Truth and Realism, a Popular Art

      Otto Brahm once said, “The device on the banner of the new art is one word: Truth.  And truth, truth in every aspect of life is what we too aim at and demand… the truth of the  independent spirit that does not need euphemisms, that does not want to conceal anything.  And which therefore knows only one adversary, its enemy to the death: the lie in every form.”  One of the confusions in understanding realism is the focus on form.  One hears “realism” and thinks of an aesthetic representation that is perfect in its rendering of the image of our world.  Yet realism has more to do with truth that real.  What is the motivation behind the art is verily what Otto Brahm said, that realism is truth in every aspect of life without euphemisms or concealing anything.  Art has in its nature a subjectivity which leads to contrivance.  Historically that contrivance has been used to conceal the true horror of the oppressed.  Brecht argues that to portray the truth, realism is to lay bare the causal network in society; the oppressive force.  So in order to portray that truth, the medium for representation requires objectivity.  Bazin argues that to best source of that objectivity is found in film.  The nature of the camera allows it to capture reality, in his opinion, without the interpolation of the author.  What we see is simply what is there.

      Hirokazu Koreeda’s film “Still Walking” provides an accurate example of the intent of these theorists (Brahm, Bazin, Brecht) that objectivity leads to truth which is the lodestar of realism.  Upon viewing the film one is taken by the stillness of the camera work.  Perhaps most notable is the lunch scene.  The shot is framed by the open door to the garden, with the camera placed in the garden looking into the house.  The camera remains stationary for the majority of the meal.  The characters enter and exit the scene without the camera following them.  We hear their voices after stepping out of the shot and then they enter again.  The dialogue and the action occur without any concern for where the camera is or where the focus is “supposed” to be.  

       The result of this is a semblance of objectivity.  As an audience we don’t have any help from the camera to tell us about positions of power or relationships or focus.  All things occurring within the frame are of equal importance.  Whether the daughter is talking to the father or the mother to the son, none is favored.  It appears that the scene happens and the camera has merely captured that moment in time.  We are left, as Brecht says, to then use that concrete to muse upon more abstract concepts.  The son and the father have a bad relationship.  The husband and the wife have a bad relationship.  The new wife of the son is uncomfortable in this situation.  So then those concrete visions lead us to make unfettered conclusions about the causal network in play here.

      Therein lies the truth.  The greatest truth that we can find is that which we discover within ourselves.  We watch this scene and view that concrete representation and then apply to ourselves, see in ourselves the similitude to that concrete.  We find that which is true in ourselves, where the oppression is in our own lives.  We see a causal network for our own misery and happiness.  That is truth.  That is real.

      Brecht believed that the truth belonged to the masses, that is why realism is a popular art.  What is common amongst the masses is family.  The family structure often has within it oppressive causal networks.  In watching Koreeda’s film we see an oppressive causal network playing out in front of the camera.  The family’s tension is our tension, their resentment is our resentment, their hegemonic family structure is ours.  Setting up that objective lens allows us to see into that truth that we all experience, that which is popular, that which is real.    

       It is worth noting however that this objectivity is a myth.  The objective lens is still a contrivance because it is place, focused, angled, and the image is framed.  A hand still chooses when to move, when to cut.  But this myth of objectivity still leads to that lodestar of the truth of the human condition, laying bare the causal network.   We see that, and in spite of the contrivance to make the subjective objective, we find truth, by making that objective subjective.  That subjective hand of the director reveals rather that hides the oppressive structures.  That illusionary objectivity opens the door to subjectivity in the audience and then the truth is found in ourselves.  That is popular realism.

Playing with Codes in 500 Days of Summer

        It is inevitable that the pendulum of film swings between art and commodity.  Film is an art form that is eventually codified to produce the maximum emotional effect, to make money by selling tickets.  It thereby becomes a commodity, something that can be reproduced easily and effectively to the same effect, making money.  This codifying of the art then is taught as a form of analysis and creation to young aspiring filmmakers who have been genuinely moved and inspired by the codified art/commodity.  They adapt the code and apply it in their own unique way.  That new way becomes successful and then becomes codified and the cycle continues.  Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer is exemplary of this.  It looks at the codes of the past and plays with them and creates a new approach to them.  In both the form and the content the film examines those codes and how they reach an audience and shape their perceptions.  These new perceptions become the new commodity.

       The protagonist, Tom, has a belief about true love that was influenced (wrongly, as the narrator explains) through his consumption of the film The Graduate.  Those whose schema includes that film immediately prepare themselves to consume the film on those terms.  The Graduate was a work of New Hollywood that took the codes of the IMR and played with them to create a new schema.  This film takes those codes that have been commodified and plays with them to make new codes.  As an audience we participate in this process by applying the elements of the film to the codes of The Graduate.  

      The Graduate has at its core a critique of the traditional love story.  The boy gets girl, he loses girl, and gets girl back through extraordinary means.  After breaking up the wedding and running off with the bride they board a bus, smile at each other, and settle into a blasé expression, indicating their recognition of the imperfection of the traditional romanic cinematic codes.  This play with the codes of the traditional hollywood, creates a new set.  It introduces cynicism into the schema.  

By the time 500 Days of Summer rolls around we play with both sets of codes.  Tom represents a more traditional view of love, due to his misreading, and Summer is the newer cynical view of love.  The shot of Tom watching The Graduate as a child is contrasted to the shot of Summer watching it before the breakup.  The sign of the child represents the innocent view of romance while Summer’s an adult, a sign of maturing views on relationships.  The contrast of these two views also represents a contrast of the codes established relating to romantic filmmaking.

       The film also includes some sign that ape the signs in The Graduate.  The obvious example is when Tom leaves Summer on the bed to go give himself a pep talk in the bathroom.  He exits the bathroom and we see a shot placed behind an apparently nude reclining Summer in which Tom is seen over her shoulder.  This is the beginning of their sexual relationship and is designed to hearken to a similar shot in The Graduate.  The irony here is that in that film the relationship he is beginning is a flawed and damaging one.  This is the same for Tom.  He is embarking on a flawed and damaging relationship based on his misunderstanding of that film which the shot imitates.  In that sense the audience knows that the relationship is doomed (even though they are shown that in previous scenes).

        By playing with the codes in 500 Days of Summer and relating them to commodified codes in The Graduate, Marc Webb is able to create a new set of codes for romantic comedy.  These codes are both cynical and idealistic.  We are able to then criticize and celebrate the imperfection of our perceptions of love and romance.  This pattern is being followed by other artists and soon will become the modus operandi of romantic comedy.  That set of codes will be the commodity to be sold and eventually copied and played with until a new set of codes emerge.  And round and round we go.

Spellboud by the Phallus: Media Representation of Psychological Theory

     There is a common occurrence since the advent of modern psychology.  Theories and practices gradually become accepted as fact by the general public.  In this process the ideas often become diluted and perverted.  Eventually the psychological community moves on and distances themselves from the now apostate public religion of psychology.  The public holds their dogma and it reveals itself by way of the media they produce.  Films like Ordinary People and Secret Window openly express the public religion and faith of psychology of the eras that produced them.  (As Dr. Kathryn Raily says in Twelve Monkeys, “Psychology is the religion of our day.”) One can therefore see  the value in viewing a film of a period as representative of the psychological dogma of the era. 
    Though Freud’s psychoanalysis had been practiced and accepted in the psychological community for decades, it had really gained ground in the public mind by the 1940’s.  It seemed that everyone was being psychoanalyzed and exposing their various complexes and neuroses.  Producer David O. Selznick was no different.  Having been through his own psychoanalysis he felt the need to really share what it could be about.  He teamed up with Alfred Hitchcock to produce Spellbound which one could deem a demented love note to the diluted and apostate psychoanalysis of the public mind.  By taking a critical eye to the representation of psychoanalysis in the film one can better understand what people believed about the subconscious mind and how important it was to their everyday lives.
    The film proper begins with a placard describing in extremely simplified and, honestly, thinly restrained jubilant terms.  It is very clear that the film is expressing the belief that psychoanalysis is an effective, and perhaps the most effective, means of solving emotional problems.  The truncated description in said placard and the expository language of our female protagonist as she is treating her patients indicates the quaint idea that the psychoses and neuroses are simply resolved through the miracle of psychoanalysis.
    The film makes use of many of the concepts of psychoanalysis, presenting them in clear and simplified terms.  Perhaps the most notorious aspect of this theory is the phallus and its importance in expressing repressed anxieties and desires (some would argue that the mommy issues of the Oedipal complex are more infamous).  Freud indicates that the fear of losing any significant body part indicates fear of castration.  Since this is such an arresting idea the film uses it to potent effect in several ways.  When our lovely protagonist,Constance, is introduced she smoking a cigarette in a long cigarette holder.  The very idea of a woman being the protagonist is shocking and then to have her manipulate the phallus shows that she is usurping the male role.  She resists overtures from men and is accused of being cold and scientific; male traits.  The other men are threatened by her position representing their fear of castration.
    When John Ballentyne arrives, in the persona of Dr. Edwards, he appears weak and unsure.  As the events of his psychosis are revealed Constance then takes the dominant role.  This is a symbolic castration of John as his power is taken by the women we saw manipulate the phallic cigarette. 
    Soon we are introduced to Constance’s “father”, her mentor who willingly and happily takes them in.  That night he has an episode and takes a straight razor, another phallus*, and enters the room where Constance is sleeping.  He looks at her in the bed and we are shown his tight grip on the razor.  The shot is both aggressive in preparing to use the phallus to regain his power from the castrator and protective tightly gripping the phallus to protect it from harm or removal.  The aggression is transferred to the “father”.  John descends the stairs with phallus still in hand and confronts the “father”.  We don’t see John’s face rather it cuts between shots of the “father” and the phallus/razor set at crotch level (very subtle, Mr. Hitchcock, very subtle).  The “father” then satiates John’s aggression with a glass of milk.  Milk representing the mother’s breast so he satiates the castration anxiety with the comfort of nursing at the mother’s breast.  He falls asleep, as an infant in that moment of perfect bliss.
    These representations of psychoanalysis are indicative of the kind of expectations of audiences in the 1940’s.  Their understanding of psychoanalysis was limited to the sensational aspects of the theory like phalluses and castration complexes.   Besides the inscrutable minutiae of real psychoanalysis doesn’t put butts in the seats, but phalluses certainly will.  Spellbound  has become then an interesting insight into the popularity of an idea and its representation in media and thereby the perpetuation of those ideas to our day.  So even now, our understanding of psychoanalysis is more molded by the truncated version in media rather than a careful study of the source text.  It will be interesting to see what current conceptions of psychology represented in the media will look like through the glass of time.

*I admit that it is terrifying to condense the phallus with the means of castration.