To see someone like yourself on the screen

Belle (Amma Asante 2013) is a conventional British period piece set in the 1780s, among rich people in a stately mansion. Conventional except for one thing. The main character is black.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido in Belle

At first I was annoyed by how conventional it was but after a while I changed my mind and felt that this was actually a good thing, as this underlines the message that it is the black character that stands out here, not the form, and that there is no reason why a conventional period piece could not have a black actor as its lead. This is what I meant by the title of this post, to see someone like yourself on screen might be a liberating and fulfilling thing if you are not used to that, or not used to doing that in such a setting or in such a character. That Belle is based on a true story and the people in it are actual historic figures made it easier to make it perhaps but it does not have to be based on a true story. Casting might be colour-blind as it is sometimes called. Kenneth Branagh cast Denzel Washington in his adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993) for example and especially in a Shakespeare adaptation anything should be possible. Although, and here the trouble with colour-blind casting appears, having a white actor play Othello, even if not in blackface as was the case in earlier films, would not really wash. Or maybe it would if for example that was the only part played by a white actor.

Robert Sean Leonard, Washington and Richard Briers

When I saw 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen 2013) I was impressed by the first part, when Solomon Northup lived a good life as a happily married man in 19th century New York. I had never seen a period piece from that time before in which black characters were portrayed in such a joyful and prosperous situation. I had on the other hand seen several films in which they played slaves. I do wonder whether it would not be a good thing if there were some films that also captured that kind of good life, as it too is a historical fact. It would be the unexpected and bring more visual reference points, and it would be a step forward in terms of equality. I can understand if some would consider it wrong. That since slavery was (still is) such a monstrous thing it should always be the focus, and by showing black characters who are actually enjoying life in 19th century America we might de-centre the institution of slavery, similar to how Stanley Kubrick allegedly disliked Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg 1993) because it was a film about the few Jews that survived the Holocaust. I seems unclear if and when Kubrick actually said that, and in any event it is unfair because Spielberg were not denying the extent of how many were killed, he only chose on particular story among many others, and the story of Oscar Schindler deserves to be told. By the same token you might criticise 12 Years a Slave because it is about a slave who survived and it has a happy ending. But that is obviously not my view.

These are important discussions to have, to think about representation and portrayal of various groups and minorities in our films. But sometimes calls for equality of representation seem to not have been thought through. For example, word is spreading that James Bond should be played by a woman. I find this something of a paradox. Either the woman plays James Bond, a male character, which would be highly unusual and probably not be taken seriously. Or she would play a female character, perhaps called Jane Bond. But then she would not, in fact, play James Bond, but a different character. Therein lies the paradox. So it is difficult to know whether those who are advocating that a woman should play Bond mean what they say or are just having some fun. The symbolic meaning of having a woman at the centre of this lengthy, immensely successful and trendsetting series is however considerable so it is worth considering, and an obvious alternative, which would not be a paradox of any kind, would be to upgrade Miss Moneypenny to a 00. She showed her capabilities in the field in Skyfall (Sam Mendes 2012) and M had probably meant for her to be a field agent had things not taken a bad turn. But as Bond (and Daniel Craig) seemed to be wanting to retire after Spectre (Sam Mendes 2015) and Miss Moneypenny clearly unhappy behind her desk, there is no reason why she could not be put into training again and eventually given the license. Everything else in up-coming films could remain as it has been for so long, only M would be sending Miss Moneypenny on missions instead of Bond. She could just take over the franchise, and Naomie Harris could stay on to play the part for a few years. That would be really exciting.

Harris as Moneypenny in Skyfall

Sometimes discussions about representation become ungratifying. I was once interviewed on radio on that topic and the approach they had was angry and ignorant. "Why are there no films about people with disabilities or queer characters?" was basically their question. There are of course a lot of such films and I mentioned perhaps 20 to 30 different films. Their response was usually "Oh, I had never heard about that film." to which I resisted to urge to reply "Well, whose fault is that?" If they actually were so concerned about it they might at least have googled "films about people in wheelchairs" and other similar questions, instead of assuming that:

a) if I do not know about it, it must be because it does not exist 

b) nobody has thought about this before, I am the first. 

That is just narcissism masquerading as progressiveness, and I have often encountered this, I have even heard people burst out "Why are there no female directors?" even though there are hundreds of female directors. This has puzzled me before but that radio interview explained something. When questions about queer films came up Rainer Werner Fassbinder was mentioned and the reaction was "Oh please, who wants to see old German films?" The problem for them was not so much that there were no such films, the problem was that there were no such films that they could be bothered to watch. If it was not a Hollywood action film then no thanks. So the beef is not necessarily "Why are there no films with queer characters?" The beef is "Why are there no films with queer characters shown at my nearest cinema and which have a lot of explosions and people fighting robots?" These two questions are not the same, and alas the people who are asking the first question but are really asking the second question often come across as narrow-minded and lazy, rather than enlightened and progressive. It is like when people ask "Why are there so few films with other than white actors in the leads?" The answer to that question is that in fact the overwhelming majority of films being made any given year do not have white actors in the leads because most films are made in Africa and South and South-East Asia. The question is actually Eurocentric (or westcentric).

Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das in Fire (Deepa Mehta 1996)

But. This does not mean that there is not a legitimate case to make against mainstream Hollywood concerning, for example, whitewashing, as when films based on true stories change the ethnicity of the characters so even though they might have been Hispanics or Asian-Americans in real life, in the film they are white, or for the lack of original parts for other than white actors, or for the lack of LGBT characters and so on. Since mainstream Hollywood films have such a global reach it is fair to highlight their deficiencies. But these are not easy questions. What is a fair representation? Should each group of people in the United State, such as African-Americans, Native Americans, Italian-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, gay, lesbians, transgender, senior citizens, people with disabilities and so on, all be represented by the same percentage as their prevalence in society at large, including, say, clammers or morticians? I suppose not. But even though most would agree that things are not good enough now there will never be a time when everybody are satisfied. There will always be some who feel left out or forgotten or under-represented. This is not a problem to be solved, this is a perpetual struggle, as it must be, since people change all the time and our demands and expectations also change all the time.

Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard in Passion Fish (John Sayles 1992)

At the same time, it is also important not to forget that we are talking about art, and art is not real life. It is not the business of art to satisfy each and every one or to follow some official guidelines when it comes to representation. Art must also be cut some slack, otherwise we would never have had any art to begin with. We should not be complaisant, we should call out racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia and such when it appears, but we cannot demand of art that it be better than us humans who make it. And we should always be mindful that our own interpretation is not the only one to make, not the "correct" one. What one feminist thinks is trash another feminist might feel is empowering and liberating. Some find this ambiguity scary and it makes them uncomfortable, but such people are frequently afraid of art as such and should not necessarily be trusted. 

Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung in Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai 1997)

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A recent article in New York Times about Asian-American actors taking a united stand against whitewashing. 

Representation is not only about issues with the body (skin colour, gender, illnesses), it can also be about class for example, but I limited myself in this post, it is already long enough. 

By saying that art must be cut some slack and not be ruled by official guidelines regarding representations some might suggest that this is just me showing off my privileges, as a white male and all, but that is not really an argument. It is also a reminder that prejudices come in all shapes and forms. Sometimes person A will lambaste the alleged privileges (white, male cis-person and whatnot) of person B, oblivious to the fact that person B is actually a woman, or black, or gay. The thinking there is that "Since you have that opinion you must be a white male." which is, well, a prejudice. Engage with the argument, not the sexuality or skin colour of the person making it.

Lonely are the queer

This is a paper I presented a couple of years ago in St Andrews. I thought I post it here, more or less unedited (so the language is not all that it could be). Also, I mention important plot points for several films, Girl With Hyacinths, These Three, Tea and Sympathy and The Browning Version, just so you know.

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Lonely Are the Brave is a beautiful film from 1961 about a man who was born in the wrong century. In the opening scene he is seen resting on the prairie with his horse, and then a jet plane flies over him, moving us quickly from what we thought was a scene from the century of the steam engine to a scene in the century of the jet engine. However, that is not what this talk is about, I just wanted to explain where the title came from. The talk is rather about the theme of loneliness and how it is connected to queerness.

The history of gay and lesbian characters in cinema has still to be written, or rather it is constantly being re-written. One thing though is that they are much more common than they are given credit for. They are there, more or less hiding. Much has been made about how These Three from 1936, the first film version of Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour removed the lesbian aspect from the play. Instead of love between one woman towards another, it became love between one woman and the boyfriend of another woman. But These Three smuggle these queer things into the film. The boyfriend is called Joe, so the woman who was lesbian in the original still get to say to the girlfriend to the boy she fancies “I love Joe/you”. When a truer version was made in 1963 now called The Children's Hour, by the same director William Wyler, it was more modernist and outspoken, but it had not the same emotional punch. Such hidden suggestions and innuendos are common within cinema, not least Westerns.

One thing that has always stood out for me when watching Hasse Ekman's Girl With Hyacinths is how lonely the main character is. This theme of loneliness runs through his films, in his last great film Stöten – The Heist there is towards the end a shot of a young woman standing alone in a pool of darkness, surrounded by policemen, asked to give up her boyfriend. But nobody is as lonely as Dagmar Brink in Girl With Hyacinths. This loneliness is a mystery, and it is what intrigues the men in the film, as well as the audience I would suggest. Why is she so lonely? Because she is a lesbian in a time when that was not allowed or, when it was not allowed, was not talked about, or acknowledged.

Recently I watched Vincente Minnelli's fantastic Tea and Sympathy from 1956 and there again was a lonely person, well two actually, but one that is the point here, and that is the main character. I will show you the opening sequence to exemplify.

[In this scene we see the main character, Tom, walk around at a college reunion, where everybody are talking to each other and discussing the past and the future. But not Tom, he speaks with nobody.)

One of the key elements of Minnelli's mise en scène is the multidimensional staging, that there are several things going on at once. Sometimes two simultaneous scenes will take place at the same time in the same long shot. We can see that here.

The film is about a boy who when he was in high school was bullied and ridiculed for being "girlie". The woman in whose house he's staying, the wife of one of the teachers, takes him under her wings and tries to protect him. It doesn't go very well. He was, is, and remains lonely.

So I had both these films fresh in my mind when I watched a British film, the highpoint of director Anthony Asquith and playwright Terrence Rattigan's cooperation, The Browning Version from 1951. This is also a film about a lonely person, in this case a Latin teacher, played by Michael Redgrave in an astonishing performance. I did not think of it at once but at the end of the film I thought “but of course!”.

I would argue that the hidden assumption is that Redgrave's teacher is gay. That this is why he is lonely, that this is why he does not mind that his wife has had an affair.

All these examples are from the 1950s, which was coincidental, although since it is such a golden age of cinema, at least in the US and Japan, it is perhaps not that coincidental. But the thing that connects these three films is the explicit loneliness of the main character and his or her queerness, in different levels of explicitness. There is a lot more of queer subtexts in cinema before the 1960s than is acknowledged. And even when it is fairly obvious, like in Tea and Sympathy it is not seen. Geoff Brown wrote that “the combined forces of censorship and CinemaScope the tendencies threatened to disappear completely”  But he misses the point. It has been criticised for the fact that in the end the boy is “saved” and he gets married. But that is just mentioned in passing. We never see the alleged wife, he is still alone. In the first shot as well as in the last. There is nothing to “reassure” as, there are no heteronormative shots (such as of him with his wife, kissing, or some such).

But actually, the most interesting character in Tea and Sympathy is the sports teacher, the husband. He is clearly a closet gay man, and the most tragic character in the film. The boy is not in denial, but the husband is. In the end his wife leaves him and he now, too, is alone. So even if the boy would get married, what hope is there for that marriage? Marriage is just a blindfold, it will not cure anything, only hide it.

The love that dare not speak its name it was called, and the argument I'm making, an argument that needs to be backed up with plenty of more examples, is that in a time when it could not be pronounced, looking for the lonely characters might help us detect the ever present gay, or queer, characters. I would be interested in investigating this further. One obvious contender is Rebel Without a Cause (1955), to look at the real rebel, Sal Mineo's character, the boy who loves James Dean's character, and with whom he enters a weird relationship, in hiding building up a nuclear family which must end, like all family affairs in Nicholas Ray's world, in catastrophe.

In 1961, in Victim, Dirk Bogarde's character is confronted by his wife about a young man who has committed suicide. The wife wants to know why; is it because her husband and the young man were getting too close? Were they having an affair? He says that the man killed himself because he was blackmailed. She then asks why he was blackmailed; because he was a homosexual? Yes, because he was a homosexual. But who was the other man. Was it you? she asks. He finally succumbs. “I stopped seeing him because I wanted him, do you understand, I wanted him!” Now it was suddenly being explicit. In The Apartment made in 1960, C C Baxter (Lemmon's character) when he asks Fran (Shirley MacLaine's) out on a date she says that she already has an appointment. “With a girl?” he shyly asks. “No, with a man.” she says to which he replies “Well, some of the guys at the office had been talking...” “Well, you tell them every now and then. Just because a girl doesn't..”

Unfortunately this “coming out” led to decades of camp and burlesque, and seldom respect and ordinariness. But what happened to the loneliness? When the cat was out of the bag, the elephant in the room a conversation piece, did the loneliness of the queer character go away? It remains to be investigated.

I'd like to end this talk with my favourite scene from The Browning Version, which shows a rare moment of kindness towards the Latin teacher and its heartbreaking effect.

***

Such was the talk. In From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann 1953) Montgomery Clift's character says “Nobody ever lies about being lonely.” That is definitely a film to include in this investigation. I will write more on the subject soon.

William Wyler

In an article in Theatre Arts from 1947, Hermine Rich Isaacs complains about the fact that since William Wyler's films "flourish neither the mark of an insistent personality, nor the aura of experiment, nor the cachet of conscious striving after artistic effect" he is being undeservedly neglected by archives and museums. Isaacs makes the claim though that Wyler is a true master, and just because he is not obviously artistic he should not be treated with this lack of interest (or lack of respect). Isaacs complaint is somewhat compromised by the fact that Wyler was perhaps the most celebrated filmmaker in the US at that time, but at the same time she has a point because with the exception of André Bazin, Wyler has been treated a bit off-handedly by the most influential of critics and scholars. In the post-war consensus he is sometimes seen as the opposite of the true glory of Hollywood and seen as boring, safe, dispassionate and audience-conscious as opposed to the likes of Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk and Vincente Minnelli. Andrew Sarris placed Wyler in the category Less Than Meets the Eye and it is noticeable that when people today talk about Bazin's writings they mention that he wrote about Orson Welles, Jean Renoir and the neorealist filmmakers. Less often is it said that Bazin idolised Wyler (and Anthony Mann), probably because Wyler feels less cool and cutting edge. Bazin's fullest exploration of Wyler comes in the essay "William Wyler: or the Jansenist of Directing", reprinted in Bazin at Work, and Bazin's enthusiasm is not surprising since the astonishing body of work of Wyler is enough to humble must critics. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) is perhaps the most treasured but at least from 1936 he hardly ever failed, and even though the films were more uneven after the mid-50s there was still enough great scenes, great images and above all great acting to make up for any flaws that the later films might have had.

I have been reading interviews with Wyler and they have been very interesting. He talks a lot about auteurs, and he argues that somebody like Preston Sturges can rightfully be called one, but he says about himself that "I could hardly call myself an auteur - although I'm one of the few American directors who can pronounce the word correctly." At another point he says that he is not a composer but more of a conductor. What he means is that the films he makes have been written by others, such as Lillian Hellman, or Robert Sherwood, or Emily Brontë. But at the same time he also says, and others have said as much, that he only made the films he wanted to make, films he felt strongly about, that he was very much involved from pre-production to post-production, that he wanted final cut (and usually got it), that he always worked on the scripts (telling the writer what to take out and what to add) and that he added things in the films that was from his own life. In addition, after the Second World War he created his own independent production company, together with George Stevens and Frank Capra, called Liberty Films. So even if he did not want to call himself an auteur he still wanted, and had, the power to go his own way (with the exception of strict censorship rules). Isaacs interviewed Wyler and when asked what makes for a good film Wyler answers "A story, a passion and a craft." That is apparent in his films and although Oscar nominations and winnings are not necessarily a sign of greatness, Wyler was actually nominated for an Oscar for best direction 12 times (a third of all his feature films), and won three times, and three times he was nominated for the Grand Prix/Palme d'or in Cannes, and he won once.

Even though Wyler began as a maker of short westerns, as he came into his own in the mid-30s he was not a genre filmmaker. Primarily he was a witness to family disintegration and punishing social structures and conventions. Visually there are many striking things about Wyler's films, such as the use of deep focus and elaborate compositions, the excellent use of mirrors and staircases. When it comes to do interior compositions Wyler are among the very best, and mirrors are often at the centre of his compositions, like Bergman and Fassbinder. The films are often harsh and uncomfortable, there are a lot of cruelty in them, again like Bergman and Fassbinder. Not cruelty from Wyler towards the characters but cruelty between the characters. Fathers are cruel to their daughters, sons to their fathers, wives to their husbands, and so on, and it rarely ends well. Sometimes in death and despair, sometimes in sadness and regret, and often they are open-ended. Not even a romantic comedy like Roman Holiday (1953) ends in happiness, but in loneliness. Wyler had a deep understanding of suffering it would seem, and of seeing it. He is not the kind of filmmaker who would leave his characters unattended, he sees them all, and shares their pain. Watching Austin Sloper ridiculing and punishing his daughter Catherine in The Heiress is about as painful as it gets in cinema.

Quintessential Wyler, a staircase and a mirror. The Heiress.

And then there are the actors. Ralph Richardson and Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949), Walter Huston in Dodsworth (1936), John Barrymore in Counsellor-at-Law (1933), Laurence Olivier, Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Herbert Marshall, Bette Davis in several films. He once said that actors hated him on set but loved him at the award ceremonies, because his punishing direction methods led to remarkable performances. He had a theory that in order to get at the truth of a character the actors have to go beyond acting. The method for getting there was to do retake after retake, to wear down the actors until the acting disappeared and the truth would be revealed, the essence of the character. The actors should not play, they should be. (This is why he was called "90-take Willie" and why he frequently went over budget and over time.) His style of shooting could also be difficult, not least his habit of instead of cross-cutting between actors he would keep them in the same shot, but one with the back against the camera. That meant that one of the two actors had only his/her voice and neck to act with, and could not use the face.

Here are a few favourite parts from his rich oeuvre:

First there is the character Birdie in The Little Foxes (1941), played by Patricia Collinge. She is a sad older woman, treated with contempt by those around her, if they even notice her. It is a heartbreaking character, and performance, and the key here is that Wyler sees her. She is often visible in shots, even if she plays no part, and goes unnoticed by the other characters. It is as if Wyler is the only one aware of the fact that she is there, and her loneliness and fragility is underscored not by focusing in her, but rather by not doing so. She is there, and she suffers, and that is enough. Wyler is good at that, seeing and capturing the emotional state of his characters, and being concerned about them.

Birdie in The Little Foxes.

The next example is related, and it is from the beginning of Mrs Miniver (1942). The station master is waiting for Mrs Miniver to step of the train, and when she does he says that he wants to show her a new rose he has created. She hesitates but then follows him. She looks at it, and smells it, and when she smells it we see a reflection of the station master in a round mirror. He captures his breath. It is as if he cannot believe his courage and luck, of having approached her, and then having her smell his rose. It is a tiny little thing, but it makes the scene almost disproportionally moving. And of course, we did not have a close-up of him; we were looking at her, smelling the rose. The mirror reflection is behind her.

In the same film, Mrs Miniver and her daughter-in-law Carol (played by Teresa Wright) are out driving when a German fighter plane attacks. Carol is hit, and they take cover in a house. Carol lies down on the floor while Mrs Miniver goes for help. There, in a long take with the camera far away from her body, Carol dies, quiet and alone on a wooden floor. There is no music, just the sound of her sobbing, until it stops. It is such a sad death scene because it is understated and she is all alone on the hard, cold floor.

The next example is from Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. When they first meet she is drunk, he is not, and he takes her to his small apartment. She spends the night there, in separate rooms. The next morning she wakes up and has forgotten where she is and how she got there. It is so good, because they are so natural and relaxed. The teasing, the rapport, the combination of amusement and tenderness makes the scene feel wonderfully alive and enchanting. Peck is often rather stiff, or gruff, but not here. And Hepburn is at her best, breezing through the scene.

The last example is the ending of The Children's Hour (1961). The film has some of Wyler's most impressive deep focus compositions and some excellent acting, with several really intense scenes, but it is not one of his best. The last ten minutes though are fantastic. Karen (Audrey Hepburn) is talking a walk and then, sensing something is wrong, turns and runs back to the home that she shares with Martha (Shirley MacLaine). The scene is first lyrical, relaxed and leisurely. But when she runs back it is a series of jump cuts of her face. When she comes back she finds Martha dead, having committed suicide. The cause of this is the malicious gossip in the small town about the two women, and the rumours that they are lesbians. (At least Martha is a lesbian whereas Karen's sexuality is more ambiguous.) The next scene is the funeral, which is short. Karen does not speak to anyone, she does not even look at them. She stands tall, and her contempt is in her body language. Her one-time boyfriend is there too, but she does not acknowledge him. She walks away from the funeral service, still without looking at anybody, just straight ahead. She will have no part of them, or their world. There is no heterosexual reunion between her and the man, instead she walks away alone under some trees, and then she looks up towards the tree tops and the sky. And then she smiles. It is as if she has come to terms with herself, and that she is now one with Martha.

The Children's Hour

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2014-06-13, I added some photos and corrected some grammatical errors.