Django Unchained (2013)

Quentin Tarantino’s return to form is, like all of his best work, a showcase of tributes to his favourite exploitation films all squished together to the point of bloodbath. The outrageous violence of its set pieces is choreographed to perfection and is topped only by the mellifluous ear candy of the movie’s dialogue.

Let’s first be clear, there is no controversy here. Django Unchained is neither as offensive as Spike Lee imagines it would be (were he to actually give it a watch) nor is it as thought provoking as Tarantino himself pretends. The subject of slavery is volatile of course and a filmmaker who really wanted to ‘raise issues’ would have to tread extremely carefully. But this isn’t a film about slavery by Quentin Tarantino, it is a Tarantino film with some slaves in it.

The cast is nothing short of superb. Christoph Waltz was made to deliver the magniloquent exactitude of Tarantino’s dialogue and does it in a dandyish devil-may-care manner that never contradicts the menace of his character, Dr. King Schultz – a German ex-dentist bounty hunter who abhors slavery and sets Django free. Django himself is played by Jamie Foxx in a brooding and controlled manner which perfectly compliments his co-star. As the film progresses, Schultz betrays a burden of care for Django, who becomes more and more cocky as he adjusts to freedom. The interaction between the two as their performances shift is fascinating to watch.

Also fascinating is Calvin Candie, owner of the infamous Candieland plantation, who Leonardo DiCaprio portrays with a subcutaneous threat to match that of Schultz. The tension in the air as Django and Schultz slowly acquaint themselves with Candie is delightful. Under the guise of Mandingo Trainers (‘mandingos’ are slaves bred to fight each other to the death) they attempt to rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from Candieland with a predictably messy climactic outcome.

The ultimate show-stealer is Samuel L. Jackson who plays the elderly servant Stephen, Candie’s (sort of) Head of the House Slaves. Stephen is a masterpiece of a character, unconditionally loyal to his master but exhibiting the cheek of Django and the irritability of an old man who Candie has allowed to get away with years of surliness for the sheer fun of his outbursts. Jackson brings an unsettling elderly shake to his character and the slow-spreading contortions of face as Stephen becomes suspicious of Candie’s guests is physical acting at its finest.

If there is one element of the film that can be written about seriously in terms of racial politics then it is Stephen, it is the psychology of a man enthralled by his master, a man who truly believes himself inferior to a white man.

Django Unchained is directed with the care and consideration taken to framing its subjects that the old Spaghetti Westerns took. Apart for the sequences of violence, camera movement is generally slow and often holds on shots that could pass as paintings as far as mise en scène goes – moments such as: the chain gang far off in the distance bookended by two nearby rocks at the screen’s left/right extremities, two horsemen riding as shadows into the sunset, a whole town pointing 100 shot guns at the camera and DiCaprio’s Candie grinning full-screen with smoke seeping through his teeth. Juxtaposed with this style is the occasional crash zoom, which nods fondly to old westerns, and induced grins around the cinema.

The one gripe I have with the film is its lack of discipline. Quentin Tarantino is an auteur; of that there is no doubt. Give him a camera and some money and he’ll have a ball. But while that might be unbridled joy for him, his films suffer if nobody reins him in. Take his interviews in which he often makes fantastic points and examines cinematic issues in very interesting detail but which can quickly topple into ridiculous self-important ramblings if the interviewer lacks the bravery and awareness to contain his answers and switch the area of conversation when required.

My favourite thing about Tarantino is those absurd moments where captious characters tie themselves up in semantics trying to explain why a Ku Klux Klan mask isn’t practical when riding a horse or pondering the layers of meaning behind a foot massage. However, these can only work within the context of a story moving forward. Occasionally, Django Unchained loses its momentum. Whether this is because Tarantino is missing the skills of his late long-time editor Sally Menke or because he works best with a writing partner, I don’t know but it definitely looks as if the critical eyes of sterner collaborators could be vital in helping maintain the focus of his work as he moves into the later stages of his career.

Les Misérables (2013)

Released mid-January and with a trailer that revels in the glory of its stars’ past Academy Award decorations, Les Misérables was being sold as typical Oscar fodder even before the inevitable nominations came last week. Of the flood of contenders cropping up this month, only Lincoln plays this card stronger. Despite its accolade-angling shine and the overall safety of its casting and direction, the film, as it happens, is a good one.

It begins with an ostentatious shot that takes us from an underwater French flag up through the bough of a ship and swoops right down to find Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) rope-hauling the massive vessel with hundreds of fellow slaves. Something seems amiss. The screen seems unusually narrow for such an epic shot; the 1.85:1 ratio is industry standard but barely does it justice. Surely, the panoramic 2.35:1 is much better suited to the job? It is definitely the most popular for productions of this size – of the current box office top 10, only Pitch Perfect and Parental Guidance (neither big awards contenders) are filmed in 1.85:1.

But as the film settles, it becomes clear why director Tom Hooper eschewed the wider format. Les Misérables is a character piece and stays tight on its subjects. But for the odd exception (a shot which tracks back from a cliff before diving down into a street, and one that leaps over a cross-topped steeple to settle on a people-packed funeral), its characters’ faces are scrutinised for almost 3 hours in shallow focus close-ups.

Under this intense inspection, the cast excels – Jackman and Anne Hathaway especially taking advantage of the opportunity to squeeze the emotional intensity out of every moment. The only exception is Amanda Seyfried whose reedy voice and bewildered expression undo the intrigue set up by her character Cosette’s child self (played for 10 minutes by Isabelle Allen). To be fair, Seyfried isn’t given much to work with; adult Cosette rather wilts in the corner while loveblind revolutionary Marius (Eddie Redmayne) courts her from the barricades. Having said that, I do love this shot of her wilting in the corner.

Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen carry their roles as perfectly pitched grimy opportunists in Sweeney Todd (2008) through to this and it works just fine. Their Thénardiers lighten up the general miséry the plot, appearing first just after tragic event number one and being peppered through thereafter to divide the glum into palatable chunks.

The film is a little long. I presume the stage musical has an interval which allows the audience some rest and respite. Were the conventions of cinema similar, a ten minute breather might solve the issue.

I’m thinking about how else to discuss the film but I think a director generally can’t go wrong with such strong source material. The music really holds it together and carries it home safely and it is Hooper’s job to simply capture this without getting in the way. All he needs to do is add some stylistic touches here and there while sticking to his framing decisions to help its cohesive transition from stage to screen. And that’s exactly what he does.

While I’m sure the DVD sales of the film won’t disappoint those who profit from them, I think Les Misérables healthiest life will be as 5-minute song-size clips on the internet, where people will seek out small strong shots of the misérable without having to rerun the whole marathon.

Top 10 Films of 2012

10. Looper

Announced by bus posters everywhere as ‘this generation’s The Matrix’, Rian Johnson’s time-travelling dystopian thriller shoehorns itself unfortunately into the slew of similarly-themed movies that tried to cash in on the back of Christopher Nolan’s excellent Inception (2010). I’m thinking of The Adjustment Bureau and In Time (both 2011).

But Looper is better than that. It comes from the writer/director of Brick (2006), a fantastic neo-noir with excitingly brisk dialogue and employing inventive filming solutions to the problem of having no funding.

Happily, Johnson’s writing survives the big budget switch and the roving long takes, which directors so often lose once they hit the big time in favour of rapid cuts between too many shots, are still intact. The main problem is that the cineaste in Johnson gets the better of him and, as the film progresses he starts paying homage to too many genres to keep its cohesion.

But it’s fun and engaging with a ridiculous plot involving a man’s struggle to assassinate his escaped future self in order to fulfil a contract that should see him rich for the rest of his life. And the future self’s struggle to do some killing of his own in order to re-order time and undo the murder of his past self’s future wife at the hands of someone called the rainmaker.

Then there’s a telekinetic child too.

 

9. Skyfall

The 007 trope ticklist was established long ago and has been handed down from generation to generation for 50 years like the 10 commandments of British spy thrillers.

Pre-credits action blitz

Conspicuous product placement

Q-designed gadgetry

Tuxedo scene

Vodka Martini

His name is Bond… James Bond

Disposable love interest(s)

Iconic theme tune/motifs

Cool cars

Verbose Villain

Considering that all a James Bond film has to do is obey these rather straightforward guidelines, you might expect that the room to make mistakes is helpfully restrictive.

However, as recent Bond directors have proven, there is still plenty of opportunity to churn out a poor film regardless. But American Beauty director Sam Mendes makes no such errors, hauling the franchise back on track with a simple story told well and shot beautifully by Roger Deakin.

Javier Bardem is the best Bond villain for a long time with a pantomime version of the controlled creepiness that he last exhibited as in No Country For Old Men (2007) and Judi Dench is finally given license to explore the past trauma and dark truths behind M’s cold matriarchal facade.

 

8. Argo

Ben Affleck directs and stars in the improbable true story of a group of American diplomats who, housebound and in hiding during a violent revolution, are convinced by the CIA to pretend to be the production crew of a science fiction film in order to smuggle themselves out of Iran.

The film in question was put into full-scale production in order to fool the Iranian authorities. A script was chosen, financial backers were found, special effects advisors were drafted in, and companies created. Full-page advertisements were even published on the off chance that doubting passport control officers might read American film magazines.

Affleck manages the balancing act between documentary and drama, even masterfully throwing in several comedic moments which never threaten to undermine the genuine jeopardy of the six diplomats trapped in Iran.

Pacing is what made Argo such a great watch. Its pacing made it gripping in an old-fashioned way; that’s why it makes this list.

 

7. Frankenweenie

It seemed 2012 was the year that studios finally figured out how to exploit Tim Burton’s playful sense of the macabre for the mass children’s market. Henry Selick, the man who brought Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas to life in 1992 had tried without success to replicate its creepy charm with Coraline (2009), a film that screamed “isn’t this a quirky, creepy, charming experience?” – but wasn’t – “Bit like Tim Burton don’t ya think?” but wasn’t.

This year Selick’s Paranorman was considerably more impressive, once again mining the child/fear dichotomy for material but bypassing the unimpressive spookfest and finding something of real substance at the heart of a high quality children’s horror story.

With the more vacuous (but still fun) Hotel Transylvania rounding of the animated Halloween fare, October was the perfect time for Tim Burton’s return to the medium on which he has had such a marked influence over 20 years – stop motion animation.

Frankenweenie is the story of a young boy who is successful in his experiments to reanimate the deceased family dog. Its classic Burtonesque themes of imagination vs. inertia, suburban fear vs. adventure and life vs. death have never been presented so well by the man behind the camera. Just when the rest of the world seems to have clocked on to the formula, Burton reminds us why he is the master of the form, demonstrating the inimitable flair that mark him as an auteur among other animators.

 

6. Martha Marcy May Marlene

This gem is probably the most independent-spirited film on this list and by far one of the cheapest to make. It’s a straight up psychological drama starring Elizabeth Olsen as a vulnerable young woman who regains contact with her sister after 2 years in an isolated commune.

The film reflects the paranoia of its subject, reporting the woman’s ordeal through half-remembered flashbacks triggered in the aftermath of her “escape.”

The transition from past to present is so smooth that as sequences start, it is often unclear to which they belong. It scrambles the audience mind to match Martha’s confusion and leads you into her trauma.

 

5. The Hunger Games

Arguably the most accomplished dystopia since Brazil (1985), The Hunger Games was billed by industry bigwigs as the new Twilight but its own credentials far outweigh this shallow comparison.

Jennifer Lawrence stars as one of twenty-four teenage tributes, forced to compete in a battle to the death for the amusement of a future society’s elite class. This biting satire on reality television and the saccharine tastes of a bored world desensitised to violence is mitigated only by the self-censorship of its makers, who cut several violent moments in order to achieve a 12A rating rather than the original 15.

This action is for me not fully justified and results in a film that is not quite as shocking as it should be. Children killing children should anger and disgust, no?

Nevertheless, the story, design and performances of the film make it one of the best of the year regardless. Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic and as Silver Linings Playbook further testified late in the year, she is currently one of the best screen actors of her generation.

 

4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

…is definitely too long and full of unnecessary blind alleys. But as soon as the Middle Earth typeface faded in the title of the film and the familiar Shire theme eased in on soft woodwinds, I was accosted by a massive grin which only waned in relation to the blood flow in my legs as the running time crept towards 3 hours.

It has always been difficult to gauge your position in Peter Jackson’s sagas as Middle Earth happens around you, so in a way his Tolkien films can never be considered perfect works in and of themselves, but being lost in a fantastical wonderland is exactly their appeal.

Like Prometheus (a perfectly enjoyable movie that didn’t make this top 10), The Hobbit is the result of consummate filmmaking. There is little that is post-modern or particularly arty about the direction or cinematography but the film is so well made that even those who feel only mildly persuaded by the idea of a Tolkien epic will marvel at Jackson’s accomplishment.

 

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild

It may just be that I’ve yet to see Pans Labyrinth but Beasts of the Southern Wild exhibits probably the best magical realism I have ever seen on film.

Set in the deep south of America, the film chronicles the struggles of a small community living in ‘the bathtub’ (a swampy region cut off from the mainland by a levee) following the advent of a huge storm.

It seamlessly melds the Cinéma vérité style of gritty documentaries with the computer-generated wild imaginings of the young girl at its centre. The first half hour plays as a slow and very intimate exposition of an undiscovered tribe of self-dependent people who are inextricably rooted to their muddy habitat. As the earth itself literally moves around them and water threatens to eviscerate their livelihoods, the young Hushpuppy shakes wild creatures from her mind as she is forced to deal with the bathtub’s biblical plight and an ailing father who refuses to give in to mortality.

 

2. The Avengers

In another big year for comic book adaptations, Joss Whedon’s carefully crafted ensemble piece served up the kind of wit and excitement with which the Spider and Bat men of the Summer simply couldn’t compete.

Whedon recognises the absurdity of several super heroes meeting up to save the world and the humour to be exploited from their small-scale exchanges.

The film is best when dealing with this clash of egos and delving into the small insecurities and mundane chat between the characters – something which most writers would gloss over in favour of grand posturing and gratuitous action.

Which isn’t to say that the action sequences in The Avengers aren’t satisfying; satisfying is exactly what they are. With fights well choreographed and camera movement sensitively paced, the film never bores with tiring fast cuts and delivers instead an in-depth character-driven story of the ilk that has worked so well for Whedon’s television projects for so many years.

 

1. The Master

The sentence that just occurred to me is “Paul Thomas Anderson left plot to rot on the wayside long ago” but, in truth, PTA’s fierce character-heavy visions never had much room for traditional narrative.

With a philosophy best summarised as “wind the characters up and objectively watch them interact until 143 minutes have passed”, The Master sees a damaged war veteran Freddie Quell (Joaquim Phoenix) distracted by a Scientology-like cult ‘the Cause’ whose leader, Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hofman) has a group of followers lapping up his deluded but arguably well-meant teachings.

While The Master is expertly drawn, it is ultimately directionless. If you want a story, leave this alone. If you’ve endless patience and an interest in how mystical belief systems grow in size and appeal and power, enjoy.

Brave (2012)

When it comes to 3D animation, there are no safer hands than Pixar, and I use the word ‘safe’ because Brave, the studio’s new feature film is solid by anyone’s standards but maybe not quite exceptional by theirs.

In the medieval highlands of Scotland, Merida (Kelly Macdonald) – princess of the area’s ruling clan – finds herself betrothed to one of three young suitors. This set of affairs doesn’t chime well with the fiery young tomboy, who would rather gallop through the forest shooting arrows at things than be tied down to a husband and tied in to tight royal clothes. Her mother Queen Eleanor (Emma Thompson) isn’t at all patient with this attitude and finds her daughter’s disregard for the traditions of the clan incomprehensible. Meanwhile, King Fergus (Billy Connolly) appears to empathise with both Merida and the Queen but would of course rather be either regaling other clans with tales of fighting ferocious bears or else actually fighting ferocious bears.

First off, as expected, the animation is just brilliant – as usual. The exposition shots high above landscapes are rich and inviting. Perhaps the Scottish Tourist Board should look into buying the rights for a 5-second clip as nothing could make the highlands look more appealing. The other standout animation highlight is Merida’s curly red hair, each strand of which seems to have been worked on by its own personal artist.

The casting is equally strong and full of genuine Scots thank God. Kelly Macdonald is a perfect choice for Merida with the light voice and clear enunciation required for the lead in a children’s film. Good to hear her back in her native dialect too after recent turns in Harry Potter 7B (as a posh English ghost) and No Country For Old Men (as a stoic Texan).

For me, what gives a Pixar film the potential to push for something really special is its range of characters. Brave has three clear leads and the conflict between the main two especially does thejob of giving the film its narrative:

• Merida – Strong-willed, defiant, stubborn, childish, idealist.
• Queen – the archetypal ‘strict mother’ who wants to mould Merida in her image and extinguish her childish whims. Both are a little one-dimensional but the story needs that to push on.

I’m not sure whether the wrong vs. right story is too straightforward to allow for more layers or whether the writing is just not quite up to scratch but neither of these characters get close to striking the rich nuance that Pixar productions like Shrek and Toy Story emit effortlessly. It is actually Billy Connolly’s peripheral King Fergus who comes closest to matching this. A good patriarch, strong and protective, he is a little oblivious to domestic matters but does his manly best to comprehend the female conflict going on around him while not pretending to grasp it fully. He is oddly the most well rounded character of the film.

The rest of the cast members suffer a little from being handled more as agents of slapstick humour than anything else. Which is fine and funny – just not tapping into Pixar’s proven track record of making audiences really care for each and every character.

In fact, what helps layer characters up into believable shapes in films like Shrek is comedy – especially humour in the shape of verbal quips and jokes. Brave doesn’t deliver in this department; its makers seem to have over-worried about wordy humour going over children’s heads. It needn’t have done. While there was plenty of giggling from little people going on in the cinema during the film, I like to hope that the under-10s present felt slightly patronised by Brave’s over-reliance on characters falling over for laughs. But who really knows?

On the female empowerment thing: This is yet another film that reckons its boyish heroine (who doesn’t rely on men for anything and won’t be told what to do by them either) makes it a champion of feminism (although don’t say the word out loud). Snow White and the Huntsman tried a similar tact. I suppose both films have their hearts heading towards a good place, it would just be nice to see a female-character-driven movie that doesn’t propagate the idea that women can only be strong by doing what men do to look strong.

Like a few others from Pixar, Brave features a short animation before the main feature begins. Lasting just under 7 minutes, La Luna is the story of a boy who is introduced, by his father and grandpa, to the unusual family business of giving the moon its phases. It is very impressive, especially as all communication is non-verbal; animation is now so advanced that complex messages can be passed between characters through gesture alone. This effectively makes La Luna a silent film. I would be really keen to see Pixar produce a full-length film that takes advantage of this dialogue-less route; it could be fantastic.

Overall, Brave is fun and perfectly fine. It lacks the extra-specialness of its studio’s predecessors but it’s worth a watch. I’m done.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

In rounding off his trilogy of Batman films, Christopher Nolan meets all expectations, delivering a typically fast-paced narrative and strong pervading atmosphere with predictable sureness and skill. Contrary to the ravings of some critics, The Dark Knight Rises doesn’t take the franchise up another level nor does it push any envelopes or deliver anything you haven’t seen before. It is simply a stylish doom-laden conclusion to the Dark Knight story that, in keeping with the other films, is very well made.

As a whole, the great accomplishment of the trilogy is its commitment to a mature retelling of a comic book story without infantilising complex issues or pandering to an imagined demographic. Pick a selection of the top 20 most expensive films of the last few years and almost all will follow safe formulae, well-established guidelines designed to recoup their cost and make a little money by stretching their appeal so broad as to be anodyne. Storylines will be childish in their simplicity, gloomy moments will have their edge taken off with misjudged light relief and challenging ideas will be conspicuously absent.

Nolan has proved that filmmakers do not have to patronise their audience to make a great deal of money at the box office. He has a few interesting notions about the contemporary world and the fractured identities of both individuals and large urban collectives. He has a vision as to how stories regarding these ideas can be told and, most importantly of all, he doesn’t think we’re too dumb to understand them.

The Dark Knight Rises begins eight years on from the events of the previous film. Bruce Wayne has grown ever more reclusive in the intervening years since he decided to hang up his cape in the wake of Gotham’s scorn for his alter ego. The city itself is doing well, with organised crime all but eradicated under the new laws left behind by Harvey Dent. Bruce is stirred from apathy by Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a cat burglar who he catches stealing his mother’s pearls. She warns him of a coming storm, a consequence of the gap between the city’s rich and poor. Sure enough, the stock exchange is soon raided by new villain Bane (Tom Hardy): a member of the League of Shadows who has come to fulfil Ra’s al Ghul’s mission to destroy Gotham, thus restoring ecological balance to the world. If this sounds like too much back-story, it probably makes sense to watch the earlier films. There is plenty to enjoy without having done so but it obviously helps fill in the blurs.

Hathaway brings a welcome individualist to the part in her role as the Cat Woman character (she is never actually referred to as such but the costume gives it away). All we ever hear about in the previous films is Organised Crime, gangs and bosses and citywide corruption. It’s nice to finally see a criminal out on their own for what they can get. Fun crime, cheeky crime. It adds a nice antihero vibe missing from the other films.

Bane is a different nemesis than Batman is perhaps used to. With power based on physical presence and force as well as brains, he cuts a much heftier figure than either the Scarecrow or the Joker and his hand-to-hand combat provides a genuine threat to the caped crusader for the first time. It’s great and it works –with one big problem: the voice. Hardy developed a distinct Caribbean-flavoured intellectual accent for the role and it is effectively deep and threatening and quite otherworldly when it is audible – unfortunately that is only half the time. Whatever muffling and filters with which the sound department affected the voice, they obscure Bane’s words a little too much. It is a smart idea to make him sound separate and half-machine-like compared to the other characters but it’s just overcooked in post-production.

I don’t care much about big action, although I can accept that The Dark Knight series’ set pieces are as impressive and arresting as any blockbuster’s can be. What really holds me in place is the noir of Gotham City and the bleak, seemingly irresolvable corruption. Above all else, I love the nihilism at work, how there is no sign of divine luck, no easy swing from bad to good, not even a clear definition of the two poles. Instead, crime is rife because it pays. The city is a mess and it isn’t going to be fixed by one man’s crusade against evil. I love the mentality of the villains and the way their philosophies almost sound convincing in an ugly Nietzschean way.

One thing that seemed out of step with Nolan’s usual exploitation of the ambiguity of moral dilemmas is what seems a blatant conservative agenda in regards to the class war that erupts in Gotham. Led by Bane, the underclass of the city strips the wealthy of their assets and puts them on trial in a mock court. While this draws strongly from the French Revolution, the involvement of the stock exchange echoes the anti-capitalist protests of the last year. With Bruce Wayne among the wealthiest of the city tasked with fixing this unrest, the message seems to be that anybody protesting against economic inequality is a pesky little terrorist that needs neutralising. Bane is clearly using the unrest of the masses to his advantage, helping him carry out unmitigated destruction, but just why the citizens are so easily turned into brawling loons is a question largely shrugged off. Maybe if it were addressed, Gotham’s problems would be solved and sequels suddenly redundant – and maybe that explains it…

Overall, The Dark Knight Rises is a great spectacle and should be taken as the concluding chapter of a fantastic trilogy that has probably significantly redefined how comic books are adapted from now on. Here’s hoping that Chris Nolan now turns his attention to something perhaps a little cheaper and tighter, something on a par with his real masterpieces Memento and The Prestige.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Comparing two films that both make use of the same source material can get in the way of judging each on its own merit. However, I think in the case of everyone’s favourite red and blue webslinger, a little look back at Spider-Man (2002) only helps make this new film’s merits clearer to see.

This is because the two adaptations are satisfyingly unique in their independent ways. Sam Raimi’s original feels much closer in tone to the comic book material whereas this new version moves away from fantasy, instead attempting to anchor itself more in the real world. With the 2002 film only ten years old, a complete re-telling of the same story requires justification and thankfully the new direction taken by The Amazing Spider-Man is just about distinct enough to make a solid case for its existence.

Andrew Garfield is fantastic in the leading role. His portrayal of Peter Parker helps to establish the film’s style right from the off and draws a firm line under his predecessor. Everything about Tobey Maguire’s Parker screamed “VICTIM!” – he was skinny, shaky-voiced, socially nowhere. Even the bus driver hated him. His transformation from utter loser to muscular masquerader was such an epic zero-to-hero dream that it lifted the character into the make-believe realm. Garfield’s Peter Parker however is a much more realistic geek – ok, he gets picked on, but he doesn’t pity himself and actually seems fairly comfortable with his photographer-nerd status. After the transformation, he is more amused by his new powers than burdened and never quite overcomes his awkwardness despite them – he still skateboards and he still studies, he just does these things on the roof now.

The female interest of 2002 Spider-Man was MJ, a one-dimensional damsel in distress who screamed a lot and looked pretty – and pretty ineffective when the bad guy showed up. She was the hero’s trophy and little more. In this film, the object of Peter’s affections is somewhat less objectified. Gwen Stacey is Peter’s brainy classmate and head intern at Oscorp. As well as screaming a lot less than MJ, she also plays quite a major part in the final battle. The presence of a more substantial and better-rounded female character is welcome in a film trying to move clear of the adolescent wish-fulfilment that characterised the old Spider-Man.

Half the battle of taking a comic book story and revising it in the modern fashion is achieved with a script grounded in the grit of modern lexicon. Cutting clichés and throwing in the odd reference to a current trend in technology goes a long way to reining a superhero back down to earth. The new Spider-Man definitely heads in the right direction. Uncle Ben’s famous “with great power comes great responsibility” line is dropped in favour of a more convincing speech peppered with the same sentiment but packaged in a less cheesy manner. Similarly, 2002 Peter’s long, embarrassingly slushy speech to MJ about the way she makes him feel bears no relation to the stuttering ums and erms of 2012 Peter’s attempt to ask Gwen out. It’s much sweeter this way and has a far better sounding ring of truth to it

The ‘Fantasy vs. Reality’ dichotomy between the two films is also manifest in their direction. In Spider-Man, Raimi’s camera is a character in itself; the dutch angles, ambitious tracking and montages of overlaid shots all conjure the fantastical sense that the camera can and so will go anywhere it chooses. On the other hand, The Amazing Spider-Man’s director, Marc Webb organises his film in a much more functional manner. The cameras are set up to capture the action as unobtrusively as possible, leaving the actors to tell the story. Although Webb’s directorial prints are generally invisible, one thing did catch the eye: use of shallow focus to move between objects/people in the foreground and background – an increasingly rare find in modern blockbusters – which works especially well in the final shot. Even the lighting of the two films is distinct. Raimi’s film is lit thoroughly, seemingly with all angles covered so as to leave as little shadow as possible, giving it a simplistic and stark look with bright primary colours highlighted. Conversely, The Amazing Spider-Man does not concern itself with making each shot look like a drawing. Its selective approach to photography lets shadow take care of itself, providing a more natural look.

Finally onto the music, which draws a conclusive line between the two films and demonstrates very clearly how they sit in relation to each other. The 2002 film was scored by Danny Elfman, the go-to composer for comic book adaptations of the last 20 years (see Hulk, Hellboy, Tim Burton’s Batman films etc). Elfman employs strong themes and character motifs in the style of Hollywood’s golden age. This is perfect for the bold good vs. evil fables that all the big superhero comics present. The music for Spider-Man is some of my favourite of his work, a score often overlooked in favour of the sweeping gothic melodrama of his collaborations with Burton.

Nevertheless, having someone like Elfman score the new Spider-Man would contradict and confuse the style that the film is going for. Instead, James Horner is brought in and provides a much less attention-grabbing accompaniment to the story. While there are clear repeated themes, Horner has approached this film with an ear to colour the visuals without intruding on the action. An unnoticed score is a step in the right direction if realism is the aim. What helps tie in even more strongly to the real world is the use of pop music dropped in during time-lapse montages – particularly when Peter is testing out his newfound powers while skateboarding. It contextualises the film in the present day and infers the kind of music that the on-screen characters might listen to.

Altogether, The Amazing Spider-Man does just enough to make a resurrection of a recently abandoned franchise seem reasonable. In no way is it as radical a revision as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films are to the Batman story although it would definitely benefit from a similarly stronger push away from its source material now that the hero has been introduced. The real test for Marvel and co. will be the inevitable follow up.

Cosmopolis (2012)

Adapted from a novel by Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis follows young multi-billionaire Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) on the day he travels slowly through gridlocked New York in his obscene limousine in search of a haircut on the other side of town. This is one of those rare and funny instances in which a huge teen heartthrob decides to try something different and difficult and it ends up on general release in all the main multiplex chains in the country. This is the kind of film you would normally have to hunt the city for, scour the independent cinema timetables for and ultimately miss the last train for, as the only screening you can make ends up being late on a Sunday night.

But it’s Robert Pattinson, so it’s Cineworld. It’s a fairly full room of people and a fair few walkouts along the way as couples (it was all couples in my screen) realise that this is not the film they were expecting.

Cosmopolis is difficult to penetrate and engage with. It is supposed to be. Not in a snobby exclusive way but because it deals with a man who has lost the ability to engage with others. It takes the form of a succession of lectures by the people Packer has appointments with throughout the day – business advisors, bodyguards, doctors and his newly married but already estranged wife. All are arranged, structured; even those he has sex with are all employees of one form or another. His whole day is run like a business, cold like the numbers he analyses to protect and perpetuate his cyber-capitalist nightmare.

Nightmare because Packer finds himself on this particular day yearning for something more genuine, a social exchange of real substance. In the middle of a conversation with his wife he comments with surprise how they almost sound like normal people. As detached and emotionless as he finds himself, ultimately Packer’s only way out is to gamble with his assets beyond the tipping point where he finds his empire slowly dismantling. The more he loses the more deranged with revelation he becomes until he ends up risking more than just his money and comes face to face with his own assassin.

As I mentioned, the early part of the film (Act One I suppose) has the feel of lecture about it. It reminded me very much of the film Waking Life (2001) where the main character spends one night in a lucid dream in which he meets several people, one after the other, all espousing great wordy monologues on the subject of dreams and their wider connections to existentialist philosophy. The main character contributes little more than facial expressions and the odd prompt here and there; for their time on screen they are the focal point. Exactly the same goes for Cosmopolis where the supporting cast features excellent performances from reliable greats such as Samantha Morton and Juliette Binoche. Pattinson himself is brilliant, holding his own next to these established professionals and proving himself outside of that Twilight cauldron. It’s a very close performance… lot’s of stone-faced holds and slight ticks, expertly timed and delivered. The director pushes us to scrutinise his every move – we’re supposed to try everything to connect somehow with Packer and yet fail. And that is exactly what happens. It is the kind of conceit that can break down immediately if an actor is slightly off his/her game, but thanks to Pattinson, no such problem arises.

As for the narrative of Packer’s downwardly spiralling journey, I’m a big fan of the Ulysses-style ‘everything happens in a single day’ idea. I like it in a great number of films. It works to perfection in 1980’s teen films like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (’86) and The Breakfast Club (’85) because of the super-charged rollercoaster of emotion felt by adolescents in a short time frame. Those are comedies though and so I suppose Rebel Without a Cause (1955) particularly springs to mind in relation to Cosmopolis as both end badly and the stakes are high throughout. The distinguishing factor is that the stakes in Cosmopolis are financial. Because Packer has no emotions left to play with, he throws his money away in the hope of stirring something more human inside of him. Rather than truly feeling the desperation of the character we are allowed only to know it on an intellectual level. That’s where the tragedy comes from and that’s why, although so accomplished, this film could never make it into anyone’s favourites list.

Devoid of any unusual framing or weird camera angles, David Cronenberg’s direction instead brings a functionality and pace. His job is to tell the story and so he films the action like a play, simply, with as few cutaways as possible but clever coverage of different characters’ reactions at just the right moments. I wish I could compare this approach to that of Cronenberg’s other work but his films have yet to cross my path – I will fix this soon.

Some have bemoaned the fact that Cosmopolis fails to make any grand statement or hard-hitting satirical jibes at its subject. The relevant but well-trodden themes of greedy businessman at the top of vast wealth/power pyramids and money vs. happiness certainly offer up extensive opportunity to ramble on about inequality. I’m glad that the film does not do this (enough things do at the moment) and instead chooses the form of a dramatic vignette which offers an exploration into what kinds of human psychoses might be behind global economic crashes. Maybe a slice of the mind of the 1% is what is missing from this #occupy palaver after all.

Prometheus (2012)

Despite it being hyped as Ridley Scott’s hugely anticipated return to the Alien franchise, it might be better to push that film (probably the biggest science fiction horror of all time) to the back of your mind as you sit in front of Prometheus. It does explain itself as a prequel to Alien but Scott does well to side step any A-B comparisons by setting this film on a planet not quite the same as the one in the 1979 original and having this crew harbour very different objectives to those of Sigourney Weaver and co 33 years ago.

Filmmaking is a visual art so I suppose that makes Prometheus a good film. Its immaculately well-designed sets and the thorough mise-en-scène certainly go a long way to immerse us in its world. Surprisingly, the CGI actually has a shaky start; the opening scene involving a hooded humanoid creature and a waterfall is probably the most iffy bit of digital trickery involved, possibly simply because it is also the only scene without human performers. However, once the real people begin populating the screen, the computer generated world smoothes itself around them with ease and it becomes effortless to trust in the authenticity of the visuals.

The same cannot be said for some of the dialogue. I don’t think it is quite the travesty that some reviewers have found it to be but it is a definite stumbling block. When it comes, the grandiose statements and lofty conversations about God, creation and existence aren’t too lengthy or out of place. Having said that, they are quite frequent and begin to grate in the way that you might suddenly find yourself able to visualise the writers sitting round a table penning the script rather than believing the words as they come out of the characters’ mouths. With a little more careful lacing around small talk, the big wow talk could be more effectively delivered and seem less contrived.

That said, it isn’t a major problem and doesn’t hinder the enjoyment of the film in any significant way. This is largely down to the acting of a great cast who manage to paper over the cracks in the script very capably. Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender are particularly superb, as is Guy Pearce – this is just as well, as these are the three players who carry the weight of the aforementioned themes. Despite the rambling speeches, on a narrative level these themes are knitted together in accomplished science fiction fashion. Most important is that of creation.

Unlike the crew in Alien, who are part of a commercial mission mining for resources when they become unwittingly dragged into an extra-terrestrial nightmare, the crew of Prometheus are actively searching for alien life in the hope that humanity’s big questions (the standard “Where do we come from? Why are we here?” business) can be answered. Mirroring the relationship between man and maker is the droid David whose maker is man. Fassbender really does play David to perfection. A mobile version of HAL from 2001, he has all the flaws of understanding when trying to relate to his human creators as the humans do when trying to comprehend theirs. Rapace’s character Elizabeth is one of the hungriest to find the beings who may have seeded life on earth (whom she calls ‘engineers’) but at one point finds herself the engineer of a new life and, it’s fair to say, she doesn’t enjoy it much. This particular scene harkens back nicely to the kind of 1970s body horror that Alien mastered and links the big metaphysical topics of this film to the primal fears of that one.

Despite the snags, there is a level of filmmaking on display here beyond which any problems can be accepted as minor. Ridley Scott is so accomplished a director that he reaches that level with ease. Prometheus has all the magnificence of the very best sci-fi films but falls short of the visceral element required to go down in history as truly legendary. Nevertheless, it is a good solid film, rare in its ambition and scope. Worth seeing twice.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

One thing that has caught Hollywood’s imagination in recent years is the idea that European fairytales were originally much more ominous and frightening before they were diluted by Walt Disney in the middle of last century. Consequently, revisionist versions of stories such as Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are currently all the rage.

Snow White and the Huntsman follows this trend, purporting to be a kind of dark restoration of the original Brothers Grimm tale with a bit of pop-feminism thrown in for good measure.

The most striking thing about the film is its visual style. Costume, colour, light –for the most part it is designed very well and knits the story’s world together in a convincing way. However, what becomes a nagging problem is that it never quite envelops the audience in the way it should. I didn’t know for sure until 5 minutes ago that director Rupert Sanders is a prolific maker of TV adverts but I was quietly confident. Dissolving fruit, porcelain skin, trees with consciously creeping branches, sped up flower-blooming, parted lips, hand bras – sitting there in the cinema, I got the urge to buy perfume about 7 times and didn’t know why.

Despite the distracting ‘buy me’ imagery, there is plenty more that undermines the escapism that a fantasy film like this is designed to provide. Foremost is the acting of Kristen Stewart , who isn’t all that convincing as a warrior princess. Firmly established in the Twilight saga as our age’s passive sap of a female character, Stewart carries her baffled face from those films to this one. Those awkward expressions work for Bella (flawed as that character may be) but not for Snow White.

Having said that, she is not as much to blame as the script, which is full of dodgy “Olde English” and clanging clichés. There’s nothing wrong with clichés – well there is, but the odd short stinging phrase muttered by an action hero on a close-up can work wonders. Here though, the characters are constantly coming out with relentlessly convoluted waffle. It might be funny if delivered ironically, but that isn’t the tone that the film is going for. Great work by Charlize Theron however, who does the best she possibly can with the lines she is given and lends the evil queen Ravenna a good deal of believable scariness with her histrionic delivery i.e. “You will DO THIS for me Huntsman!”

Although the first act is enough to almost give up on the film, it is rescued somewhat by the dwarves who enter the fray at around the 45-minute mark. Actors such as Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins and Eddie Marsden immediately improve the verisimilitude of the story and highlight the lacklustre performances of their taller co-stars. Just the small smirk or grimace or well-timed pause here and there give a much-needed depth and pathos. Their dialogue must be part improvised because it bears no resemblance to that of the other characters. The small talk they provide is often puerile and inconsequential but it at least offers the sense of something real. The trailers avoid the dwarves like their little jokes might undermine the dead seriousness of the piece (and out of context, they might) but in truth, no character does more to ground the film than they do.

Their presence even seems to have a positive effect on the edit and direction, which also dramatically improves about 45 minutes in. Especially effective is a scene where the dwarves sing a lament for one of their number who has died (that’s not a major spoiler). The pacing, which has up to this point been a bit all over the place, settles and a weight is added. It’s like suddenly getting some good earthy nutrition after having your face stuffed with style for an hour. The shot where the camera pans slowly from their campfire high up into the trees and then above to the firefly-specked sky is the single stand-out remarkable moment of the film.

Onto the “empowerment of Snow White’s character” thing which the trailers lean on so heavily. I don’t think it quite works. Besides Stewart’s acting, the big detraction from this thread is the way in which her status as a Princess is reiterated over and over again. Because she is the true heir to the throne, born into royalty, her character has no room to become heroic. She does after all get a troll to go away by just looking at it, get helped out of a deadly forest just because of her value as a royal commodity and is able to break the spell of Ravenna’s power because of her blue blood beauty. None of this she works for, all of it comes part and parcel of being the rightful Queen by God’s divine appointment. If it is her destiny to be the ruler of a Kingdom, there is no option other than fulfilling it. What she learns in the way of fighting skill is taught to her by a man and, once poisoned, she is helplessly paralysed until saved once again by the same man. The traditional Snow White tricolon goes like this “skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony.” You can’t just add “…oh, also the same spirit and defiance as a rose in winter” and automatically make it work as a fable of female empowerment. For one thing it ruins the rule of three. Which isn’t on.

Music. Who am I to criticise the score of 8-time Oscar-nominated James Newton Howard? Well, it is surprising to find that the man responsible is so experienced and highly rated, but I just heard it as simple pastiche. It is less memorable that the scores of other fantasy films and yet somehow more intrusive. It softens the threat by being there too much (but that could just as well be down to the director’s input) and is at best functional.

Maybe all of that sounds too critical because I actually had a good time watching Snow White and the Huntsman. Sure it fails to deliver certain things and plays like a polished commercial but it’s a fairly entertaining way of spending a bank holiday afternoon nevertheless. I mean hey, what else is there to do, watch the Queen slow-waving her way down the Thames on a glorified barge in the rain for 5 hours? Don’t be silly.

David Lynch – Misogynist?

Like any avaricious film monster in the digital age, it is standard procedure when discovering a director/actor/composer that punctures my postmodern nonchalance to spend consecutive nights devouring their back catalogue and consecutive days regurgitating the audiovisual nocturnal nutrition and musing over its sloppy hue.

So this past month has been David Lynch-flavoured. I was overdue my Lynchian education by a good year or two, having heard about Eraserhead in my first uni year. What I was told of subconscious-inspired nonsensical narratives and meticulous sound design ensured I’d have to get round to Lynch’s work eventually. As I expected, it has been a thrill and many of the films have destroyed their way easily into the top whatever of all I’ve ever seen. Lynch is clearly a genius of sorts, although not in the eyes of everybody. Scanning youtube comments – which are highly refined works of art in themselves – you’re as likely to come across praise as you are the following:

The trick to viewing Lynch’s strange stream of images without getting frustrated or losing interest is to not expect anything, to not hang on to things that rationale cannot explain, or give in to offence and desperate piece-puzzling. It’s a similar, if not identical, mindset – or non-mindset – to the meditation that Lynch swears by. The best way to approach his films is to simply observe yourself reacting to the things you see without following up lines of inquiry too rigorously, at least not until a second viewing or after a bad night’s sleep.

Despite this advice, there is one thing that occasionally but repeatedly pangs uncomfortably in my brain now and then during a number of Lynch’s best films. It is the hint of a near-confirmed suspicion that the director is not treating his female characters quite fairly or respectfully or close to nicely.

Just to make something clear at this point, when assessing a filmmaker’s work, “treating characters badly” isn’t a complaint about the amount or severity of violence depicted on screen. Lynch has a demonstrable interest in troubled female characters and many of those he creates suffer extreme emotional and physical trauma – it is uncommon to make it through a Lynchian story without witnessing, or hearing about, rape or murder. But as a filmgoer it would be a downright logical fallacy to be whisked into a hysterical Daily Mail-style spitting rage just because a director deals repeatedly with horrific subject matter. Making films about misogynists doesn’t make you a misogynist.

What might make a filmmaker come across as a misogynist or any other -ist are the ways in which they can let down their characters (and so also the demographics that said characters represent). Examples include:

• Lazy stereotyping
• Stunted development – when a character’s behaviour and reactions suddenly stop following their own arch in order to support that of another character or the overall narrative
• All symbol, no substance – To an extent, all characters in fictional narratives symbolise things but some seem to exist solely as catalyst devices or transcendent ideals with no believable grounding in the grit of the world that the other characters live in believably. Of course this is often done purposefully but some directors rely so heavily on a particular demographic for this role that it borders on typecasting.
• Repeated Negative Characterisations – It would be wrong to ‘positively discriminate’ by making sure there always exists, for example, well-behaving representatives of a group to balance out bad-behaving ones and vice versa. That said, a film (or even filmography) packed with bad/good eggs begins having questions asked of its director’s prejudices. For example, if a film has lots of evil English men in it because it happens to cover a story about evil men and they’re just English – well that seems fair. But if the story is about lots of different nationalities of people on a transcontinental cruise ship and every single English male passenger is evil despite being unrelated or unconnected– that seems a bit strange. Still it might be a coincidence (or done just to make a fun ironic point about stereotyping). But if a whole director’s portfolio consists of films about a whole range of topics and all the male characters who are English are evil – it’s even stranger. Hopefully this is making sense… It’s a difficult one to judge because characters are characters and repeated negative portrayals of a demographic may just be down to chance. But because of the unlikelihood of rolling 10 sixes in a row combined with an audience’s uncanny ability to contextualise, I think you can sense if a director is pushing it a bit too far.

None of these things are exactly criminal by the way; they can arguably be seen as necessary shortcuts much of the time. Some characters naturally take precedence over others and so these others just happen to lose out, just happen to be handed the ‘fall guy’ role. The only concern I have is that David Lynch’s fall guy is suspiciously a fall girl almost every single time…

The moment that I first noticed the trend was during the final act of Blue Velvet (1986). Sandy (Laura Dern) has just discovered that her sweetheart Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) has been sleeping with the mysterious Dorothy Vallans (Isabella Rossellini) who has turned up naked at Sandy’s house. The wide-mouthed gurn of grief that Dern displays at having her innocence shattered is pretty unusual and disgusting. It steals the scene, I suspect, by accident.

Her budding romance with Jeffrey that was set in motion early on in the film has taken a backseat since Jeffrey began investigating Dorothy’s predicament and was drawn deep into the world of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), the drug addled psychopath who has kidnapped Dorothy’s husband and child and is using this as leverage to force her into performing bizarre sexual rituals. While clearly driven by a desire to help Dorothy and somehow stop Frank, Jeffrey has been exploiting Dorothy’s damaged state (she has become twisted into enjoying the abuse she suffers from Frank) by going along with her sadomasochistic seductions.

Sandy’s trauma at this revelation suddenly crosses the barrier between the respectable suburbia in which she is very much based and the utterly corrupt noir-world which Jeffrey has been investigating, two parallel planes of existence that have never confronted each other in such a raw way before. With a jolt, it suddenly becomes clear that Jeffrey and Sandy’s promised romantic union cannot be fulfilled. Even if Jeffrey’s misdemeanours could be forgiven, Sandy belongs embedded in the world of high school dances and pristine green lawns. To forgive him would be an impossible emotional feat because she lacks the experience of Frank Booth’s night time hell-world.

Then in the space of 30 on screen seconds, everything is fixed. The five stages of grief are traversed in record time by way of a single slap to the face and a phone call in which Sandy literally says these sentences back to back: “You lied to me… I forgive you Jeffrey… I love you.” And I’m suddenly making that grimace for her as the love theme introduced earlier plays out its resolution in the background. It feels like a dream as perhaps the most naturally behaving character in the film suddenly loses all credibility by bowing unconvincingly to a love-story subplot that barely seems to justify its existence.

Before moving away from Blue Velvet, it makes sense to take a closer look at Dorothy Vallens. Effectively the film’s centrepiece, the image of her swooning on the stage of a seedy lounge bar whilst crooning the title song with Italian inflection is an enduring one. She is as much a character as a character can be, in that she seems to walk straight out of the song and symbolises everything to everyone. The definitive neo-noir femme fatale, she is all mystery and no grounding. As well as playing the role of the ‘she’ who wears blue velvet, Dorothy is also coerced into playing the parts of ‘mommy’ and ‘baby’ in Frank’s rape role play. Though she is the film’s primary female protagonist, she is so malleable that she cannot push action along or even make any meaningful decisions. Her only skill is in manipulation. She is a willing victim and, as Sandy ends up capitulating to mistreatment too, Blue Velvet is left with something closer to two puffs of smoke than a discernable female presence.

Talking about lack of presence, let’s move on to Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the masterpiece of the Lynchian Absent Female archetype – Laura Palmer. Not only does she achieve the same mythical status as Dorothy Vallens through her notoriety and unfathomable troubles, she also transcends physical space by being dead before the series has even begun. Despite the severe lack of screen time that this leaves her with, one viewing of Twin Peaks’ feature-length pilot and there is no doubt as to who the main character is. The overwhelming cloud of grief that hangs over this 90-minute episode is stunning. Everyone on screen is either crying or about to cry because: A) Everybody knew and loved Laura Palmer and B) Murder just never happens in the quiet logging town of Twin Peaks. Held aloft as the altar of grief and worship is a photograph on the Palmer mantelpiece of Laura, homecoming queen, which is zoomed in on or panned across many many times and also accompanies the credits at the end of each television episode.

The open-mouthed awe and intrigue surrounding Laura Palmer that Lynch generates is so well accomplished that it is difficult to climb back on the feminist bandwagon. If there is a criticism to be mustered, I’d probably go with “all symbol, no substance” although that is kind of the point of the story. I would argue that the gaps in her character do get filled in as the series continues and in the 1992 prequel film Fire Walk With Me, the mysteries behind her troubles are as solved and explained as Lynch can possibly allow. FWWM doesn’t quite live up to the televisions series however (and the series as a whole doesn’t quite live up to the first episode either), thus suggesting that Lynch is most comfortable leaving the enigma of his female characters intact. Conversely, maybe he is in fact uncomfortable delving into the female psyche.

Watch me now as I argue that this perhaps stems from a kind of femme phobia which is based on a fundamental distrust and cynicism regarding women’s supposed nurturing instincts and their integrity as romantic partners. There is certainly evidence stretching back to his early work that supports this. Although all of Lynch’s oeuvre sits comfortably within the ‘surrealism’ tag, his first feature Eraserhead (1977) truly belongs there in the classic sense. Unlike his others, Eraserhead seems to have no grounding in the real world and is loaded with the kind of blatant symbology that Freud toyed with in his theories of the unconscious and ideas about dream interpretation.

As you’ll find when trawling through interview archives, Lynch tends to give away as little as possible away as to the meaning behind his films. However, with the production of Eraserhead sandwiched between the births of two children, the argument that the film arose from his own feelings about becoming a father is a convincing one. Viewing the film, one particular feeling shouts loudest of all: ANXIETY.

Synopsis: After his girlfriend gives birth to a deformed baby, Henry Spencer (above) does his best to care for the mewing little monster in his sorry state of a flat while the sorry state of a post-apocalyptic world outside offers him nothing but an empty landscape and factory-like drones (that’s low humming sounds, not robots). There aren’t many characters in his life to speak of so Henry is a bit lacking in help and support. Those that do live and breathe nearby are women – women who let him down.

Mary X – not the keenest of mothers

The first is Mary X, mother of the little terror, who is presented as a cross between neglectful and simply inept. Constantly weepy and reluctant to tend to her child, she eventually leaves Henry with the words “I can’t stand it, I’m going home. I can’t even sleep. I’m losing my mind. You’re on vacation now, you can take care of it for a night” and remains absent but for a later sequence where she appears unexplained sleeping next to Henry and keeping him awake by fidgeting.

Woman 2 is Mary’s mother, Mrs. X. She only appears in a scene near the beginning when Henry visits the X’s home, but behaves in a striking way, first admonishing Henry for “having sexual intercourse” with her daughter and then rather awkwardly trying to have sexual intercourse with him herself. Her disturbing hypocrisy, the news-report/government-policy way she describes sex and the 19^th century-ness of it all (and for all we know Eraserhead takes place in the 23^rd-ish) when she insists the young parents get married give us the impression of a useless nag. She isn’t forthcoming with any practical help and she judges from a high horse, the combination of which has left her with a knot of repression in old age. She is the stereotype of A Mother Aged 50+, multiplied by 100.

Woman 3 is The Beautiful Girl Across the Hall. Clearly anxious about his chances finding companionship with a little snout-faced ever-ill child in tow (there is a pitiful moment where he tries to mute the baby with his hand and hide it from view), Henry strikes lucky with the girl who lives adjacent in the flat adjacent to his. Due to a baffling sequence of events following this seduction which I won’t attempt to describe, there is a suspicion that this may have been a dream… Suffice to say, when next Henry tries to find the girl, she is unlocking the door to her flat with a new man clinging to her lips. Visualising Henry’s face mutate into that of his baby, she freezes in disgust and Henry is forced to retreat, lamenting his slim chances of ever finding anyone willing to share his burden.

But wait, can the fem-gender redeem itself in the form of Woman 4 – The Lady in the Radiator? She seems sweet, with those grotesque woolly sheep-cheeks and that pretty song she sings about heaven? Maybe. She does at least welcome Henry into the radiator at the film’s close and embrace him in white light. But she also dances her way across her stage, gleefully squishing those sperm-like things with her heel. Wouldn’t Freud say something here about emasculation? Although, she leads the way to a new life free from the traumas of fatherhood, the way she does it seems a little harsh. Stamping those Y-chromosomes into mush mocks Henry’s (in)adequacy as a father and is one of many accumulative female-fired arrows that lead to his feeling that he has to kill the baby.

* * *

Enough. And time to admit that I’ve been playing devil’s advocate all this time. I never really believed David Lynch to be misogynist. Truthfully, it took a short time from being struck with uneasiness about the role of women in his pictures to coming to an explanation that satisfied me. I just thought I should cross-examine some of the evidence because you know… you’ve got to challenge the things you love to see if they hold up… (That isn’t a rule but it works for me).

The key thing regarding Lynchian worlds is that they fall straight out of the director’s unconscious mind. Lynch is always explaining in interviews how ideas just make themselves known to him, often fully formed:

In case it hasn’t been made clear, David Lynch is a dedicated practitioner of Transcendental Meditation (since even before it became really cool), has been doing it for around 40 years and even has a foundation set up to promote access to it. I haven’t had any experience with the Transcendental flavour of meditation (most of its official institutions charge a fee, which baffles me) but from what I have picked up during my own undisciplined time with the Vipassana brand, I can report this:

When learning meditation, you’re told to accept thoughts as they are and watch them unattached. They might last a long time or a short time; they may be scary, nonsensical or beautiful – but you’re encouraged to simply sit and watch as they come, remain focused on not getting involved with the thoughts, then watch as they go. Lynch seems to use the images and ideas that float up from his unconscious mind for material without censoring them or shaping them to fit a logical form. This approach could be likened to waking up from your most bizarre dream and making a film to document its events and imagery as accurately as you can without leaving out any of the bits you might be ashamed of other people seeing.

We don’t have conscious control over what we dream and equally, as a surrealist, Lynch chooses to exert no control over the fishes that bite. So while, it may be true that he does indeed (like everybody else) have complex complexes relating to emotional repression, his past, his desires etc., he doesn’t have any agenda beyond simply sharing these with anyone who wants to spend an hour or two in his mind. Women are somewhat of a mystery to Lynch but as Freud and Jung would say, being confused and intrigued by the opposite sex is a pretty ubiquitous human state of mind. Lynch just plays conduit by pouring his unfiltered dreams directly from brain to film.