Women in Film Blogathon Part II: Kathryn Bigelow

I've started the exciting second part of the Women in Film Blogathon but it seemed to make sense to put together an entry of my own, especially seeing as I've entered the other Blogathons I'm running at the moment. The trouble is, unfortunately, that I don't know that many female directors. There are some female directors I can respect for a specific film. I was intrigued by Maya Deren's experimentation in Meshes of the Afternoon. I also enjoyed Sally Potter's Orlando and Julie Taymor's Across the Universe. However, I don't seem to know that many women directors through more than a name or a tiny sample of their work. Nearly all of my top favourite directors; including Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, John Carpenter, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, The Coen Brothers, Georges Méliès; are all white men. Evidently this is something I need to work on.

I needed to write about someone I knew well, someone who had a fascinating body of work, and who better than one of the most famous women in contemporary filmmaking? There is no questioning the historical significance of Kathryn Bigelow. She is after all the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Picture, but what is it that makes her such an unusual director? There is something about her that seems to make her stand out in a profession where women are slowly starting to become more prominent, arguably bringing her to just as much fame as her male contemporaries.

Kathryn Bigelow has directed a total of nine feature films, but she is probably best known for her most recent projects: The Hurt Locker (for which she won the Oscar for Best Picture) and Zero Dark Thirty, though some might also know her for Point Break and K-19: The Widowmaker. Other more obscure films under her belt include The Loveless, Near Dark, Blue Steel, Strange Days, and The Weight of Water, and that's not even getting into her television work. Across her movies, Bigelow has proven herself to be a versatile director, starting with horror movies and later branching into action, war, political thrillers, crime, and historical pictures, as well as combinations thereof. It is becoming more common today to see women working as directors, so what is it that makes Bigelow stand out so effectively as she has.

I think part of what makes Kathryn Bigelow such an interesting auteur is simply in how un-feminine her movies are. She often takes on subjects and genres that would generally be considered "masculine", and her films often have all-male or predominantly male casts. The Hurt Locker has a grand total of one significant female character who only appears in a few scenes very late in the movie. K-19 has only one woman with a very brief speaking part who serves as a motivation for a male character. Even Zero Dark Thirty, which actually had a female protagonist, still had her surrounded by men with only one other female character playing a notable role.

Naturally, male bonding becomes a major theme in her movies. Point Break has a love story but a lot of the focus is on the relationship between Johnny Utah and Bodhi. The one major female character, Tyler, is used in large part as a "playing piece" for the men, first as a way for Johnny to enter the surfing community and later by Bodhi to manipulate Johnny into joining his gang. In many ways it resembles a "buddy film", with the relationship even taking on a few homoerotic undertones at times (which is odd considering the presence of a heterosexual romance). K-19 has a sense of camaraderie among men that I'd swear draws from Battleship Potempkin, particularly in the relationship between the two senior officers. The majority of The Hurt Locker concerns the tension between Sgt. James and his partners.

Even Zero Dark Thirty has a bit of the male bonding. Despite the presence of a female protagonist, the cast is still predominantly male, which makes Maya stand out all the more. Out of all the people she could have connected with, it is the only other female character of significance, Jessica. These two form a close friendship very quickly. Unfortunately, Jessica's death forces Maya to rely more on herself. The male bonding in this case is used as a way of isolating the heroine, making her feel more like an outsider as well as to single her out as the one person who can catch Bin Laden. There is also a sense of camaraderie among the Navy SEALs, who take up most of the climax.

Of course, just because Bigelow's films are predominantly male does not mean she is incapable of including strong female characters when she wants to. When watching Point Break, I was actually far more invested with Tyler and her relationship to Johnny than I was with the whole "surfers pretending to be presidents robbing banks" plot that the movie insisted on focusing on. I think it actually might have been better if they had changed the focus around. Zero Dark Thirty also has a very strong female protagonist who persistently moves onward in her mission to stop a dangerous terrorist. She also has a great array of male characters, one of the most interesting being the adrenaline junkie Sgt. William James in The Hurt Locker.

At first glance, the predominantly masculine nature of Bigelow's work could be seen as detrimental, but she is still every bit as much a feminist filmmaker as the likes of Sally Potter or to be fair any of the women directors that have been discussed in this blogathon. The feminist aspects of her filmmaking just work in a different way. While other women might want to put the focus on creating strong female characters or promoting women's rights (as is the case with Orlando, a film that is hardly subtle about its feminist messages),

Bigelow seems to take whatever scripts interest her. Few if any of her movies actually address gender dynamics, at least not directly. Instead, she can be seen as a feminist filmmaker simply on the grounds that she shows a woman can make great movies. I don't see any reason why it should be a problem. After all, most of the few all-female movies that have been made (i.e. The Women and The Descent) were directed by men, so why shouldn't a woman be allowed to direct an all-male film. She was briefly married to James Cameron, a male director for whom strong female characters are a trademark, so it seems to fit.

In Bigelow's films, the interactions between the characters take precedence above all else. In many cases, there isn't a linear story in the strictest sense, at least not one that is presented in a classical fashion. Instead her movies take the form of a series of vignettes that focus on the interactions between a small group of characters, The Hurt Locker being one of the best examples of a such a structure. The central focus becomes the relationships between the main characters, with their ultimate objective being marginalized.

This leads to a common trend in Bigelow's films involving the "invisible enemy". In her films, the true "antagonists", if you can call them that, are shown as little as possible. K-19: The Widowmaker, has a sub-plot involving an American destroyer and helicopter, but since the focus is on a Russian submarine, the only Americans we see are in filmstrips and one man seen from a distance in the helicopter. The Hurt Locker refrains from showing us any terrorists outside of when they are visible to the three main characters and deliberately avoids addressing the politics of America's role in Iraq. Even in Point Break, the actual villains are kept anonymous by wearing masks resembling former presidents.

One of the best examples of Bigelow's interest in an "invisible enemy" would have to be Zero Dark Thirty. There are a number of ways a film about hunting down Osama Bin Laden could have been done, but Bigelow prefers to keep us in the dark about his operations. We never so much as see a photograph of Osama Bin Laden until the very end... after he has been shot and killed. Even then, Bigelow prevents us from getting a clear look at the body, keeping shots depicting it brief, dark, or at an angle that makes it harder to see. Audiences of the film likely have seen pictures of Bin Laden, so we see enough to recognize it is in fact him, but that is all the film is inclined to show us.

The antagonists of her films are not even treated as an anonymous enemy the same way as the German or Japanese soldiers in the old World War II combat films. In those movies, the enemy soldiers were stripped of their humanity in order to eliminate the emotional repercussions of killing a human being. Bigelow certainly does not skip on the psychological effects of killing someone (even the Navy SEALs in Zero Dark Thirty are a bit shaken after killing Bin Laden), but marginalizing the enemy makes them less an actual antagonist and more like part of the background.

If anything, the central conflict becomes less about finding the enemy than it is about how the relationships between the main characters interfere with that ultimate endgoal. Point Break may be one of the best examples, as it is Johnny's friendship with Bodhi that interferes with his task to put that man behind bars. Likewise K-19 focuses on the mounting tension between different members of the crew, first questioning the orders of their new commanding officer and later as they desperately try to figure out how to respond to a disaster in the submarine's reactor. The conflict over whether the crew should call for help or stay aboard and attempt to prevent the submarine from exploding while facing radiation poisoning interferes with them reaching a solution. Zero Dark Thirty has Maya struggling to persuade her superiors that she has indeed found Bin Laden.

Most great directors have a style that defines their work and makes it unique, and this is a big part of why Kathryn Bigelow stands out so well. She has this style of filmmaking that is all her own, with nobody else quite like her. Her movies do not stick strictly to a classical model, but still make sure to tell coherent and compelling stories about relationships, usually in a non-romantic light (Point Break being a partial exception) and among men. You don't see a lot of directors, at least not in Hollywood, who take such an approach to their movies.

The classical system of Hollywood filmmaking developed in the Studio Era (and arguably still the dominant mode of storytelling today, though perhaps not as strictly enforced) is that narrative comes above all else. Every other aspect of the movie: character development, visual effects, exposition, is secondary to advancing the narrative. The story is presented in a linear cause-and-effect format, with one scene leading into the next, and any deviation from that structure (i.e. flashbacks) are to be clearly indicated.

Many Hollywood directors who have managed to make their names stand out, such as Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Sergio Leone, Alfred Hitchcock, and to a lesser extant John Carpenter; are people who have dared to challenge the established formula. All of these men made movies in their own way, not letting the confines of Hollywood hold them down. Kathryn Bigelow has done the same, making movies the way she feels they need to be made. Some are more successful than others: The Hurt Locker was a great movie that deserved that Best Picture Oscar while Point Break was okay at the most, but in both cases she made them in the way that seemed to make the most sense to her.

The fact that Kathryn Bigelow is a woman does not play into or influence her films in the slightest. Like any great male director she has a style all her own that makes her films unique, including allowing her stand apart from other feminist filmmakers. Watching her movies, one gets the sense a director like Bigelow simply takes the scripts that interest her, regardless of their content or whether they have a strong female lead (and if it does, that's just an added bonus to an already great movie). She works more or less the same way as any male auteur in Hollywood, showing that a woman can be every bit as capable of making great movies as any man.

Don't Do Drugs, Kids: The Lesson to be Learned in Naked Lunch

There is a lot of stuff about David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch I still can’t explain with complete certainty. It is a bizarre movie and at first it is seemingly incomprehensible. However, underneath the giant bugs, the weird aliens, and the surreal international conspiracy, the story is really one about drug addiction. It is certainly an unusual approach to discussing the subject of drugs and how they affect people who take them.

The obvious approach would normally be to clearly show the person's degeneration and how they affect everyone and everything around them. Cronenberg instead opts for a slightly different method by getting inside the head of an addict, and presenting to us how he experiences the effects of taking these weird drugs. The result is a surreal, possibly incomprehensible but strangely brilliant film about just why you shouldn't take any of the weird and unusual drugs people have come up with.

Naked Lunch involves plenty of weird drugs. The whole thing gets started when exterminator Bill Lee (Peter Weller) finds his supply of bug powder mysteriously running short and runs out after starting a job. Turns out his wife Joan (Judy Davis) is the one responsible for its disappearance. She has been injecting the stuff into herself, which according to her produces “a literary high”. It is fitting that something designed to kill bugs is the first of many strange drugs to be introduced. Bug powder is generally meant to kill bugs, and drugs are often known to lead to the deaths of those who become addicted to them.

As Joan describes it “It’s a Kafka high… you feel like a bug.” The reference to Kafka is an early clue to what we are going to be in for with this film. Joan’s remark obviously refers to Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis, which centers around a travelling salesman who wakes up to find he has inexplicably transformed into “a monstrous vermin.” The result of the transformation is often depicted as a giant bug-like creature, sometimes with a human face. Later on we encounter many large and similarly grotesque bugs, some of which are merged with typewriters similar to how the hybrid creature depicted in some illustrations of Kafka's story.

Bill tries to consult a specialist, Dr. Benway, for help with Joan’s addiction. He gives him a powdery substance called “blackmeat” made from giant centipedes, explaining the interesting idea that it is to be mixed in with the bug powder. According to Benway, it will gradually block out the part of the brain that gets stimulated by the drug which makes the addict cease to be addicted. If only breaking habits was so easy, and as you would expect, it proves to be too good to be true.

All that really seems to be accomplished is that Bill ends up getting addicted to the stuff himself. He begins hallucinating, and things get weird. He gets “busted” by the cops for having bug powder, and they don’t believe him when he explains he is an exterminator. The two of them note that they have “a bug” in the office and decide to see how it reacts to the powder. What they bring out is a giant box containing what looks like an oversized beetle that begins talking to Bill Lee through the mouth on its anus.

This beetle seems to be completely unaffected by the bug powder. If anything, it actually enjoys it and even asks Bill to pour some on its lips. The bug in question tells Bill that he needs to kill Joan, and suggests that she isn’t even human. Bill quickly realises he is probably hallucinating, which leads him to kill the bug with his shoe and make a run for it. Still, he hasn't broken the habit, and ends up trying to do a “William Tell routine” that results in him accidentally shooting Joan in the head anyway. As if that wasn’t enough, to rub salt on the wound, the glass Bill had meant to shoot off of Joan’s head is the one thing that remains intact.

This is about the point where it starts to become hard to tell where reality ends and hallucinations begin. It looks as though the bugs somehow influenced him to do the deed of shooting his wife, but at the same time, he was hardly thinking clearly. Even stranger is how Joan immediately complies with Bill’s statement, as though they had done it before. Neither was in their right minds at the time, however, given they were both high and possibly drunk.

The possibility of it all being coincidence becomes even stronger when you consider the fact that it this scene was inspired by a real incident in the life of William S. Burroughs, the author of the book the film was (loosely) adapted from. The actual incident happened in Mexico City, but like the movie, it involved Burroughs getting drunk and accidentally shooting his common-law wife while trying to imitate William Tell (a Swiss folk hero said to have shot an apple off a child’s head with a bow and arrow).

Bill Lee ends up meeting an alien creature called a "mugwump" who recommends he buy a specific typewriter and travel to “Interzone” (a shady port somewhere on the African coast). This begins a strange pattern in the narrative. Bill is clearly shown to receive a flight ticket from the mugwump, but later when asked to present it, he pulls out a bag filled with drugs, and similar interactions happen throughout. The fact that he is this confused seems to suggest he is hallucinating encounters like this one with the mugwump. Later on, typewriters appear normal one moment and as living creatures the next. It all ties into that theme of the inability to tell when reality ends and hallucinations begin, very much the sort of feeling an addict might go through.

The big question is whether there is in fact any truth to the existence of "Interzone". We did see that the "ticket" he presented was a bag of drugs, not exactly something that could get him onto a plane. We also never see him actually arriving at the port. It is possible (and perhaps even likely) therefore that he never actually left his home. Interzone, like the bugs, is all a product of his hallucinations.

he ends up encountering an exact duplicate of his wife in the form of Joan Frost (also played by Davis), along with her husband, a writer by the name of Tom Frost (Ian Holm). One thing about these two is that while these people may exist (and indeed were based on a couple Burroughs met in Morocco), their interactions might not be what they seem. There is one scene early on where Tom walks with Bill through a marketplace and tells him (and by extension, the audience) to watch his lips and listen to what he is saying. Sure enough, his mouth is out of sync with his dialogue, and it remains that way throughout the film. 

This suggests that what Bill thinks he hears Tom say does not actually line up with what he is really saying. Taking this logic into account, it seems that Joan Frost may not actually be a doppelganger to Joan Lee, but rather the result of Bill projecting her image onto another person. Perhaps something about Joan Frost reminds Bill of his wife, and in turn with all the other hallucinations going around, he sees her as resembling the latter. This would also justify why his “controller” (a weird typewriter-bug hybrid) insists that he complete his “mission” by seducing her.

Bill borrows a Martinelli typewriter from Tom, only to find it getting murdered by his own. They show an image of the two bugs fighting but in Bill’s delusional state, he could have easily smashed the typewriter without realising it, and that is probably exactly what happened. He is then told that it was an “enemy agent”, which appears to be from his typewriter in its supposed bug form when in truth it is simply his mind trying to rationalise a spur of the moment piece of vandalism.

The idea that these bugs are more or less hallucination is enforced when Bill goes to see Joan, who reveals that Tom also has an Arabic typewriter. He talks her into writing something but everything seems normal at first. Nothing actually happens until Joan is convinced to try some of the black meat. It is only after she does that the machine begins to transform into a bizarre centipede-like creature, and as soon as it falls out the window it turns back into a typewriter. Also note how the housekeeper Fadela (Monique Mercure) shows no surprise or confusion about the presence of such a thing or how it got there.  

The real question is why did she feel the need to throw a typewriter out the window? Well, later on, we see Fadela at a stall in the market selling black meat. Perhaps she is the one who really has the power in the household, and only pretends to be servatile. This is supported by the later scene where she is overseeing the distribution of Mugwump juice and the reveal about who she really is.

Tom then arrives demanding his Martinelli, only to find it smashed. What becomes really strange is that Bill’s typewriter is in its bug form throughout this scene, and yet when Tom goes to take it hostage he never seems to acknowledge that fact. He never questions the fact that the typewriter is talking and desperately trying to get away. Either he is used to seeing typewriters that can move on their own, or he is seeing something very different from us. The most likely explanation is that Bill is hallucinating, and Tom is in fact stealing a normal typewriter.

Bill ends up passed out in an alleyway and spending some time with a local boy named Kiki, who helps him “fix” the Martinelli. However, instead of being a normal typewriter, it comes out resembling a Mugwump’s head. The keyboard is apparently in its mouth, and it is not clear how Bill is supposed to fit the paper into it, but that does not stop him. Adding to the apparent hallucination is one scene where the “mugwriter” seemingly comes to life, transforming into a full mugwump, and begins talking to Lee before turning back into the weird-shaped typewriter.

Bill has to go see a strange man named Yves Cloquet and is accompanied by Kiki when they ride in the former’s “wonderful car”. During the ride, Bill relates an anecdote about a man who somehow taught his anus to speak as part of a circus show, only for it to eventually develop a mind of its own and eventually seal his mouth shut. This is a weird anecdote, even for this movie, but it might just explain a few things.

It is not clear if this man was someone Bill knew or if it was just a story he heard from someone else, but either way it would explain where that one detail about the bugs came from. The bugs seem to have mouths on their anuses throughout the film, and if they are hallucinations, that means they were created by Bill’s own mind. Having a story like that would explain where Bill’s mind got that idea.

At Cloquet’s house, we get to one of the strangest parts of this narrative. Kiki shows affection towards one of Cloquet’s parrots, and is talked into going upstairs to “play with” the others he owns. Meanwhile, Bill tries to get information about Dr. Benway. After the two spend some time talking, Bill walks in on Kiki being gruesomely murdered by Cloquet, now taking on the form of a giant centipede inside a bird cage. I still do not have a solid explanation for this scene.

Finally, Bill decides to get his old typewriter back by giving the mugwump typewriter to Tom Frost, which he accepts with gratitude and returns Bill his old device. One thing that is worth noting is that Tom refrains from opening the case containing the typewriter on-screen, so we do not know for sure if what he will pull out is in fact the mugwump head or if it is just a regular-looking typewriter. As noted before, the mugwump head was likely a product of Bill’s delusions.

Unfortunately, when Bill opens the case containing his typewriter, he finds it tortured and apparently dying. If there is no international conspiracy going on, than why would Tom Frost resort to torture in an effort to extract information from a regular typewriter? However, Tom did have every reason to be mad at Bill. The man was responsible for smashing both of his typewriters and showed no sign of remorse. It would not be inconceivable that Tom, who in his frustration might not have been thinking clearly, smashed the typewriter in a fit of anger (or possibly as an attempt at revenge). The mugwump typewriter was supposedly forged from Tom’s Martinelli, so in a sense Bill is returning it to its original owner. This in turn allows the two men to reconcile their differences, and as a result by returning Bill his own typewriter he is coming clean about what he had done.

The climax of the film comes up when Bill arrives at a factory filled with mugwumps who are all chained and hanging from the ceiling. Numerous people are drinking some kind of milky fluid out of the tubes in their heads, including several we have seen at different points in the film. Fadela is shown overseeing the process, establishing that she is evidently the one in control and not the other way around (ironic given she was established as the Frosts’ house keeper).

There is one thing about Fadela that comes up, though, which is that she is actually a man in drag. It turns out she is none other than Dr. Benway, the man behind everything. He gave Bill the black meat knowing it was a highly addictive drug and with the intent of drawing him into all kinds of weird things. Apparently black meat is going out of style and mugwump juice is the new industry. Bill agrees to work for Benway in a place called Annexia as long as Joan Frost can go with him.

At the borders of Annexia, Bill ends up in a strange situation. A group of patrol guards pull over his car and ask for some identification. They demand proof that he is a writer by telling him to “write something”. Bill responds by waking up Joan Frost telling her it is time for them to work on their “William Tell routine”, much as he did with Joan Lee. The results are also the same, he shoots her in the head, while the glass on top remains unharmed. The border patrol guards then welcome him into Annexia.

It is harder to pinpoint exactly what goes on in this final scene, but it is possible that Bill is still delusional. The patrol guards’ outfits do look Eastern European, so it is possible he could have ended up in a real country thinking it was Annexia. The real question is why they let him in after watching him shoot a woman for no apparent reason. I’m afraid I don’t know for sure.

Nash and Tara of the website Radio Dead Air have a series called W.T.F.I.W.W.Y. (I’m not spelling out the full title) in which they discuss weird and bizarre news stories that often leave you wondering what the people involved were thinking. As a result, they have developed a few “rules for life” that make sense when you see their show, and one of those rules is “the old drugs still work”. That’s not to say that they encourage drug use, just that the stuff some people get high off of makes things like weed seem mild by comparison. I’m not sure there is a film that better exemplifies that rule than David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch. 

Really, though, it is something that is likely to deter anyone with the slightest interest in any kind of drug use. We should stop showing drug PSA’s to the kids and instead just do screenings of Naked Lunch. That will keep them away from illegal and harmful drugs. Don't do drugs or you'll get dragged into a surreal international conspiracy with giant talking bugs.

This post was written for the O Canada Blogathon hosted by Kristina at Speakeasy. and Ruth at Silver Screenings

Why Jean-Luc Godard is the Worst Director in the Galaxy

If I were faced with the choice of sitting down to watch a Michael Bay marathon or a single Jean-Luc Godard movie, I would take the marathon in a second. At least some of Bay's films could potentially be enjoyably bad and not just painful. If you've been following my blog, you should know that Jean-Luc Godard has become something of an arch-nemesis of mine. Worse still is that try as I might I can never seem to escape his wrath.

I have been forced to watch his films in three different film classes (in one case at a completely different institution than the other two)... in a row. I'm just hoping that I don't have to face him again this year, but if I do, you can bet I'm going to be back here to tell you just how awful they were. Each film of his I get forced to watch seems to only hate him even more. At this point, I'm pretty certain there is no way this man is ever going to win me over.

The guy may have made an impact on cinema, but you know who else did? Ed Wood. That doesn't make Plan 9 From Outer Space any closer to being a masterpiece. Even a terrible director can leave their mark on cinema, and that's what we have here. Jean-Luc Godard is nothing but a talentless, senseless, insane and incompetent director who never seems to have a clue what he is doing.

Look at Breathless for example, and one of the most famous things about it. Really? Your movie was too long so you just cut out random chunks and hoped you didn't accidentally cut out a crucial moment in your story? What happened to going through your rough cut and finding scenes that could be trimmed or which interfere with the pacing? Really, all the jump cuts do is make the movie way too jarring.

On top of that, when you get down to it, the main character in Breathless is kinda an idiot and I'm not sure Godard understood how the justice system is supposed to work. I mean, this guy shoots a police officer after multiple accounts of vehicle theft (so already a serious crime with an even more serious one top off of that) and decides rather than getting out of town while he has the chance, he's going to waste time trying to talk his American girlfriend into going with him. Couldn't he just get out of town and then call her on a payphone?

Also, there is the famous final scene, where the main character is shot and delivers a dying speech about the injustices of the world... except that what happened was perfectly just. This character, Michel, had already shot and killed one cop, so the police knew he was dangerous. He also happened to be holding a loaded gun and was marching toward the police. Said officers told him to put down the gun he was holding, and he didn't so they shot him.

Last I checked, that's standard police protocol in most places. The cops aren't normally supposed to use their guns, but if the subject is holding a dangerous weapon they are automatically considered a threat. Holding a gun of any sort in front of an officer gets you labelled as a danger, and if you don't put the gun down when they ask you to they have the right to open fire. Michel could have easily gotten out of his mess (especially since he didn't even want the gun in the first place) if he had just put the gun down when he was asked to. Then he could have done some jail time and then gotten back out on the streets, but he didn't, and now he is dead because of his stupidity.

So obviously Godard doesn't understand how authority works or how to convey messages of injustice, as is also evidenced by his later movie Tout Va Bien. Supposedly it is supposed to be conveying some sort of message about the political situation in France at the time and how it affected the people. Unfortunately that message is lost when the movie makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever. It keeps jumping back and forth seemingly at random, between scenes and segments that have nothing to do with each other.

Things happen for no apparent reason and several unrelated plot threads are forced together. What does the voice-over involving the two people wanting to make a movie have to do with Jane Fonda's character? Nothing. Scenes drag on far too long, and the whole thing is just one big incoherent mess. Now what else can be botched up? Oh, right, how could I forget Jean-Luc Godard's awful attempt to create a dystopian science fiction movie in Alphaville.

Again, really? The best you could do to make anything seem futuristic was throw around random astronomical terms. You can't just throw the word "galaxy" into a story and instantly have a genius work of science fiction. That's not how it works. As if that wasn't bad enough Godard's use of those words only shows that he has no idea what they mean (among other things he thinks light years are a unit of time, when in fact there is no logical way that could be possible). That's not even getting into the incoherent mess of a plot. It is quite possibly the laziest science fiction movie ever made, and that's saying a lot.

I don't see what people get out of Godard. He is not a good director, he doesn't even deserve to be ranked among the best directors. His movies make no sense and have baffling logic at best. In some cases he doesn't even put in the effort to get some idea of what the heck he is talking about (unlike say... Stanley Kubrick) and it shows vividly. His messages are lost in the confusing structures of his movies and many of them come off as rather pointless when examined closely.

I'm not even alone in feeling this way. One of Godard's own contemporaries, Ingmar Bergman had this to say on his work: “I’ve never been able to appreciate any of his films, nor even understand them… I find his films affected, intellectual, self-obsessed and, as cinema, without interest and frankly dull… I’ve always thought that he made films for critics.” I will confess that I have not seen much of Bergman, but as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I am far more inclined to seek out any of Bergman's work than to willingly sit through another film directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

The Role Of Laura Dern in David Lynch's Filmography

Laura Dern is a talented and versatile actress, there's no doubting that. From October Sky to The Fault in Our Stars, she has played a wide range of effective roles. For a more in-depth look at her filmography in general you can check Alex Withrow's discussion at And So it Begins. What interests me is to look at a very specific aspect of her work. Laura Dern may be a versatile actress, but to see that you really don't need to go through her entire career.

All you really need to do is look at her collaborations with one particular director, and that is David Lynch. He was the one that really got her career going in the 1986 thriller Blue Velvet when she was only 19, and since then she's done two other collaborations with a few hints at the possibility of a fourth thanks to an interview she did for The Fault in Our Stars. Across those three movies she has never played the same character twice.

Blue Velvet saw Dern play a very sweet and innocent young girl. She is the shy girl next door, who remains friendly and optimistic, which fits nicely into the whole theme of the movie seeing as her image of the "ideal" girlfriend provides a clear contrast to the film's other female lead: Isabella Rosselini as the emotionally disturbed neighbor caught up in the activities of one Frank Booth. As the story goes on Laura Dern becomes increasingly entangled in the web of mystery lurking beneath her hometown, and her innocence is brought into question.

Laura Dern is charming enough as Sandy, but then we get to Lynch's later film Wild At Heart, and guess who else is back? Laura Dern is now, if anything, exactly the opposite of her role in Blue Velvet. Whereas the first collaboration between Lynch and Dern featured her as a very innocent, quiet, and innocent young woman. In Wild At Heart, Dern is every bit as much in love with Sailor Ripley as Sandy was with Jeffrey Beaumont, but this time around her character is a bit dirtier. 

Lula Fortune becomes much more outspoken in this film, being driven and at times blinded by her love. This is the sort of character who gets so caught up in her relationship that she will stop at nothing to be with her one true love, even if it means hitting the road with an army of weird psychos in hot pursuit.

Finally, we move into their third (and so far, final) collaboration: Inland Empire. The whole movie is a bit weird and with its extremely subjective nature it would be hard to make a solid profile of anybody, but Laura Dern captures her role well. This time around there is no obvious romantic sub-plot, and her role becomes a much more cynical one. Whereas her good nature ultimately won out in Blue Velvet and she remained devoted to Sailor Ripley in Wild At Heart, the outcome in the end isn't as clear or optimistic (although it does depend on how you interpret the ending).

Instead she plays a aspiring actress Nikki Grace. This is a character who finds herself taking on an extremely demanding role and gradually breaks down over the course of the film due to the resulting stress. Over time she begins to confuse the identities of herself and her character, failing to distinguish when she is acting and when she is not (as demonstrated in several well-executed scenes that appear to be real only to be revealed as scenes from the movie). In the end she does somewhat manage to overcome her personal problems and finish the movie, but the damage is still done.

So we have three very different performances across three different films. There do seem to be patterns that emerge with each, however. In every case, Dern seems to be cast as an idealist whose confidence is brought into question. Blue Velvet questions her good nature as she becomes entangled in a web of messed-up craziness courtesy of Frank Booth, Wild At Heart tests just how far Lula will go for love, and Inland Empire sees a confident actress gradually starting to lose herself.

If indeed Lynch is planning something new, and he really does plan to cast Laura Dern, it does make me curious what role he'll have in store for her in what would be their fourth collaboration. The one thing that seems likely is that her character would be a drastic departure from everything she has done with Lynch in the past.

The Ten Most Influential Directors of All Time

So I've seen at least two of these "blogging relays" going on, and the truth is I've envied the people who have been picked to participate in them and really wanted in on this action; so I naturally decided to create a relay of my own. They're straight forward enough in theory and are also a good way to connect with other bloggers so seeing as I have a lot of free time it seemed like something that would be fun to try.

The big relay that's going around right now is based on the most iconic movie characters, and Wendell Ottley at Dell On Movies has just started his own based around iconic female characters (he has a pretty good selection, too), so I thought I'd try and find something new to bring up with this one instead of just bringing out another list of characters. 

The subject of looking at directors seemed an interesting new angle to take, especially since the theme I'm looking at is one so subjective that there's bound to be a fair bit of swapping and re-swapping places. That said, while the subject matter is different, the basic structure is still modeled on the character-based relays.

As for how it works, it's pretty straight forward. I have compiled a list of ten directors I consider to be extremely influential. I will name another blogger to take over. That blogger, in their own article, will go through my list and choose one they feel doesn't belong, make a case for why that director doesn't fit, and then bring out a replacement. After making a case for why that director is a better choice, they will pass the baton onto another blogger. That third blogger will repeat the process before choosing another one to take over, and so on. Once you've written your entry, I would like to ask that you post a link in the comments or send it to me through twitter or otherwise send it to me so that I can keep track of where this is going.

For the sake of simplicity I'll sort them alphabetically by last name (how any of the bloggers to take over opt to sort the list is their choice). I'm also drawing largely from my own pool of directors I admire. At the moment a large portion of the list includes white American men, but I have tried to diversify it as much as I can, including a woman along with two European directors.

One of the curious aspects of this field is how varied different people's pools are. I imagine by the time this is done I won't even recognize it anymore, and I'll probably see other directors I love, directors I hate, and others I'd never heard of as this gets passed around.

So here is the list I have assembled:

Kathryn Bigelow

Bigelow may be a very recent director, but she has already left a huge impact. We are talking about the first woman to win Best Picture... in 2008, for a medium that has been around for over a century. This is a huge deal, even if her influence isn't immediately visible in any subsequent filmmakers. It is likely she will inspire many of the future, however.

John Carpenter

One of my favorite directors, and also the only person on this list I have had the honor of meeting. This was a man who often worked with a low budget and almost always managed to come out with something interesting. His films often had a distinct look and he is often called the "Master of Horror" but in truth he was extremely versatile, having across his career made horror, action, comedy, romance, science fiction, and fantasy films. Then of course we get into the influence of his specific movies. Halloween alone popularized an entire genre, and with Escape From New York he managed to launch then-unknown Disney star Kurt Russell to stardom as an action hero.

Francis Ford Coppola

There's no denying this guy has talent. This is man who directed several critically acclaimed movies, was nominated for Oscars several times, and even managed to win the Best Picture Oscar for two films in the same series (I'm not a huge fan of The Godfather but that is still quite the accomplishment). On the other hand, how many films have in some way tried to imitate the cinematography of Apocalypse Now or Marlon Brando's performance in The Godfather. Quite a few.

D.W. Griffith

Like going to the movies? Like writing about movies? Well then, you ought to thank this guy. True, he did unwittingly make an extremely racist movie even by the standards of his time but he also pioneered nearly every major filmmaking technique that is used today. Among other things Griffith's film was basically the first feature. He was also one of the first people to experiment with more sophisticated editing techniques, such as realizing the camera could move to show the same action from multiple angles.

Howard Hawks

Among the many directors, male and female, working in Hollywood during the time of the studio era (just after the conclusion of the silent era in the late 1920's, and continuing on to the late 1950's), one name often seems to stand out, and that is Howard Hawks. This man made some of the most iconic films of the period: Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Sergeant York, Red River. The Big Sleep, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes just to name a few. He also may have made an impact on how women were treated in the movies, having been known to frequently have surprisingly progressive images in his leads, quite possibly helping to clear the way for other great female characters of the period such as those of Katherine Hepburn.

Alfred Hitchcock

There are not enough words to clearly describe how much of an influence Hitchcock has had on cinema, but this was a man who has inspired millions even today. Among other things he was also a man who dared to challenge established norms and experiment in finding new ways to tell his stories and create suspense in his audiences. Oh, and Hitchcock's trademark of making cameos in his films is one that has been picked up by countless modern directors.

Stanley Kubrick

Ah, Kubrick, one of my all-time favorite directors and the director of one of my all-time favorite films. This is a guy who always had a very distinct vision of what he wanted, a notorious perfectionist who worked with all kinds of actors from James Mason to Tom Cruise. This man has made several films often ranked among the greatest ever made (among them Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey), and nearly all of them continue to inspire even today. Even 46 years later the visuals of 2001 are among some of the best ever put on film and continue to inspire filmmakers with access to far more sophisticated equipment.

Sergio Leone

Look at any classic western released before 1964's A Fistful of Dollars. Now look at any western released after 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West. You'll quickly see a lot of changes, and many of them are owed to this man. Leone was an Italian director who was able to take an icon of Hollywood and stamp his name onto it. Additionally he also launched several careers including that of Clint Eastwood and finally giving Lee Van Cleef a career outside of occasionally playing a background henchman.

David Lynch

How many shows have drawn in some way or another from Twin Peaks? How many continue to be inspired by Eraserhead. This was a man who managed to break into mainstream cinema but never let it control him. If he has an idea for a movie or gets a script he likes he just goes for it, and he never does the same project twice. Before Lynch came along, subjective art was very much a thing only found in specific circles, such as experimental films or the art film movements of Fellini and Bergman. Though he clearly drew influence from those artists, Lynch took it, did his own thing, and brought it into the usually conformist environment of Hollywood.

Georges Méliès

No discussion of the history of film would be complete without referencing this genius, and with good reason. After all, cinema as we know it today might never happened if not for Méliès. Before he came along, film was just a cool new way to see the world the same way you might with a photo camera, the only difference being that now the pictures were able to move for a few seconds. Méliès was the first to person to recognize the potential film had as an art form, and the first to really experiment with any kind of editing techniques (specifically the "stop trick", and the practice of shooting multiple scenes and stringing them together to create a sense of coherence) in order to tell a fantastic story.


Now to set things off I'm obliged to begin by selecting who will go first. I had two possible candidates and I apologize to the one who I won't be passing this on to (I won't give his name). The first person in line for this relay is Katy Rochelle of Girl Meets Cinema. Who she passes this on to afterwards will be her choice. The results should be interesting to see.

Current Participants:

• Katy Rochelle of Girl Meets Cinema
• Alex Withrow of And So it Begins
• Wendell Ottley of Dell on Movies
• M. Brown of Two Dollar Cinema
• Fisti of A Fistful of Films
• Josh of The Cinematic Spectacle
• Ruth of Flix Chatter
• Mark of Three Rows Back
• Fernando of Committed to Celluloid
• Tom of Digital Shortbread

A Tribute to Georges Méliès: Pioneer of Cinema

Some people that I know have this silly notion that I hate all European directors, and when I point out several that I do like I'm told they conformed to Hollywood standards and thus don't count. Well, much as I've criticized Jean-Luc Godard it's time now to go a little bit further back and look at a good French director. Not only a talented man but quite possibly one of the most significant auteurs in the history of film, the man who made a few crucial discoveries that would begin to shape cinema as an art form and clear the way for others to shape it into what it is today. That man was Georges Méliès.

You may or may not immediately recognize the name, but either way there was no doubting the influence this man had on the film industry. You may remember him from Martin Scorese's Hugo where he was played by Ben Kingsley and we got to learn in great detail much of his life story. Alternatively you may also recall one of his most famous movies, 1902's La Voyage dans la Lune (better known in English as A Trip to the Moon) and its famous image of the bullet crashing into the moon's eye. As a film genre, science fiction would not become widely recognized until the 1950's with George Pal's Destination Moon, but it has been a part of cinema since the beginning thanks to Méliès.

Méliès' story is indeed a fascinating one. It is a tale of triumph and tragedy. Before Méliès came along, film was just a passing commercial fad and nobody understood its full potential. For a while there was a popular attraction known as the "nickelodeon" (not to be confused with the modern children's television network). Essentially the way it worked was you would walk into a bar or some other public place and there would be a few boxes you could look into. Placing a nickel into one would allow you to glimpse a moving image, you'd watch that and then you would go to the next one and put another nickel in and see that image. For a while they were popular but after a while people got bored with them. It was believed there was no future.

Meanwhile, we also had the Lumiere Brothers, a pair of filmmakers who also never fully understood the potential of what they had access to. To them, a film camera was not much different from a photo camera. You simply set it up and recorded things as they happened, the only difference being that you could now produce a moving picture instead of a single still frame. They did a lot of these documentations of everyday occurrences like workers leaving a factory or a train pulling into a station, and loved to show them off to audiences. 

Enter Georges Méliès, a simple magician who became so fascinated with the "moving pictures" he decided to create a few of his own. Then one day he made an incredible discovery. The story goes that he was one day out on the side of the road with his camera. At that point he was still just photographing it, but then his camera jammed and it took him some time to fix it. 

When he went back over the footage, he saw something remarkable (I've heard a few different versions of exactly what, but the one I've usually described is that he saw a car apparently disappear). By total accident, Méliès discovered the "stop trick" (a technique he would use a lot in the years to come) and realized that film was much more than a simple photographic tool. 

At the time, he may not have fully understood the world he was about to open up. He certainly would not have realized how many people would be inspired by and build off of his work. He would not have known how much of an impact this simple accident would have on the following decades, unknowingly clearing a path for thousands of filmmakers to come, making it possible for this very blog to exist. 

To him, as a magician, he was simply interested in creating illusions and that was exactly what he did. Méliès realized that film could be used not just for documenting everyday life but also to create incredible fantasies. In the years to come he would gain his own studio with a cast and crew and plenty of then-cutting edge special effects at his disposal with which he let his imagination run wild. He was also the first person to really edit his movies, although the nature of his editing may seem primitive to modern audiences (he'd always shoot entire scenes from one angle, although he would often put each scene in a different set and used his "stop trick" to create various illusions of transformations and people appearing and disappearing).

The sad part is one that you should be all too familiar with if you've seen Hugo. As great as Méliès was he ultimately just could not keep up with other filmmakers. For a long time his works were a novelty, but then Edwin Porter came along with The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery which brought about more sophisticated filmmaking techniques. Those were followed by D.W. Griffith making the first feature film Birth of a Nation which brought about methods of filming and editing still used today. Various other misfortunes began to pile up on him and a lot of Méliès' films were destroyed in order to re-purpose their material for use in World War I.  In the end, Méliès ended up running a toy shop in Gare Montparnasse, a train station in Paris (you may remember this part being explored in Hugo) and died of cancer in 1938.

The influence of Méliès on modern cinema cannot be denied. He was the first person to recognize that film was an art form, not just a new way to document things as they happened. In that sense, Méliès is essentially the first major auteur of cinema. Looking at his films it is clear that the man had not only quite the imagination but also a sheer passion for the films he made, and it all ties back to his beginnings as a magician. He simply loved to create illusions, but found a whole new way to express that love which would open the door for many others over the following decades. Even today many of the greatest filmmakers owe something to Georges Méliès.

Sadly, only a small fraction of Méliès' films have survived, but the ones that have continue to be studied and analyzed. Even with technological advancements since his time it is hard not to see his passion carried through his work. Méliès was an actor, a magician, and the first major film director, and he was a genius in all those respects.

Sergio Leone as an Auteur

Sergio Leone was one of the most influential and iconic directors of the 20^th century. He was an Italian director best known for his “Spaghetti Westerns”: westerns that are produced by European companies (often but not always Italy), and filmed in Europe (often Southern Spain). Contrary to popular belief, Leone did not create the Spaghetti Western, but he is responsible for making it internationally popular. Leone was naturally an auteur director as over the course of his career, during which he directed a total of seven films, he created his own unique impressions of the genre and often tried to play with conventions.

Leone often put a notable emphasis on sound effects. This is most notable in Once Upon a Time in the West, where a large portion of the audio was Foley art, especially at the beginning. The very first scene is three armed men waiting for a train. Aside from the station master asking them for tickets, there is not a single word of dialogue spoken by any of the characters present. Instead, the audio is based entirely around sounds made by various objects present, most notably the windmill, which is heard creaking repeatedly throughout the scene. There is also emphasis on the sounds of water droplets landing on a man’s hat, and a fly crawling on another man’s face.

The scene immediately after the train station has another clever use of sound editing. The scene takes place on a farm, occupied by a family who is preparing for the arrival of the main character, Jill McBain. Suddenly the background sounds of crickets stop abruptly, catching the attention of the viewer, but then start up again, putting them into a false sense of security. The sound stops again shortly after, resulting in a short period of silence with only a few scattered birds being heard, at which point a gun is suddenly fired and one by one the family is killed.

Duck, You Sucker also utilized a clever editing technique known as a “sound bridge”.  The flashbacks would largely be silent aside from background music and specific noises, such as the gunshots when John shoots his best friend. However, on some occasions, the flashback ends and a sound that would be audible in the scene is heard when the film cuts to the present. For example, in one scene when John watches a firing squad killing revolutionaries, and sees that their leader provided the soldiers with information, he recalls a similar incident when his best friend told the authorities about him. The younger John is seen aiming a gun towards his friend, and pulls the trigger, with the scene immediately cutting to the prisoners being shot by the firing squad.

All of Leone’s films contained various scores composed by Ennio Morricone. Among the soundtracks composed by Morricone, he always created a specific piece as the “theme’ which would be played throughout the film (the most famous of these is probably the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). The music itself was used to achieve various purposes in different films. For example, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly had a score which played when Tuco and Blondie are led into the Union prison camp, which gave the scene a sad tone and a feeling of pointless brutality. However, later on in the movie, during the showdown between Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes, a different score is used to build up tension as the camera cuts between the three of them waiting to draw.

In addition to clever use of sound, another thing that helped Leone to stand out among other directors was his casting choices. He would often have a cast with diverse nationalities (many of them were Italian, but there were actors from other European countries as well). When they were shooting the film, each of the actors would speak in their own language, and certain lines would be dubbed in post-production depending on the version of the film. For example, in the English version of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the original lines spoken by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach remain intact, and the lines of the Italian cast are subsequently dubbed. Meanwhile, in the Italian version of the film, the Italian lines would be left intact, but a voice actor would dub the lines spoken by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach.

Leone seemed to get closer to America and further from Italy with each of his films considering the cast. A Fistful of Dollars was mostly a European cast aside from a then-unknown Clint Eastwood. Sergio had wanted to work with Henry Fonda in For a Few Dollars More, but as he had not yet established himself as a director, he was unable to get him and instead hired another American, Lee Van Cleef. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly reunited Eastwood and Cleef, and also brought in another American, Eli Wallach as Tuco, also known as “the Ugly”, with Italian actors portraying various supporting characters they meet over the course of the film.

Once Upon a Time in the West had a cast made up of American actors Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Charles Bronson, alongside Italian actress Claudia Cardinale. Duck, You Sucker was focused almost entirely on the relationship between Rod Steiger and James Coburn’s characters (interestingly enough, both were American actors playing a Mexican bandit and a former Irish terrorist, respectively), and only brought in an Italian supporting cast when it was necessary to the film. Finally, when making Once Upon a Time in America, Leone abandoned his usual style of casting actors of mixed nationalities, instead opting to have a cast made up entirely of American actors.

Despite the fact that each of his films was completely different, Leone did have a number of characterizations that he frequently used. One of the most common as the “mysterious stranger”, a character whose true identity either remains unknown or whose background is only partially shown. The most famous example of such a character in a Sergio Leone film is Clint Eastwood as “the Man With No Name” in the Dollars Trilogy. His real name is never mentioned (he is only referred to by a nickname in each of the films), and almost none of his back-story is even mentioned.

Harmonica serves a similar role in Once Upon a Time in the West. Like the Man With No Name, very little is explained of whom he is, but in this instance it is clear from the start that he is after the villain Frank, and he intends to kill him. A series of flashbacks reveal that Frank had murdered his brother and that he is seeking revenge.

To a lesser extent, John Mallory in Duck, You Sucker could also be considered an example of this concept. Unlike the Man with No Name and Harmonica, he does have a clear back story: that he was involved with a revolution in Ireland and had killed his best friend. Nonetheless, many of the details are left unclear, such as the fact that the identity of the woman in the flashbacks is never revealed.

Another character which can be traced through all of his films is the use of remorseless killer as the villain. A Fistful of Dollars featured Ramon, a ruthless outlaw who is strongly skilled with a rifle. For a Few Dollars More once again brought Gian Maria Volonté back as the main antagonist, El Indio, the leader of a ruthless gang of bandits. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly also featured a ruthless bounty hunter (ironically played by Lee Van Cleef, who had previously appeared in For a Few Dollars More as one of the heroes) as the titular “bad”. Once Upon a Time in the West featured Henry Fonda playing against his usual type as a ruthless gunslinger who is willing to massacre an innocent family and even murder children.

In Duck, You Sucker, the main villain is Colonel Günther Reza, an officer in the Mexican army. Unlike Ramon, El Indio, Angel Eyes, or Frank, Reza was not a gunslinger himself, but an authoritative figure working for an oppressive government, whilst the main characters are in fact technically outlaws. Nonetheless, while he had soldiers doing the actual killing, Reza seemed to feel no remorse for the off-screen massacre of most of the revolutionaries (including Juan’s whole family), nor did he object to sentencing the remaining prisoners to face firing squads.

In an interesting case of playing with conventions, Sergio’s cast often included a bandit as an anti-hero. In a traditional “classic” western, bandits would usually play the roles of villains, who would have to be brought to justice by the hero. While this tradition was maintained in For a Few Dollars More, many of his later films would take this basic character and turn it around, showing them as a complex character whom the audience can relate to.

This started with The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, in which the titular “Ugly” is a Mexican bandit named Tuco. Tuco is a ruthless bandit who is more than willing to murder his double-crossing partner by forcing him to walk through the desert, and only saves him because he knows where to find a stash of buried gold. Nonetheless, there is a short scene where Tuco meets his brother, who is now a priest, where he shows a more emotional side, and it is hinted that he became a bandit because of a life of poverty.

Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West is an interesting variant of the traditional bandit. He first appears after an off-screen gunfight, and initially seems like a typical outlaw with his drinking habits and an attempt to convince Harmonica to fight him. However, as the story moves on, it becomes clear that he actually has strong morals, and makes a point of not shooting women or priests. Even more interesting is that he is framed for the murder of Jill McBain’s family by Frank, and much of his story is simply his effort to clear his name and find the real killer.

Juan Miranda is much more ruthless than Cheyenne, but he also has the same sense of likeability. Juan’s “gang” is made up of his family, including his children. They are all living in a capitalist society run by an oppressive government and torn apart by revolution. Juan genuinely cares for his family, and he is simply an ordinary man trying to provide for them by whatever means he can.

Once Upon a Time in America is centered entirely on the story of a gangster’s rise to power. Noodles and his friends grew up in a poor community, and like Juan, they were merely trying to provide for themselves. Unfortunately, this started to lead to a life of crime, and eventually violence as well.

One of the most common aspects among Sergio Leone’s characters was the concept of a dark past which they regret, often influencing the choices they make in the present. Usually these stories are shown in a series of flashbacks. The first case of a character driven by a past event was in For a Few Dollars More, in which a series of flashbacks are seen showing the villain, El Indio, breaking into a house and entering a room occupied by a young couple. The man is quickly shot, and he begins raping the woman, who is eventually revealed to have shot herself. At the end of the film, it is implied that the woman was in fact Colonel Mortimer’s sister, and that he wanted to kill Indio in an act of revenge.

Once Upon a Time in the West utilized a similar story with Harmonica. For most of the film, very little information is given on who he is or why he is after Frank. A few flashbacks show a blurred figure walking towards the foreground, with the image slowly getting clearer each time it is shown. During the final showdown, when Harmonica and Frank meet face-to-face, it is finally revealed that Frank gave Harmonica his distinctive instrument after he cruelly hung his brother from a bell, and left him standing on Harmonica’s shoulders. Like Mortimer, Harmonica was after revenge.

However, Duck, You Sucker takes a slightly different approach. The flashbacks focus on John Mallory, an Irish explosives expert. They provide an interesting contrast to the scenes dealing with the present day, as they show the Irish countryside in contrast with the Mexican desert in which the film is set. John is clearly much younger, as he is clean-shaven in these scenes. The flashbacks seem to show that John was involved with an Irish revolution, and reveal that he had killed his best friend after he had been forced to reveal information to the government.

The final flashback showing John’s betrayal of his friend take place while he is alone in a steam engine with a rebel leader who had been forced to provide information. The leader initially expects John to kill him in revenge, but it is soon clear that he is in fact guilty of his actions, and tries to convince the man to save himself when the engine (loaded with dynamite)  is about to hit an oncoming train.

Another theme which can be traced through most of Sergio Leone’s work is the idea of a lawless society. A Fistful of Dollars deals with a gunslinger arriving in a town that is run by two gangs who are tormenting the inhabitants. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly shows how the United States was destroyed by the Civil War. Once Upon a Time in the West deals with a series of violent events that take place in a growing town. Duck, You Sucker illustrates how society is destroyed by a violent revolution. Once Upon a Time in America focuses on the rise to power of a group of gangsters and their violent careers during the 1930’s.

Unlike many other directors, Sergio Leone’s personal life is not reflected in his work. However, it is clear that his experiences as a director may have influenced him with each film he made. In each movie, he uses techniques he learned from his previous work and applies them to something completely different, and each time tried to explore a new idea. A Fistful of Dollars is a simple story based on the earlier film Yojimbo (only now located to the American Wild West). The story is somewhat flawed, and its characters are not fully developed. For a Few Dollars More is an original story centered around a re-imagined version of Clint Eastwood’s character from A Fistful of Dollars, now focusing on a complex relationship between two men as they attempt to outsmart and eventually bring to justice a dangerous Western outlaw.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly contains arguably the most famous score of Leone’s films. The story now focuses on the relationship between three men, but this time it is a lot more brutal, with high tension between the titular “Good” (Clint Eastwood) and the “Ugly” (Eli Wallach), who are both trying to avoid being double-crossed by the other. At the same time the titular “Bad” is constantly in pursuit of them both, and will do whatever he feels necessary to learn where the gold is buried and to claim it for himself. Leone took this a step further by placing the story during the Civil War, meaning that over the course of the journey, both the audience and Blondie (the “Good”) are able to observe just how the war destroyed the United States.

Leone made Once Upon a Time in the West due to popular demand, and wanted to make something completely different from his previous three Westerns. The result was an elaborate epic telling the story of the tragic events which led a young woman to becoming the founder of a new town, and which drove a mysterious stranger’s quest for revenge. Leone experimented with sound and music in this film, and ultimately, it was through diagetic sound, various scores by Ennio Morricone, and elaborate visuals that the story was told, while dialogue was minimal.

Duck, You Sucker allowed Sergio Leone to look at a different kind of Western, known as a “Zapata Western”, set during the Mexican Revolution. Much like how The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly explored the effects of the Civil War on America, Duck, You Sucker  is an examination of the concept of “revolution” in general, as the story is shown from the perspective of a peasant who gets drawn into it through an Irish explosives expert.

Finally, Once Upon a Time in America was the only film Leone made where he was able to try something different. Instead of a Western, the story was now about gangsters, and explored how they rose to power and become who they were. The movie is almost four hours long, and now takes place over a period of 20 years. Along with Once Upon a Time in the west, it is often considered to be Leone’s masterpiece.

The idea of “auteur theory” applies to any director who has shown three major qualities: that they have an excellent technical ability, they have a unique style of filmmaking, and that their own experiences are reflected in their work. Sergio Leone clearly has his own unique style, and has explored with numerous forms of editing (especially relating to sound), and he clearly used the skills he learned while making his movies in later projects. Because of this, it is clear that Sergio Leone is an “auteur”.