TMA 691 Online Response #1: Studio 60, Garnham, and some Smythe

The pilot episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip begins with the revelation that it is a show about a show.  One of the actors/comedians of the fictional show, also called Studio 60, gives the studio audience an inside view of the set, while the real behind-the-scenes takes place in an office backstage between Jerry, who is in charge of Broadcast Standards and Practices for the National Broadcasting Station, and Studio 60 showrunner, Wes Mendell.  Just minutes before a live airing of Studio 60, Jerry informs Wes that he must cut one of the planned sketches from that night’s episode.  The censoring of sketch 4A, the contents of which are a mystery at this point, sends Wes into a very public tirade.  He interrupts the opening sketch by walking in front of the camera and telling two actors dressed like President Bush and Vice-President Cheney to leave and then invites the television audience to turn the channel, or better yet, “turn off the TV.”  The cameras, however, continue to roll as Wes reveals the source of his frustration: the declining quality of television programming as a result of commercial interests. 

            “This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it’s gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience.”  He continues: “There’s a struggle between art and commerce.  There’s always been a struggle between art and commerce, and now, I’m telling you, art is getting its ass kicked.”  His last condemnation of NBS involves an unflattering comparison: “Pornographers.  It’s not even good pornography.  They’re just this side of snuff films, and friends, that’s what’s next because that’s all that’s left.  And the two things that make them scared gutless of the FCC and every psycho-religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott, this prissy, feckless, off-the-charts, greed-filled whorehouse of a network, this thoroughly unpatriotic, mother”…at which point the cameras cut to the non-diegetic opening credits of Studio 60. 

            Wes’s diatribe reveals the tension between the producers of media, at least in a creative sense, and the distributors.  Studio 60 is one example of NBS’s “free lunch,” which according to Smythe, “must always be subordinated to those of the formal advertisements, because the purpose of mass media is to produce audiences to sell to the advertisers” (38).  Programming takes a backseat to advertising, as evidenced by the reaction among NBS execs dealing with the crisis; their primary concern is which sponsor they have undoubtedly offended.  Perhaps the only NBS employee unfazed by the incident is Jordan McDeere, who has just been named president of the National Broadcasting Station.  Ever opportunistic and blessed with the right connections, she has a contingency plan that will save Studio 60; in fact, she closes a deal that same night to bring back two former Studio 60 employees to run the show—one a writer, the other a director, both of whom became famous after being fired four years earlier. 

            Though they go about it using different methods, both Wes and Jordan both seem interested in upending current imbalances of power.  After all, they both want to run the controversial 4A sketch.  Wes’s “contribution to the general project of overthrowing domination” (Garnham 67) is the more obvious of the two, considering the direct subversiveness of his impromptu television appearance.  He knows what he is doing will bring about his certain dismissal, but in his opinion he is saying what has to be said.  On the other hand, Jordan seems an unusual agent of change as president of NBS; her only apparent superior, Jack Rudolph, tells her so much, implying that the status quo and subsequent retention of sponsors, advertisers, and audience are more important than her constructed story of Matt Albie and Danny Tripp’s return.  She insists the audience will buy her story of bringing back Matt and Danny, two men who “hate [Jack’s] guts,” because NBS is “committed to quality.”  Jack has little reason to doubt Jordan, given her previous accomplishments.  She has made impressive turnarounds everywhere she has been: Atlantic Records, NBC, ABC, etc.  Once Matt and Danny are on board, she gives them permission to do something Wes Mendell could only have dreamed of a week earlier: run sketch 4A, which was actually written by Matt years earlier, titled “Crazy Christians.” 

            When Jordan tells Studio 60’s new showrunners to “open with it next week,” Matt turns to Danny and asks, “What if she’s for real?”  Her sincerity should be called into question, her motives for promoting “Crazy Christians” arguably disingenuous in comparison to Wes’s, whose progressive call to action exposes the reactionary opportunism of Jordan.  While not successful in getting “Crazy Christians” on the air, Wes does successfully make the link between media and political economy, the former subordinate to the latter.  Jordan’s position in a “specific class fraction within the mode of production” (68) gives her power that Wes does not have, such as the ability to show a sketch considered un-airable just a week before, but it also clouds her judgment with regard to media-economy relations.  Like many cultural theorists bent on liberating the masses, Jordan aims to validate the culture, in this case the airing of a biting social satire, rather than attack its economic base.  However, unlike said theorists, her intentions are not liberating but monetary. 

            Studio 60’s pilot ends with the hope that this long-running program, albeit fictional, will regain its relevance from earlier years.  Unfortunately, the fate of the actual Studio 60—its cancellation after one season—dampers much of the positivity one might feel about Jordan McDeere, Matt Albie, and Danny Tripp taking over the fictional show.  The real Studio 60 offers viewers a glimpse of Hollywood’s power structure, including its backroom deals, and while condemnatory of it, the show is still subject to the same powers decried by Wes Mendell.  Studio 60 pushes boundaries in its critique of media’s subservience to money, “but nothing is done about processes of economic development” (70).  Viewed on DVD or a streaming service without commercials, it is easy to imagine the ironic effect of the real commercial break after Wes’s tirade, which must have shown a preview for a program in which “people are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump,” or one in which “people eat worms for money.”  It must have shown an advertisement “courting 12-year-old boys, and not even the smart 12-year-olds.”  That Studio 60 lasted just one season is proof that “no empowerment will mean much unless it is accompanied by a massive shift in control of economic resources” (70).

Online Response #12: Ace in the Hole & Lippman

In order to prolong the story of Leo Minosa, trapped in a Native American dwelling, Chuck Tatum needs Leo’s wife, Lorraine, to play the part of the grieving significant other, a role she has not hitherto inhabited.  “I want you to go to church,” he tells her.  Waving that day’s newspaper, featuring his headline, he says, “Tomorrow this’ll be yesterday’s paper and they’ll wrap a fish in it,” implying public fickleness in regard to human interest stories that lose their steam.  He turns to Herbie, his photographer and traveling companion on this assignment, and gives him a task: “I wanna picture of her with rosary beads.”  The staged nature of the photos, not to mention the story, is constructed to meet certain public expectations, “the picture in their heads,” similar to the story told by M. de Pierrefeu of a photographer’s visit to the war hero Joffre: “The General was in his ‘middle class office, before the worktable without papers, where he sat down to write his signature.  Suddenly it was noticed that there were no maps on the walls.  But since according to popular ideas it is not possible to think of a general without maps, a few were placed in position for the picture, and removed soon afterwards” (13). 

                A veteran reporter, who has met his first real opportunity since landing in Albuquerque, Chuck Tatum knows how to sell a story.  Even before asking Herbie to propagate the image of Lorraine Minosa, soon-to-be-widow, he tutors him on the art of identifying “one good beat.”  One man trapped in a mountain is better than 84, he tells him.  A story about one man offers potential for a human interest story that a story about 84 men does not.  Leo’s dire circumstances only make things better for Tatum, who is not shy about exploiting someone else’s predicament for his own gain: “Bad news sells best because good news is no news” he tells Herbie as they make their way through the mountain for the first time to meet Leo.  Tatum engineers the pseudo-facts and pseudo-environment of the story by dragging it out as long as he can, with unfortunate results, none of which are surprising to the spectator, who becomes an analyst of public opinion simply by viewing Ace in the Hole.

                Lippman states, “The analyst of public opinion must begin then, by recognizing the triangular relationship between the scene of action, the human picture of that scene, and the human response to that picture working itself out upon the scene of action” (16, 17).  Dramatic irony allows the spectator to easily observe this triangular relationship through access to Tatum’s point of view, including his motives.  There is never a question of who is in control—Tatum, at least until the situation escapes his grasp—and because we know who is pulling the strings, we recognize Tatum’s pseudo-environment and his reasons, along with others’, for perpetuating it.  The small town of Escadero is full of opportunistic characters: the unhappy wife, who is making money for the first time in her curios shop at the expense of her entrapped husband, the sheriff, whom Tatum promises, “You play along with me and I’ll get you re-elected, and Herbie, who, in his inexperience and naivete, does just about anything Tatum asks. 

                To a certain extent, the Federber family is also opportunistic.  They stopped in Escadero when the story was just developing; still in Escadero after the story has become national, they want a claim on being the first ones there.  Though obviously a criticism of the sensationalism in news and its implied bending of ethics, Ace in the Hole is also critical of the public, exemplified by the Federber family.  

Unlike Mrs. Minosa and Sheriff Kretzer, they have no monetary or political stake in the story; rather, they are entranced by the picture.  “Emotionally they want to believe it (19),” whether it signifies supernatural manifestations in the Mountain of Seven Vultures, the narrative of the courageous reporter, the determination of the devoted wife, or the indomitable will of the victim, who, thanks to daily reports, is able to update the public on his progress.  Tatum is guilty of prolonging the affair, and he eventually takes the blame for Leo’s death; the public, however, is guilty of creating the spectacle.  The public, after all, arrives in droves to witness the story, which they cannot truly witness because access to Leo is limited to Tatum.  Instead, they literally set up a carnival, thus setting the stage for Tatum’s pronouncement that “the circus is over,” which, sadly, is not an exaggeration.    

                The spectator, possibly guilty of committing the same errors as the Federber family if placed in a similar limited-view position, is given access to “the scene of action, the picture of that scene, and the human response to that picture working itself out upon the scene of action” through a proxy character: Jacob Q. Boot, Tatum’s boss.  Like the spectator, Boot sees everything that is happening but is powerless, unable to effect Tatum’s schemes, which are continually spiraling out of control.  After the story has struck, Tatum finds Boot in his room in Escadero.  

Tatum thinks Boot will be pleased with the increased circulation of the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin, but instead, Tatum, a representative of “the unseen facts” (31) has other concerns: “You’ve been putting a halo around that sheriff;” “I don’t make deals,” referring to deal of exclusivity reached between Tatum and the sheriff; “I’m not your kind of newspaperman.”  Boot as analyst of public opinion works strictly because of his ethics that fly in the face of his supposed role as newspaperman.  He is not interested in selling papers; this is a man who hangs a crocheted sign inside his office with the words, “Tell the Truth.”  His insider status makes him an expert, the kind Lippman considers necessary to assist the government in making facts intelligible to the public.  That Ace in the Hole allows insider access to the spectator makes it more generous than Lippman: the public, too, can see through the illusion of “facts,” only if allowed to step outside of itself.     

Online Response #11: Still Walking and Bazin

In name, Kore-eda’s Still Walking suggests tension, a contradiction in going on with life while preserving one’s memories.  In the case of the Yokoyama family, Ryota somewhat reluctantly brings his new wife and stepson to his parents’ house, where the entire family commemorates the twelfth anniversary of the eldest son Junpei’s death.  Ryota, at times, voices frustration at the futility of remembering; he sees a problem, in particular, in the annual practice of inviting Yoshio, the boy whose life was saved at the expense of Junpei’s, to the Yokoyama house on the anniversary of Junpei’s death.  During the night of the anniversary, Ryota makes a suggestion to his mother:

“Say, isn’t it time we let Yoshio off the hook?  Let’s stop inviting him.”

“Why?” replies Toshiko.

“I feel sorry for him.  It seems painful for him to see us.”

“That’s why we invite him.  Can’t have him forgetting after just a dozen years.  It was his fault Junpei died.”

“But Yoshio didn’t--”

“It makes no difference.  Not to a parent.  Not having someone to hate makes it all the worse for me.  So once a year I make him feel awful too.  Will the Gods punish me for that?  So I’ll invite him next year and the year after.”

“That’s what you keep inviting him here for?  You’re cruel.”

“I’m not cruel.  I think it’s normal.”

“Everyone keeps using that word.”

The idea of “preservation of life by a representation of life” constitutes what is normal or not normal for individual characters in Still Walking.  Toshiko preserves her son’s life by keeping his room intact, inviting (and, subsequently, mocking) the beneficiary of Junpei’s sacrifice, and even celebrating the appearance of a butterfly as a sign of Junpei’s visitation.  Atsushi’s idea of normal, in contrast, consists of a rejection of preservation via symbolic action when he describes to Ryota his “normal” reaction to a rabbit dying at school. 

“Rena started saying we should write letters to the rabbit.” 

“What’s wrong with writing letters?” Ryota asks.

“Letters no one will read?” says Atsushi, answering Ryota’s question with a question of his own, which is not to say Atsushi does not have his own methods of preservation.  His desire, after all, of becoming a piano tuner when he grows up is his way of preserving, and by extension, continuing, traditions of a father he does not remember. 

Photos figure prominently as objects of preservation throughout Still Walking, as the camera rests on a framed portrait of Junpei several times and also during a scene in which Toshiko shares childhood pictures of Ryota with her daughter, Chinami, and her new daughter-in-law, Yukari.  The concerns characters have with representation are mirrored by Kore-eda in his presentation of the film.  Stylistically similar to Uzo, at least in terms of framing, Kore-eda provides deep shot after deep shot in an attempt to reveal the complicated realism of family life.  In doing so, he offers the spectator a glimpse at the dynamism of individuality in conflict with the static nature of environment.      

Kore-eda “create[s] the illusion of three-dimensional space within which things appeared to exist as our eyes in reality see them,” thus satisfying, in a Bazinian sense, the spectator’s desire for reality.  In scenes that capture the family at mealtime, we see a mixture of long, medium long, and medium shots of mundane activities that emphasize relationships among characters.  During Yoshio’s visit, for example, the scene begins with the camera fitting six characters completely within its frame.  The deep plane of action aids the spectator in understanding the feelings of each Yokoyama family member towards Yoshio, center-left and sweaty.  To his left (and closer to the lens) is Ryota, downcast and sympathetic to Yoshio.  To the right and closest to the lens we see the backs of Chinami and her daughter, hands on their chins, as they courteously, if not a little patronizingly, ask Yoshio about his current prospects.  Farther in the distance and to the right of Yoshio is Toshiko, setting up a fan to ease the guest’s suffering but also to get a close-up look of it.  Farthest in the distance is Kyohei, back turned to the camera in utter disgust of Yoshio, the pathetic surviving preservation of his proud son. 

In The Story of Film, Mark Cousins describes the effect of the composition in Ozu’s films on the spectator, a description equally fitting for Kore-eda, at least in Still Walking: “the more you watch, the more you feel the order of space in his movies.  His frames were windows on very balanced pictorial worlds.”  The order of space in Still Walking implies objectivity, a fly-on-the-wall perspective that accentuates the unemotional detachedness of its technological medium, the lens.  Bazin states, “between originating object and its reproduction there intervenes only the instrumentality of a nonliving agent.  For the first time an image of the world is formed automatically, without the creative intervention of man.  The personality of the photographer enters into the proceedings only in his selection of the object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in mind.” 

Kore-eda’s purpose, arguably, is to show us a normal family (with each member sharing his/her own ideas of normal) doing normal things, as they remember their son, brother, husband, and father.  His framing of multiple objects at once uncovers the complexity of the family get-together by giving us moving snapshots.  Recurring tableaus of the kitchen, the dining room, and other locations show us places that do not change but characters that do (or at least have the desire to).  For by the end of the film, we see a familiar scene with a familiar backdrop, a family visiting a cemetery on commemoration day, but instead of an exact repetition of an earlier scene with Ryota and his mother, we see Ryota and his family, now with the addition of a daughter, visiting the grave of Junpei.  “Photography does not create eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.  Viewed in this perspective, the cinema is objectivity in time.”  Kore-eda captures a family that, despite claims to do otherwise, fails to keep promises and/or make changes.  Regarding his father, Ryota “never did get to a soccer match with him,” nor did he give his mother “a ride in a car.”  Predictably, the tension between Ryota and his parents continued up to their deaths as he and his family returned for Junpei’s annual commemoration.  Kore’eda’s portrayal of realism is a life in which things change while not really changing.  As if the subject in a still shot, one must keep walking even if he or she is repeating mistakes from the past.          

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?