Poll: The Next Retro Nostalgia Film (#2)? You Decide!
And now it’s your turn to decide which film I’ll watch for this Monday’s Retro Nostalgia feature. Choose wisely!
Retro Nostalgia: Logan’s Run (1976) and the Infantilization of Humanity
(Note: There are a few spoilers below. If you have not seen Logan’s Run and want to, I recommend watching it before you read this post. I’m not ruining the entire movie or anything; I just know that I would prefer a completely untainted first viewing. If you don’t care about a few spoilers, then read on. Note 2: This is a little late. It should have appeared yesterday. I hope you’ll forgive me, considering that I didn’t have the film selected until late Sunday evening.) Many of you already know that I am currently teaching an American dystopia class. One of the novels I had considered teaching was William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s Logan’s Run, which was later turned into a 1976 film (discussed here) and a 1977 TV series (which I have never seen). There are a few more novels/stories in the series/universe and a new film adaptation is currently in the works. As a piece of dystopia, the film plays on a number of the social concerns of the 1960s and the 1970s, among them the population boom scare fed by Paul R. Ehrlich (founder of the Zero Population Growth movement, now called Population Connection), which inspired Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room!, and the “social revolution” of the period (particularly among the younger generations). Logan’s Run, thus, imagines a future in which the outside world has collapsed — for reasons we are never told, because nobody is alive to remember it — resulting in a self-contained, futuristic community where life is artificially ended at age 30 and, so we’re told, the entire system runs on a 1-to-1 cyclical rebirth process. There is no population growth because growth would crash the system, and the population is perpetually kept in the “dark” about the inner workings of Carrousel (the communal celebration of disintegration/termination that occurs whenever a group reaches maturity — 30). It’s that darkness that I want to talk about here. Only those who run really fast get away long enough to run more. Part of what makes Logan’s Run such a terrifying future — despite it’s somewhat dated, uber-70s presentation — is how it explores what absolute equilibrium produces in a culture (albeit, a largely Western, white culture, if this film is any indication). Looking back through much of my reading, I can draw comparisons to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies or even Jack London’s The Iron Heel, each works which imagine dystopian spaces wherein humanity’s violent inner nature is exposed. Much like Lord of the Flies, the future of Logan’s Run is one in which some children are made to fend for themselves (albeit, in an isolated sense), only Golding’s novel never imagines what the children on the island will look like in 20 years — Logan’s Run does. So while the children in the Cathedral — where the “feral ones” go — may appear savage and tribal,* we are reminded that the “adults” (those that reach 15 — a.k.a. middle age) will be cast out of such societies to live among the rest of humanity. Where this might seem barbaric to a viewer, it is important to note that we learn almost nothing about how children are raised in the dominant culture, wherein our heroes spend their days drinking, having sex, and generally “enjoying” their lives (presumably toddlers are not engaging in such activities too). What we do know is that those barbaric, tribal children in Cathedral are no less barbaric and tribal than the people they isolate themselves from by electing to live only among people their age. Jessica is the only main character who thinks the world is, well, wrong, but because it’s the 1970s, and the filmmakers decided not to take that whole “2nd Wave Feminism” thing seriously, she basically spends the whole movie acting like a child^2. In other words: the narrative wants us to imagine, if only for a moment, that Logan’s dominant culture is the civilized one because it has all the amenities of a civilized culture, if only so we’re able to forget that Logan and his friend, Francis, are members of a security caste who have semantically argued their way out of considering terminating runners — people who don’t show up for Carrousel — as murder. The film, then, is a trick. Here is the grand old utopia, replete with perpetually safe sex, all the drink you could ever want, food, clothing, housing, and so on and so forth, reminding us that it is a utopia by showing us just how utopic it is by comparison. Oh, trickery, I know you so well. And that’s just it. Logan’s culture is not a utopia (we know this, of course, but Logan doesn’t). In fact, what Logan soon discovers is that “renewal” at Carrousel never actually happens (you’re disintegrated and that’s it), that even your friends will hunt you down if you run, and that his world is one of infantilization. How could it not be? The “state” becomes the “mother,” the “father” disappears entirely, and the people are made into subservient children. Or, in the case of the feral children in Cathedral, there is no mother, there is no father, and subservience is guaranteed by isolation and a caste system that exiles those who are too old. This is the only picture I could find with Francis looking like the crazy person he becomes in the film… The feral children (they call them “cubs”), however, are a mirror. They are what Logan’s friend Francis will become when he learns of Logan’s betrayal (semi-betrayal, really, since Logan is initially following the orders of the “mother” system). In a fit of childish revenge, Francis stalks Logan into Cathedral, and then across half of the domed city, growing increasingly more irate, more mad, and more like a child seeking his father — Logan. As a stand-in for the entire Sandman force (those who terminate Runners), Francis represents the feral nature of man — which this society has suppressed through rampant pleasure —
Poll: The Next Retro Nostalgia Film? You Decide!
Earlier, I asked for film suggestions for my Retro Nostalgia feature thinking that there would be some kind of simple consensus. Boy was I wrong! And so, in order to decide which film I’m going to watch for tomorrow, I’m creating this little poll, which you all get to vote in. It’ll run until midnight, since I need time to actually watch whichever film you all decide on. Anywho!
Retro Nostalgia: The Bourne Identity (2002) and the Politics of Amnesia
One of the things that fascinates me about the Bourne movies is the question raised by his amnesia within the ideology of terrorism (read: War on Terrorism, etc.). To think about Bourne’s amnesia as a symptom of a particular form of national ideology is to understand that his amnesia is not simply a convenient plot device (though it is one), but also a symptom of a public amnesia. In other words, just as Bourne’s condition enables him to alter the real by making it imaginary — i.e., changing one’s identity entirely — so too do the cast of characters who use ignorance (or willful amnesia) to wipe themselves clean of culpability (ex. Ward Abbott). The public does not know, and those that do know fulfill one of three identities: 1) true amnesiac; 2) willful amnesiac; and 3) maintenance amnesiac (Conklin, who maintains the barrier between those that don’t need to know (the public) and those that don’t want to know (Abbott)). Bourne’s identity, however, is split by a seeming contradiction. On the one hand, his amnesia defines him as one who does not know himself; on the other, he is defined by what he does not (or cannot or will not) remember, but about which others have profound knowledge. To not know oneself, therefore, does not necessarily mean one cannot be known, as is the state of the amnesiac in nature. But for Bourne, those with knowledge of his true self are those who want him buried, not least of all because awareness of self threatens the security of the system. Here the political moment rears its ugly head. To have knowledge of the undesirable opens a new series of relations: 1) the one who knows, but doesn’t want to know (Bourne); 2) the one who doesn’t know (the public); 3) the one who doesn’t know, but doesn’t want to know (Abbott); and 4) the one who knows (Conklin). It becomes crucial for #3 and #4 to keep #2 in the dark, because the public is the body who ultimately controls the others. But the public’s lack of knowledge is a choice, albeit one that reads more like a handwaving than a direct order (if the order were given, they would know what is being done in their name); they live in perpetual amnesia. For Bourne, however, the question stems from who he was before and who he has become after the traumatic moment. This makes him dangerous not least of all to Conklin (#4), but to the mental security of the public (#2). Just as Bourne’s identity is shattered by the realization of who he was, so too is the public’s identity subject to traumatic exposure. Thus the threat that Bourne poses: forcing a public to re-imagine itself in light of torture, assassination, and rampant civil rights abuses, all part of an image of American selfhood that cannot exist concurrantly with the image Americans have made for themselves. That Bourne exists in this political structure suggests, I think, something profound about the Bourne movies: an awareness of what the years immediately following 9/11 have done to the public consciousness — namely, put us all into a relation between amnesiacs. Bourne, however, does reject the past he cannot remember — and its attending identity — before knowing who he really is or what he has really done. In choosing not to remember, he attempts, albeit unsuccessfully (see The Bourne Supremacy), to erase the traumatic through accepting the amnesiatic moment. But in that erasure, his position in the relation of amnesiacs shifts only in relation to the public, who will never know so long as Bourne tries to move on with his life. For Conklin and Abbott (the latter more in the second film than here), there is no possibility of security; Bourne will always constitute a threat until he is brought back into the fold or destroyed. And yet, as the movies show, in holding dogmatically to the desire to control knowledge, the system which Conklin maintains and Abbott reboots (and Noah Vosen takes up in The Bourne Ultimatum) inevitably collapses under its own weight. To put it another way, systematic extermination of the 1st of the four relations (i.e., the one who knows, but doesn’t want to know) results in exposing one’s hand and opens holes in the structure to be exploited. None of this is a perfect explanation of what I’m trying to get at. Obviously Abbott has some knowledge of Conklin’s activities, but I take as given that Abbott only set up the system, but intentionally extricated himself from the chain of information to make it possible to feign ignorance. And I have left out the women in the film (specifically, Marie), but only because I suspect they will play a more crucial role in future Bourne-related posts. I hope what I’ve tried to elucidate gives some indication of the complexity of the social dynamics of the film. If not, then I’ll make myself the amnesiac and pretend this post doesn’t exist. ———————————————————– Feel free to let me know what you think of The Bourne Identity, or to poke holes into what I’m saying. The comments are yours!
Retro Nostalgia: The Fifth Element (1997) and the Legacy of Camp
The Fifth Element is one of those films that the genre community loves not because it is a good film, but because it’s actually pretty awful, and intentionally so. At least, that’s how I interpret it. It has always seemed like a film that deliberately sought out science fiction’s pension for high-flying, mythological fantasy (in space). In some sense, it’s the opposite of Starships Troopers, released in the same year. Both films are satires: Starship Troopers a more socio-political satire of the military industrial complex, and The Fifth Element a satire of genre — or what I call the “legacy of camp.” What amuses me about The Fifth Element is how easily it manipulates genre conventions to produce a narrative that functions in part through humorous hyperbole, and yet never needs to make a whole lot of sense. The central premise, for those that don’t know or only vaguely remember, is much like any Doctor Who season finale: some kind of evil, ancient alien force appears out of nowhere (in the form of a planet that gobbles up aggressive energy, like missiles, to increase its size), and the only one who can stop it is a genetically engineered messiah (Leeloo, played by Milla Jovovich) and an ex-soldier. Of course, there are lots of obstacles in the way: an inept human government/military, an evil corporate loon with the weirdest hairdo in history (Gary Oldman), some evil mercenary space orcs, and a couple of socially awkward priests. Let’s also not forget that one of the most important scenes in the entire movie is an opera/faux-future-pop mashup laid over Leeloo’s comical smackdown of those absurd space orcs. And did I mention that the music in said scene is performed by a blue alien diva with tentacles? Yeah. The plot is eccentric enough — and ever so genre — but the film’s technological imagination is where the nonsensical really shines. Take, for example, the main city: hover cars are everywhere, despite societal evidence that this would be a complete disaster; Chinese restaurants deliver in person, flying around in makeshift sailing ships; Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) has enough high-powered rifles to make even an NRA activist scared (and apparently he’s not the only one); and homes are equipped with self-cleaning showers and other gadgets that would make Bill Gates wet himself. Elsewhere, we’re to believe that scientists can reconstruct any biological being from a handful of cells; luxury cruise ships roam the stars undefended, while mercenaries destroy everything they’re paid to eliminate; and aliens of unimaginable cleverness (who made Leeloo) are so inept at protecting their own ships that their destruction becomes a convenient plot device. It’s the kind of movie that, if it took itself seriously, would fall apart the moment someone started to think about it all. But The Fifth Element doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s camp through and through. The acting is overboard, right down to a somewhat dumbfounded Tommy Lister playing President of, well, everything and Gary Oldman pulling out all the stops as the ridiculous Zorg, weird hairdo, accent, and all. It’s as if the creators sat down one day and said, “How can we make this movie so ridiculous it’s actually entertaining?” And it’s that willingness to embrace the campy side of SF that makes The Fifth Element one of those rare humorous gems, memorable not for being a gamestopper like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Blade Runner, but for being that absurd movie we can all watch and love together. It never needed to be a good movie. It only ever needed to be that right mixture of camp and humor (a skill Joss Whedon has learned to master quite well). This is where I have to wonder: What other films do the same thing? Do they work as well as The Fifth Element? Why or why not? —————————————— Retro Nostalgia is the product of my compulsive re-watching of classic and/or quality science fiction and fantasy films (and their related components). In each feature, I’ll cover some element of a particular film that interests me, sometimes from an academic perspective and other times as a simple fan. Previous columns can be easily found via the “Movie Rants” label.
Retro Nostalgia: Alien (1979) and the Uncanny Valley
Having recently viewed and podcasted about Ridley Scott’s prequel, Prometheus, I decided it would be a great idea to revisit the Alien franchise by re-watching Ridley Scott’s original: Alien. Released in 1979, the film remains one of the most terrifying science fiction movies to hit the big screen, despite the obvious dating in its technology (updated considerably in Prometheus — because computers with green letters and typewriter clicking sounds are so obviously old school). But what is it that terrifies us about the xenomorph in this film and its immediate sequels (Aliens and Alien 3)? For me, it has to do with the premise behind the concept of the Uncanny Valley: At its most basic, Masahiro Mori’s concept suggests that the more human an inhuman thing appears, the more uncomfortable human beings become. Many have applied the concept to robotics and video games, but I think the above image shows how it can also apply more broadly to the fantastic. While some research suggests that the hypothesis doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, I do think it remains an important explanation for why we are terrified of the xenomorph and other science fiction creations (perhaps someone could explore how it relates to Splice, which seems to dig into an even greater human terror: our creations turning on us). Where the xenomorph sits on the scale is up to speculation, but re-watching Alien reminded me how human these creatures really are. It’s against those humanoid features that its most terrifying aspects play out on the screen. It’s a bipedal creature with arms and hands not unlike our own, with an identifiable head, pelvis, and similar humanoid features, such as feet. But its skin is insect-like; it’s mouth is full of sharp teeth and hides a second mouth that shoots out to puncture flesh; it’s head is elongated to exaggerated levels; its blood is acidic; and it has a long, skeletal and pointed tail, which it uses to coax terrified prey closer to its mouth. All of these features at once remind us of ourselves, but also remind us of what we are not. And for me, that’s bloody terrifying. Giant squid other kinds of incredibly inhuman creatures don’t terrify me nearly as much as those beings that verge into human territory.* This is perhaps why the Space Jockey, as re-imagined by Ridley Scott in Prometheus, made me uneasy. Once you see what they look like underneath all that bizarre armor, they are surprisingly human, more so even than the xenomorph. And something about that makes their actions in the movie more terrifying, but also strangely more familiar (but that’s perhaps something to think about another day…). What about you? What terrifies you about the xenomorph or other science fiction monsters? The comments are yours. ————————————————– *I’m speaking about terror with regards to the unreal. If a xenomorph and a giant squid showed up in my living room, both with the intent to kill me, I would be equally terrified of both. Thankfully, that would never happen.