Given that Neil Marshall’s first film, Dog Soldiers, concerned a group of military men trying to survive the night and that this film, his second, concerns a group of militant (though not military) women trying to reach daylight, it’s pretty clear going in that something’s afoot besides cheap genre thrills. And sure enough there’s quite a lot bubbling beneath The Descent’s genuinely terrifying broken bones and gnashing teeth.
But that’ll have to wait for a moment because the visceral experience of those broken bones is about as intense and horrifying as has ever been realized on film. Starting long before the first creepy crawler rears his albino gargoyle visage, the tension in the film is built around all manner of things real and imagined. Marshall, you see, is plainly in love with the conventions of the horror film and there’s not a one that he doesn’t reference in The Descent. For instance, there are at least two dream sequences that only reveal themselves as illusions after the scary thing leaps out of the dark (or comes around the corner). And such is Marshall’s talent that he manages to reinvigorate these normally quite obvious and completely cliché moments to such an extent that he almost makes you forget that they are cliché. Further on into the film we find the drunken mirth making in the cabin in the woods the night before the unfortunate events that comprise the film proper. Then we have the rebirth of the audience avatar (or Girl Who Lives or whatever you want to call her (Sarah in this case)) as a warrior. And so on and so forth. The point is that Marshall is so in love with the conventions of his chosen genre that the sheer joy he takes in referencing them is evident in how fresh and vibrant they are made to feel.
That vibrant life is also what ultimately makes The Descent so horrifying. The reason that the clichés of the horror genre exist is the same reason that stereotypes exist, namely that they have some basis in fact (even if that fact remains long buried in the past). Once upon a time what has now become horror film cliché actually scared people and Marshall has elevated and reinvigorated these clichés to the point that he is more or less working with all the techniques the cinema has ever come up with on how to scare the crap out of people. And further, without the clichés and hokey characterizations and lame death scenes of most horror films, there is no respite, no reprieve, no letting up. This film has its foot on the accelerator and the scares just keep coming faster and faster and the tension builds higher and higher until you’re either forced to look away just to prove that it is indeed a film or you succumb completely and fully immerse yourself in this horrible environment. Needless the say, either outcome is a testament to the virtuosity with which it has been created. There’s no other horror film that I’ve ever seen as perfectly tuned to maximum fright as this one. While that doesn’t make it Citizen Kane, it certainly speaks volumes about the talent at work and is no less a testament to the power of film.
And of course, outside of being terrifically frightening, The Descent also has a hell of a lot to say about the power of women and their role in modern society. Take, for instance, the fact that the film concerns six women squeezing themselves through dark, wet tunnels and sloshing around in viscous pools of liquid trying to find a way out into the light all while dodging the attacks of skulking men seeking to penetrate their flesh. In that context the film can almost be read as a struggle for reproductive freedom. The women have shunned men and thus must earn the right, through trials that mirror the act of giving birth, to sever the ties that link reproduction to men. In short, they choose to reproduce on their own terms (invitro fertilization, artificial insemination) but in so doing they take on the role of warrior (a traditionally male role) to protect their child and to defend their right to do so.
But what then to make of the fact that our hero’s rebirth as a warrior is facilitated by an attack from the lone female amongst the creepy crawlers? If this is truly a battle for control of gender identity and reproductive freedom then why is the most important battle (thematically, not as concerns the plot) between our hero and another female? Perhaps this is a canny nod to the fact that women are oftentimes (maybe most of the time) most responsible for keeping each other from reaching their objectives.
The events at the end of the film seem to bear out this line of reasoning. As Sarah and the only other surviving female, Juno, near the end of their journey back to the light (and a final rebirth) they come face to face with each other, weapons at the ready, after having just vanquished a batch of the crawlers. Earlier Sarah had learned that the true reason Juno was unable to stay by her side in the hospital after the car crash that killed Sarah’s husband and child was because Juno was sleeping with Sarah’s husband. Now, face to face, armed with pointed blades and drenched in various fluids, Sarah faces the choice of whether to help or attack her friend. That she chooses to attack speaks volumes about just how strong the impulse to restrain other females is. Even at the point of death and after having survived a similar encounter with a scorned female crawler, Sarah chooses vengeance.
Perhaps it’s only fitting that this should be the hero’s final decisive act. It’s Marshall’s last and most groundbreaking reinvention of archetype. The final scare in a horror film is almost always a cheat (think of the final shot of Carrie, for instance, a film not coincidentally referenced more than once here) that is meant to scare the audience but seems almost unfair to the hero who has survived so much. It’s just a cheap cop out to goose the audience one more time. But for Marshall the final scare is less a jump-out-of-your-seat scare and more a psychological wound inflicted on the audience. With that last audacious act, Sarah casts aside the audience sympathy and turns herself into the villain. We’ve rooted for this woman for an hour and half only to find our trust has been misplaced.
In some ways this is equally as cheap as a final out-of-nowhere jump-scare. But it’s certainly different and inventive and creepy as fuck because it strikes at the audience not at a character. And it’s the last in a string of clever deceptions and subversions perpetrated by the writer / director. As such it’s a doozy and as terrifically terrifying in its own way as anything that came before. I cannot wait to see what this guy does next.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
MANDERLAY – lars von trier – 7.5 / 10
For the second part of his America trilogy, Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier has taken for his subject slavery and the subsequent assimilation of black people into mainstream American society. Since race is such a touchy subject in this country and since we are already so skeptical of Europeans and their attitudes (especially when it comes to sex and violence) it’s easy to understand why almost every professional reviewer has gotten up on their high horse to denounce the very idea of this film. They treat the idea of a European making a film about the American racial problem as if it were sacrilegious and therefore can’t bring themselves to give the film the fair look it deserves.
As far as I’m concerned, outsiders often have the best insight into our culture. Look at artists like the Taiwan-born Ang Lee whose The Ice Storm is as piercing a portrayal of middles class 1970s ennui as has ever been made by an American. Or look at the Italian Sergio Leone whose Once Upon a Time in America is as succinct a summation of the American experience in the early twentieth century as the homegrown Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy. That foreigners would have a keen insight into the vagaries of American culture should not be seen as insulting nor should it even be seen as surprising. Our culture permeates the world. In the days leading up to this most recent Gulf War there were pictures of young Iraqis wearing Batman t-shirts on the cover of the New York Times. Our culture is everywhere, so much so that we no longer can claim ownership of it. And if artists from other countries that are inundated with our culture want to comment on it and poke holes in it, we would be better served to accept their art with an open mind and critique it on its merits not simply on whether it has the right to exist in the first place.
So let’s get down to it then. Von Trier’s idea of the black experience in America over the last two hundred years is basically that black people in America were so scarred by the experience of slavery that they chose a sort of self-imposed slavery after they were set “free” and further that this second form of slavery is the more disturbing and harmful because it is self-imposed. Like the former slaves at the Manderlay plantation, many modern black Americans still live in the South. And those that have moved out of their ancestral homes have largely congregated in predominantly black communities in the urban North and West. Additionally, amongst these black communities (especially those in an urban setting) anything that looks like achievement in the white world is shunned (sometimes this is construed as school success sometimes it is construed as working a low-paying job, etc.). And finally the only areas of achievement that many of these black people respect are music and sports, the same areas in which slaves used to entertain themselves. So, if this is really the case, it sure does look like black Americans have chosen to continue to live as if they were slaves and that Von Trier is right.
The problem, however, is that this idea of black people, while it may be the pervasive depiction of them in our popular culture, is not really the experience of most black Americans. In truth, the experience of most black Americans is pretty similar to that of white Americans of similar economic status. And it is really this economic status that determines what kind a life a person living in America will have not the color of their skin.
It’s not surprising though that Von Trier got it wrong. It is, rather, pretty easy to see how he could think black people have ghetto-ized themselves post-slavery if he only had our popular culture to go on. But Von Trier is smarter than that. And I can’t believe his research would be entirely limited to viewing popular culture. So perhaps he is making the point that this is how we have presented the black American experience to the world. Maybe he’s just holding up a mirror so that we might see. Maybe he’s trying to start a discussion about race in America so that we might take a hard look at how we present it to the rest of the world; a world that we seem to be trying to remake in our image.
Or maybe he’s not even really talking about race in America. Maybe this whole slavery thing is a smokescreen. If we take Grace as a metaphor for George W. Bush, the slaves as metaphorical Iraqis and the gangsters as a metaphorical United States military, a rather interesting idea begins to emerge. Does Grace not force independence on the slaves in the same way Bush imposed “freedom” on the Iraqi citizens after the fall of Sadam Hussein? Aren’t the Iraqis rebelling against their newfound freedom and seeking refuge in chaos and sectarianism in the same way the freed slaves of Manderlay do? This metaphor is so perfectly apt that I can’t help but think this might have been Von Trier’s true allegorical meaning.
With this new reading in mind, much more interesting ideas begin to present themselves. When the slaves are freed their entire way of life is destroyed. Left with no infrastructure, they meander around the grounds doing nothing much and, to Grace’s great displeasure, making nothing of themselves. So Grace takes it on herself to impose democratic law at the point of a rifle in the exact same way that Bush has done in Iraq. But what she finds is that there is no one around any longer with the ability to run the plantation. The old way may have been corrupt but the oppressed slaves were not calling for their freedom. They did not want to take control of the plantation for themselves. And because they did not, once their freedom is given to them they have no incentive to make a new system in place of the old one. And it comes as no surprise that without an infrastructure everything at Manderlay collapses. There is no food to eat. The crops are mostly destroyed. Tensions rise until two people are dead.
As Grace observes this happening she can’t figure out why the freed slaves are allowing their world to crumble. And she makes the same mistake that George W. Bush made in Iraq. You cannot give people their freedom and expect them to do anything with it. They must take it for themselves. For only when they truly desire freedom can they possibly use it to their benefit. No people in history have ever had a successful revolution from without. This is true at the moment in Iraq and it is true at Manderlay.
Further, and this is where the Bush criticism is sharpest, once the slaves are freed, Grace takes it on herself to teach them about democracy and the American system of government. President Bush has said many times that he thinks bringing democracy to the world is the way to heal all the world’s ills. And this is not an uncommon view in America. It stems from our evangelical nature. We think the rest of the world is going to hell and we want to help them if we can. In Manderlay, Grace watches all her efforts to teach voting and representative government be misrepresented and used to promote ends she doesn’t support. But faced with the choice of whether to kill an innocent woman or reject her precious democracy, she chooses murder. She compromises her moral code in order to uphold her governmental aims. And in that moment the audience realizes (and maybe she does too) that imposing a system of living on a people can never work no matter how well intentioned. Grace’s imposition of democracy on the slaves is no better than Mam’s imposition of slavery on them. It is just another system forced on them at the point of a gun or a blade, and it can never work. This is the lesson George Bush is learning in Iraq.
And so the second part of Von Trier’s America trilogy turns out to not really be about the black experience in America as advertised. Rather it is a clever condemnation of the American or maybe more accurately the Bushian idea that we know what’s best for the world. Manderlay says that one group of people can never make another group of people do what they want without everything turning to shit. Change comes from within. This is something anyone who’s ever been an addict knows. This is something anyone who’s ever tried to get a loved one to change knows. It is something those in power should never forget. Grace should have known better. And George Bush should have known better. Let’s just hope that his time in office comes to an end before his anger escalates like Grace at the end of the film and her whipping of Timothy turns into Bush’s nuking of the whole Middle East.
As far as I’m concerned, outsiders often have the best insight into our culture. Look at artists like the Taiwan-born Ang Lee whose The Ice Storm is as piercing a portrayal of middles class 1970s ennui as has ever been made by an American. Or look at the Italian Sergio Leone whose Once Upon a Time in America is as succinct a summation of the American experience in the early twentieth century as the homegrown Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy. That foreigners would have a keen insight into the vagaries of American culture should not be seen as insulting nor should it even be seen as surprising. Our culture permeates the world. In the days leading up to this most recent Gulf War there were pictures of young Iraqis wearing Batman t-shirts on the cover of the New York Times. Our culture is everywhere, so much so that we no longer can claim ownership of it. And if artists from other countries that are inundated with our culture want to comment on it and poke holes in it, we would be better served to accept their art with an open mind and critique it on its merits not simply on whether it has the right to exist in the first place.
So let’s get down to it then. Von Trier’s idea of the black experience in America over the last two hundred years is basically that black people in America were so scarred by the experience of slavery that they chose a sort of self-imposed slavery after they were set “free” and further that this second form of slavery is the more disturbing and harmful because it is self-imposed. Like the former slaves at the Manderlay plantation, many modern black Americans still live in the South. And those that have moved out of their ancestral homes have largely congregated in predominantly black communities in the urban North and West. Additionally, amongst these black communities (especially those in an urban setting) anything that looks like achievement in the white world is shunned (sometimes this is construed as school success sometimes it is construed as working a low-paying job, etc.). And finally the only areas of achievement that many of these black people respect are music and sports, the same areas in which slaves used to entertain themselves. So, if this is really the case, it sure does look like black Americans have chosen to continue to live as if they were slaves and that Von Trier is right.
The problem, however, is that this idea of black people, while it may be the pervasive depiction of them in our popular culture, is not really the experience of most black Americans. In truth, the experience of most black Americans is pretty similar to that of white Americans of similar economic status. And it is really this economic status that determines what kind a life a person living in America will have not the color of their skin.
It’s not surprising though that Von Trier got it wrong. It is, rather, pretty easy to see how he could think black people have ghetto-ized themselves post-slavery if he only had our popular culture to go on. But Von Trier is smarter than that. And I can’t believe his research would be entirely limited to viewing popular culture. So perhaps he is making the point that this is how we have presented the black American experience to the world. Maybe he’s just holding up a mirror so that we might see. Maybe he’s trying to start a discussion about race in America so that we might take a hard look at how we present it to the rest of the world; a world that we seem to be trying to remake in our image.
Or maybe he’s not even really talking about race in America. Maybe this whole slavery thing is a smokescreen. If we take Grace as a metaphor for George W. Bush, the slaves as metaphorical Iraqis and the gangsters as a metaphorical United States military, a rather interesting idea begins to emerge. Does Grace not force independence on the slaves in the same way Bush imposed “freedom” on the Iraqi citizens after the fall of Sadam Hussein? Aren’t the Iraqis rebelling against their newfound freedom and seeking refuge in chaos and sectarianism in the same way the freed slaves of Manderlay do? This metaphor is so perfectly apt that I can’t help but think this might have been Von Trier’s true allegorical meaning.
With this new reading in mind, much more interesting ideas begin to present themselves. When the slaves are freed their entire way of life is destroyed. Left with no infrastructure, they meander around the grounds doing nothing much and, to Grace’s great displeasure, making nothing of themselves. So Grace takes it on herself to impose democratic law at the point of a rifle in the exact same way that Bush has done in Iraq. But what she finds is that there is no one around any longer with the ability to run the plantation. The old way may have been corrupt but the oppressed slaves were not calling for their freedom. They did not want to take control of the plantation for themselves. And because they did not, once their freedom is given to them they have no incentive to make a new system in place of the old one. And it comes as no surprise that without an infrastructure everything at Manderlay collapses. There is no food to eat. The crops are mostly destroyed. Tensions rise until two people are dead.
As Grace observes this happening she can’t figure out why the freed slaves are allowing their world to crumble. And she makes the same mistake that George W. Bush made in Iraq. You cannot give people their freedom and expect them to do anything with it. They must take it for themselves. For only when they truly desire freedom can they possibly use it to their benefit. No people in history have ever had a successful revolution from without. This is true at the moment in Iraq and it is true at Manderlay.
Further, and this is where the Bush criticism is sharpest, once the slaves are freed, Grace takes it on herself to teach them about democracy and the American system of government. President Bush has said many times that he thinks bringing democracy to the world is the way to heal all the world’s ills. And this is not an uncommon view in America. It stems from our evangelical nature. We think the rest of the world is going to hell and we want to help them if we can. In Manderlay, Grace watches all her efforts to teach voting and representative government be misrepresented and used to promote ends she doesn’t support. But faced with the choice of whether to kill an innocent woman or reject her precious democracy, she chooses murder. She compromises her moral code in order to uphold her governmental aims. And in that moment the audience realizes (and maybe she does too) that imposing a system of living on a people can never work no matter how well intentioned. Grace’s imposition of democracy on the slaves is no better than Mam’s imposition of slavery on them. It is just another system forced on them at the point of a gun or a blade, and it can never work. This is the lesson George Bush is learning in Iraq.
And so the second part of Von Trier’s America trilogy turns out to not really be about the black experience in America as advertised. Rather it is a clever condemnation of the American or maybe more accurately the Bushian idea that we know what’s best for the world. Manderlay says that one group of people can never make another group of people do what they want without everything turning to shit. Change comes from within. This is something anyone who’s ever been an addict knows. This is something anyone who’s ever tried to get a loved one to change knows. It is something those in power should never forget. Grace should have known better. And George Bush should have known better. Let’s just hope that his time in office comes to an end before his anger escalates like Grace at the end of the film and her whipping of Timothy turns into Bush’s nuking of the whole Middle East.
Monday, August 21, 2006
BAND A PART – jean luc godard – 5.5 /10
If this is Godard at his most brilliant and breathtaking as everyone claims, then I think it’s safe to say that I simply don’t understand what the big deal is. Admittedly there are some nifty shots and some memorable moments scattered throughout the film (the famous minute of silence and run through the Louvre among them) but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s mostly boring, predictable and peopled by agonizingly ignorant characters who are dogged by a hopelessly pretentious narrator.
See, these three dolts are in love with popular culture of all stripes (but mostly movies) and imagine themselves as the heroes in their own film or pulp novel. When they dance in a café they hear a jazzy score playing in their heads (which is absent when pretentious narrator man is speaking his banalities). When they decide to sit for a full minute in complete silence, the whole world goes silent around them as if they are the only people in existence. And when they decide to steal money from Odile’s house, they imagine themselves to be some kind of gangsters.
The thing is, since Godard is quoting heavily from and referencing at every turn various other films and novels, he’s no different from his characters. And while that might otherwise be charming, in this case that makes him sort of an idiot. But at the same time he realizes his obsession with pop culture makes him a romantic fool and accepts that it is so. This however, does not excuse his relentlessly pretentious narration. But in this context I can’t see the narration as anything other than a joke and a not very funny one at that.
So yet again, when the film is over we’re left with the eternal question of “art” films, namely did the artistic, symbolic and metaphorical aspirations of the film outweigh the pure entertainment value and if so is the film still worth seeing and talking about. In Band a Part it’s unquestionable that the artistic concerns of Godard far overshadow the entertainment concerns so the key question is whether these symbolic and artistic elements make the film worthwhile. It’s half-century reputation as one of the classics of French cinema would seem to indicate that the answer is yes. And I agree that the film is pretty watchable despite it’s lack of an interesting plot. But I cannot agree that the film is worth adding to the canon. It’s worth a look but there are far better films that manage to make as many references as this one but in a way that doesn’t become the complete focus of the film. After all, anyone can string together a bunch of references and call it a masterpiece but not too many people can hide those references in a film that has being entertaining as it’s primary objective. In both Band a Part and Breathless, Godard constantly references American films, television shows and novels that are hugely entertaining as well as being full of symbolic meaning. If he really wanted to pay proper tribute to these works of art he shouldn’t have simply strung together a bunch of references to them and called it a film. He should have made a film that references them but does what he admires about those works as well or better. Maybe it’s me forcing my desire for what these films should be, but it’s hard to be Orson Welles or Jack London and pretty damned easy to name a character after him and call it a day.
See, these three dolts are in love with popular culture of all stripes (but mostly movies) and imagine themselves as the heroes in their own film or pulp novel. When they dance in a café they hear a jazzy score playing in their heads (which is absent when pretentious narrator man is speaking his banalities). When they decide to sit for a full minute in complete silence, the whole world goes silent around them as if they are the only people in existence. And when they decide to steal money from Odile’s house, they imagine themselves to be some kind of gangsters.
The thing is, since Godard is quoting heavily from and referencing at every turn various other films and novels, he’s no different from his characters. And while that might otherwise be charming, in this case that makes him sort of an idiot. But at the same time he realizes his obsession with pop culture makes him a romantic fool and accepts that it is so. This however, does not excuse his relentlessly pretentious narration. But in this context I can’t see the narration as anything other than a joke and a not very funny one at that.
So yet again, when the film is over we’re left with the eternal question of “art” films, namely did the artistic, symbolic and metaphorical aspirations of the film outweigh the pure entertainment value and if so is the film still worth seeing and talking about. In Band a Part it’s unquestionable that the artistic concerns of Godard far overshadow the entertainment concerns so the key question is whether these symbolic and artistic elements make the film worthwhile. It’s half-century reputation as one of the classics of French cinema would seem to indicate that the answer is yes. And I agree that the film is pretty watchable despite it’s lack of an interesting plot. But I cannot agree that the film is worth adding to the canon. It’s worth a look but there are far better films that manage to make as many references as this one but in a way that doesn’t become the complete focus of the film. After all, anyone can string together a bunch of references and call it a masterpiece but not too many people can hide those references in a film that has being entertaining as it’s primary objective. In both Band a Part and Breathless, Godard constantly references American films, television shows and novels that are hugely entertaining as well as being full of symbolic meaning. If he really wanted to pay proper tribute to these works of art he shouldn’t have simply strung together a bunch of references to them and called it a film. He should have made a film that references them but does what he admires about those works as well or better. Maybe it’s me forcing my desire for what these films should be, but it’s hard to be Orson Welles or Jack London and pretty damned easy to name a character after him and call it a day.
Monday, August 14, 2006
THE FOG – rupert wainwright – 0.2 / 10
The Fog is that special kind of stupid movie in which a character. when driving through the fog, says, “I can’t see anything” then immediately runs into another car. In other words, it’s completely and quite stupidly obvious. Worse than that, everything in this film that has been changed from the original has been made tremendously worse.
Now the original film was never a classic work of cinema but it is an important piece of the horror canon. Admittedly, however, the effects in the film are very dated with its ghosts looking less like scary apparitions and more like gay pride paraders looking for Bleecker Street. So maybe it was due for a remake. But the things that made the original interesting were things like the fact that Stevie, the unmarried mother and lighthouse DJ, has to take on the role of father / protector when her family is threatened, or that a major character is just a hitchhiker who happened to be passing through on the fateful night. This is some interesting shit that, of course, was changed in the remake.
I guess in our modern PG-13 horror film age, the people behind these films don’t want the teenyboppers they’re pitching them to to be encouraged to do immoral things like hitchhike and engage in premarital sex even though that aspect of the original film can be read as a cautionary tale against doing just that. I suppose the people behind this film think that’s too complex an argument for a horror film to make. Better just make the hitchhiker the ex-girlfriend of the guy picking her up. That way when they fall into bed the audience will know that premarital sex is only okay if you’re in love.
Now the original film was never a classic work of cinema but it is an important piece of the horror canon. Admittedly, however, the effects in the film are very dated with its ghosts looking less like scary apparitions and more like gay pride paraders looking for Bleecker Street. So maybe it was due for a remake. But the things that made the original interesting were things like the fact that Stevie, the unmarried mother and lighthouse DJ, has to take on the role of father / protector when her family is threatened, or that a major character is just a hitchhiker who happened to be passing through on the fateful night. This is some interesting shit that, of course, was changed in the remake.
I guess in our modern PG-13 horror film age, the people behind these films don’t want the teenyboppers they’re pitching them to to be encouraged to do immoral things like hitchhike and engage in premarital sex even though that aspect of the original film can be read as a cautionary tale against doing just that. I suppose the people behind this film think that’s too complex an argument for a horror film to make. Better just make the hitchhiker the ex-girlfriend of the guy picking her up. That way when they fall into bed the audience will know that premarital sex is only okay if you’re in love.
Saturday, August 5, 2006
THE WIRE: SEASON ONE – david simon – 9.5 / 10
Discussing individual episodes of The Wire as self-contained stories is as useless as talking about individual chapters of a novel as if they were separate stories. Thus, although The Wire is absolutely brilliant, it’s possible to view it as a complete failure as a television show since it is nearly impossible to enjoy in one-hour segments one night a week. But viewed on DVD, when the chapters (episodes) can be seen at any pace the viewer chooses, The Wire becomes something altogether different. It becomes one thirteen-hour masterpiece the likes of which I had previously thought television incapable of producing.
The first season of The Wire is an astonishingly assured piece of work. Every scene and plot development, every interaction is so convincing in its realism (credit here goes to the outstanding performances as well as the skilled writing and directing) that the story sweeps the viewer up in a way that almost no show before it has ever done. It’s so immersive that it almost defeats criticism altogether. And more than that, this is one television show in which, like in an auteurist work of cinema, every camera angle and word of dialogue means something and is rich in subtext. Unlike every other television show that values plot above all else, The Wire takes the time to set its scenes in places of symbolic importance and has its characters talk about things that obliquely reference the main themes being developed over the course of the season.
Take for instance the scenes in which Detectives Bunk Moreland and Jimmy McNulty drink near the train tracks. In the western genre the coming of the railroad to the unspoiled western prairie meant the death of the outlaw way of life and the coming of the industrial revolution. The railroad is destined to bring order and lawfulness to an uncivilized land (or at least a different, more refined sense of corruption). The appearance of a railroad quite literally means that the people here are at a crossroads and it hints that how they deal with this impending change is how they will be defined as people. In the same way, when McNulty is drinking at the train tracks he finds himself on the edge of a precipice, at a crossroads (usually, of course, it’s his own self-destructive nature that’s brought him to this point but nonetheless, here he is). Thus McNulty is like a western lawman, defined by the way in which he handles himself during the current crisis.
Additionally, the subplot involving Omar stealing from the Barksdales has distinct echoes of the western outlaw. It’s shot in a way that evokes the classic John Ford and Sergio Leone westerns. Couple that with the railroad and the overriding theme of the season starts to emerge, i.e. the coming revolution. Nobody is naïve enough to believe that the impending changes actually herald any real progress. But they will be changes nonetheless and whether the characters evolve and change with the world around them will primarily determine whether they continue to be a part of the police force (in McNulty’s case) or continue to live (in Omar’s case). Both are faced with the defining crisis of their careers or lives and must face it on their own like the gunslingers who meet in the street at noon to enact the climactic duel.
Obviously this idea of the police and drug dealers as heroic duelists is a bit overblown and melodramatic. And David Simon and his writing staff know this. But to the characters, to McNulty and Omar, this 'game' of theirs really does feel like the stuff of legend. They are the gods in their own myths. And if the viewer is to be fully integrated into this world, they must live it as the characters live it, complete with the unsustainable belief that what they're doing actually means something, that the revolution is coming and that it will change things. The reality that everyone involved knows deep down in the backs of their minds (and which is occasionally spoken aloud but never listened to) is that nothing can change the game as long as the rules remain the same (i.e. drugs remain illegal). But such thoughts would make it impossible to play the game and are therefore ignored or suppressed with alcohol or other controlled substances.
Thus it comes as an even greater blow when, at the end of the season, Lt. Daniels’s detail is denied a decisive victory over the Barksdales by the bureaucratic incompetence and careerism of the police force. And initially on first viewing this development left such a bad taste in my mouth that it tainted my enjoyment of the whole season. I knew that in reality this was the most likely outcome. I knew also that even if the detail was completely successful then other drug dealing crews would swoop in to take the Barksdales’ place. But so firmly was I invested in this titanic struggle between McNulty and Avon that I couldn’t bear that it ended in a draw.
It’s now become clear to me, however, that this is the true genius of The Wire. Its characters may believe that they are gods fighting a mythological war, and we the viewers might ourselves get so caught up in the story that we believe it too, but the reality that stands just outside these self-deluded people never forgets. And just when it seems that these mighty warriors have bent reality to their will, they have the rug pulled out from under them and they (and we) realize just how small and unimportant what they’ve invested themselves in really is.
This is, quite understandably, a crushing blow. And not one a television viewer is used to receiving. Thus the season, on first viewing, came off as disappointing. But I’ve come to realize just how much more valuable it is to hew closely to reality when the temptation to make it all end well must have been so overwhelming. The people behind this show must have been far more in love with their characters than I ever could be. And if they had the nerve to still remain true to how this would really be in the actual Baltimore, how then can I complain? Besides, having something end satisfactorily and having it end the way I want it to are not mutually exclusive options. It doesn’t have to all work out in order for the audience to be satisfied. Just like in every other aspect of the show, you can’t view the ending like you would that of any other show. It demands more from you and gives you much much more in return. And it somehow manages to get better each time you watch it.
The first season of The Wire is an astonishingly assured piece of work. Every scene and plot development, every interaction is so convincing in its realism (credit here goes to the outstanding performances as well as the skilled writing and directing) that the story sweeps the viewer up in a way that almost no show before it has ever done. It’s so immersive that it almost defeats criticism altogether. And more than that, this is one television show in which, like in an auteurist work of cinema, every camera angle and word of dialogue means something and is rich in subtext. Unlike every other television show that values plot above all else, The Wire takes the time to set its scenes in places of symbolic importance and has its characters talk about things that obliquely reference the main themes being developed over the course of the season.
Take for instance the scenes in which Detectives Bunk Moreland and Jimmy McNulty drink near the train tracks. In the western genre the coming of the railroad to the unspoiled western prairie meant the death of the outlaw way of life and the coming of the industrial revolution. The railroad is destined to bring order and lawfulness to an uncivilized land (or at least a different, more refined sense of corruption). The appearance of a railroad quite literally means that the people here are at a crossroads and it hints that how they deal with this impending change is how they will be defined as people. In the same way, when McNulty is drinking at the train tracks he finds himself on the edge of a precipice, at a crossroads (usually, of course, it’s his own self-destructive nature that’s brought him to this point but nonetheless, here he is). Thus McNulty is like a western lawman, defined by the way in which he handles himself during the current crisis.
Additionally, the subplot involving Omar stealing from the Barksdales has distinct echoes of the western outlaw. It’s shot in a way that evokes the classic John Ford and Sergio Leone westerns. Couple that with the railroad and the overriding theme of the season starts to emerge, i.e. the coming revolution. Nobody is naïve enough to believe that the impending changes actually herald any real progress. But they will be changes nonetheless and whether the characters evolve and change with the world around them will primarily determine whether they continue to be a part of the police force (in McNulty’s case) or continue to live (in Omar’s case). Both are faced with the defining crisis of their careers or lives and must face it on their own like the gunslingers who meet in the street at noon to enact the climactic duel.
Obviously this idea of the police and drug dealers as heroic duelists is a bit overblown and melodramatic. And David Simon and his writing staff know this. But to the characters, to McNulty and Omar, this 'game' of theirs really does feel like the stuff of legend. They are the gods in their own myths. And if the viewer is to be fully integrated into this world, they must live it as the characters live it, complete with the unsustainable belief that what they're doing actually means something, that the revolution is coming and that it will change things. The reality that everyone involved knows deep down in the backs of their minds (and which is occasionally spoken aloud but never listened to) is that nothing can change the game as long as the rules remain the same (i.e. drugs remain illegal). But such thoughts would make it impossible to play the game and are therefore ignored or suppressed with alcohol or other controlled substances.
Thus it comes as an even greater blow when, at the end of the season, Lt. Daniels’s detail is denied a decisive victory over the Barksdales by the bureaucratic incompetence and careerism of the police force. And initially on first viewing this development left such a bad taste in my mouth that it tainted my enjoyment of the whole season. I knew that in reality this was the most likely outcome. I knew also that even if the detail was completely successful then other drug dealing crews would swoop in to take the Barksdales’ place. But so firmly was I invested in this titanic struggle between McNulty and Avon that I couldn’t bear that it ended in a draw.
It’s now become clear to me, however, that this is the true genius of The Wire. Its characters may believe that they are gods fighting a mythological war, and we the viewers might ourselves get so caught up in the story that we believe it too, but the reality that stands just outside these self-deluded people never forgets. And just when it seems that these mighty warriors have bent reality to their will, they have the rug pulled out from under them and they (and we) realize just how small and unimportant what they’ve invested themselves in really is.
This is, quite understandably, a crushing blow. And not one a television viewer is used to receiving. Thus the season, on first viewing, came off as disappointing. But I’ve come to realize just how much more valuable it is to hew closely to reality when the temptation to make it all end well must have been so overwhelming. The people behind this show must have been far more in love with their characters than I ever could be. And if they had the nerve to still remain true to how this would really be in the actual Baltimore, how then can I complain? Besides, having something end satisfactorily and having it end the way I want it to are not mutually exclusive options. It doesn’t have to all work out in order for the audience to be satisfied. Just like in every other aspect of the show, you can’t view the ending like you would that of any other show. It demands more from you and gives you much much more in return. And it somehow manages to get better each time you watch it.
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