I was thinking about my last blog posting and the new Wes Anderson movie and how the white-man-journeying-abroad narrative is falling under increasing criticism. These stories focus on Western protagonists navigating an alien land and alien culture and track their reactions to it…or simply use the place as an exotic backdrop for their adventures.
An African artist was talking about this in an interview—he was complaining how Babel and The Constant Gardner just used Africa as a corrupt, fucked-up background for these white melodramas to unfold.
Which is true.
But isn’t it worse for a filmmaker to make a movie entirely about another culture/ethnicity and to get it wrong? How about Memoirs of a Geisha directed by a white dude starring Chinese actors? How about Brother directed by Takeshi Kitano about LA gangs? Whatever you think about Wong Kar-Wai, his first American film (w Natalie Portman and I forget who else) rings false, or so I’ve heard.
For every Ang Lee-directed Ice Storm, there are fifty films where this doesn’t work at all…
Wes Anderson is a white boy and makes films about white boys navigating a foreign landscape. It is what he knows. Wouldn’t it be more offensive to presume he could make a film entirely about the Indian experience, with no Western characters, better than an Indian filmmaker?
So maybe the idealistic answer is to give these other voices a way to express themselves, sure, everybody should have a voice, everybody in the world…but then the market isn’t going to support that either. A movie made entirely in Afrikaans isn’t going to bring the same dollars as Rush Hour 3, even if the marketing budgets are comparable.
Is the free market always good? Will it regulate itself? Will people get sick of these recycled Hollywood movies and go elsewhere for their stories? Will audiences revolt, eventually?
I am very skeptical. Even when you look on the gender front, there seem to be fewer women working than even twenty years ago. Whatever happened to Susan Seidelman, Amy Heckerling, and Penelope Spheeris? Or action directors Kathryn Bigelow and Mimi Leder? Sure, there’s probably a lot of interesting women working in indie film land, but basically all we’ve really got is the inane romantic comedy robot, Nancy Meyers.
Women do seem to flourish in TV, as guest directors, where their voice can be steamrolled by the momentum of an existing show and its tribe of writer/producers.
But, Jesus, I am getting so tired of the same narratives...
21 comments:
I agree. I don't have a problem with the white person abroad narrative. Basically it's the same as ethnic person in America story, right? Displacement, alienation, etc.
I also wonder what happened to the chicks. I loved Alison Anders, but I may have been the only one. Recommend some films by those other chicks, of whom I have not heard.
I loved "Friends with Money" but you may place it in the inane romantic comedy category. But how can it be inane? It had Frances McDormand! (I also liked "Laurel Canyon" but again, I may be the only one.)
Congrats on post 202.
Yeah, I forgot about her. I liked Gas Food Lodging, but I remember REALLY liking Mi Vida Loca when it came out thirteen years ago or so.
I think Anders got swallowed up by TV too because I haven't heard from her since that Tarantino/Rodriguez disaster Four Rooms.
dI also don't have a problem with the white person abroad narrative. We all just need to see more films that aren't from that basic narrative construct. I will defend The Constant Gardner, which I don't think merely falls into the black background for white enlightenment. In the case of TCG, it wasn't Africa that was fucked up, it was Big Pharma that was doing the screwing. That's a worthwhile story. I thought that film was quite wonderful. The one I thought was almost inexcusable was The Last King of Scotland, even thought it had redeeming features. Sometimes, white people DO need to be enlightened. You just don't want Africa to be a mere vehicle for the enlightenment.
Now that I have succeeded in bludgeoning you with a restatement of your own argument, I shall move on to the female filmmaker category. Nicole Holofcener (Friends with Money, Walking and Talking, Lovely and Amazing) doesn't make romantic comedies--they're in and of themselves. I just saw Zoe Cassavetes' movie last night and quite liked it--it was modest and it had flaws, but I really liked it. Laurel Canyon was Lisa Cholodenko, right? also of High Art. Rebecca Miller? (Personal Velocity) Some others are still making movies, just not at breakneck speed: Kimberly Peirce, Gillian Armstrong, Jane Campion, Mira Nair, Julie Taymor. The girls are allright. I personally have not given up on Sofia C., either.
Yes, but they're still indie films, all of them. No one's doing studio work but Nancy Meyers... and what has Gillian Armstrong been up to.?
I guess Jane Campion's probably still working, but not like back in my college days when she put out Sweetie, the beautiful Angel at My Table, and then the Piano. Considering that trajectory and then the following (awful) Holy Smoke, she kind of vanished...
And whatever happened to the lovely Sally Potter? Julie Taymor, yes, very talented, I agree, but they're still indie movies, all under $10 million for sure.
Which isn't to say they're lesser than studio films, far from it, they're superior in every way, but the fact that these capable filmmakers are still incapable of penetrating the studio wall is interesting.
But I do think that SC is a fraud.
But who cares about studio work, really? Isn't that really the point? The studios are, for the most part, so reified and horrible. With only a few exceptions, I don't care about the studio films that male directors make, either. Studio films are just products, and the male directors who make them are just tools.
SC a fraud? How can you tell, and so soon? The Virgin Suicides was dang near perfect, I feel, and so was Lost in Translation. I haven't seen Marie A. yet, but even if it's as frivolous as the haters say, it's still just one film out of three.
I'm not saying that only studio pictures are valid, not at all, far from it. I hate the studios. TV has become way more experimental than movies, even indie movies to some extent. So yes, I agree, but I think it's wrong to assume that all of these female directors are in the indie world by choice.
No matter how arty or credible the filmmaker is, all directors dream of doing Ben-Hur or Raiders of the Lost Ark or whatever the spectacle was that impressed us in our youth and made us want to become filmmakers in the first place. And no one is going to turn down the opportunity to do a big movie and expose yourself to a huge mass audience, if the opportunity presents itself.
I'm glad these directors have found a home in indie world but you can be sure that not all of them want to stay there, and there are there are definitely forces at work at preventing them from moving to larger-budget pictures, especially if they want to tell their own stories.
What did your Babel critic feel about the treatment of Mexico in Babel?
I am curious simply because Iñárritu is a Mexican portraying Mexico, but also portrays Japan, Africa, and, indeed, Southern California. The African portion of Babel does indeed portray a white perspective, but I think it does so by showing the white privilege that is inherent in someone like the completely annoying Blanchett and Pitt Americans. (I found nothing in them appealing--they struck me like the characters in "Hills Like White Elephants", disengaged, loathing each other and, in some ways, despicable. Ultimately the brute violence that the Moroccans police metes out on the boys who shot her in an act of sheer stupidity that kids with guns might play out any where in the world (note many kids caught throwing rocks or shooting at cars from highway overpasses in the States) is quite similar to the violence that happens right here in happy old USA for criminal acts upon rich white folks. (Witness the Mexicans trying to get back into the US in Babel.)
Now, I know I am babbling myself here, but I don't necessary think that Babel is about Pitt and Blanchett despite what the previews show. It is, in fact, perhaps a wake up call to them and shaking them from their conceited, we're so rich that we need to go to another country/culture to find outselves perspective. I particularly like how Pitt plays the tough guy and threatens people left-and-right in the quintessential "I'M AN AMERICAN DAMN IT" only to be told that it is his embassy that called off the ambulance etc. His offering money to the translator and the translator's refusal quite shows that this film is not just about him. In fact, they seem quite incidental to the whole.
The disconnect between people, interestingly enough is not helped by talking at all in this movie; it is only bridged by action.
Oh and Frantic is an interesting take on the American fish out of water theme. (Although it doesn't quite match up since it is set in Paris.)
You may be right about all directors wanting to tell a big expensive story. I would be interested in knowing what movies made the women directors we've been talking about want to make movies--maybe not Ben Hur or Raiders.
Interesting discussion--thanks.
Well, I'm guessing that the true visionaries (Potter, Campion, Taymor) probably couldn't give a shit about Raiders of the Lost Ark. The others I don't know so much about. Coppola? Well, she was probably watching Jedi at George Lucas' house.
I apologize, but Babel annoyed me. Just like 21 Grams. To me, it felt so ponderous and calculated.
I kind of prefer ponderous and calculated over the schlock I've seen lately. I think I liked it so much because I really, really, really hated the Pitt and Blanchett characters. I had the evil desire to see him shot too. The only character I really liked was the poor Japanese father who started it all--well that and the poor Mexican nanny who is made out to be the villain by the government entities, as well as by the Pitt character.
I kind of liked how unresolved and jarring it all was.
The telling moment for me came when the little kids, when tossed out of the getaway car kept yelling "I want to go home." Doesn't everyone?
Oh and I feel bad for mis-directing the conversation off women directors.
Agnieszka Holland comes to mind for some reason--I wonder how she would handle something like a fish out of water movie?
It looks like she is making a Peter the Great movie. Now that's intriguing. Those Poles. They know how to make a movie.
Oh and all I have to say about Sophia Coppola is the incredibly disappointingly demented Godfather III. I don't care how fancy-pants she thinks or anyone thinks she is, anyone who could ruin a film like that by thinking she was an actress has absolutely no sense of anything.
E, The horse is no longer with us,,,
Yeah, SC will never be able to live that down. That is a performance for the ages. And there are so many great things about that movie, too (seriously). And she's a nepotist, goddamnit. Or is it a nepotee? Grrrr.
Yup--There were some tight moments in GIII and then he had to go and ruin it all. I have lost total respect for the Coppola family.
Ok, I'll still watch their films, but COME ON!
Seriously? People are still whipping SC for that performance in GIII when she was, what, 17?
Sofia Coppola singlehandedly ruined the greatest franchise in motion picture history...
(well, that's a bit much, I admit...)
SC was 18 and, therefore, should have known better. It is a proven fact that 18-year-olds know everything, after all.
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