Fear and the autonomous (hopefully this one works)
“Realism is always subjective in film….As soon as anybody puts anything on film, it automatically has a point of view, and it's somebody else's point of view, and it's impossible for it to be yours.”
-Crispin Hellion Glover
We are all products of our time. So much so that it may even be redundant to separate the two- our identities and our times. Can we then ever know a culture (in time and space) directly through the culture’s art? I know, I know, we have all heard of such before. In particular though, I am fascinated by Hollywood’s attempt to use the horror/thriller genre as an attempt of autonomous art. Many horror films are used as a social critique or a commentary on the times while never directly or overtly telling us what exactly it is we have to fear. Sure, the themes remain pretty obvious. Invasion of the Bodysnatchers doesn’t have to say “communist” for us to get the general idea. Bad Day at Black Rock doesn’t need to say “Isolationism” for us to begin thinking about it. But at the same time, they still do not say it directly. Why?
Why wasn’t Invasion of the Bodysnatchers directly about communists taking over? Why wasn’t that the movie made instead? Perhaps there were actual movies made covering such topics, but I think it is the flirtation with hermeticism that makes many of the ‘classics’ classic. I find it interesting that Hollywood (the commodity machine it is and has been) would shy from direct assaults on what Americans are really afraid of. Joan Didion compared Hollywood to a monster itself, a monster that destroys artistic representation in order to reach a wide audience. Is this why there are so many films that attempt to tip toe around what they are saying, in order to reach a wider audience? It certainly seems the case.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many counter examples to this (note how many films today either involve global catastrophe and/or terrorism). It just seems odd if we are to assume that Hollywood is just the monster Didion describes, it would not spend any mercy on counter-cultural views and therefore not tip toe around saying something as generally accepted by the masses (in the 50’s) such as “communism is bad”.
If Guilty By Suspicion is to be viewed as an accurate depiction of Hollywood in the 50’s, why would producers not push for the creation of films that would considerably soften Government backlash (they may have, I don’t pretend to know otherwise- hence the comment box) if only to retain some kind of artistic freedom of perception? This is why I propose alternate viewings on this week’ texts. I don not believe that Invasion of the Bodysnatchers can be viewed as simply an ‘anti-communist’ film, because if it were that simplistic, it would’ve said so.
These movies are art, and the decision to tread a line closer to autonomous art (closer, not there- these films are far from the Adorno ideal art) has to mean something. I don’t know the answers. I can’t ever begin to truly know what it was like to be an artist in that time frame and in that society. I can’t even quite be sure at recent films seeing as how I am still in that era and my eyes are clouded by the rising steam of our culture. We are all products of our time. Can we then ever know a culture (in time and space) directly through the culture’s art? I know, I know, we have all heard of such before
Comments
Hey, I found this pretty insightful! Good voice too, just don't forget to put your movies in italics.
Posted by: Victor | May 20, 2008 10:45 AM
Thanks. Yeah, I forgot to put them in italics after I had to post this again. Me bad!
Posted by: Nathan Chinn | May 21, 2008 12:43 AM
Thanks. Yeah, I forgot to put them in italics after I had to post this again. Me bad!
Posted by: Nathan Chinn | May 21, 2008 12:44 AM