Post Hollywood: Subjugation In Orson Welles’s International Features

“The tragic liberal, the man of character and principle in a world threatened by fascist destruction,” – Archibald MacLeish

All eras of Orson Welles’ life from adolescence through to his death at the age of 70 blended together the personal, professional, and creative aspects of his existence into one cacophonous medley of personal will and determination. Often unwavering in his own political, thematic, and aesthetic beliefs Welles would come to be involved pursuits ranging from the theatre and co-founding his own repertory company The Mercury Theatre to campaigning for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his 1944 campaign to radio production and acting throughout various parts of his life, including the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast from 1938 which was actually part of his theatre groups weekly radio show The Mercury Theatre On the Air.[i] The most important and ultimately consequential endeavor Welles ever undertook was his work in film, and specifically the writing and directing of his own feature films and documentaries. Helming his first feature, Citizen Kane, at the ripe age of 26, Welles’s life would forever be marked by his pursuit of creating mystical and engaging films that varied as greatly as Shakespearean adaptations to the examination of perceived truths within the moving image.

This paper is not so much concerned with the specifics of Welles’s pre-film work or his time spent within the major Hollywood studio system outside of one film, It’s All True, although the significance of these periods and the content they produced can not be understated. As well, these eras will ultimately factor into some of the decisions made by and situations in which Welles found himself in during the later years of the 1940’s and onward into the following three decades of work. By examining the eight features completed by Orson Welles outside of the major Hollywood studio system along with the RKO funded but internationally produced It’s All True, this essay proposes an exploration of how the political, artistic, and financial means of these features and their creation allowed for the development of a unique canonical cinema that revolved around the individuals struggle for identity and personal freedom within an opposing two party system. This recurring theme would become the hallmark of Welles’s late cinematic career and the culmination of his political and thematic thought on screen.

Part 1: It’s All True, OCIAA, and Leaving RKO

Orson Welles’s time spent in Brazil filming parts for the documentary-fiction hybrid propaganda piece It’s All True and the troubled relationship it sprouted between the director and RKO Pictures, particularly with the companies then president George Schaefer that ultimately lead to his dismissal from the studio foreshadowed many of Welles’s future troubles in regards to politics, artistic integrity, and financial needs that persisted throughout his career. Originally conceived by Welles in 1941 as a four-part documentary-fiction omnibus picture detailing the history of jazz as an allegorical representation of the diverse cultures and interconnected social boundaries of North America[ii], It’s All True was scheduled to be his third film for RKO after Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). As Catherine Benamou wrote of the original vision of Welles for the feature “In addition to the tenuous boundary between ‘real’ and ‘staged’ events, there was a thematic emphasis on the achievement of dignity by the working person, along with the celebration of cultural and ethnic diversity of North America.”[iii] This original conception of It’s All True would change drastically in the following years with the formation of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-America Affairs and the presence of Norman Rockefeller on the RKO board.

The revised concept that ultimately went into production was a three-part film backed by RKO pictures at the insistence of Norman Rockefeller, who had just been appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of his initiative to promote hemispheric solidarity and cultural outreach among the Americas through his Good Neighbor Policy. Rockefeller appointed Welles as goodwill ambassador for the initiative in late-1941. The offer by the OCIAA was non-salary and to be in support of the war effort, with Rockefeller offering up RKO to front the bill. With a new focus and backer in tow, RKO sent Welles down to Brazil in February 1942 to complete two more parts of the film, the first of which, “Bonito the Bull”, retitled “Bonito the Bull” was already well into production while Welles was finishing The Magnificent Ambersons in fall 1941. The film was directed by Norman Foster under the supervision of Welles and was produced by documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty whom Welles initially wanted involved in the project but ultimately refused to direct due to its use of actors. The film takes place in Mexico and is about the story of a young boys relationship with a bull, it was later scheduled to be included in It’s All True due to its filming location and content. Richard B. Jewell sums up the initial logistics and pre-production aspects of It’s All True as follows; “The logistics involved should have been enough to make RKO wary from the beginning. Since Brazil had no film industry to speak of, it would be necessary to ship almost all the equipment down there, as well as the personnel necessary to operate it. Part of the film was to be shot in color, thus complicating things further. And to add to the challenge, a way was on and that meant travel and shipping restrictions.”[iv] What would follow would be a highly publicized battle between Welles and RKO, predominantly correspondence between the director and RKO president George Schaefer by means of the unit production manager, Lynn Shores.

At this time Welles didn’t have a script per se besides the fact that he knew one of the pieces was going to be on the famous Rio Carnaval, the piece was to be shot in both color and black-and-white and now comprises the “Story of Samba” piece, of which only about 10-minutes of edited footage remain. The idea was for Welles to immerse himself in the culture and landscape of Rio for inspiration. What followed over the next three months were wildly opposing accounts from Welles and his assistant Richard Wilson to those of Lynn Shore, who detested the non-Hollywood conditions and had horror stories of Welles billowing through money on research and travel for his “cultural ambassador”[v] role. The validity of either of these accounts cannot be proven beyond a doubt but they were nonetheless making Schaefer very nervous as RKO was steadily losing money on a number of big name films and directors and his own personal insurance in and backing of Welles and his debut film Citizen Kane, which was ultimately a commercial failure. The to-date most complete surviving segment of It’s All True is the “Jangadeiros” or “Four Men on A Raft” film made during the early summer months of 1942. Inspired by a Time magazine piece from 1941 about four Brazilian sailors who set sail from Fortaleza as an act of protest over lack of social security benefits afforded to most other Brazilians and the fact that they must give half of all their catches over to the jangada (the small rafts) owners, the men sailed into Rio de Janeiro two months later national heroes. The crew consisted of Raimundo “Tatá” Correia Lima, Manuel “Preto” Pereira da Silva, Jerônimo Andrè de Souza, and Manoel “Jacarè” Olimpio Meira.[vi] The story of these four men utilizing their own profession as an act of political protest and actually influencing change is an allegorical representation of Welles filmmaking as a cultural tool able to affect artistic as well as thematic discussion of the importance of art and the cinema on society and it’s ability to be used as a modicum of activism, fiction, and reality all at once.

The production of “Four Men on A Raft” was interrupted by two events: the death of Jacarè during filming on May 19, 1942 and the resignation of George Schaeffer as president of RKO and Norman Rockefeller from the board of directors amid the companies rapidly declining financial situation. After the tragic death of Jacarè while the ship was being towed to Rio for filming of the final sequence and the months of mounting bills estimated to have reached upwards of $1.2 million by the end[vii] George Schaefer gave Welles, Wilson, and a small crew until June 8^th to wrap filming and return home. The financial and critical situation was exacerbated by the footage that had already made its way to the studio, which many executives considered disappointing and didn’t have high hopes of salvaging a commercial film out of it. This destitution led to George Schaefer tendering his resignation in June of 1942, with Floyd Odlum and the Atlas Corporation taking over the reigns of RKO Studios. As a measure of restructuring the image and business practices of the studio, Odlum ordered the eviction of the Mercury Theatre Troupe from the studio grounds and when Welles returned from South America he found himself dismissed from RKO due to the financial disaster of It’s All True coupled with the reports of Lynn Shore and the mediocre box office numbers of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons which both ran well over budget.

This dismissal from RKO proved somewhat disastrous for Welles’s Hollywood career as no major studio wanted to touch him and it took him four years to be able to make his next project, 1946’s The Stranger for International Pictures Production and to be distributed by none other than RKO. It’s All True not only served as an aesthetic and thematic foundation for which Welles would continue to explore the ideas of societal corruption and the will of the individual but also served as the first of many instances in the directors career where he struggled for financial and artistic control amidst a system aiming for a different product than he. The film served as a foreshadowing of Welles’s years abroad obtaining financing and time for many of his future cinematic endeavors ranging from allegorical adaptations to self-reflexive examinations of the perception of truth and reality on screen that all served as inner examinations of the individual within an oppressive system faced with seemingly unwarranted subjugation due to any number of perceived differences from the artistic to the political (and those don’t necessarily have to be inclusive in the work of Welles).

Part II: Shakespeare, Communism, and Welles’s Decade in Europe

With increasing suspicion from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and continuing struggle to find proper critical and financial support amidst an increasingly paranoid and distracted American public Orson Welles fled to Europe during the initial stages of post-production on his first Shakespearean film adaptation, Macbeth. This move to Europe came just as the Hollywood Ten were brought before the committee and the Waldorf Agreement instituted a blacklist at all major Hollywood studios. Welles, who had been increasingly involved in American politics and the campaigning of FDR over the past couple of years (even going as far as to stand in for the president in a debate with Thomas Dewey as the Astor Hotel in 1944), soon surmised that he would become a target of McCarthy witch-hunts and labeled as a Communist, therefore unfit to work in the Hollywood system in any capacity. At this time Welles was already struggling with the Hollywood system and the restrictive financial atmosphere in the wake of his departure from RKO studios five years prior. Macbeth was made for independent studio Republic Pictures, a studio most widely known for B-westerns and serials. Utilizing their not-so-expansive soundstage and mainly modern themed wardrobe, the expressiveness of the picture comes from Welles’s expert directing and John L Russell’s fluid atmospheric cinematography.

Macbeth is a blatantly allegorical adaptation that alters and opposes certain plot techniques and character traits from the original text in order to create a modern critique of western Christianity and the rise of Communist paranoia within the American government. One of the most profound changes mentioned above is the annexation of Macbeth’s inner psychological turmoil, rather Welles externalizes the dramatic struggle to represent a battle between God and Satan, or the moralistic views of the established religion against individual determination and thought, the antitheses of general thought.[viii] As well, the pivoting of Shakespeare’s established thematic view from Macbeth attempting throughout the play to subdue his own ambitions and greed to, once again, externalizing this condition in the form outwardly resisting the pagan Weird Sisters allows Welles to further explore the idea of rebelling against Communism in that Malcolm and Macduff at first oppose Macbeth in the name of Christianity but all three ultimately become coerced into the bidding of the overarching religious ideology represented by the Weird Sisters.

It is precisely for these reasons coupled with the low budget and stigmatism of Welles’s name that many film critics and Shakespeare scholars outright denounced and detested the film upon its release. The film was also released within months of Laurence Olivier’s far more faithful adaptation of Hamlet which would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture. James Naremore would call it a brave, yet minor film in the Welles canon and biographer Charles Higham outright denounced the production, calling it “detestable” and stating that the actors “seldom rise above the amateur.”[ix][x] This perception of the work often notably lacked the viewpoint of political allegory and anticommunist statement in the film, rather looking at it from the perspective of a compromised Shakespeare adaptation. The critical reception of the film only cemented Welles’s place in the eyes of the studio executives and government officials with it’s polarizing ambiguity and direct dialogue that would ultimately lead to his name being penned into The Red Letters, effectively listing him as a communist sympathizer to Hollywood studios.[xi]

Welles, now working entirely outside of the United States, would follow up Macbeth with another increasingly allegorical and loose adaptation of a Shakespearean work, Othello. Othello served as a turning point in Welles’s cinematic career, it was his first film in which he had complete artistic and financial control; after the initial Italian backer went bankrupt in the summer of 1948 Welles decided to fund the project himself. Utilizing a loose shooting schedule over the course of three years, essentially shooting whenever he had the funds gathered from various acting gigs and financiers, and working within the various setbacks and limitations across Morocco and various parts of central and southern Italy, the film became an exercise in adaptation that in turn became highly referential in its own right. One of the prominent instances of this adaptation is the shooting of Iago’s murder of Roderigo in a Turkish baths due to the fact that the costumes had failed to arrive on set.[xii]

Even with these production hindrances, Othello is a harrowing, at times horror-like examination of the consequences of treachery, suspicion, jealousy, paranoia, and betrayal that utilizes the aesthetic techniques at it’s disposal such as non-Hollywood sound and the southern European/Moroccan landscapes to establish a juxtaposition to the original complexity of Shakespeare’s text with a far more visceral and allegorical visual representation of Welles’s own struggle with finding freedom anew in Europe. As Jack J. Jorgens states in his Shakespeare on Film, “The visual style…mirrors the marriage at the center of the play – not the idyllic marriage of Othello and Desdemona, but the perverse marriage of Othello and Iago…If the film’s grandeur, hyperbole, and simplicity are the Moor’s. its dizzying perspectives and camera movements, tortured compositions, grotesque shadows, and insane distortions are Iago’s, for he is the agent of chaos.”[xiii] With Othello, just as in Macbeth, Welles utilizes two of Shakespeare’s most revered plays and drastically alters both the text and aesthetic principals often established by the intelligentsia in order to create searing indictments of anticommunism, paranoia, and his individual quest for artistic and personal freedom in America. Contextually, this perception of Welles’s first two Shakespearean adaptations wouldn’t arise until the 1970’s when the scope of history allowed critics to look back at the bigger picture.

Othello, along with being Welles’s first European production, also serves as a basis of controversy to this day in that three different versions currently exist. The original 1952 edit, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, effectively tagging the country of origin/production of the film as Morocco, is currently unavailable and has been for decades. The original American release version from 1955, distributed by United Artists, contains several major soundtrack changes including the removal of a voice over narration in favor of written intertitles. This version is now out of print due to lawsuits from Orson Welles’s daughter, Beatrice Welles. It is also often viewed as a “compromised” print with certain changes being forced upon Welles for American distribution and branding. Beatrice Welles also released a new cut of the film in 1992, working off of the initial 1955 American release version. It is often cited for having major technical flaws with the dialogue and soundtrack as well as a still “compromised” version of her fathers original work. These troubles with various versions of cuts of the film for international markets would follow Welles into his next production Mr. Arkadin aka Confidential Report and are oddly illustrative of the recurring theme of individual struggle within an opposing system of overarching parties (often of different nationalities) that are represented in the work.

Mr. Arkadin came at the tail end of Welles’s initial stay in Europe before briefly returning to the US. Made in 1955, the film came at the apex of American paranoia with the rise of McCarthyism, the Red Scare, the trial of Alger Hiss, HUAC, the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as supposed “atom spies” for the USSR; all of these events and more led to a heightened sense of xenophobic and political paranoia that served as the basis for Welles’s initial flee to Europe. Mr. Arkadin was to be his ode to this paranoia, a story engrained with an expressly American (specifically Hollywood) style of noir pulp pessimism that in and of itself served as an almost satirical representation of the American psyche at this time. Even with the films extremely convoluted release history (currently existing in up to seven different versions throughout the world) and the falling out between Orson Welles and long time friend and producer Louis Dolivet, who barred Welles from the editing room and took over post production, the overall sense of paranoia and complex juxtaposition of wealth and perception remains.

Arkadin’s methods of commentary are far less allegorical than Macbeth or Othello and much more representational of the current state of affairs in the world. The juxtaposition of settings from postwar destruction in Munich to the lavish parties thrown by the title character amidst yachts and castles throughout the European coast establish a glaring perception of the inequalities of consumerism and wealth in a post-WWII world. This use of European setting is established to underline these social inequalities Americans desperate attempts to use theoretical and psychoanalytical justification for the gap. As well, there are only two American characters in the film. As Geoffrey Green states, “The only American characters are the investigator (played by Robert Arden as a crude, materialistic, opportunistic lowlife crook) and his onetime girl friend, an exotic dancer named Milly (whose “striptease atomique” is meant to represent the materialistic exploitation of modern political crisis).”[xiv]

The story of Mr. Arkadin, which Welles wrote, also harkens back to the director’s dealings with the Red Scare and marginalization by the government. Arkadin, played by Welles, hires Guy van Stratten (Robert Arden) to do a background check on himself and see what he comes up with. Van Stratten, who aspires to be like Arkadin, discovers that he has done a number of nefarious and illegal transactions including running defunctive weapons in communist China and laundering money for the Nazi’s in South America. The results of this check serve as a satirical representation of what Welles perceived HUAC and the Hollywood studio system might have thought they would find if Welles was brought before the committee. As well, the heightened paranoia and muddled truth that service the story work in tandem with the kaleidoscopic juxtaposition of the European landscape to establish the transgressive view of the picture. Welles is challenging the viewer to face the Cold War paranoia head on by accepting the complete lack of logic within the thought process behind the hysteria by means of the opaque and often jarring nonsensical logic of the puzzle pieces that are Mr. Arkadin.

Part III: Welles’s Final Adaptations

After the turbulent production of Mr. Arkadin coupled with the fading anticommunist sentiments in the general public Welles returned to America (and Hollywood) in 1956. During his tenure back in the states he acted in a number of productions and worked on radio programs for numerous companies but only directed one feature, Touch of Evil, which he wasn’t even allowed to do until Universal buckled at the behest of the films leading actor, Charlton Heston. It wasn’t until Universal subsequently took the film and re-edited it, leading Welles to denounce the work as not his own, that the director returned to Europe in hopes of making a film version of Don Quixote, a film that is notoriously unfinished to this day. It is here where Welles would go on to make his final three completed fiction-narrative features, all of which happen to be adaptations of classic literary works.

The first of these works was The Trial, adapted from Franz Kafka’s book of the same name and cited by Welles as his personal favorite film work.[xv] The Trial is a film rooted in the struggles Welles had dealing with the communist struggles in America and opposing political as well as financial groups in trying to bring his works to fruition. The film follows Josef K., played by Anthony Perkins, a bureaucrat who must defend himself against a crime that is never actually stated but the court system and presiding township continue to mount increasingly obscene accusations and proceedings for Josef to jump through in order to try to prove his innocence. With the stories highly referential and allegorical theme to the problems Welles faced throughout his career, it’s intriguing that the story was actually not his first choice,

The Trial began as Taras Bulba. … And the old man, who had made Garbo’s first picture our of Sweden – an angelic, dear man – gave me a list of about a hundred books, saying, which one did I want to make? They had Kafka’s The Trial on the list, and I said I wanted to do The Castle because I liked it better, but they persuaded me to do The Trial. I had to do a book – couldn’t make them do an original. It was as negative as that.[xvi]

The “old man” Welles is referring to would be Alexander Salkind, whose family had been prominent European producers for two decades and was highly respected for his work. This story of selection is in itself allegorical and representative of the problems with creative censorship and stifling ideas Welles encountered, all while being forced into the selection of a story that is a manifestation of these trials and tribulations.

This representative subjugation of the individual is alternately explored in Welles’s employment of specific aesthetic motifs throughout the film from the juxtaposition of his voiceover narration of the “Beyond the Law” parable over artistic renderings to the stark use of chiaroscuro lighting to accentuate not only Josef’s situational geography within the context of the frame but the overbearing (and at times inescapable) spatial boundaries of the sets. This is heightened by Edmond Richard’s cinematography, which often implores canted and eschewed camera angle to disorient the viewer. This very apparent realization of the differences between original text and cinematic work is prevalent throughout the film as Welles questions the very nature of adaptation and his utilization of his own techniques and views on an established story. Rather than utilizing the cat-and-mouse games of the omnipresent narrator of the original novel, Welles creates a frame-ended story about the limitations of adaptation in a situation in which he was forced to make one, as highlighted above. As Cristina Vatulescu states,

…I argue that rather than an incidental failure, the conflictual relationship between the movie and the story is carefully played out as one of the film’s central investigations. … Welles self-consciously opens and closes the film on the question of adaptation, which as a result frames the film.

This structural investigation coupled with the analytical context of the story presented and his use of visual motifs establishes an exploration of not only the recurring schematics and themes of subjugation throughout his own work, but also the relationship between the adaptor and the adapted and the economic and cultural reasoning for said techniques favor in the current filmic climate.

Welles followed up The Trial with Chimes At Midnight, a Spanish-Swiss coproduction based around a script written by Welles about the character of Sir John Falstaff, whom was a recurring character in Shakespeare’s historical dramas, particularly those detailing the rise and fall of Henry IV and V. The film serves as a daring late-career formal and aesthetic work by the director. Chimes also serves as one of the most direct gateways from Welles’s film career into his theatrical with his adaptation and direction of nine major Shakespearean stage plays produced throughout both America and Europe.

Critically, the film is known for two scenes: the opening and the extended Battle of Shrewsbury sequence which was filmed with only 180 extras but Welles edited to make it appear to be thousands and is now a guidebook for modern battlefield editing. While these structural placeholders allow for critical contextualization of Welles’s interesting use of aesthetics on a strained budget allow room for an interesting paradox between content and perception, the true analysis of Chimes at Midnight for the purpose of this thesis lies within the use of the character of Falstaff himself (whom Orson Welles plays). John Falstaff is a boorish and brooding character who was the suitor of multiple women and lived largely outside the common conception of moral and ethical decency within his society, including often living off borrowed money and therefore never being personally tied to someone but almost always financially.

While there are many traits of Falstaff that can be read as biographical metaphors to Welles’s own persona and reputation (from the physical to the anachronistic for both character and person) the most telling is that Welles decided to portray the character as tragic, something in stark contrast to the often comedic, although still complex, character Shakespeare wrote. Chimes at Midnight was not the first time Welles took this interpretation of Falstaff, he did it a number of years earlier in a stage production of his Five Kings play,

I will play him as a tragic figure. I hope, of course, he will be funny to the audience, just as he was funny to those around him. But his humor and wit were aroused merely by the fact that he wanted to please the prince. Falstaff, however, had the potential of greatness in him.”[xvii]

This view Welles took can be read as both an autobiographical metaphor for his own persona and tribulations throughout his career between Five Kings and the time which Chimes at Midnight was made as well as a complex, albeit fully realized personal interpretation of what he viewed as Shakespeare’s most profound and important character. One that symbolizes both the vitality and death of a certain era and an ideal that the modern Western world could of maybe used some of; the individual in pursuit of their own goals and achievements within a system that purports individuality but wants complacency to higher powers that be. This allegorical intent ultimately makes Chimes a very different feature than his previous Shakespeare film adaptations Macbeth and Othello not only in content (one play compared to his adaptation of multiple) but also in the meaning of Shakespeare’s words, setting, and era.

Orson Welles utilized both present and past texts, cultures, ideology, and means of financing and production to continually create a cinema exploring the various degrees and contexts of the individuals subjugation within a current western society that more times than not reverberated into production and his personal life. By examining this recurring thread of the consequences of being caught within an opposing two party system and following it from the beaches of rural Brazil to the cobble stone streets of Spain, one can see how Welles lived what he expressed in his work and the great lengths he went in order to achieve even his most stymied vision.

WORKS CITED

A Linguagem de Orson Welles. Dir. Rogerio Sganzerla, 1990. Web.

Anderegg, Michael A. Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture. Chicago:             Columbia University Press, 1999. Print.

Alcala, Janet Ceja. “Imperfect Archives and the Principle of Social Praxis in the History    of Film            Preservation in Latin America.” Moving Image 13(1) Spring 2013: 66-97.       Cook OneSearch. Web. 26 January 2015.

Ayers, Jackson. “Orson Welles’s ‘Complicitous Critique’: Postmodern Paradox in ‘F for Fake’.” Literature Film Quarterly 40(1) 2012: 6-19. Cook OneSearch. Web. 11

January 2015.

Barnett, Vincent L. “Cutting Koerners: Floyd Odlum, the Atlas Corporation and the         Dismissal of    Orson Welles from RKO.” Film History 22(2) 2010: 182-98. Cook                OneSearch. Web. 27   January 2015.

Bazin, Andre. Orson Welles: A Critical View. Trans. Jonathan Rosenbaum. Los Angeles:               Acrobat, 1991. Print.

Bell, Robert H. “Rereading Orson Welles’s ‘Chimes At Midnight’.” Southwest Review      89(4) 2004: 566-574. Cook OneSearch. Web. 21 January 2015.

Benamou, Catherine L. It’s All True: Orson Welles Pan-American Odyssey. Oakland:        University of California, 2007. Print.

Chimes at Midnight. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, John Gielgud,   Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, Marina Vlady, Fernando Rey. Continental,        1965. DVD.

Cowie, Peter. A Ribbon of Dreams: The Cinema of Orson Welles. Cranbury, New Jersey:             A. S. Barnes & Co., Inc., 1973. Print.

F for Fake. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Orson Welles, Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotton, Elmyr de   Hory, Clifford Irving, Francois Reichenbach, Gary Graver. Specialty, 1975. Blu-  Ray.

Filming Othello. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Orson Welles, Michael MacLiammoir, Hilton     Edwards. Hellwig, 1979. Web.

Graver, Gary. Making Movies with Orson Welles. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press,    2011. Print.

Green, Geoffrey. “’There Is No Logic In This’: Orson Welles’s Transgressive Challenge               to Cold War Paranoia in ‘Mr. Arkadin’.” Interdisciplinary Humanities 26(1)        Spring 2009: 6-10. Cook OneSearch. Web. 27 January 2015.

Heylin, Clinton. Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios. Chicago: Chicago Review, 2006. Print.

Higham, Charles. Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius. New York:      St. Martin’s, 1985. Print.

It’s All True. Dir. Orson Welles and Norman Foster, Completed by Richard Wilson.          RKO, 1943/1993. DVD.

Jewell, Richard B. “Orson Welles, George Schaefer, and ‘It’s All True’: A ‘Cursed’           Production.” Film History 2(4) Nov. /Dec. 1988: 325-35. Cook OneSearch. Web.        6 January 2015.

Jorgens, Jack J. Shakespeare on Film. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977.         Print.

Leaming, Barbara. Orson Welles: A Biography. New York: Viking Penguin, 1985. Print.

Macbeth. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy              McDowell, Edgar Barrier, Alan Napier. Republic, 1948. DVD.

Marker, Jeff W. “Orson Welles’s ‘Macbeth’: Allegory for Anticommunism.” Literature    Film Quarterly 41(2) 2013: 116-28. Cook OneSearch. Web. 21 January 2015.

McBride, Joseph. What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of An Independent               Career. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. Web.

Mr. Arkadin. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Robert Arden, Paola Mori, Orson Welles, Akim      Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave. Filmorsa/Cervantes/Criterion, 1955/1956/2006.         DVD.

Naremore, James. The Magic World of Orson Welles. New York: Oxford University,         1978. Print.

Nem Tudo É Verdade. Dir. Rogerio Sganzerla, 1996. Web.

Othello. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Orson Welles, Michael MacLiammoir, Suzanne   Cloutier, Robert Coote. Marceau/United Artists, 1952. Laserdisc.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Discovering Orson Welles. Oakland: University of California,        2007. Web.

— Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2003. Print.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan., ed. This Is Orson Welles: Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich.      New York: Da Capo, 1992. Print.

The Immortal Story. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Roger            Coggio, Norman Eshley. Altura/Omnia, 1968. Web.

The Magnificent Ambersons. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Joseph Cotton, Dolores Costello,    Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford. RKO,            1942. DVD.

The Trial. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau,         Romy Schnieder, Akim Tamiroff, Elsa Martinelli. Astor, 1962. DVD.

Tudo E Brasil. Dir. Rogerio Sganzerla. 1997. Web.

Vatulescu, Cristina. “The Medium of ‘The Trial’: Welles Takes on Kafka and Cinema.”                Literature Film Quarterly 41(1) 2013: 52-66. Cook OneSearch. Web. 26 January             2015.

Williams, Tony. “Macbeth.” Cinèmathéque Annotations on Film. Senses of Cinema,          Issue 38, February 2006. Web.

[i] See chapters 1-19 of Barbara Leaming’s autobiography Orson Welles for in depth accounts of his early theatrical and radio work with The Mercury Theatre Company.

[ii] p. 25 of It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan American Odyssey by Catherine L Benamou detailing the original idea and conception of It’s All True as a North American jazz-based film.

[iii] South American Cinema: A Critical Filmography, 1915-1994.

[iv] p. 328 of Orson Welles, George Schaefer, and “It’s All True”: A “Cursed” Production by Richard B. Jewell. A research article deciphering, to the best of its ability, the convoluted history of the production in Brazil and it’s effects in Hollywood.

[v] Catherine L Benamou as well as other notable scholars conclude that it was very possible if not likely that Welles was given the task of collecting information while on assignment in South America.

[vi] It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey by Catherine L Benamou

[vii] p. 189 of Cutting Koerners: Floyd Odlum, the Atlas Corporation and the Dismissal of Orson Welles from RKO by Vincent L Barnett

[viii] Orson Welles’s “Macbeth” Allegory of Anticommunism by Jeff W. Marker

[ix] Macbeth by Tony Williams. Senses of Cinema article on the lasting perception of Macbeth.

[x] Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of An American Genius by Charles Higham.

[xi] This fact about the “Red Letters” is mentioned in multiple sources including Barbara Leaming’s biography as well as Jeff Marker’s essay on Macbeth.

[xii] ch. 16 of Discovering Orson Welles by Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Othello Goes Hollywood”.

[xiii] ch. 12 of Shakespeare on Film “Orson Welles’s Othello” by Jack J. Jorgens

[xiv] “There Is No Logic In This”: Orson Welles’s Transgressive Challenge to Cold War Paranoia in Mr. Arkadin by Geoffrey Green

[xv] p. 245 of This Is Orson Welles ed. By Jonathan Rosenbaum

[xvi] p. 244 of This Is Orson Welles ed. By Jonathan Rosenbaum

[xvii] This was a quote taken verbatim from 1939 that Welles told reporters after the premiere of Five Kings and was transposed into the first volume of Simon Callow’s biography on Welles, The Road to Xanadu, pg. 442.

Perception and Suppression in Claire’s Knee

The first major film work of French New Wave director and Cahiers du Cinema editor-in-chief Eric Rohmer was his ‘Six Moral Tales’, a sextet of films (five features and one short) that explore the persona’s and egos of the men that inhabit the picture and the women who so often tempt them. These six films established many of the traits that would mark the rest of Rohmer’s cinematic career. Rohmer’s cinema is defined by recurring aesthetic, thematic, and structural motifs that create simmering and often repressed sensual and intellectual tension that is often highly reminiscent of literary techniques (with many of his films based on his own writings) and philosophical quarries presented due to this slight existentialism (often in stark juxtaposition to the idyllic surroundings).

One of the most intriguing and complex of these ‘Six Moral Tales’ is Claire’s Knee, the fifth in the series and released in 1970. The film follows Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy), an established French diplomat, as he is vacationing in the Swiss mountain region of Lake Annecy. Engaged to be married back home in Paris, he runs into an old friend Aurora (Aurora Cornu) while in the countryside and eventually meets the daughter of Aurora’s landlady, Laura. The initial source of infatuation, Laura “falls in love” with Jerome but is soon trounced by her older half-sister Claire. After Claire’s arrival, Jerome notices her exposed knee gleaming in the sunlight one picturesque afternoon and immediately becomes infatuated with her. This seemingly simple story is expounded upon through Rohmer’s examination of the philosophical repression Jerome is experiencing coupled with the aesthetic hallmarks of Rohmer’s filmmaking: splendid weather, gorgeous rural French setting, and an unmistakable sense of leisure that allows for the wordy philosophical conundrums to be expressed in eloquent terms by the films subjects.

In order to fully examine Claire’s Knee (or any of the other ‘Six Moral Tales’ for that matter) the examination of what Rohmer means by ‘Moral’ must be made. The films all follow one male’s conundrum by aesthetic means we have already established but the ‘moral’ decision varies in each film. In the case of Claire’s Knee this obstacle is the most complex of all the Moral Tales as well as its presentation within the structure of the narrative. As Fiona Handyside states in her examination of Claire’s Knee,

Two Parts of the triangle are doubled. The role of the narrator is split between the man and his friend, Aurora. Each of them has already made a decision to marry and live a normal life before the film begins. Her vicarious enjoyment of Jerome’s crisis implies that she has already passed a similar temptation. … The “temptress” or “liberated woman” side of the triangle is likewise shared by the two young girls. Claire is similar to the wife in Maud and therefore an inadvertent “temptress.” We know she’ll settle down one of these days and become a good wife. Laura, the more unconventional of the two, is rejected by Jerome.[1]

One of the key parts to analyzing Rohmer’s philosophical implications within the film is the final realization that Fiona makes; that the young girl who made her feelings known to Jerome ultimately got rejected while the one established as a source of infatuation but not overtly interested in Jerome becomes the base of the moral tale within the film. By establishing this sort of doubled structure to the archetypal love triangle of the moral tales, the perceptions and actions of not only the narrator but of Rohmer’s story itself inadvertently effected those not directly involved, i.e. Laura after Jerome’s gaze had switched over to Claire.

The presentation of Jerome’s existential situation and philosophical conundrum is expounded upon by the ever-present countryside setting of Annecy and Nestor Almendros’s serene cinematography that ultimately juxtapose the internal struggle with an alternate aesthetic representation that forces the viewer to take on multiple perspectives of a single event. This technique is utilized in very different fashion by numerous other New Wave directors, most notably Jean-Luc Godard who would take this approach in a far more reflexive and experimental way as he moved into the 1970’s and video technology. Martin Walsh examines this relationship between the text and image and how it establishes a level of uncertainty that ultimately alters the viewers perception of the film itself within the confines of cinema,

Uncertainty is built into the narrative, we might say: the world resists human structures, fictions – it won’t conform to the tidy patterns we try to impose upon it, and Rohmer expands upon this idea in a number of ways. Its most obvious elaboration rests in the tension Rohmer invests in the relationship between word and image. What is said is consistently belied by what is done.[2]

For example, when Jerome tells Claire that he saw her current boyfriend Gilles with another woman he truly believes he has done a good deed not only for himself, but for her. This perception turns out to be an illusion as in the end they are still together and happy. This establishes how the perception of the narrator, one that the viewer automatically perceives not only as empirical but also as right is only an approximation of the actual truth, a one-sided expose that is natural to the human condition but often not differentiated within the cinema.

This complex structure and perceptive shift that ultimately creates a reflexive experience for the viewer to question their own ‘morals’ and sense of cinema stands alone in its execution within the French New-Wave although the ideas behind it are a common practice with the movements other filmmakers. This intensely philosophical and dense approach allows the viewer to examine not only themselves but Rohmer’s musings on relationships and the role of thought in modern European society, a technique uniquely in tune with those of his contemporaries such as Agnes Varda and Francois Truffaut although each did so within starkly different modes. As Barry Grant states,

All the foregoing Rohmer precisely avoids by his philosophic ambivalence towards the erotic which is delicately poised, and now, after centuries of European refinement, serves more as a restraint than a release. Rohmer’s passionate attention is directed at the sensuous ambience of Lake Annecy and the French Alps, testifying to the appreciation of being in and of the world, but his approach to action resides more in what the characters are and what they say than in what they do. … Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee is a loving film, unsullied by the sentimentality as a result of its European astringency of language, wit and structure.[3]

This inherently European and specifically French idealism offers a singular approach to the exploration of these moral conundrums in a way that is ultimately ambiguous in questioning both the filmmaker and viewer.

The films refined aesthetic and visual choices juxtapose while reinforcing the structural and thematic musings of Rohmer’s story. As mentioned earlier, Nestor Almendros’s sensuous color cinematography accentuates visual queues specifically for Jerome’s philosophical discourse as well as highlight the films lush rural setting. The films opening shot is of Jerome in a boat as he rows directly towards Aurora and the camera, so by extension directly towards the audience. This pronounces the arrival of his perception in which the audience is going to view the majority of the film. Almendros utilizes the pleasing color palate and vast landscapes of Annecy to create juxtaposition to Jerome’s internal struggle by directly placing him within the environment that highlights the privileged idyllist that has afforded him the time and means to be able to expound upon his own admittedly minor problem. Therefore the setting and frame establish the first sense the viewer has of this reflexive system within Rohmer’s film and allow a visual allegory to the perception but not to the content specifically.

As well, Almendros’s positioning of subjects within the frame is exponentially important to the emphasis not only of Jerome’s point of view but the examination of the intended altering of perception and expectations on screen. As Daniel Hayes says about the films cinematography,

Almendros recalls that ‘Rohmer resisted the temptation of let too many pretty panoramas turn the film into a collection of picture postcards’. This is also referenced or reinforced by Aurora’s line, ‘It’s too beautiful for me to work well’. Instead of letting the scenery dominate the characters, Almendros slightly overexposes the background to retain the beautiful colours but in a more subordinate way.[4]

In particular, one specific shot stands out as the major moment of change within the film, a technique in direct opposition to the films overarching approach to the problem through overly eloquent musings by its main characters and their dialogue with one another. The scene in question is the moment in which Jerome’s infatuation with Claire is not only realized but wholly manifested. One morning as she climbs a latter, Jerome realizes her bare knee glistening in the sun, a moment emphasized by a close-up shot of her knee that is ultimately supposed to be from the perception of Jerome’s point of view. This specifically visual moment completely alters Jerome’s inhibitions and by extension the story itself. By allowing the viewer to sink into Jerome’s perception of this event we ultimately complicit in the shift from Laura to Claire and the desire expressed aesthetically as an extension of Jerome’s thoughts. This is one of the greatest realizations of Rohmer’s cinema, when the moral and physical (by means of visual representation) intersect and bring to the surface both the individual and the landscape that define the picture.

It is equally important to examine the context of Rohmer’s career within the French New-Wave and his influences in order to fully understand the complex nature of Claire’s Knee. Like many of his peers from Cahiers du Cinema, Rohmer started out as a critic and championed certain filmmakers and critical ideologies that transferred over to his filmmaking in a big way. While Rohmer continually championed filmmakers such as Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, the two largest influences on his filmmaking sensibilities were those of Jean Renoir and F.W. Murnau, along with the writings of Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal. The theological implications of Jansenism (a sect of Catholicism) that Pascal focused on including original sin and depravity became underlying themes for most of Rohmer’s work (the themes of Jansenism have notably been explored by Rohmer’s contemporary in France, Robert Bresson). The humanist means by which he explored these themes stemmed from the influence of Jean Renoir’s examination of characters as various extensions of society and specifically F.W. Murnau’s 1927 silent film Sunrise and the use of the love triangle coupled with the Good Girl-Bad Girl story technique. These themes and influences established a highly intellectual style of filmmaking that comes off as less directly referential (cinematically at least) than his peers at Cahiers du Cinema but no less steeped in artistic influence and integrity. Rohmer helped to establish the use of various artistic and thematic influences to create a base for new examination as a key motif of the French New-Wave.

WORKS CITED

Crisp, C. G. Eric Rohmer, Realist and Moralist. n.p.: Bloomington: Indiana University     Press, 1988. Print.

Grant, Barry K. :Desire Under the Helms of Rohmer and Bunnuel: Claire’s Knee and             That Obscure Object of Desire.” Literature Film Quarterly 9.1 (1981): 3.       Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 7 May 2015.

Hayes, Daniel. “Claire’s Knee.” Cinematheque Annotations on Film. Senses of Cinema Mag., April 2005, no. 35. Web. 2 May 2015.

Rohmer, Eric, and Fiona Handyside. Eric Rohmer.: Interviews. n.p.: Jackson:      University Press of Mississippi, 2013. USMAI Catalog. Web. 7 May 2015.

Walsh, Martin. “Structured Ambiguity In the Films of Eric Rohmer.” Film Criticism     1.2 (1976): 30-36. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 5   May 2015.

[1] Eric Rohmer Interviews by Fiona Handyside p. 31

[2] “Structured Ambiguity in the Films of Eric Rohmer” by Martin Walsh, p. 32

[3] “Desire Under the Helms of Rohmer and Bunuel” by Barry Grant, p. 5

[4] Claire’s Knee by Daniel Hayes, Senses of Cinema

The Structural Significance of the Flashback in Detour and Out of the Past

Edgar G Ulmer’s Detour and Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past are two pieces of film noir that are at times both prototypical and daringly original and were produced at the height of the styles output in the mid-1940’s (1945 and 1947, respectively). The two films also couldn’t of come from farther ends of Hollywood. Detour was a true B-picture in all senses of the term; made for the poverty row production studio Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) for around $100,000 and shot in six days utilizing mostly rear-projection car sequences and cheap diners and motels as sets. The films almost perverse pessimism was accentuated by its two leading roles, B-starlet Ann Savage in one of the most viscerally nasty and biting performances of the film noir period and despondent Tom Neal who would go on to face his own murder charges later in life after he was accused of killing his third wife. Meanwhile, Out of the Past was made for a significantly larger budget for RKO studios with an A-list cast in tow including Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, and Rhonda Flemming, as well as far more resources at their disposal.

Even with these noticeable financial and creative differences, both films propel one of the most common structural techniques of film noir to new levels of aesthetic and thematic significance, the flashback. Both films unfold mainly in flashbacks told by the leading man in a current day predicament that is a direct consequence of the story they are telling. In Out of the Past Robert Mitchum’s Jeff tells his story to his current love interest, Rhonda Flemming’s Meta Carson while in Detour Tom Savage’s Al Roberts talks directly to the viewer in voice over narration that further accentuates his current mindset of panic and despair. Both Out of the Past and Detour’s use of the flashback as a structural, thematic, and aesthetic technique reestablish the film noir commonality as a device used to examine post-WWII America and the despair echoed in its national cinema.

An important element to highlight when analyzing the structural concepts of both films from this perception is that neither director was born in America. Edgar G Ulmer was born in Olomouc, in what at the time was Austria-Hungary and Jacques Tourneur was born in Paris, France. Both directors multinational perspectives allowed for a more detached yet nuanced examination of Nuclear Age America from within the confines of its own studio system.

The first, and initially most resounding, effect of the flashback is the structural component it added to both films and would be a staple of film noir throughout its existence. Neither film revolutionized the use in the genre (many film noirs pre-1945 used the device extensively) but the tone it instilled throughout the picture with the impending doom looming over the story that has already been established was utilized to dizzying heights. In Detour, Al sits in a diner and retells his tale of infortune in a direct voice over narration to the viewer with an unshakeable sense of melancholy. This isn’t before a song put on the jukebox by a trucker passing through ignites the very thought in his mind, bringing him all the way back to the beginning of his story when he use to play the song in a dingy night club every night. Noah Isenberg comments on the importance of this signifier as exposition to the flashback,

“Al’s voice-over articulates his heavy nostalgia for a lost past when his girlfriend Sue Harvey (Claudia Drake) used to sing the son, their song. Al’s sweet memory of the event, when Sue serenaded him, caressed his shoulder, and looked longingly into his eyes, is as rosy as only a memory can be. For the duration of the film, this memory represents a kind of paradise lost for Al, who finds himself sliding down a slippery slope towards ruin,” (Film & Television Quarterly, p. 16).

This initial moment not only foreshadows the unavoidable random occurrences prevalent in film noir that become indicative of current affairs but the genres relationship between past and present and Roberts utilization of both.

This random occurrence perpetuates the telling of the entire story but not the mood of Al himself, who already appeared physically distressed and downtrodden upon the opening image. The random occurrence as signifier creates a definitive language about the noir trope establishing the chance possibilities and uncertainty of reality that put the leading men in those situations to begin with. As Morgan Fisher states,

“… While Roberts is describing something that will happen in the future, the very thing he is describing as a future event that is certain to occur is taking place in the scene, before his very eyes. He can’t react in the interior monologue to what is happening to him at the time we see in the shot, even though we see that he sees what we see, because he is speaking of it as happening in the future. That is, from the perspective from which he is speaking, the future that we, with him, see happening on screen has not yet happened to him, even though we see him in the scene,” (Cinema Scope, p. 72).

While this quote is in direct response to the final scene of the film, its perspective relates to the entirety of Roberts flashback point of view. By creating a foreshadowing of not only the perceived physical outcome of our main character Al Roberts but also the use of a tangible element, such as the song/record, to create a scenario in which the viewer and character are thrown back into a dastardly and at times seemingly impossible tale of coincidence Detour is establishing how the state of immediate post-war America is a product of the uncontrollable consequences of theirs and others actions in the direct years prior.

This same expositional set-up happens in Out of the Past but in very different fashion and, consequently, to different effect. The use of the framing story structure is expounded upon far more in Out of the Past than in Detour (one has to imagine a major factor in this was time and resources allotted by the larger budget) as Mitchum’s Jeff must deal with the ultimate consequences of his story in the present as he has run away to a rural town without resolving the matter at hand. Because of this open-ended factor to the original story, Jeff recounts his tale of deceit and misfortune to his then-love interest Meta, not directly to the viewer. To this effect, there is considerably less voice over narration used, rather his expositional statements expound more upon his own interpretation of the events while the story is still in the present then a series of uninterrupted flashback sequences that bring the story racing to the present.

Once again, the catalyst that caused the leading man to tell the story in the first place was a seemingly inevitable event completely out of the characters hands but this time that action was a direct consequence of Jeff’s decision to run and not complete the mission handed to him, rather than the cosmic coincidence of Detour’s breaking moment. This time, a man named Jim (played by Richard Webb), who was an associate of the man who hired Jeff at the stories outset, Whit (played by Kirk Douglas) to track down his missing girlfriend, Kathie (played by Jane Greer), has tracked him to his new identity in the rural town of Bridgeport, CT. By simply showing up in the town, Jims presence creates the structural and ideological situation within the exposition of the story that necessitates Jeff’s telling of the story to Meta and ultimately to the viewer. As Robert Pippin says in his essay on Out of the Past,

“Even doing nothing about what one feels still alters everything, because doing nothing now becomes an event that then shadows everything else one does. One cannot now act in complete indifference to how one’s fate has been altered, where “cannot” in this one of its many fatalistic sense means that such indifference would make no sense in one’s life; one could not recognize oneself in such a picture of indifference and so cannot act indifferently,” (New Literary History, p. 524-526).

Within this context though the flashback serves as the intermediary event rather than the ultimate outcome of the characters mental and physical state, creating an allegorical interpretation akin to the optimism of the American public to overcome the effects of the nuclear outcome of WWII rather than the pessimistic tones of Detour seeing the event as the insurmountable reasoning behind the current state of culture and perception amongst the general population.

As mentioned above, the flashback structure in Out of the Past doesn’t run throughout the entire film but only up to a certain point, allowing the characters and events to ultimately come to their conclusions in present day, giving the perception of far more opportunity and personal capability to make decisions than the almost oppressive pessimism of Al Robert’s story. In Detour, the flashback structure permeates throughout the entirely of the film which also means the entirety of events have already unfolded, leaving the viewer and main character helpless to their inevitable outcomes. Even with these differences, both films utilize what Maureen Turim delineates as the confessional flashback structure, one of the two archetypal flashback structures for film noir along with the investigative.

This confessional flashback structure allows the viewer to directly correspond to the full story, whether completed or not at the time of telling, establishing a unique precedence in crime film that is highly representative of film noir – the building of suspense through story rather than mystery.

While neither film utilizes a specific aesthetic device that runs throughout the flashback sequences to juxtapose itself from the present day framing story (with the arguable exception of the dense fog at the beginning of the Detour flashback, but that isn’t a trait that persists throughout even that scenes entirety), the availability of character development and varied settings further augment not only each films noir sensibilities but also their implied thematic connotations by allowing the viewers gaze to accept the image on screen as perception rather than absolute truth, or reality. Directly a result of its budgetary restrictions, Detour’s characters mainly inhabit cheap motel rooms and a convertible car with rear-view projection of the south western United States, but this financial hindrance actually visually highlights the needed awareness of the fact that the viewer is being told the story by what is possibly a highly unreliable narrator in Al Roberts. The possibility of him altering any of the seemingly endless unfortunate events that happened to him by mere coincidence from the death of the man who picked him up on the side of the road to him accidentally picking up the only woman within 500 miles who could of identified him as not the owner of the car to paint a better picture of himself is now never lost on the viewer as the unrealistic and rough hewn screen image is representative of this conundrum. Alternately, Jeff’s story in Out of the Past takes the viewer from lavish seaside mansions in the United States to seedy Acapulco bars and back alleys in search of a woman whom Jeff not only doesn’t know but is perceived to be armed and dangerous, initially. Even with the clearly more high-end visual capabilities afforded by the setting and lighting, this nonetheless also highlights the plausible unreliable confession of the character; although this time it is to convince the woman he’s in love with of his intentions rather than directly appeal to the sensibilities of the viewer.

These two contrasting uses of the flashback device highlight the tendencies not only of film noir but of much of the American crime cinema up to and including the 1940’s where specific aesthetic devices were used to varying degrees to elicit varying thematic and emotional implications out of the viewer whether it be the flashback (highlighted throughout this essay or also in the early talkie gangster pictures of William Wellman and Howard Hawks, among others), the use of lighting from the intentionally stylistic (chiaroscuro in film noir) to the paradoxically perceptive real lighting of late-30’s to early-40’s epics in both Technicolor and black-and-white, or the static vs. moving camera to imply emotive responses through aesthetic manipulation within the frame. The wide range of aesthetic motifs used in juxtaposition throughout the American crime genre further highlights the thematic capabilities of a singular device even when transported across various decades and styles of filmmaking.

WORKS CITED

Fisher, Morgan. “The Last Shot In Detour And Some Earlier Moments.” Cinema Scope            38 (2009): 70-80. Film & Television Literature Index With Full Text. Web. 14         April, 2015.

Isenberg, Noah. BFI Film Classics: Detour. London: British Film Institute, 2008. Print.

Isenberg, Noah. “Perennial Detour: The Cinema of Edgar G. Ulmer and The    Experience of Exile.” Cinema Journal 43.2 (2004): 3-25. Film & Television        Literature Index With Full Text. Web. 14 April, 2015.

Pippin, Robert. “Philosophical Film: Trapped by Oneself in Jacques Tourneur’s Out of           the Past.” New Literary History 41.3 (2010): 517-548. Print.

Turim, Maureen. Flashbacks In Film: Memory and History. New York/London:             Routledge, 1989. Print.

Federico Fellini’s Transcendental Exodus: Poetic Realism in “La Strada”

There is a certain point in Federico Fellini’s film career that is historically seen as a “transitional” period for the director where he moves away from the Italian Neo-realism of his roots (in filmmaking) and continues on to establish a style of boundless multi-textual poetic realism. There are five films made within this section of transition for the director, the initial break from certain neorealist tendencies in La Strada (1954), Il Bidone (1955), Nights of Cabiria (1957), the international smash hit La Dolce Vita (1960), and the culmination of these poetic realism tendencies in 8 ½ (1963), often seen as the directors best work. Now the question is: what defines poetic realism and how did he use these sensibilities and aesthetic techniques to veer away from neo-realism in 1954’s La Strada?

The main thematic separation between classical neo-realism and poetic realism is the socioeconomic tendencies of the films and their makers, as neo-realism utilizes documentary aesthetics to further accentuate their point of urban decay and hardships after WWII, Fellini’s poetic realism, along with the poetic realism of France in the 1930’s wasn’t too concerned with that, rather turning their visions inwards to explore the individual and their thought process in expressed and augmented aesthetic realities. The acceptance of a transcendental and dream like state of both narrative structure and aesthetic composition that formulated in La Strada and was taken to its full potential in 8 ½ is another unique tendency in Fellini’s work to further separate from a concise socioeconomic or political message/context to film and push the viewer deeper into an alternate cinematic reality.

What I would argue is the main strand of Fellini’s break from neo-realism in La Strada is the separation between image of content. Rather than using the backdrop of characters on the road in post-WWII rural Italy, he uses the road and all the images of urban decay in Italy as a metaphysical aesthetic representation of the road ones own mind travels throughout their lifetime, specifically in reference to Fellini’s own thought process and troubles. As Philip Booth states in “Fellini’s La Strada as Transitional Film: The Road From Classical Neorealism to Poetic Realism”, “The movie’s title suggests another journey, one taken by the director: the film, in several aspects, represents Fellini’s movement away from the classical neorealism of the 1940’s, which he had had a hand in creating, toward a different brand of neorealism, a kind of poetic realism, as scholars such as Peter Bondanella and others have suggested,” (p. 704). This break from direct criticism of Italian society from a Marxist stand point was seen as a betrayal by the neorealist’s and one of the most prominent signifiers of not only Fellini distancing himself from the movement but also foreshadowing of the directors work to come.

There are various interpretations of the metaphorical breakdown of the road in La Strada and its various contexts to the transcendence of the film above a neorealist genre piece but another main component linked both aesthetically and thematically to the films poetic realism tendencies are the three main characters. Zampano, Gelsomina, and The Fool all inhabit a cinematic world extremely personal to them and many of the actions all three characters take in the film are a direct result of one of the other two characters. Whether it be The Fool taunting Gelsomina because Zampano is a brute and got arrested due to the actions of The Fool or Zampano leaving Gelsomina on the side of the road because he inadvertently killed The Fool and she can’t cope with it, serving more as a transcendental moral conscience that an individual at this point in the story, the characters don’t receive much influence from Italian culture or the world directly outside their own. As Edward Murray states in “La Strada”, “Convinced now that her purpose in life is to remain with Zampano – to teach him how to love, to teach him how to be a human being – Gelsomina, the next morning bids farewell to The Fool as she waits outside the jail (…) Separating from Il Matto is painful for Gelsomina, insomuch as a spiritual affinity exists between the two…” (p. 49). This quote highlights the interconnectedness of feelings, decisions, actions, and consequences the three main characters share throughout the course of the film and how a persons individual actions and close companions have more effect not only on the individual but the process of cinema than an entire nation does.

When discussing actors in La Strada it is very important to denote the role of Gelsomina and the performance by Masina Giulietta. As a woman who the viewer assumes is mentally handicapped in some regard, Gelsomina begins to transcend the brutish groundings of Zampano and flighty existentialism of The Fool to reach a purer and more spiritual state. Throughout the film she is shown being able to relate to children more than adults in the world even from the very first time the viewer sees her on the beach as her sisters run up and play around her. Once with Zampano she adopts the moniker of a clown who plays the drums and trumpet, a key piece to her self-expression. Time and again she is seen fancifully playing with children and finding physical ways of expressing herself and her personality rather than through words, a true aesthetic representation of ones self. The culmination of this transcendence and ultimately the biggest metaphysical break from neorealism presented on screen in La Strada is when, after Zampano kills The Fool and disposes of his body, Gelsomina breaks down. She does nothing but sleep and morn, continually pushing herself away from Zamapano and reminding him that he killed The Fool and she either doesn’t understand or can’t bare the thought. She is at this point in the film not only serving as a moral conscience for Zampano but a key story element that turns the tides of the third act of the film and the viewer impressions of Zampano.

La Strada still holds many principal aesthetic tendencies of neorealism from the use of nonactors, to on-site locations, use of realistic lighting, and basic mis-en-scene. As discussed above Fellini utilized many of these tendencies he knew so well to create a break from neorealism, but there are also key instances in which he breaks these tendencies in favor of what would come to be known as a more “Fellini-esque” approach. There is one scene in particular where these aesthetic tendencies shine through and offer more than a glimpse of what was to come in Fellini’s career. When Zampano and Gelsomina are playing a wedding reception in the countryside, the children pull Gelsomina away and take her up to a room away from the party where a young boy who is presumably mental and/or physically handicapped. The lighting changes drastically in this scene to accentuate not the boys face but the starkly angled walls around him and the spinning mobile above his bed. On the contrary, the lighting for the reverse of Gelsomina accentuates her face with the cinematography places her directly in the foreground with a dimly light background accentuating the vast difference between Gelsomina and this young boy from the rest of the children, they aren’t quite like the rest of them. This moment of clarity and realization is presented with no music, something Fellini would continue to use throughout his films, a mark of a revelation for one of the characters and a changing of thought process in the film. This scene, which stands out as its own episode of the film, was a vast break from the aesthetic principals held by Italian neorealism and established an unwavering foundation of exploration and poetic realism throughout Fellini’s work that made his films some of the most complex and multi-textual yet thoroughly engaging and entertaining films in cinema’s history.

How Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Decalogue Might Be the Truest Form of Cinematic “Masterpiece”

The Decalogue is not only seen as a one of the true masterpieces of modern cinema, but also a truly expansive work about the morals society holds yet breaks every day. The content and format of the 10 one-hour long episodes that make up The Decalogue allows for Krzysztof Kieslowski to transcend a specific culture and people, rather utilizing Poland as a representation of the world at large, creating an examination of the human races established rules of ideals and morals that break through the worlds cultural and geographical boundaries. I will examine how, in all 10 episodes, Kieslowski creates a cinematic universe that explores not only specific commandments but rather often combines multiple commandments and examines them as a structure which the characters break and struggle with as a means of boundaries in their lives. Kieslowski presents far more than just parables of the ten commandments in The Decalogue rather he uses those ten commandments as a basis for which to examine not only human thought processes but also how spirituality and culture can clash and influence a persons actions. I will examine this transcendental structure through the series use of aesthetic visual motifs and color, the interconnectivity of the characters and their actions, and ultimately the basis for which Kieslowski was able to transcend above a work of religion or Polish political thematics and into a rather unique echelon of cinematic works, the script with which he co-wrote with Krzysztof Piesiewicz.

The first key to understanding Kieslowski’s message and the far-reaching and multitextual themes of The Decalogue are certain visual motifs and the varied use of color throughout all ten episodes. As Lisa Di Bartolomeo states in her essay “No Other Gods: Blue and Green in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog I”, “The films of Kieslowski often dwell on personal responsibility, freedom, chance or coincidence, visual and psychological point of view, and voyeurism. Many of these common themes in Kieslowski’s films reappear in the form of certain color associations” (p. 48). This becomes very prominent for the tone and overall effect of each individual episode, especially with the utilization of nine different cinematographers over the ten episodes (Piotr Sobocinski worked on both episodes III and IX). For instance, the use of blues and greens in episode I to accentuate the different between true and false gods (nature vs. technology) create a vastly different experience for the viewer than the muted sepia tone of episode V, inherently becoming more detached in order to view murder in all forms of modern social construct as something wrong with human nature.

Most of the time throughout the series, the aesthetic contrasts aren’t as stark as the examples given with episodes I and V, arguably the two most direct and visceral episodes of the series. There are strong links within the use of color throughout The Decalogue from the drab grayness of the high rise tower the characters inhabit too the use of black as an engulfment and shadow and onwards to poignant utilization of red such as the daughters coat in episode VII. This repetition of hues and recurring stylizations accentuate many various topics from the philosophical mass entwinement of individuals into a gray mass filling the space of the high rise tower, or the virgin innocence of the young girl in red, Ania (Katarzyna Piwowarcszky) while her life and custody seemingly fall apart in front of her through no fault of her own. The use of color throughout The Decalogue is the first major visual theme to point towards a loose base use of the Ten Commandments, rather utilizing various rules for an individual episode that will transcend and connect to a previous or later episode or set of commandments. For instance, the use of dark blues in both episodes II and IV relate to familial problems of infidelity whether it be an abortion or the hidden truth of your parents, the philosophical connotation established by the use of dark blues in both lighting and mis-en-scene links the stories inexplicably together.

The other major visual concept connecting together The Decalogue is the use of visual motifs throughout the series. There are some very prominent and common recurring motifs and objects throughout the series such as the “Angel of Fate” character played by Artur Barcis who appears in a different brief non-speaking role in every episode except for VII (due to scheduling conflicts). The presence of the ominous Angel of Fate is, symbolically, one of the most spiritual aspects of The Decalogue but also one of the most important representations of a centralized, non-iconoclastic figure prevalent throughout all the characters lives that transcends time, space, and societal forms to be present and sometimes at the very helm of a major event in the character’s stories. The ambiguous role of this individual is often played out in various ways, such as being the conductor of the train heading straight for a car speeding on the tracks in episode III or a student in philosophy class in episode VIII witnessing not only the dark history of the teacher come out when a woman comes to visit the class, but also another student pose the philosophical moral question pertaining to episode II. Therefore, the character of the Angel of Fate allows for a spiritual connection to the transcendental oversight of the series but also serves as a voyeuristic comparison to the viewer peering not only into the lives and actions of the main characters, but actually inside themselves to a greater understanding of not just their surroundings and time and place, but truly their thoughts and selves. As Krzysztof Kieslowski himself states in “Kieslowski on Kieslowski”, “Basically, my characters behave much as in other films, except that in Decalogue I probably concentrated more on what’s going on inside them rather than what’s happening on the outside. Before, I often used to deal with the surrounding world, with what’s happening all around, how external circumstances and events influence people, and how people eventually influence external events,” (p. 145). The Angel of Fate is a symbolical representation of the peering gaze Kieslowski gives the viewer into the inner workings of these characters and their choices and decisions when faced with their particular moral and philosophical blunder throughout the episode.

The recurring appearance of milk throughout the series is also a metaphysical link not only between characters but also to sustenance and life itself in the apartment complex. From the doctors daily runs for milk in episode II to the spilt milk on the table in episode VI, the presence of a source of nutrition and revitalization can effect characters in good or bad ways depending on their current state, as reflected through the liquid. The use of these visual motifs serves as a visual ambiguity that reflects not only the characters but the work itself as the viewer interprets the meaning being presented through the cinematic devices being utilized.

The script for The Decalogue, co-written by Kieslowski and lawyer Krzysztof Piesiewicz offers up ambiguous tales of moral dilemmas the main characters face in various circumstances of familial relations, spirituality, relationships and affairs, and the confines of a modernistic society with outlined rules dictating the consequences of various actions. These stories, forever peering inwards, evade the confines of Poland under martial law in the late 80’s and transcend to an examination of the occurrences and roles any individual might encounter and assume in modern society, and how they come to a resolution has to deal with their own perception of morals and standardized obligatory outlines in their lives. In this context it is important to note that no individual episode was given a title with a specific commandment, rather Kieslowski utilizes multiple commandments as a basis for complex and realistic problems the characters must face in their daily lives. This can be represented in the lack of clear definition of a corresponding commandment to episode number such as in episode VI, where as the sixth commandment states “you shall not commit adultery” there is no adultery committed in episode VI. The story revolves around a young man Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) who is infatuated with a woman living across the courtyard from him, Magda (Grażyna Szapołowska). Tomek spies on Magda at night and witnesses her sexual encounters, but she isn’t married. It can also be presented in situations where the corresponding commandment is prevalent but not the lone commandment leading to intuition and choices throughout the episode such as in episode II where not only “you shall not take the name of the lord your god in vain” comes into play but also “you shall not commit adultery” is a factor which presents itself as a catalyst towards the events corresponding episode II too the second commandment.

Kieslowski approaches the commandments as a, sometimes obtuse, stratospherically outlined set of guiding factors for the characters in all ten episodes. The problems they encounter can be related back to the ten commandments but are viewed more as a distinct line, which the characters must choose to be on one side of at the outcome of the their decision and what that means to them. As Rodney Clapp states in his essay “Signs and Wonderings” Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Decalogue”, “The Decalogue,” according to Kieslowski, “is one of the ethical foundations of our society. Everyone is more or less familiar with the Ten Commandments, and agrees with them, but no one really observes them” (p. 9).  For example, in episode IV, the young woman Anka (Adrianna Biedrzynska) falsifies a note left to her by her deceased mother (unopened) stating that the man who has been caring for her is not indeed her father, therefore she can have relations with him. In fact, this man Michal (Janusz Gajos) could very well be her biological father but her Oedipal desires drove her to this conclusion. She, as a character, chose to ignore the guidelines set in place about parent-offspring relations up until the point she felt so guilty she had to confess. While the story itself doesn’t automatically define and make just “honor thy father and mother” it utilizes the implied connotation of decency and morals that this commandment has established to explore one young woman’s sexual desires. This use of an overbearing societal structure can be related to both Christians and non-Christians alike as any society and religious structure has precise rules dictated to the individual that they must follow otherwise be punished either but a spiritual entity or directly by the law and those surrounding them.

While characters are presented in sympathetic light most of the time throughout The Decalogue they are allowed to spiritually transgress as the story plays out and whether it is detrimental or good towards the character, they strive towards finding a certain meaning and purpose in life. This inherent and very internal struggle is the epicenter of the series as the individual grapples with rules which they feel dictate certain actions and thought processes in their lives on an unbeknownst level while other things are beyond their control. In episode IX Roman Ncyz (Piotr Machalica) learns he can’t have children or sexual relations, something he must internally come to terms with and grapple that is out of his and his wifes control. But when he finds out that she is cheating on him it is something in his life he can control and begins to obsessively spy on her in order to balance out the lack he’s experiencing. This detrimental search for the center in a world of morals that have done him wrong leads to him attempting suicide in order to escape. This continuous back and forth is a major theme throughout the series and one of the most internal iterations conveyed through Kieslowski’s script.

While this transcendence of idiosyncratic cultural specificities to relate an engrained thought process and moral compass can at times be inherently inward looking, The Decalogue also tackles a cultural milieu through the context of Polish culture, inherently making it political, in episode V and the corresponding commandment “thou shalt not kill”. This episode and the corresponding feature length film A Short Film About Killing tackle not only one youth’s premeditated murder but also the murder of him by the Polish justice system for his crime, exposing a perpetuated cycle of killing (and inherently flawed practice) throughout both the civilian and judicial ends of modern society. The presentation of episode V creates the most distant and cold narrative in the entire series, further separating the viewer by the use of quick cuts and sepia tones throughout the duration of the episode to lend a disjointed view to the thought process of the young man Jacek (Miroslaw Baka) and his struggles within society. As Joseph G Kickasola states in his book “The Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski”, “The central concern of the film remains that of the entire Decalogue series: the deep ground from which evil emerges. Kieslowski and Piesiewicz do not attempt to posit an answer to this age-old question, but they ask it as blatantly and unflinchingly as any filmmaker in history,” (p. 201). While the film takes place predominantly within the Polish (Warsaw) penal system it symbolizes once again a practice and train of thought prevalent throughout modern society, especially with its lack of explanation on what drove Jacek to the murder of the cab driver. The criticism of the death penalty and lack of understanding towards Jacek’s motives provides a scathing indictment of modern governments willingness to kill when it is deemed wrong to not only by moralistic guidelines but by the laws they themselves enforce (and have been influenced by said moralistic guidelines outlined in the ten commandments).

It is important to examine the break in thematic, aesthetic, and political tones of episode V from the rest of The Decalogue in order to understand the masterful use of context and time in order to examine all moralistic and societal possibilities for problems of the real world. The use of a heavily filtered sepia tone throughout the episode mutes and distorts other colors in the environment to make them seem ill faded and sickly, creating a pronounced feeling of distortion and twisted malignancy surrounding (and encapsulating) not on Jacek but also the piggish cab driver whom he kills and Piotr, his lawyer who comes to his defense but is ultimately an extension of the system Jacek is not only revolting against but also the cause of his demise. The distance created from the lack of back story, sepia tones, and quick editing as Jacek inhabits many different areas of Warsaw (not just the high rise complex) allows the viewer to step back from the individual and look at a moral problem in modern society that effects more than one individual without specific circumstances and how society utilizes and breaks these moralistic codes at their pleasing.

Episodes V and VI were both expanded into feature length films A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love respectively, and must be examined as different cinematic works from the corresponding episodes. The cold and distant stylizations of episode V are broken down in A Short Film About Killing as Kieslowski chooses to spend more time on the young man Jacek and the viewer sees compassion in his life, in the form of him planting a tree. These two films are prime examples of how the one hour format for each episode of The Decalogue works on various storytelling levels as a concisely ambiguous work allowing interpretation and examination in equal levels. The works, which Kieslowski didn’t want to do but was part of the contract, offer up very different views and examinations on the characters and setting simply by adding about 30 minutes of material too each and therefore must be viewed as wholly different works.

While The Decalogue addresses many issues in a very serious manner of examination and understanding, it also uses comedic elements to understand how people cope with events in their lives and their perception of themselves. Everything from the initial cat and mouse game between Tomek and Magda in episode VI to episode X, a darkly humorous tale of two estranged brothers who come together to organize and complete their fathers expansive stamp collection after he dies. As the brothers Jerzy (Jerzy Stuhr) and Artur (Zbigniew Zamachowski) navigate a world of eccentric stamp collectors and organized crime personnel in search of a very rare and expensive stamp, they not only grow closer to each other but begin to understand the fascination their father had with stamps, becoming obsessed themselves to the point of Jerzy giving up a liver for the stamp. The comedic obsession and circumstances the characters become involved in play off of their own personalities and lifestyles, at once meshing together and making their own choices about each other and the inherited wealth and fascination of the stamp collection from their father. It’s also articulated through the comedic aspect of episode X that it is one of the most forthright and direct episodes of the series in dealing not only with its subject matter but also with The Decalogue itself as a work. The opening is Artur and his punk band playing a song where he sings about denouncing all of the commandments and taking what is yours, living a free life. As Kickasola states “The Decalogue essentially ends telling people to sin again [and this] wry, sarcastic smile from Kieslowski keeps us from tying up the story too neatly,” (p. 241). Inherently becoming a times both a probing and self-reflexive work onto which Kieslowski examines the previous nine episodes of The Decalogue, the comedic format allows for him to not only examine characters in a new light, but also the confines in which he felt the compelling need to make a work based around the rules and morals with which society dictates, even if subversively, the thoughts and actions of the individual.

The other main device Kieslowski utilizes to examine modern society throughout The Decalogue is the characters themselves. Their own actions and interconnectivity both with others in their respective episodes and other episodes throughout the series allows the viewer to not only examine the morally ambiguous situations and problems they encounter, but the cause and effects of their decisions in the matter. The internalized struggle is the focal point of every episode as the characters face moral blunders and regulations, turning the camera inward to examine their rationalized (or non-rationalized) thought process throughout the duration of the episode. While this interaction between characters is necessary, it is often detrimental. For instance, in episode VI the young boy Tomek is met with shame after Magda invites him over and he attempts to kill himself. In episode I, the father is met with extreme sadness after his son drowns on the lake. The characters that inhabit The Decalogue will often make connections then detach themselves and draw back inwards, detracting back into the inner most workings of themselves.

The apartment complex is a concise visual metaphor for the interconnectivity and detachment of the characters. The looming drab grey structure serves as a shell not only housing the characters, but protecting them from both one another and the outside world. The political connotations of the Ursynow housing complex are just as prominent. A reminder of past times under fascist communistic rule and the extreme hardships the Polish people went through during WWII, now serves as a major housing complex that the people need in order to survive. As William Verrone states in his essay “Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Decalogue and the Ambiguity of Meaning”, “the characters are entrapped by their living conditions and rarely feel empowered enough to make connections with others, even though they need to,” (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/theatrefilm/projector/04-01-12/page112295.html). This struggle for understanding and connection (or lack thereof) is presented throughout the series as a major factor in the problems the characters encounter that transcends any context to time and place and instead connect directly to the person’s intuition. For example, in episode III the two lovers both struggle with the fact that they do and don’t want to spend Christmas eve together, both for very different reasons. The need to reach out and retract back inside is ever prevalent as the characters realize their actions reaching out to one another in the first place are what put them in this situation at current.

The audacious form of The Decalogue allowed Kieslowski to create such an expansively ambiguous rumination on spirituality, decision-making, and human behavior in modern society. The utilization of 10 one-hour short films allowed for every film to be a completely different experience for the viewer, a different problem, aesthetic contrast of the situation, and transcending metaphysical peaks from one episode to another as characters and situations pop up again in various episodes if even only for a second. The ingenious accessibility of the mini-series format serves as a tool for enticement into The Decalogue series as the viewer can watch them out of order, one at a time, or all together in one 10 hour sitting. This expansive and loosely connected approach allowed Kieslowski to examine many various aspects of Polish life in enough time to relate them to the individual rather than as a culture as a whole. As Marek Haltof states in his book “The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski: Variations on Destiny and Chance”, “In spite of its apparent religious connotations, Decalogue is not only an exploration of religious or metaphysical issues but also an acute analysis of the mental condition of Polish society before 1989,” (p. 75-76). The use of drab locations and the Ursynow housing complex to relegate on the poor shape of Poland during martial law after years of devastation creates a continuous backdrop throughout the films that can’t be ignored and is often a factor in the detachment of characters as discussed above.

While The Decalogue doesn’t need to be viewed in order or all at once, the sequencing of episodes (aside from the ten commandments correlation) is uniquely reflexive. Episode I is the only truly spiteful and religious episode of the series, as the film ends on wax falling onto a picture of the Virgin Mary after the father destroys an altar. On the other end, episode X is the only fully humorous episode of the series and a self-reflexive examination on the series, and the only episode that doesn’t end in some form of tragedy. These tail ends to the series encapsulate how, as a whole cinematic work, the various episodes cover vast ground to bring together a concise ideal and examination through many various outlets. As the series progresses episode to episode various characters, visual motifs, and locations reappear that are often inconsequential to the story pertaining to the specific episode but add a layer of transcendental similitude that runs throughout the work, vaguely tying together the events in a loose structure of time and space.

This format allows for a distance to be created between the film(s) and the viewer, an unassailable boundary that forces the viewer to step back and examine the situations for themselves as they see the paths the characters take. For instance, the lack of background information on the couples relationship in episode IX doesn’t allow for the viewer to automatically attach to an individual character and rather forces them to examine both the husband and wife and their role in the relationship and current situation there in. The wife is cheating but is the husband too obsessive? Has he done this before? The one hour format works perfectly in terms of examination and presentation of the stories and moral problems the characters encounter. And the inherently ambiguous nature allows for many various interpretations of politics, spirituality, laws, choices, and morals that can be placed into many various contexts outside of 1988 Poland. As well, The Decalogue helped establish a new style of one hour mini-series used to convey expansive and loosely connected narratives. The ambitious undertaking bridged the gap between television series and more serious cinematic works to find a middle ground that was both accessible and massively important.

When talking about The Decalogue, Kieslowski states, “That’s something we thought about a lot when we were working on Decalogue. What, in essence, is right and what is wrong? What is a lie and what is truth? What is honesty and what is dishonesty? And what should one’s attitude to it be?” (p. 149). This quote sums up The Decalogue in that it doesn’t provide the answers to these questions, just ten different examinations of real life problems and the various ways individuals handle them in many contexts. Each characters search for a spiritual center in a life pulling them in opposite directions from what they perceive as just and necessary.

The power of The Decalogue to transcend borders and cultural milieus comes from its masterful use of ambiguity through the structure, script, and aesthetic tendencies to relate on a higher plane to the human condition in general rather than a specifically designated group of individuals. Rather than bind itself to the Ten Commandments as a rigid structural groundwork for each episode, they play out as part of a bigger cinematic whole that uses various commandments as the groundwork for more probing metaphysical and spiritual questions of morality and chance.

Bridging the Gap: A Short Reflection on Jules and Jim

In 1962 Francois Truffaut made his third, and arguably best feature Jules and Jim. The story about two best friends from different countries both living in Paris who fall for the same girl when she mysteriously enters their lives one day, Catherine played by the indubitable Jeanne Moreau. Looking back, the film came at a very pivotal point in Truffaut’s career and reflects that in many various strands and tendencies. From bridging the gap over aesthetic tendencies of the much varied new wave movement and classical Hollywood cinema which Truffaut loved, to existential and multi-textual examinations on love, life, and French culture, Jules and Jim serves as a honing of aesthetic and theoretical sensibilities for Truffaut and the break through of an auteur to advancing beyond the confines of the French New Wave movement of recent years in which he was directly affiliated with.

In order to understand Jules and Jim and the films title characters, it is imperative to understand the complex nature of Catherine and her relationship with Jules and Jim respectively. Having been discovered on the street by the men after they see her face on a sculpture and vow to find this, the perfect woman, there is a series of static shots that establish the physical features of her face and the similarity to that of the statue the two men were introduced to by a friend, Albert. This cinematic representation of a form of great infatuation and perfection distinctly creates a separation between Catherine and the two men that stays forever, because she is in fact a goddess. As Eliane DalMolin states in her essay, “When they meet Catherine, they know she is their “statufied” desire come true. However, Catherine’s complex nature leaves her out of psychological reach, and despite her coming into Jules and Jims human world, she remains an unattainable object of desire throughout the film,” (p. 238). Utilizing this rather mysterious driving force for the film, Truffaut examines the state of love, knowledge, relationships, and interconnectivity in pre and post-WWI France.

This layered story of a love triangle spanning decades from before the start of World War One up until when the characters reach middle age is inherently melodramatic and connected back to Truffaut’s love of the classical Hollywood picture. This story arc is presented in an ultimately complex but subdued form of French New Wave editing, mis-en-scene, and cinematography. For instance, if the characters were involved in a back and forth dialogue scene, Truffaut and editor Claudine Bouche would simply cut out 15 seconds of the middle of the scene if they felt it was filler. While the mis-en-scne and cinematography is much more lavish than The 400 Blows and much less radical than Shoot the Piano Player, it still retains a quality of true life accentuated with minimalistic detail although the film is in no way a minimalist piece.

Truffaut explores, in many ways, the absurd condition of modern thought process and an existential view of the rupture, which ends up dictating most of the characters actions and own ideals throughout the film. As Allen Thiher states in his essay “The Existential Play in Truffaut’s Early Films”, “In Jules and Jim, on the other hand, absurd chance is incorporated into the very fabric of the plot itself in such a way that the plot not only sets forth the dramatic action, but its very structure also connotes the arduous difficulty of choice in a world given over to the absurd,” (p. 187). For instance, Catherine is late to a rendezvous with Jim at a small café, showing up at 8 when she was supposed to be there at 7, and Jim leaves just before she gets there. It’s because of this missed experience she ends up marrying Jules and moving in together. Most of the actions in the characters lives are dictated by sheer accident and chance.

Jules and Jim become aware of this absurdist standpoint while fighting on opposite side of the trenches in WWI, with Jules going home to Germany to fight for his country. In letters to their respective lovers, both Jules and Jim’s main concern was not accidentally killing their best friend. This self-imposed recognition of the absurd is an inherently New Wave technique to open the audience to not only examine the characters but also themselves directly through the cinema. Rather than focus on political aspects (like his peer Godard did) Truffaut instead turns the New Wave aesthetic principals in upon themselves to examine ones self and the relationship to the cinema one can have. For example, in the penultimate scene were Jim sneaks in to see Catherine and they get into a disagreement and she pulls a rather large six-shooter revolver on him, the action comes out of nowhere and nothing truly eludes to this level of severity but it is accepted. The editing is quick and somewhat evading as the viewer doesn’t see the gun until its already out, immediately invoking a visceral reaction while trying to comprehend what’s happening in context to the characters relationship.

The other imperative aspect to understanding the pinnacle of Jules and Jim in Truffaut’s career is the films relation to the two that came before it, The 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player. With the quintessentially New Wave styling’s of aesthetics and American movie mash-ups in the latter and the revelatory breakthrough of the former, all three of Truffaut’s first films had a very important mark on the man and the history of cinema. While all three films hold aesthetic tendencies of the New Wave and I would consider all three to be films of the French New Wave school, Jules and Jim is a mature formation of ideals presented in the first two films. From the flighty use of real Paris streets and locations in The 400 Blows to aberrant mash-ups of content and cinematic language in Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim utilizes these elements to create a much more subdued style of New Wave filmmaking that beckons the viewer into a much more personal journey. For instance, a pivotal scene in the film takes place when all three main characters go out for a stroll around Paris, utilizing handheld camera work and quick editing Truffaut accurately displays not only the context of all three characters as a collective but also their individual feelings of their current time and place. Including spontaneity of decisions such as Catherine decided to jump into a river at a seconds notice, unbeknownst to either Jules or Jim.

This important work of French cinema holds its place not only in the echelons of the New Wave movement but also its incorporation of a more formal cinematic style of predominantly American cinematic history. From its frank exploration of the absurdist condition in modern thought processes to utilization of both aesthetic ends of the cinematic spectrum, Jules and Jim is an engaging masterwork forged in both new and old cinematic tendencies.