Online Response #10: (500) Days of Summer & Bordwell

Bordwell’s claim that “filmmakers—scriptwriters, producers, directors, editors, and other artisans of the screen—build their films in ways which will coax most of their spectators to follow similar elaborational pathways” appears evident within the first 70 seconds of (500) Days of Summer.  The average spectator would, presumably, see Summer and Tom’s first scene together on Day 488 as the joyful culmination of more than a year of ups and downs, the happy ending to a story not yet witnessed.  After all, as they are sitting on the park bench, Tom turns to Summer longingly as she gazes with amusement at the midday city skyline; Summer reciprocates, turning her head toward Tom, and they stare into each others’ eyes determinedly yet anxiously.  Tom, at least, seems somewhat out of breath.  The close-up reveals a possible source of Tom’s nervousness: the diamond ring Summer is wearing hints at the context of the setting.  We are witnessing the tail end of a proposal or perhaps seeing the newlyweds on their first lunch break together as a married couple.  The narration that coincides with the close-up does nothing to betray the general assumption at this point: “This is a story of boy meets girl.”

 

            As the narration continues, though, the spectator becomes aware of the temporal structure of the film, which operates unconventionally. A calendar with a smudgy pencil drawing of the city in the background and two colored trees in the foreground signals the rewinding and fast-forwarding of time.  In the middle of the screen, in parentheses, is the number indicating the specific day.  (488) rewinds to (1) with an audible clicking.  In retrospect, the flashback to (1) is not the first flashback in the film; the same clicking noise takes us from the title screen, (500) Days of Summer, to the first scene with Tom and Summer, (488).  That the film does not follow traditional temporal norms complicates the assumption that “the patterns of elaboration are shared by many spectators.”  In fact, (500) Days of Summer’s out-of-order (but purposeful) sequencing invites multiple elaborations, opening pathways for both the “trusting” and “skeptical” spectator. 

            The aforementioned clues that lead the trusting spectator to conclude that Tom and Summer end up happily together are cues, which “initiate the process of elaboration, resulting eventually in inferences and hypotheses.”  Most viewers have sufficient schema to elaborate on the hand holding close-up cue, made complete by the sparkly ring.  One need only recall the slogan “A Diamond is Forever” to infer what is happening.  On closer inspection, however, the skeptical spectator will find counter cues.  Why, for example, does the film start at the end (or nearly the end)?  If Tom and Summer end up together, as we are led to believe, what is the purpose of watching the film?  The trusting viewer might claim a “curiosity hypothesis” as a reason to engage in the story, despite knowing the ending (i.e., the ending itself is not as important as the past events that lead to their happy union).  An engagement (or marriage) as the unequivocal resolution would certainly kill any suspense the film attempts to generate in Tom and Summer’s backstory.     

            Many films and novels begin at the end, but (500) Days of Summer, perhaps surprisingly, is not one of them.  On first impression, the spectator might infer resolution based on norms and cues.  If “this is a story of boy meets girl,” one would assume it ends with boy getting girl.  The skeptical spectator, though, elaborates on the explicitness of the calendar.  The scene of Tom and Summer on the park bench is clearly not a flash-forward to the end of the film and the end of their story, for this scene takes place on (488) (and it is critical that we know the exact day).  If this seeming resolution were truly the end of their story (and therefore the end of any conflict), what would we expect in the final 12 (of the 500) days of Summer?  Uneventful wedding planning?  Even if things are what they seem in the first scene of (488), the skeptical spectator sees trouble, if not in the scene itself then in the days to come. 

            These inferences and elaborations, as mentioned, come to the spectator via the calendar, which periodically appears, not unlike a title card in a silent film.  Calendar as cue card functions as an indicator of the ebb and flow of Tom and Summer’s relationship in all of its nonlinear glory.  The calendar especially denotes Tom’s worldview at a given time; when (488) recedes to (1), we learn that Tom “grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met “the one.”  Summer, in contrast, begins (1) “not [sharing] this belief.”  Tom’s belief in finding “the one” subsides as he and Summer grow apart; by the time he learns of her engagement he is completely disillusioned, to the point of quitting his romantic job as a Hallmark-style card writer. 

            At the return to (488), this time near the end of the film, we discover the meaning behind Tom and Summer’s expressions during their park bench encounter and discover “the film’s opening narration has misdirected” the trusting spectator.  Summer holds Tom’s hand, not so much an embrace as a reassurance; in a reversal, Summer now believes in fate, having met her husband by chance in a deli.  “Tom was right,” she says, in reference to his previously held beliefs of “destiny, and soul mates, and true love.”  Tom smiles, the same smile we see during the first (488) scene, a smile all spectators (trusting and skeptical) recognize as a signifier of renewed hope.  Using cues, can one elaborate this scenario on a first viewing?  Skeptical spectators might not agree on the specifics of the couple’s situation at first glance, but the placement of (488) next to (1) implies Tom’s state of mind on the park bench, even to someone who knows nothing else about his story: he is someone who believes in finding “the one.”  By the end of the film we understand that Tom has come (nearly) full circle, thanks to Summer’s validation.  

       

Online Response #9: Spellbound and The Labyrinth of the Guilt Complex

Anthony Edwardes, if we can call him that, makes a perfect case study for the repressed individual.  During an otherwise delightful dinner with his new colleagues, he squirms when Dr. Constance Peterson traces the shape of Green Manor’s yet-to-be-built swimming pool on the tablecloth with her fork.  

The same parallel-line pattern shocks him once again when he notices it on Constance’s robe after their first kiss, which, not coincidentally, coincides with the image of three doors opening; though their relationship is not exactly doctor-patient at this point, Constance unwittingly performs the duty of the psychoanalyst stated at the beginning of the film: “to open the locked doors of his [the patient’s] mind.”  Constance soon discovers the Anthony Edwardes she has known for only a short time is not actually Anthony Edwardes; when he remembers he is not Edwardes, the impostor can only come up with the initials of his real name: J.B.  Constance and J.B.’s adventures over the course of the story become an exercise in uncovering hidden memories. 

J.B.’s episodes, his “manifestations of insanity” (828), are uncanny because they “lead back to what is known of old and long familiar” (825), even if the familiar and its accompanying meaning is veiled.  The aforementioned stripes surrounded by white elicit a similar response from him each time, an “involuntary repetition” (833) of anxiety.  Neither Constance nor J.B. can identify the root of this uncanny trigger, not until she takes him to her mentor, Dr. Brulov.  It is during their stay, as fugitives, at Dr. Brulov’s house that J.B.’s repressed memories finally come to light.  It is also during their stay at Dr. Brulov’s house that the viewer witnesses the uncanniest scenes in Spellbound: J.B.’s mental break, brought on by the stark whiteness of the bathroom fixtures and the lines of the comforter, and the retelling of his dream, presented in surrealistic fashion, thanks to its design by Salvador Dali.  Both of these scenes speak to the importance of the artistic choices in producing the uncanny, which Hitchcock does successfully in his use of point of view. 

Freud recognizes instances in which his hypothesis of the uncanny is contradicted, especially in “the realm of fiction, of imaginative writing” (837).  A severed hand most certainly seems an uncanny effect, as long as it can be traced to the castration complex, a universally repressed fear in Freud’s opinion.  He readily, acknowledges, though, that just as many stories with severed hands are not uncanny.  Such discrepancy “suggests that we should differentiate between the uncanny that we actually experience and the uncanny that we merely picture or read about” (837).  Spellbound is, obviously, a work of fiction, but it aims to tell a story that deals directly with psychology, a story set in the real world.  Most importantly, its goal is to present an uncanny that the viewer experiences, as evidenced by the scene in which J.B. carries his razor blade downstairs and into Dr. Brulov’s living room, presumably to do damage to whomever he encounters. 

The camera alternates between third and first person, the former implicating the viewer in the crime that is sure to take place, the latter putting the viewer in the madman’s shoes.  J.B., and by extension, the viewer, watches on in silence as Dr. Brulov calmly deals with the situation by offering, and later retrieving, crackers and milk.  The quick cuts to J.B.’s hand, holding the razor blade, externalize his thoughts to the viewer; the various triggers in the upstairs bedroom and bathroom have induced a certain monomania in him.  They remind him of a time when he killed, and he is about to kill again.  Luckily, Dr. Brulov gives him a bromide-laced glass of milk, which has an immediate effect. 

Woken up and back to his senses, J.B. recounts in detail his dream from the previous night.  The imagery in the dream, if not uncanny, is truly unsettling.  The viewer sees walls full of eyes, a scantily-clad woman, a “proprietor” whose face is covered with a hole-less linen sack, and a man with skis falling off the ledge of a house, among other things.  While the viewer might take the dream sequence for granted, it functions as a type of dramatic irony, albeit in a limited way, for only one person in the film truly knows what this dream looks like: J.B.  Partly because J.B. does not do justice in his telling of the dream, the viewer knows a few things Constance and Dr. Brulov cannot know: the realness of the “painted” eyes, the horror of the proprietor’s appearance, the absurd size of the playing cards, the distorted shape of the wheel, etc. 

             

The explanation of Dr. Anthony Edwardes’ disappearance and death does not occur until the end of the film, leaving the viewer hanging with regard to J.B.’s guilt/innocence.  Freud alludes to this practice, which he claims improves a writer’s chance of success at instilling the uncanny: “[the writer] can keep us in the dark for a long time about the precise nature of the presupposition on which the world he writes about is based, or he can cunningly and ingeniously avoid any definite information on the point to the last” (840).  Granted, most mysteries do not give away their secrets until the end, but the uncertainty with which we are faced as we see things through J.B.’s eyes hints at the implications of a living a life full of repressed memories, an uncanny life.  

How does a man perceive himself when traumatic memories are hidden, and only an inkling of what has happened, be it good or bad, remains?  Mr. Garmes, much like J.B. later, believes he literally killed his father.  Constance reassures him that he did not, that he is only projecting guilt for something else.  Whether he killed his father or not, Garmes believes he did, which leads him to violently act out at Green Manor.  He tries to kill Dr. Fleurot and then cuts his own throat.  Though the attack happens off-screen, it nearly reenacts itself in Dr. Brulov’s house when J.B., razor in hand, approaches the doctor.  J.B., after all, has already admitted his crime against Edwardes to Constance: “I remember now.  Edwardes is dead.  I killed him and took his place.”  That he errs in uncovering his repressed memories almost leads him to commit the type of crime of which he considers himself guilty.  As viewers, our closeness to J.B., facilitated by our ability to see through his eyes at times, leaves us in a state of suspended disbelief; did he kill Edwardes, or did he not?  What we cannot deny is the complexity of the psyche, The Labyrinth of the Guilt Complex; what is more terrifying than misremembering the past, ascribing to oneself horrible crimes that were not committed?

Online Response #8: The Story of Qiu Ju & the Struggle for Heroic Individualism

Gender roles are established (and go against type) very early in The Story of Qiu Ju.  The titular character first appears with her sister-in-law as they search for medical care for her husband, Qinglai, who has been injured by the village chief, Wang.  The result of a dispute over the construction of a shed on public land, Qinglai and Wang’s verbal attacks on each other become personal, the former mocking the latter on his inability to produce a proper male heir.  At this the chief takes great offense and physically beats Qinglai, a chile farmer, thus incapacitating him by, among other things, kicking him in the groin.  In this manner Qiu Ju’s husband becomes emasculated, figuratively and nearly-literally, as he is unable to provide for his family or even save face in what becomes a prolonged conflict.     

            One might argue that much of Qinglai’s emasculation is exacerbated by Qiu Ju’s insistence on justice, or at least her idea of justice.  After repeated settlements mediated by the village, district, and city justice systems, Qiu Ju is still not satisfied with any of their decisions, all of which center on money for her husband’s medical bills and lost wages at the expense of Wang.  What she really wants is an apology from the village chief, or at least an acknowledgement that he is in the wrong.  Qiu Ju’s active pursuit of justice contrasts sharply with her husband’s increased apathy, though.  He ultimately becomes so tired of her crusade that he tells her, “Go, and don’t come back!” when she makes her second trip to the city.  While some interpret her tenacity as characteristically female, albeit in an unflattering, stereotypical way, Qiu Ju fits the mold of a Nietzschean tragic hero (pre-Socratic), at once demanding justice but also standing firm in “defiant belief” as an opponent of this story’s version of the all-powerful: the state. 

            Qiu Ju has a “double essence,” a “simultaneously Apolline and Dionysiac nature.”  On one hand she demands justice or some semblance of it, either through an actual apology by Wang or a court statement declaring his fault.  Like the Aeschylean tendency to justice, however, Qiu Ju’s quest requires a certain amount of suffering, even the possibility of “limitless suffering,” to accomplish its ends.  Other characters surely question the benefit-to-harm ratio of her continual struggle for justice.  Let’s move on is the common refrain heard from Wang, Officer Li, and her husband.  Giving up the fight would end the suffering, at least in the short term, but her fight is not just for Qinglai and herself; they have a baby on the way.  Aside from all matters related to Wang and Qinglai’s dispute, Qiu Ju is bringing a child into a world full of suffering; in particular, a poor, rural, not-far-from-feudal community in which citizens endure hard labor for not much money in primitive conditions with few resources.  She is, in a way, like Prometheus, in her awareness of life’s inevitable suffering.  Take Goethe’s Prometheus, for example, and substitute Qiu Ju, her opposition of the state, and her knowledge of the world in which her son or daughter will live:

“Here I sit, forming men

In my own image,

A race to be like me,

To suffer and to weep,

To know delight and joy

And heed you not,

Like me!” 

Life is full of suffering no matter what, but to submit to an unsatisfying decision would be to falsely believe that justice has been served. 

            Like Prometheus fighting against gods he cannot possibly defeat, Qiu Ju fights against the all-powerful state.  It is not until she hears of the city’s decision that she realizes whom her enemy is.  From the moment she files the first complaint to Officer Li until the moment the city’s decision is erroneously sent to Wang, Qiu Ju considers the state to be an ally, always seemingly helping her in her plight yet masking their insincerity with a dose of condescension.  Recognition of the state’s true motives occurs when she discovers the city’s first decision and decides to continue her fight; she finally takes off her coat in which she has been bundled from the beginning of the film, thus breaking her long-held, but increasingly tenuous, red associations.  

Somewhat hesitantly, her battle now is with the state, represented by the Director, whom she still considers a “nice man.”  Circumstances alter the opposition in her conflict when Wang saves Qiu Ju and her baby’s lives during a complicated birth.  Grateful and eager to forgive, Qiu Ju invites Wang to a celebration one month later.  Unfortunately, Wang cannot attend because the police are on their way to arrest him, with new evidence of Qinglai’s injuries retroactively upgrading the charges against him.  When Qiu Ju hears the sirens, she runs and she runs and she does not stop, but the film does. 

            Qiu Ju realizes that Wang is no longer the enemy; he never really was.  The state has failed Qiu Ju, as it had many others who lived through the initial hope and subsequent disappointment of the Cultural Revolution.  In a society that prides itself on community, Qiu Ju, heroically individualistic, “must suffer for the fact of [her] individuation.”  Though far different in status from the students who protested at Tiananmen Square just a few years earlier, she has the same desire: namely, to be heard.  Nietzsche, while possibly having qualms about the supposed masculine characteristics of the tragic Dionysiac figure represented in a woman, would be proud of Qiu Ju’s subversive stubbornness, for he says, “Humanity achieves the best and highest of which it is capable by committing an offence and must in turn accept the consequences of this, namely the whole flood of suffering and tribulations which the offended heavenly powers must in turn visit upon the human race as it strives nobly toward higher things.”