less of an issue. As society grows more tolerant, it becomes easier than ever for younger and younger people to come out. This doesn't negate the coming out story: it transforms it. No longer the slow, extended torment of the closet, of double lives and lying. Instead, the sunny confusion of adolescence, the alternating timid and brash explorations of sexuality and identity, the multiplicity of LGBTQIA experience. What other character study (a coming out narrative is, fundamentally, a character study, since by necessity it kind of has to be more about character than plot) is devoted almost exclusively to our community?
It seems like every time another celebrity comes out these days, they are greeted with cries of, "eh." On the one hand, this is a sign of tolerance, that whether or not you're gay is not your defining quality, that sexuality isn't an important issue. It's progress. Inevitably someone will say some variation on "Big deal. Who cares?"
I care. Because sexuality may not be a big deal anymore, but it's important. Because sexuality does not define us, but it is part of us. Because there can never be too many coming out stories.
As with most story structures: the key is not "do it differently." The key is, "do it well."
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Speak Up
I have just grasped the necessity of this endeavor (can I call it an endeavor without sounding pretentious? I suppose not. Well, those who start out sounding precocious end up sounding pretentious, so I suppose there's no point in me stopping sounding pretentious now).
I am articulate. I say this not to boast, but merely to state a fact. Whether or not I articulate well is up to the audience to decide. I am neutrally articulate. But what I am not, what, indeed, I have rarely ever been, is expressive. I am very good (and here I am boasting) at being very articulate without actually expressing anything (which seems to destine me for a career in middle management, if not journalism). This is not always readily apparent, as people who are less articulate often mistake articulation for expression ("It must have been good... I didn't understand a word"). But it is nonetheless true: I am often articulate without being the least bit expressive (nonetheless... an incredibly articulate word almost perfect in its inexpressiveness).
To be honest, it was intentional. As I grew up, there were things I wanted to hide. Things I wanted to never, ever talk about. So I cultivated articulation while curbing my expression. That way, no one would think I was inexpressive. No one would think I had problems. I spoke too well for that. Now that I no longer wish to hide, that I want to speak up and speak out, I have found myself crippled by my own longstanding habits. I don't even know how to express myself any more. In art and in life, I am virtually incapable of saying anything I want to, except in the narrowest of circumstances.
So this... this is what I need. A soapbox of expression on the most public forum that has ever existed. A shrine of sorts devoted to expression, on a variety of subjects on things that I find interesting, things to which I have something to say. If I can't cultivate expression here, in my own corner of the internet, I'm probably doomed to keep my thoughts to myself for all eternity. Which would, perhaps, be no great loss to the rest of the world, but would be hugely problematic for me.
I need this. At least I need something like this. I hope this works. I am not overly optimistic, but I am virtually never overly optimistic, so in and of itself that is hardly an omen of failure. Hopefully my next post will cease the introspection into the nature of the blogging impulse and actually discuss something of content (although I promise nothing: I am positively addicted to calling attention to the mediums of my expression). Hopefully, if anyone finds this, you will bear with me in my halting attempts at expression of any sort. Feel free to tell me when it isn't working: when I'm vague or unclear, when I skim a surface I should be diving into, when I evade. I have a feeling I will need all the help I can get.
P.S. I would just like to point out that in only my second post, I have out-articulated Blogger. It is convinced that "inexpressivness" is not, in fact, a word, despite all dictionary evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but I will say that I thought it would take me longer than two posts.
I am articulate. I say this not to boast, but merely to state a fact. Whether or not I articulate well is up to the audience to decide. I am neutrally articulate. But what I am not, what, indeed, I have rarely ever been, is expressive. I am very good (and here I am boasting) at being very articulate without actually expressing anything (which seems to destine me for a career in middle management, if not journalism). This is not always readily apparent, as people who are less articulate often mistake articulation for expression ("It must have been good... I didn't understand a word"). But it is nonetheless true: I am often articulate without being the least bit expressive (nonetheless... an incredibly articulate word almost perfect in its inexpressiveness).
To be honest, it was intentional. As I grew up, there were things I wanted to hide. Things I wanted to never, ever talk about. So I cultivated articulation while curbing my expression. That way, no one would think I was inexpressive. No one would think I had problems. I spoke too well for that. Now that I no longer wish to hide, that I want to speak up and speak out, I have found myself crippled by my own longstanding habits. I don't even know how to express myself any more. In art and in life, I am virtually incapable of saying anything I want to, except in the narrowest of circumstances.
So this... this is what I need. A soapbox of expression on the most public forum that has ever existed. A shrine of sorts devoted to expression, on a variety of subjects on things that I find interesting, things to which I have something to say. If I can't cultivate expression here, in my own corner of the internet, I'm probably doomed to keep my thoughts to myself for all eternity. Which would, perhaps, be no great loss to the rest of the world, but would be hugely problematic for me.
I need this. At least I need something like this. I hope this works. I am not overly optimistic, but I am virtually never overly optimistic, so in and of itself that is hardly an omen of failure. Hopefully my next post will cease the introspection into the nature of the blogging impulse and actually discuss something of content (although I promise nothing: I am positively addicted to calling attention to the mediums of my expression). Hopefully, if anyone finds this, you will bear with me in my halting attempts at expression of any sort. Feel free to tell me when it isn't working: when I'm vague or unclear, when I skim a surface I should be diving into, when I evade. I have a feeling I will need all the help I can get.
P.S. I would just like to point out that in only my second post, I have out-articulated Blogger. It is convinced that "inexpressivness" is not, in fact, a word, despite all dictionary evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but I will say that I thought it would take me longer than two posts.
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