She's Naked in the Bed: Vertigo's Fetishized Gaze

     Much has been made of the objectification of Kim Novak’s Madeline/Judy by James Stewart’s Scottie in Vertigo.  While this is much justified based on the behavior manifest and the narrative itself, it misses a fundamental and perhaps more significant subject/object relationship.  Laura Mulvey describes in her landmark paper Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema the means by which the apparatus of cinema creates a subject/object relationship between the audience(subject) and the female character(object).  Scopophilia is defined as the pleasure that is derived from looking at the human form as an object.  Film plays on this desire by allowing us to look into the lives of others and objectify them without the  guilt associated with voyeurism.  In essence, then, spectatorship fulfills a voyeuristic fantasy.  Not only does the audience act in the role of the subject, as a viewer of the object from their seats but they also project themselves onto the male subject in the film who in turn sees the woman as object.  This converts spectatorship into a form of narcissism.  The female in the film is then an erotic object for the character in the film and an erotic object for the spectator.  By looking at this subject/object relationship in Vertigo one can see that the Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy conglomerate becomes the object of the spectator/protagonist mediated by the apparatus.

      There is a significant scene in the film that demonstrates this relationship.  After having jumped in the bay to save Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy, Scottie takes her back to his apartment.  We, as audience, are introduced to the apartment through a slow pan from right to left.  The camera starts on Scottie putting logs into a fiery fireplace (and we could discuss the phallic nature of this, but I digress).  He sits on the couch, and glances up.  He sips his tea and looks.  He is looking at something and based on his expression, his gaze is indulgent.  The camera pans to the left.  It passes over the doorway to the kitchen and frames clothes hanging on a line, to dry.  They are Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy’s clothes.  This clearly indicates to us that she is no longer wearing them.  The camera pan continues and settles on the bedroom door, open, and revealing Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy lying on the bed.  She is naked, though under the covers.  She is asleep. The camera cuts back to Scottie.  Who looks some more.  It cuts back to Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy.   The phone rings and Scottie runs to answer it.  Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy suddenly awakes.  More of her body is revealed and Scottie gazes as he speaks on the phone.  Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy is fully framed and glances down.  That glance is ostensibly for her realization that she is unclothed.

     The audience plays their dual spectator role through the course of this scene.  In the seats of the theater they are subjects observing the action.  Simultaneously, they identify with Scottie.  Narcissistically they place themselves in the place of him.  The pan is in the role of Audience/Subject.  We are looking around the room to see what Scottie’s apartment looks like.  The shot/reverse shot cutting between Scottie looking at Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy and what he sees (Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy) places us in his place as the protagonist/subject of the story.  In the case of seeing Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy in the bed we are as audience allowed the scopophilic fetishism of looking at the partially covered body.  The voyeuristic fantasy is fulfilled (it helps that initially the camera is placed far from the object through a door, heightening the voyeurism).  Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy’s glance downward when she awakes in the bed, though narratively indicates realization that she is naked, serves the audience in this relationship to remind them “hey, I’m naked under here.”  The audience converts the character into an actress (Kim Novak) and an object of their gaze, a fetish devoid of narrative device.  

      This is also a time of narcissistic identification.  When the camera panned across the kitchen doorway to reveal the drying clothes it opened the door to identification with the protagonist.  There is no one else here.  And Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy is asleep on the bed.  It is implied then that Scottie is the one to have undressed her.  In doing so he of necessity saw her naked before placing her on the bed.  His look to her in the bed is not one of spying, but of reminiscing.   It stops the narrative and invites the audience to fetishize the form of Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy and to reminisce  with Scottie on that experience of undressing the female form.  Our identification with Scottie in that moment places the Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy as the object of creative memory gaze: the look into a memory not shown on screen but experienced by the subject/protagonist and created by the subject/audience.

     Vertigo is often regarded as Hitchcock’s finest film.  It is a remarkable study in the nature of obsession.  It also is an exquisite study in the use of the male gaze and the subject/object relationship.  The film makes Kim Novak/Madeline/Judy an object to be desired and fetishized and gives ample opportunities to relish that gaze.  The audience spies, watches, looks, and truly obsesses in their seats and alongside Scottie and the protagonist/subject.  The female loses her identity and becomes merely a form to be desired and gazed at.  She has no volition, she is there, while we and Scottie gaze on her, and we are absolved of the guilt of voyeurism by the apt cinematic apparatus.

Interlaced Postmodernity and the Birth of Hyper-theoretical Life in Community

     For the past four years I have taught a student who relates to his world through movies.  Diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, he struggle connecting on a real world level with those around him.  On more than one occasion he has alienated people by quoting a movie when they didn’t know that he was quoting a movie.  Though he says that he understands the difference between movies and reality, there are times that I am not so sure.  Abed, the ambiguously ethnic character in Community, shares some similar traits with this student.  He relates to everything in terms of the films he has watched.  In the show, he often will comment that the activity in which he and his friends are participating is like a film, either title or genre.  This behavior is a simulation of the type of behavior exhibited by my student.  Baudrillard, when speaking of simulacra and simulation, indicates that when a simulation then is simulated in reality the reality shifts and what was once real becomes a hyperreal by means of that simulation.  Interestingly, upon mentioning this character to my student, he became very excited and expressed a kinship with this simulation of Abed.  He stated that Abed was him and he was Abed.  So he reduced his own identity to be a simulation of that simulation.  

      When discussing the theories of these prominent Post-modern and post-structuralist authors (Baudrillard, Barthes, Derrida, Lyotard) it is helpful to view them through the lens of Community.  Though one might think that it is mistaken to use a media artifact to interpret a theory since theories are designed to help us understand other things, I think it entirely appropriate to use the simulation to interpret this ideology given our state of hyperreality.  Mythological systems, according to Barthes are created by taking a sign, devoiding it of its signifier and signified, and making it a form which can then be given a concept working together to make a signification.  What community does is it becomes a mythological system to about post-modernity itself.  So when Community shows a party in which the characters eat tainted food and become zombies, the signifier is that set of images and the signified is the ahistorical event (remember this is hyperreal) then that sign becomes a form to express the concept of pastiche.  While pastiche is mentioned almost in passing in Lytoard’s Defining Post-Modern it is made into the concept of this mythological system: the halloween party turned zombie apocalypse is a pastiche of the zombie genre therefore referencing of another art form for the sake of doing so is a pastiche.  Lyotard’s theories expressed in his work become absent and what remains is the myth: post-modernism=pastiche=referencing other shows in a show.  Communities simulation of theory becomes the theory and this is where Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Barthes become interwoven.  What mythological systems do is scaffold the structure of simulation which leads ultimately to our hyperreal.  Indeed this mythological pastiche of zombies is also simulation; Community simulates other simulations (zombie films, which could also work as a mythological system itself) meaning that there is no reality to simulate, we are then in the hyperreal.  This interlacing of the theories is what makes Community  the authority on Post-modernism.  We understand Baudrillard or Lyotard because of Community not visa versa, therefore it is the authority on the theory.

     Similarly, the self-reflexivity of the show defines what it means to be hyperreal.  In a conversation between Abed and Jeff as things become emotional Jeff expresses concern that it will be a “very special episode”.  This refers to the sit-com tradition of occasionally having episodes dealing with serious issues instead of the light fare (this originates with an episode of Punky Brewster in which Punky and her friends have a run in with a child molester which was advertised as a “very special episode”).  This is done to draw attention to the mechanism, the show is a show and people on the show know that it is a show.  This is done to tell us as an audience that it is a show and our lives by comparison are therefore real, occluding the fact that it has long been replaced by the hyperreal.  Our understanding of what it means to be hyperreal comes then from Community.  The second-order semiological sign of that very special episode reference becomes the signification of hyperreal, replacing the original theory of Baudrillard.  Baudrillard no longer explains Community, Community explains Baudrillard.

     In this sense, our hyperreal has even been replaced.  These theorist wrote to reveal the simulation in the hyperreal, to show us where the mythological systems lie.  But now their theories have moved from the position of sign interpretation to a concept in a mythological system.  Myth was once about creating an image/text to express a greater signification about the world.  Now myth is replacing the theory that created it.  Our means for understanding our postmodern condition has become part of that condition, a meta-hyperreal.  So where does that leave my student/Abed hybrid?  He has moved beyond the material simulation, or even ideological simulacra to hypertheory.  Meaning, identity, theory are now mediated, simulated, hyper-theoretical concepts representing the absence of the knowledge of the theory that created them.  

Sweded Industry: Subverting the Culture Through Negotiated Text

Throughout the course of Michael Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind, we are shown scenes from a documentary on the life of Fats Waller.  The documentary is amateurish with low production value by most modern standards.  Near the end of the film it is revealed that those clips are from the documentary produced by a small cadre of townsfolk about the local legends of Fats and represent their personal vision of what the documentary would be like.  This film becomes then an articulation or and artifact of the structure of feeling.  In William’s Analysis of Culture he identifies structure of feeling as the particular living result of all of the general elements of an organization.  In other words,  the structure of feeling is this cultural consciousness of all the little bits of culture within a group.  This documentary that the people of this New Jersey town make represents that.  There are elements of the individual lives and personalities of the people as well as the myths and ideologies that are fed into the documentary.  

      This plays into Williams identification of the 3 levels of culture.  The first he identifies is the lived culture.  We cannot know what that is unless we were a part of it ourselves.  Then there is the recorded culture.  This is where the documentary comes in to play.  It is a recorded instance of that lived culture or culture of feeling.  The elements reflected in this artifact are the visual aesthetic of the people, based upon their consumption of the artifacts of the cultural industry (Hollywood films), and the mythology of Fats Waller in their neighborhood.  Much of the story of Fats’ life is composed of half memories and all out fictions.  So the neighborhoodites also slide into the 3rd level which is selective tradition.  In this way the film represents a selective tradition of its own.  The neighbors have distilled the mythology and memory of Fats into this single artifact.

      This is the nature of all of the “sweded” films as well.  The selective tradition has a “greatest hits” quality to it and this is what Jerry and Mike do with the films.  There are moments in the films that are memorable and perhaps iconic and provide the gist of what the film is about narratively and thematically.  These moments represent the selective tradition and these scenes are what are utilized in the sweded versions.  In an extraordinary sequence shot, we see the cast and crew of these sweded films reenacting various key scenes from films of note, like 2001: a Space Odyssey and Last Tango in Paris.  These scenes are not necessarily the most memorable or important scenes in the film, but they are the scenes that are significant to the members of the neighborhood and as such represent part of the selective tradition.

      Interestingly these films represent what Hall calls a negotiated code.  The negotiated code concedes the legitimacy of the hegemony but sets own ground rules in small things.  The hollywood films are part of a hegemonic system and Mike and Jerry create a negotiated articulation of each film.  They still love the dominant culture and are being clearly imitative of that ideology.  Even so their articulation of the film also is indicative of their unique system of values (culture of feeling perhaps).  This negotiated code is viewed as demonstrably subversive by the dominant culture and suppressed by the destruction of the individual articulations of that negotiated culture.  The people then move to a oppositional stance, rejecting the hegemonic hollywood in favor of creating their own story, their own structure of feeling.  The documentary on Fats Waller is that articulation.  It works not only contrary to the Hegemony of Hollywood but also in opposition to the capitalist structure in general. They charge no admission to the showing of the film, rather accepting donations to save their building, their home. 

      Be Kind, Rewind is deceptive in its presentation.  It has all of the trappings of a hollywood comedy: Big stars (Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, and Jack Black), crossover star (rapper Mos Def), ridiculous premise, and inspirational message.  But when viewed within the context of cultural studies it reveals a more interesting and, honestly, subversive subtext.  The film itself appears to take a negotiated stance, occupying both spaces of opposition and hegemony.  In many cases it seems that this is the best we can do.  The system is far to large and complex to take down through pure opposition, articulations like this film indicate the potential success of cultures and sub-cultures subverting the system within the system.  They take their stand but still get the word out.  That little wrinkle seems to be where cultural studies is the most powerful.

Media Effects: How Utilizing Formal Cinematic Elements in Son Of Rambow Tells Us Who the Opinion Leaders Are

     While one may view Son of Rambow as critique of media effects, or at least a representation of how media can effect children’s view of the world and their social interactions, it more surreptitiously and, honestly, ingeniously demonstrates a fundamental weakness of media effects as a critical framework.  The majority of media effects research focuses on content and conjures to mind hordes of fretful politicians and parents wringing their hands over how violent, profane, and pornographic the media has become and why won’t someone just do something and save our children from becoming godless depraved sex-mongers.  On the other hand many media effects researchers look at how communication happens and how opinions are changed.  Even in these cases, the research seems to lack a fundamental basis in the elements media, particularly film, that differentiate them from common human interaction e.g. conversation.  Film is story, but it uses unique means to manipulate that story that the media effects researcher seem to ignore.  Much of film craft is related to controlling how the camera captures the image and moves from one image to another.  There is an enormous amount of work and study into these techniques and how they communicate with the audience and yet media effect does not pay much attention to them.  

     Son of Rambow tells a story of media effects, but uses the technique of cinema to also comment on that.  The commentary is not merely narrative or characterized, which is most of the “content” that media effects is concerned with, it is in the use of visual composition, that unique element of film, that tells the real story and actually defends media effects position whilst simultaneously critiquing it.   While the narrative of the film focuses ostensibly on the effect on our protagonist of having viewed First Blood (He makes associates with a bully, he leaves his church, he alienated his family, he lies, etc. which are all arguably negative but ultimately lead to good [friendship, finding ones self]) through its visual composition, or cinematic elements, the film discusses the power of the opinion leader.

      Katz and Lazarsfeld identify the role of the opinion leader as an individual who obtains information on a topic and then disseminate it to their peer and thereby influence the peers’ opinions on said topic.  They say, “Certain people in every stratum of a community serve relay roles in the mass communication of [...]information and influence.” (31)  These opinion leaders are not specific people, but a role that we play in our interpersonal relationships.  Throughout the film we are introduced to individuals who play the role of the opinion leader.  Different characters slide in and out of that role and show the fluidity of that role in interpersonal relations.  The filmmakers do not simply present them on screen but use framing techniques and movement to clarify which character is the opinion leader in that moment.

      In the opening scene of the film we see a group of religious people gathered outside a movie house (with the title First Blood) clearly displayed.  Joshua, an opinion leader in his own right, asks Will Proudfoot to read a Bible verse.  The actors are set far from the camera (deep focus) setting the audience at a distance from them.  Will steps foreword, placing him very close to the camera and framed in the center of the shot.  This establishes two things: first that Will is the protagonist and we should empathize with him making him an opinion leader, and secondly that he is uncomfortable with this position and uncertain as to what he should do.  By placing him in this was the film entices empathy.  We are more likely to agree with his position, feel his pain, and desire his success.  This is important as the film reaches its close and believe that his choice is ultimately right.

     The capturing of Didier’s image is equally effective in this way.  There are multiple images of Didier walking or standing with a group of boys.  He is framed center and also closest to the camera.  We know by this that he is the opinion leader of the group.  Regardless of the fact that the boys behind him are copying his walk and hair, the most convincing piece of evidence that he is the opinion leader is his position in the frame.  On another occasion we see him riding his skateboard from left to right in front of a group of boys.  While he is not framed center he is moving with the grain, leading the boys in the right direction.  His opinion, while alien and foreign, is trustworthy to these boys.  We believe that their following of him is justified because he’s going the right way.

      The film also take opportunity to portray the transition of opinion leader to another.  While well established that Didier is the opinion leader at the school that power transitions to Will in a remarkable scene.  Will is brought to the chapel of the school.  He sees Didier standing at the other end of the aisle.  He produces a pistol and walks toward Will.  Didier is on the right and Will is on the left.  We can see that Didier is no real threat to Will because he is moving against the grain.  In the following exchange Didier explains that he wants to be in Will’s movie.  This changes the role of opinion leader from Didier to Will.  The camera moves in and becomes a low-angle shot making Will seem larger, though he is shorter that Didier.  This use of these techniques makes accepting the narrative elements of the story that support the concept of opinion leader easier.

     The concept of an opinion leader is key to modern media effects research.  However, if we ignore the cinematic elements of the film, we can lose sight of where the unique power of media lies; in its visual components.  This is the true genius of the film.  Through deft usage of cinematography, the filmmakers are able to discuss the insights and failings of media effects using the very elements that that research ignores.  Perhaps media effects would gain greater support in the artistic community if it took into account the craft of the craft and not merely the content.  I don’t think that there is an artist that believes that their art has no effect on their audience.  Effecting your audience is the point.  But focusing on content at the expense of the formal elements that make the art art is what alienates artists and many theorists from media effects.  Which is why Son of Rambow is far more effective in discussing media effects than any number of essays ever could be.

Virile and Erotic Incompatibility with the Happy Ending in The Maltese Falcon

     After the horrors and atrocities of World War II, many returned stateside with a profound sense of cynicism.  Witnessing the the death camps and having to now live with the Bomb changed the way people thought.  It becomes much harder for people appreciate sunny optimism after all of that.  This change in attitude changed the way that people saw their films.  Happy endings became rare as more “real” unresolved endings took their place.  Robin Wood speaks of creating a synthetic theory that combines Auteur theory, genre studies, and ideology.  Perhaps one of the most interesting ideologies is how the motif of gender roles supports capitalist ideology.  The gender roles she identified are the Virile Man and his shadow the Settled Husband and the Ideal Woman and her shadow the Erotic Woman.  The happy ending (another element that supports ideology) often involves Virile and the Ideal ending up together.  The cynicism that came back with the men of the war effected the portrayal of these motifs in films that contributed to Noir Film.

     Jon Huston’s Maltese Falcon is indicative of the influence of this cynicism on those two motifs.  Both the Ideal Woman and The Settled Husband do not exist in the context of the film.  All men are some version on the Virile Man and the women the Erotic Woman.  Both have similar qualities: action oriented, adventuresome, wanderers, sexual.  I will focus on the protagonist Sam Spade and the Femme Fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy and how their portrayal exemplifies the cynicism indicative of Film Noir.  

     There are a few moments that exemplify Sam’s role as the Virile man.  The first occurs soon after his partner is murdered.  His partner’s wife comes to see him and kisses him immediately.  She begs that they can be together and refuses her.  This early event in the film sets up his sex appeal.  We also see him shamelessly flirt with his secretary and establish a romantic relationship with Brigid.  The three women of the film all are romantically interested in Sam.  Also, we see him fulfill the requirement of a man of action.  When Sam is confronted by Cairo he quickly and easily disarms him, and laughs.  Not only does he solve his problems through violence but he seems to enjoy it.  When he meets with Gutman he throws a fit.  He violently throws a glass and breaks it making clear his masculine dominance over Gutman and Wilmer.  Afterwards, we see him laugh to himself as he walks down the hall.  His violent power is a source of enjoyment for himself and the audience.

     Equally Brigid represents the Erotic Woman.  When Brigid first enters the film she is an object of desire for the two detectives.    I clear component of the Erotic Woman is that she is adventuresome.  Brigid is involved in an international caper which is far removed from the steady woman who stays home and serves.  She is a liar and violent, she commits murder after all.  This woman is willing to do things that the ideal woman is never allowed to do.  Exemplary is her inviting Sam into her apartment while only wearing a robe.  This impropriety is only allowable for the Erotic Woman.  She is transgressive and more likely to comply with the inappropriate romantic overtures of the Virile Man.

     These two roles intersect with the happy ending motif (a subset of the America is the land of Happiness) in the film.  Traditionally the Virile Man would end up with the Ideal Woman and convert himself into the Settled Husband.  This would fulfill the expectation and square with the ideology.  This film has an incompatibility in which there are no Ideal Women to settle the Virile Man.  It is clear that it is impossible for Brigid and Sam to remain in a relationship as the compatible relationship is that of the Virile man and the Ideal woman, but since this relationship is mismatched the “Happy Ending” is a myth.  The Erotic Woman is sent to jail and Sam is left alone, but he is content with that.  This unresolved ending, as the antithesis of the happy ending, and represents the cynicism that is indicative in Noir.  

     Men came back from World War II ready to set aside the “Happy Ending”.  Sure the enemy was defeated and the world was made safe for democracy, but at what cost?  This mounting cynicism was reflected in the film of the noir period and is seen clearly in The Maltese Falcon.  By its representation of the gender roles of the Virile Man and the Erotic Woman to the exclusion of the other two modes, it shows that the clear cut definitions of the cultural ideology are ineffectual in the real world.  

Naw, He ain't so great: a Defense of John Ford's Auteurship in "How Green was my Valley"

      Establishing a criteria for what defines a good film is perhaps simplified by deciding what makes a great director.  Though it has been said that great directors make great films, what qualifies one as a great director is a matter of dispute.  Some may look to the glut of awards a director garners but that would exclude some of the highly regarded directors such as Hitchcock or Kubrick, neither of whom ever won the coveted Best Director Oscar.  Some look at box office receipts, those who make the most money, yet that seems a spurious criterion as many talented and effective directors have never been big box office draws, while films whose directors names are nary recognizable pack them in.  There have been many theorists who have posited criteria for judging a director’s quality but few have been so well known and readily embraced as the Auteur Theory.  In Sarris’ “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962” he defines a fairly simple, though somewhat vague set of qualifications of the Auteur Theory, assuming that an auteur is indeed a ‘good’ director.  He indicates that to be an auteur a director must first have technical capacity, the ability to manage the mechanics of film-making in order to make a movie that works.  This excludes a number of directors whose films are largely incoherent messes (e.g. Ed Wood).  Next, he declares that they must have a signature that comes through.  This is the sense of style recognized by repeated motifs (visual and textual) that appear in the director’s body of work.  This eliminates most directors as so many are workhorses simply making what the producers wants them to.  The final and most elusive qualifier is the “élan of the soul”.  This is something that is difficult to explain as it is something that is purely cinematic and therefore virtually impossible to describe in words.  I would proffer that it is what Michael Shurtleff describes in his actor’s textbook “Audition” as the X factor or mystery.  It is that quality that speaks to the soul that connects people to their humanity.  This is not to be equated with emotional manipulation or maudlin sentimentalism, it is honest and connects with that which is true of all humanity.  Even so, as Sarris describes, it is difficult to define in words.

     Both Sarris and Peter Wollen identify John Ford as an auteur, though not necessarily with the same qualifiers.  With an enormous body of work in various genres he provides plenty of media texts to analyze for the purpose of defining how well he fulfills the criteria established by Sarris.  In looking primarily at his critically lauded work “How Green was my Valley” and comparing it to “The Searchers”  we can determine that he does indeed fulfill the criteria and place himself within the pantheon of great directors known as auteurs.

     The first criteria is the most facile to fulfill.  John Ford’s film represents a clear understanding of the techniques of film and he utilizes them adroitly.  Referring back to the IMR and comparing the film with that system of film we see that he certainly has the capacity to tell a clear, understandable story through this visual medium.  There is a unity to the elements that work together to portray the plot, character, theme etc.  Aside from the fact that he continually had work and his work was very well received by audiences, critics, and producers alike indicates that he was effective.  It is not likely that there will be much argument on this point.  John Ford was a master of technique.

     The signature on the film requires more clear discussion.  We must look at specific examples of stylistic choices that are repeated to support his fulfillment of this requirement for auteurship.  In his film “The Searchers”  he utilizes deep focus to great effect in both the opening and closing shots of the film.  We see Ethan from inside a house through the door, the door being placed in the center of the shot.  The repetition of that shot as a bookend to the film is a clear stylistic choice within the film.  That deep focus repeated in “How Green was my Valley” indicates a motif that reaches beyond the bounds of a single film.  An example of this use occurs after the marriage of the oldest daughter to the son of Mr. Evans, owner of the coal mine.  This marriage is against her own will and that of the Mr. Griffith (the preacher) who are in love.  As we see the marriage party in the foreground the focus instead is on the silhouette of Mr. Griffith up on the hill near the church.  This indicates that Mr. Griffith is being left on the outside.  Similar to Ethan in the bookends of “The Searchers”, he is a shadow in deep focus.  This commonality of visual imagery in both films to express the repeated theme of being left on the outside is a manifestation of the author’s signature.  This is something that John Ford does in his films to talk about a common theme.  By doing so Ford has fulfilled the requirement of the auteur’s signature.

     The final criterion is the élan of the soul.  While Ford has the technical prowess and the stylistic utterances, it is his ability to give us those moments of soul-piercing humanity that firmly establish him within that pantheon of auteurship.  The moment that best represents this concept within “How Green was my Valley” is near the end.  The whistle sounds telling of an accident in the mine.  The families of the miners rush to the mine to ascertain the safety of their beloved.  The elevator rises with the miners but the father is not seen, in fact we see several tiers of the elevator pass with miners and the last is empty.  It is clear that the father is still trapped in the mine.  There is a shot of the mother’s face.  The camera holds on her while there is much movement in the background.  She leans softly on a beam for support.  The camera holds.  That moment is able to capture the weight of grief, uncertainty, anger, fear, love, and life that falls upon that woman.  There is no affectation.  No slowing of the movement, no swelling score.  Just a pure, honest moment of the tragedy of all life.  While much of the credit goes to the actress, it bespeaks also of the ability Ford to make that moment happen as it did.  The coaching of the actress, the framing of the shot, the length of the shot before cutting, the choice of diagetic sound, the lighting, the movement; all of these things come from Ford bringing out that élan of the soul.  The same is seen in “The Searchers” when we seen Ethan’s face after scalping Scar.  A similar use of all his skill to bring us into touch with that which is greater than ourselves.  These two together cement Ford’s status as an auteur as one who fulfills all the requirement as established by Sarris.

     It is interesting that we would read about Auteur theory and death of the author in the same week.  Auteur theory smacks of elitism and exclusionary politics.  Barthes and Foucault tore down that elitism with their critique of the author and the role that it plays in oppressing the reader, that it is representative of the oppressive structures that encumber societal life.  But such is the nature of the beast.  As soon as one starts to develop a criteria for what is “good” in art, one is creating an oppressive structure and sliding over to elitism.  One could argue that this elitism works to Ford’s advantage.  His legacy continues because he belongs to an elite class and regardless of whether or not this structure is oppressive, it is remarkable effective in connecting audiences with the material.  John Ford was really good at that and within the studio system, perhaps that was the point.

Extrinsic Subversion in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

     There is a dialectical tension in the capitalist economic system.  The system is the most efficient economic system so far in history and has led to remarkable discoveries and ease of life for many.  However, it also perpetrates injustices on many that are not easily reconciled.  The primary injustice is often identified as the exploitation of the worker by the ruling class.  In the context of media markets there is an occluded exploitation, that the laborers in broadcast media are the audience not the creators of the art.  According to Dallas Smythe in his seminal work On Audience Commodity and Work he posits that the work of the audience is to purchase the products advertised during the broadcast program.  In effect, the audience is then sold as exploitable laborers to the advertisers.  The great inequality is that the laborers (audience) are not aware that they are being sold.  Without recognizing that they are being exploited the audience goes on their merry way watching and purchasing without the knowledge that they are being oppressed.  The audience loses their identity as individuals and are commodified as market shares or ratings which are then sold off.  This insidious relationship is occasionally subverted through the media itself.  There are those in the media, the artists, that plant subversive texts in the media that reveals and mocks the oppressive structure.  The producers allow the program to continue long enough to give the audience the illusion of emancipation and then cut it to satiate the corporate advertisers.  Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is indicative of this type of experience.  Through means both overt and covert, extrinsic and intrinsic it represents the exploitative power structure that commodifies the audience as labor for the corporate advertisers.

     Most apparently in the cold open of Studio 60, Wes Mendell ,the director of the fictional Studio 60, interrupts a skit to rant about the sad state of the programming on his network.  After likening the content of the programs to pornography and snuff films he admonishes us to “Turn the T.V. off!”  This is a moment that functions of both an intrinsic and and extrinsic level. Because character has two audiences, the fictional in the context of the show and the real outside that context, the line functions in that duality.  He is telling his fictional audience to turn off the TV, to unplug themselves from the oppressive structure, to quit their night job.  Additionally he is telling us to quit watching.  This is a subversive act.  Sorkin is flirting with the cutting of his show.  Like the live studio audience on screen, initially we laugh at Wes’ antics.  Then he repeatedly says that “This is not a skit.” The audience ceases to laugh and so do we.  This is for real.  His extended rant on the nature of television and its relationship to its audience bespeaks that terrifying reality of our oppressive relationship.  The terrifying reality that we do not turn it off.  We stay plugged in and absorb the advertising and go buy those products like good little workers.

      Perhaps the most powerful moment is not this, but the moment that it leads to.  In the booth, during Wes’s rant, the producer and the head tech have a stand-off.  The producer wants Wes‘ rant cut.  The Tech holds it for a full 53 seconds.  He doesn’t turn off the show.  Once again the show functions in that duality.  He leaves the show on so that the director can say his piece and so do we.  While the great victory would be if we had turned off the TV when he told us to, perhaps there was more subversion in what he had to say after.  So then comes a contradiction.  We can emancipate ourselves from the broadcast or we can remain plugged in and the makers of the show get to subvert the system and still the system is maintained, the marketing money is coming in and the makers can assuage their conscience that they are doing something about the problem.  But in reality we are all just coping.

Then there is the remarkable moment.  Finally the tech cuts the rant and they go to the opening of their program.  We see, as the imaginary audience sees, the logo for the show.  The shot appears as if we are looking at a screen on our screen.  Then it fades into our screen alone and then cut to commercial.  That moment of transition is what tells us that we are the real audience that Wes was speaking to.  There is no fictional audience.  It is us.  In that sense then we are being asked to subvert the system together with the Sorkin and his crew.  But in order to do so we have to abandon him and the subversive means.  Ironically we so much enjoy that subversion that we continue to watch and the status quo is maintained and there is no emancipation and we merely cope with the oppressive circumstances in which we find ourselves.  

     What ultimately occurred is that Sorkin’s show was cancelled after one season.  They had their 53 seconds and ultimately we cut. The ratings dropped by half over the course of the season.  The sad reality is that the ratings did not drop because people emancipated themselves from the system.  They just changed the channel and watched something else, something that was less subversive and better at helping them cope.  

     Nicholas Garham indicates that that popular culture being represented to subvert the system only leads to coping without critical inquiry.  Those who watched the show in its original run enjoyed the subversion and consumed the advertisements and continued in the system.  The inquiry, however, was missing.  The series has now been released on DVD.  This is provided without commercials and we can practice critical inquiry regarding the subversive elements of the program without supporting the system with our labor seeing as how nobody in the room paid for the DVD and there were no advertisements to lure us into that commodified relationship.  So the show has moved into its extrinsic purpose and through the critical inquiry now available to the viewers of the recording emancipation is possible.