Alex Dewing reminisces on the melancholic score and soundtrack of David Lowery’s A Ghost Story. 

“Don’t be scared”, whispers C in the opening moments of David Lowery’s A Ghost Story. It is in this same moment that we hear the longest piece of music from the soundtrack, swelling ominously over those very words (even the subtitles read [ominous music plays]). The sustained notes haunt the piece, as if seeking to tell you everything you need to know about the stirring picture to follow. Aside from its notable 1:33:1 ratio, and of course that opening A24 graphic, A Ghost Story doesn’t initially play out any differently to other indie movies. But once those 5 minutes and 23 seconds of song are up, so is its likeness to anything else. Dialogue and music are used equally sparsely, however when the score does play it speaks more than words ever could.

Undeniably existential, A Ghost Story lingers on the mundanity of grief both visually and audibly: after receiving a pie from an unknown but sympathetic source, M unwraps it, takes it to the floor, and devours it in one five minute long take. There is no sensitive accompaniment, only silence, broken by sobs and chewing. And why shouldn’t silence prevail? Nothing is more unsettling (because of its realism or voyeurism) than this emptiness. The predominant use of diegetic sound, such as that within the infamous pie scene, throughout the film underlines the chilling atmosphere. It closes in on the emotionality, gives you time to examine and cross-examine, even when it is only the soft soughing of wind.

While the omission of music allows for a breath to be taken as real-time is shot almost in slow-motion, composer Daniel Hart’s score, when it does make an appearance, seems to reflect time’s unruly passage. A Ghost Story toys with non-linearity, the ghost of C stuck watching over the house ceaselessly. The majestic and terrible ‘Thesaurus Tuus’ guides us forwards and immediately backwards in time, while ‘Post Pie’ accompanies C’s sight of M as she leaves the house over and over again with each new day. Later we hear ‘Gentleman Caller’, a sentimental string-filled piece that backs C’s meeting of his ghostly neighbour.

“I’m waiting for someone”, the neighbour says.

“Who?”

The camera refuses to move, keeping a distance as the neighbour hangs their head and confesses: “I don’t remember”. There is an equal feeling of foreboding to the music’s tenderness – presenting, perhaps, what may happen after too great a passage of time. It is this same foreboding that moulds the piece into the heated one it becomes. Sat on the couch, C witnesses M’s first venture with another man since his death. Time has passed, and C is angry about that. Angry at M, angry at his neighbour, angry that, for him, the passing of days, of weeks, is no slower than the length of a song.

It is not long after that A Ghost Story’s score continues the film’s existentialist ideas with one of its few tracks containing lyrics: ‘I Get Overwhelmed’, a meditative and melancholic electro song that, in the context of the film, was written for M by C. Hart, speaking about the soundtrack, talked about his personal connection: “What what am I doing? Why am I making the choices that I’m making? Why are all these terrible things happening around the world?… And I couldn’t really make sense of any of that. So I wrote [‘I Get Overwhelmed’] about it.”

These are the very same questions both C and M are asking themselves, the lyrics littered with questions – “Is my lover there? Are we breakin’ up? Did she find someone else? And leave me alone?” Their beauty and simplicity work on many levels; here, it is about the overwhelming nature of mourning, for both the living and the dead. The film cuts between M listening to the song for the first time and her listening to it after C’s death, alone on the floor, reaching out unknowingly to his sheeted figure. Whereas before, music reflected the non-linear nature of the narrative, this is clearly a projection of M’s memories; a sign that the passing of time is not wholly to be feared. Time moves on, but memories stay. And something as small as a melody can remind us.

Clarity, and an end to the overwhelming experiences of C, comes again with ‘I Get Overwhelmed’, this time embedded in the penultimate ‘History’.

“We’ve got a history” C tells M, after his ghostly form catches back up with the couple. Reminded of who he was, time slows back down, as does the music. The techno beats carry through from ‘History’ into ‘Safe Safe Safe’, our final track, and with it comes hope for C. Arguably the most beautiful composition of the movie, the music swells as C realises what he has to do. Back to the wall, he scratches away the paint left by M to hide the note she characteristically hides in every home she’s had to leave. Finally he manages to pick it out, just as the front door behind him swings open to invite him onward. As he unfolds with delicate apprehension, the music upholds the expectancy of something, finally, good. And quickly enough, the music fades out, falling softly with the sheet to the floor. 

They say time is the greatest healer and that music heals the soul; in A Ghost Story nothing could be closer to the truth. 

A Ghost Story is available to view on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Check out the trailer below:

Does 3D only exist as a gimmick? Milo Garner dives into the history of 3D cinema, from Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder to Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old. 

For as long as 3D has existed, it has found itself to be a novelty, a gimmick of sorts. Its proliferation is more often a result of economic necessity than artistic inspiration, and that much is as true of today’s digital 3D as it was the 3D golden age of the 1950s. These two worlds converged in the most recent exploitation of 3D’s novelty. In partnership with Rio Cinema and Little White Lies, MUBI presented Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder in its original 3D form – part filmic curiosity, part advertisement for their ongoing Hitchcock season. I found its effect striking, though not in any way Hitchcock might have conceived. The film itself does not seem initially to lend itself to the 3D format – it is set almost entirely within one room, unfolding more like a filmed play than the more outrageously experiential cinema that 3D tends to accompany. Only twice does an element onscreen protrude outwards from the frame, and only once is this effect particularly powerful.

Robert Burk’s cinematography functions better in creating depth, with a low-angled camera shooting past various obstacles, and images composed with the z-axis clearly in mind. Rather than allowing any deepening of the story or its suspense, this mode has the remarkable effect of opening the past. The aesthetic of 1950s cinema, usually locked in a 2D plane, is made expansive and, despite the overt artificiality suggested by 3D cinema, alive. Almost as though you could peer past the corners, seeing beyond the purview of plot and progression; an absorbing simulacrum of another time. More than a unique manner of viewing 1950s cinema, the 3D permits a profound experience of history, recreating a space in its x, y, and z-axes in a decade otherwise rendered flat.

But why was Dial M for Murder made in 3D to begin with? Its creator hated the format, and it hardly acts in direct service to the plot or aesthetic. This question ties into the history of 3D cinema more generally, a novelty that has existed for near as long as moviemaking in general. The first 3D explosion, as it might be termed, came in Germany in the early 1910s. This “pseudo-binocular” 3D did not require stereoscopy or anaglyphs, or any glasses at all. Instead it exploited the Pepper’s ghost illusion, an optical trick still in use today to resurrect stars of yesteryear onstage (mislabelled as “holographic” in a cheap marketing ploy). This illusion removed the screen entirely, projecting images against two glass panes resulting in their phantasmal appearance before an audience.

An innovation of August Engelsmann, the idea was then capitalized on by Oskar Messter, who built a series of cinemas specifically for this type of film. These ‘Alabastras’ were structured as a theatre, with house lights left up and an open stage fitted with all the appropriate décor. Ironically, it was in recreating theatre that 3D found its first major commercial boon, with actors projected under this new proscenium arch, their performances recorded for perpetuity. While staginess is a quality now used to denigrate cinema, not least Dial M for Murder, Messter had found a way to marry the two mediums in such a way as to transcend their ontological limitations. Both the exclusivity and transitory nature of theatre, and the disembodiment and separation of cinema were, at once, defeated. Actors would even bow and return for encores after their performances, though one critic found this somewhat perturbing: “Nothing struck me with as much amazement as these people foolishly returning for applause that was not given.”

But other limitations proved more troublesome for this early innovation. The nature of Alabastras and of the 3D illusion restricted the films to theatrical reenactments, which were then generally limited to a single reel to avoid further technological issues. These largely surrounded the use of colour (the films were hand-coloured after shooting) and synchronized sound, which became unfeasible across multiple reels. As fascinating as a sound, colour, and 3D film might seem for the early 1910s, especially considering the silent monochrome that would come to define the era and the decade proceeding, this was simply one novelty among many. The saturation of single-reel films demanded innovation, and the innovation to best succeed was the silent multi-reel narrative picture. While this format now seems a given in filmmaking, it was once one of many new methods of visual storytelling in competition.

Despite the decline and disappearance of this early 3D genre of moviemaking (that is, until very recently), many of the ideas surrounding it become particularly pertinent when considering 3D as a manner of experiencing history. An enthusiastic Hanns Heiz Ewers predicted at the time, “Exactly the same performance with all the best artists will be seen in the smallest backwater town in exactly the same way as Berlin, London or Paris.” For him, it was not only that these performances were recorded, but that they were then replicated in the exact same manner. These films did not use creative angles or closeups, but preferred single takes that would recreate the effect of the theatre, and so that same theatrical experience in the audience. This is not the immersive cinema of the imaginarium that 3D so often courts now, but its very opposite – a cinema self-aware of its environment, an impossible (and obvious) illusion. It doesn’t invite its audience into the screen – there was no screen at all – but shares a space with them: a direct experience of history.

Other than occasional dips into the world of 3D (notably John Norling’s 1939 New Dimensions, later rereleased as Motor Rhythm), the format was to remain largely dormant until the early 1950s. Once again, a crisis of cinema invited it back into the mainstream: television had recently taken the United States by storm, and the result was catastrophic for the film industry. From 1946 to 1952, weekly cinema attendance dropped from 83 million to 46 million, and studios were scrambling for something to differentiate the big screen from the small. One solution was to make the screen bigger – Cinerama, a process that projected three aligned frames to create a widescreen effect, emerged in 1952 to rapturous crowds. It would be later rendered obsolete by the cheaper and more artistically viable CinemaScope (which used anamorphic lenses to create a single, wider frame), but not before another challenger emerged. Two months after Cinerama’s startling debut came Bwana Devil, a film as exploitative as its title suggests. Its poster loudly declares, “A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!” It would be this film that ushered in a flurry of 3D filmmaking.

Being cheaper than both Cinerama and CinemaScope, 3D projection was quickly adopted in many cinemas across the US, and production of 3D films quickly followed, with some forty-six 3D features released from 1952 to 1955. This sudden popularity was the reason for Dial M being 3D – Warner Brothers would not allow it to be made any other way. Many of the initial (and most of the total) 3D films made were quickies completed in 11 to 18 days, with the larger budgeted films only appearing later – but this first impression was not easily shaken. 3D quickly became synonymous with cheapness and gimmickry, and waning enthusiasm was met by falling standards in movie houses. Poor projection, cheap glasses, and dim image quality could render a 3D movie far more trouble that it was worth. While a handful of notable films in the format did emerge, such as Inferno, Gun Fury, and The House of Wax (the last two ironically by one-eyed directors), it quickly fell into disrepute; so much so that Dial M for Murder (and various other films shot in 3D) would be released “flat” (bar its initial four performances), only regaining its original z-axis in a 1979 rerelease.

The quick-spun gimmickry of 3D might be familiar for many, given we are currently living through the decline of 3D’s second golden age in Hollywood, again born from cinema’s waning popularity against the still-burgeoning home media industry. While often used in contemporary action films, 3D has again failed to become a new standard for cinematic expression, in the way artificial lighting, sound, colour, widescreen, and now digital filmmaking have all succeeded. The reasons for this are myriad, and it perhaps links, again, to its limitations as a tool for narrative storytelling.

While 3D has always functioned in its immersive effects – and thus found regular use in IMAX documentaries and theme parks since the 1970s – it typically offers little within the standard paradigms of narrative cinema. Additionally, it is not effective enough to warp those paradigms significantly, as sound markedly did in the late 1920s. As Werner Herzog puts it, “You can shoot a porno film in 3D, but you cannot film a romantic comedy in 3D.” So, aside from the action extravaganzas of James Cameron and Peter Jackson (probably the most significant innovators in the technology), should 3D be consigned again to the novelty bin? We might adopt André Bazin’s stance from the 1950s, in which he said with some prescience, “Outside of certain specific themes (like horror, precisely) the third dimension adds nothing essential to the action of flat cinema, and it brings with it in return some real inconveniences.”

A quintet of filmmakers offer an alternative, if not completely, to Bazin’s disparaging. The first is the abovementioned James Cameron. While Avatar has lately been denigrated in almost every aspect of its construction – its trite narrative, hollow characters, bland aesthetic, and absolute failure to impact popular culture in any way proportional to the initial frenzy it provoked – one element largely free from censure is its use of 3D. This can partially be explained in its prescient position in terms of digital 3D cinema – the 3D of Bwana Devil no doubt also benefitted from its novelty at the time. But there is also a sense that, more than so many who have attached themselves to this novelty thereafter, Cameron better understood the format, and put far more thought to its realization.

In response to an early moment in the film wherein someone jumps out of the screen, Cameron said, “I just did that so they would know I know how to do it. But then I stopped doing it because that’s not what 3D is; 3D is bringing the audience completely into the environment of the movie.” His sensibilities stand opposite Bwana Devil; that was a film that played up to the gimmicky potential of 3D, while Cameron is instead reserved, grounding his use of 3D in spatial and immersive terms. His 3D seems intrinsically linked to his vision of the landscape of Pandora; just like I felt able to peek round the corners of Dial M for Murder, so too does Cameron feel it apposite for one to feel the contours of his imaginary world. Where the 3D of many popular action films (consider Marvel’s output, and the like) feels disposable, more an obligatory glaze than a considered artistic decision, Avatar remains striking.

Another early adopter of digital 3D for whom narrative vision and 3D seem to overlap is Robert Zemeckis. In his 2015 The Walk – a film of forgettable substance – he exploits 3D to wring yet more suspense out of its climactic sequence, in which French high-wire artist Phillipe Petit must walk the line between the World Trade Center buildings (whose digital reconstruction is entirely convincing in these scenes, another virtual vision of the past). Here the effect becomes essential to the filmmaking, inducing a genuine vertigo in audiences and reflecting the direct experience of the protagonist. While these could and perhaps should be considered as examples of specific genres in which 3D can work, as per Bazin’s limitation, they contradict the idea of 3D being pure novelty; cinematic purpose beyond empty spectacle can be derived.

But more convincing yet might be to expand the purview of 3D beyond genre filmmaking. This expansion is provided by two greats of German New Cinema, still pioneering late into their careers. Wim Wenders’ Pina (2011) is an exploration of space and movement, a film about dance that considers 3D a necessary cinematic tool in capturing this medium through cinema. Wenders was conflicted with a formal dilemma – if he shot the dancers close, he would miss much of their background and context, bar the use of distracting and abstract montage. If he shot them far, the dynamism of their dance would be lost to the flatness of frame. The solution was found in 3D, through which he could shoot from a distance while retaining the spatial dynamics at play. He said of the format: “3D really thrives on space – the 3D camera loves infinity, the horizon.” He continues, “It’s a shame the 3D most people have seen wasn’t shot in the real world but in the studios, because it’s in the real world where 3D really comes into its own.” In contrast to the grandiosity of Cameron or Zemeckis, Wenders sees the utility of 3D in capturing reality as opposed to using it to construct a new one.

This approach is met by Werner Herzog, who released his Cave of Forgotten Dreams a year prior. Another documentary, this film is perhaps the ultimate contradiction to the style of educational film with which 3D is usually associated. Instead of soaring through the cosmos or delving the deeps, Herzog instead focuses on stationary drawings in the Chauvet Cave, using the world’s newest art form to capture its very oldest. He believed “this film [to be] the only 3D film where [he] really [knew] it was imperative to do it in 3D,” suggesting that to truly experience this ancient art one must feel and appreciate the way the walls bend and contour; sense the sacred space of the cave. In many ways this harkens back to the 3D cinema of the 1910s, which hoped to share and recreate a tactile experience – not one to immerse per se, but to replicate a known and distant reality. A BBC report seemingly recognizes this, reading in regard to Wenders’ and Herzog’s films: “[3D] opens the door to expensive art forms for the price of a cinema ticket” and “gives people the opportunity to see this beautiful and timeless content in areas of the world where they would never have the opportunity.” If not for its British reserve, this praise would read as an almost verbatim repetition of Ewers’ prediction a hundred years prior.

A synthesis of these two extremes – Hollywood spectacle and German artistry – might be found in Peter Jackson, whose most recent project is a meeting of the two. They Shall Not Grow Old is a documentary that has left many a film archivist aghast; not only does Jackson controversially sonorize and colour silent monochrome footage from the First World War, he also applies a 3D effect. His purpose is to bring the past closer to the present; as much as monochrome is an accurate artefact of the past, it is also distinctly unreal and potentially alienating. The same could be supposed of a flat image. Says Jackson, “I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, so they can regain their humanity once more.”

The counterarguments are immediately evident: Jackson’s efforts are effectively desecration, and almost entirely fictitious. The film stock used to capture the First World War is orthochromatic, meaning that while sensitive to greens and blues, it lacks red, requiring any colouring work to be assumption rather than revelation. So too are these photos not taken with 3D cameras, the result a slew of guesswork. Any indexical “truth” that these photos may convey about the First World War, those who took them, and those who are subjects, is wiped immediately from the frame. It is almost as falsified as a direct reenactment of events.

Writing for Sight & Sound, Luke McKernan even goes so far as to suggest that by colouring these images, we are actually alienating ourselves further from the past by directly suggesting that the black and white pictures are beyond personal relation. But in that same article he provides an adequate defence: “Film is not reality, but a reflection of reality. Overlaying it with colour is only a further treatment of that reflection of reality, a way of looking at the past rather than the pretence of being the past itself.” As such, Jackson’s work is one of fiction, but one that uses archival footage in order to create – and “create” is the apposite term – a more tactile vision of the past. His use of 3D is not so distinct from Herzog’s in theory, in that it suggests a space can be better experienced and understood if granted a sense of visual depth. It is not a film that should stand in place of the artefacts on which it is based, but rather alongside, sacrificing literal truth for a more direct connectivity, as cinema so often does.

For me, this leads right back to Dial M for Murder, at least in its effect. Even though it was not intended to be so, it now functions as a kind of document, whereby the mundanity of its setting is offered fresh interest by the format of its capture. So if limited to a certain kind of genre film in narrative filmmaking, 3D perhaps holds greater stock in documentary, wherein the function of parallax can become less a spectacle and more an emphasis of reality – a sense of “being there,” experiencing something directly and uninterrupted by the limitations of technology. While 3D effects that penetrate the frame often encourage the unreality of the cinematic space – for something leaving the frame to be remarkable, the frame’s existence must be acknowledged – those that do not can serve the opposite function. The moving camera has always had the effect of suggesting a world beyond the borders of the frame, far more than painting or theatre, for which the absolute nature of the frame often becomes inherent in the art itself. 3D exploited in the manner of the above filmmakers does not contradict this fact, and if used effectively, can deepen it immensely. The 3D revolution may not be coming, but its poor reputation certainly deserves reappraisal.

Sabastian Astley examines the role of sex and misogyny in two classic horrors. 

The genre of horror has often been inseparable from the now-staple trope of teenagers having sex, with Friday the 13th (1980) and Prom Night (1980) to the parodist nature of Scream (1996) and The Final Girls (2015). While it is mostly used for no further meaning and instead as an easy activity to write characters into, there are two films in the sub-genre which transcend this simple use. Both John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) explore sexuality in a metaphorical sense which is not immediately clear, with Halloween reflecting both an embrace and a rejection of the ‘Sexual Revolution’, while It Follows‘ titular monster is itself a misunderstood sexual metaphor.

To understand Halloween‘s sexuality, we must first look at the contextual backdrop within which it was produced. The ‘Sexual Revolution’ ended abruptly by the latter half of the 1970s, following through the blunt reality Vietnam’s failure alongside with the rise of Ronald Reagan, and his amalgamation of a rhetoric that was political in its motivation but religious in its metaphors. America’s subscription to Christianity was something that Reagan played off to an incredible response, and therefore inadvertently this idea of Christian values became the foundation of the American society throughout the Reagan era. These values include the traditional stigma against pre-martial sex, and the consequence of sin for indulging in the activity – Carpenter, albeit unintentionally, incorporates this rise of religious conservatism in America into Halloween itself; he does this through the diametric characters of Laurie and Michael.

Viewing Halloween through this lens of a rejection of the ‘Sexual Revolution’, Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie represents the ‘ideal’ or the stereotype for such a society – she’s educationally driven, uninterested in sexual matters to the point of embarrassment upon the mere discussion of potential romantic feelings. Her friends go so far as calling her behaviour as “prudish”, thereby highlighting this seemingly negative attitude toward purity by the fellow teenagers of Haddonfield. The polar opposite of this metaphoric purity is Michael; the physical manifestation of sin accompanying pre-martial sex, displayed through the serial killings of lust-driven teenagers originating in the murder of his own sister. Constantly lurking within the darkness, furthering this malicious intent and aura that he exudes throughout the film, Michael only appears directly before or after sexual acts enter the narrative, e.g. choking Annie immediately before her departure to her boyfriend’s house.

Laurie’s survival throughout the film can be attributed to her lack of sinful pre-martial lust, conforming to her conservative stereotype to the point of taking on a motherly role, protecting both terrified pre-teens Lindsay and Tommy from Michael. This continuous conservatism is both a fantastic parallel to the puritanical outrage toward the Sexual Revolution as well as a striking contrast to the more liberal attitudes her friends display, reflecting the hedonistic attitudes of the Baby Boomer generation and concluding in a gruesome fate at the hands of sin that is delivered through the vessel of Michael Myers.

Alternatively, Halloween can also be read as an embrace of the ‘Sexual Revolution’, exposing the dangers of sexual repression.

This reading depicts Michael as the epitome of sexual repression, as a result of an incestual obsession with his sister culminating in his forcing himself upon her in an incredibly violent yet simultaneously intimate act of penetration – stabbing. Michael’s murderous actions throughout the events of Halloween reflect a furthering of this repression – there are two types of murder committed: the phallic and disconnected (male), and the intimate and personal violence (female), seen through the murder of Lynda and Bob. Bob’s murder is over in a matter of seconds, impaled with the iconic kitchen knife with a lack of effort or even care from Michael. However, with Lynda’s murder there is visible emotional reaction from Michael through his trembling grip and the actual act of strangulation.

This idea of sexual repression also translates to Laurie, being sexually repressed herself through her conservatism. Ironically, this makes her the only individual in Haddonfield with the ability to face Michael, allowing herself a violent nature similar to Michael’s, being his ‘equal’ in a sense. While this idea of sexual repression could be simply explained through the intimacy between Michael and the multiple girls he murders throughout the movie, Michael specifically targets Laurie due to her triggering that same individual obsession. This explains his attempts to penetrate Laurie with the kitchen knife similar to his penetration of Judy, as an outlet for his sexual repression. The idea is developed through Michael’s seemingly supernatural immortality throughout the latter third of the film, despite being both stabbed in the neck and later eye by Laurie, an act that also breaks Michael’s obsession due to the disconnect between Judy’s ironic passivity through sexual activity and Laurie’s active violence through her sexual repression. Ultimately however, neither is able to kill the other – as stated before, they are one another’s ‘equal’.

Halloween‘s use of sexuality is difficult to fully plot metaphorically, at times subscribing to one notion and at other times to another. However, it’s clear that its approach toward sexuality is multi-fauceted, and albeit unintentionally, influenced by the Sexual Revolution.

It Follows similarly uses the idea of sexuality, once again having a dual metaphoric pathway, with the former being the idea of sexually transmitted disease.

The idea of the ‘demon’ only appears following the sexual encounter between Jay (Maika Monroe) and Hugh (Jake Weary), and its lingering presence and malicious aura throughout the film reflects the social stigma of being inflicted with a sexually transmitted disease, as well as the dangers certain diseases pose. However, this analysis of the use of sexuality of It Follows is mostly rejected, and this is on the basis of a further appreciation and analysis of the opening sequence, to which a conclusion is reached: It Follows is about a sexual survivor.

Jay is presented as the typical modern teenage girl with an idealised view of romance, to which she monologues towards Hugh about; she expects her encounter with him to be this postcardesque date of holding hands with a cute boy in a car. This imagery is shattered immediately by David Robert Marshall with a horrific reality – from Hugh’s use of chloroform and subsequent rape of Jay (in narrative context, to pass on the ‘demon’) to the constant paranoia and distrust Jay treats everyone with throughout the rest of the film, the allegory of surviving sexual assault becomes clear. Additionally, the inability for others to see the ‘demon’ reflects the inability of friends and family of a sexual assault survivor to understand their mental state, and this difficulty to understand transforms into a subconscious disgust toward the behaviour of the sexual assault survivor, in this case Jay’s hysteria.

Despite the ending offering an initial glimmer of hope, with Jay finally facing and overcoming this distrust and the ‘demon’ through the aid of Paul (Keir Gilchrist), David Robert Marshall reminds the viewer that this scar upon Jay’s life is permanent through the final shot of an ominous lurking figure behind the pair as they walk together holding hands. It’s a painfully truthful reminder that sexual assault can leave one with a plethora of life-long issues such as post-traumatic stress, as well as the paranoia that Jay goes through.

It Follows displays an incredibly complex telling of the story of the survival of a teenage woman following a sexual assault, decorated with the idea of the horror being the physical manifestation, when in actuality, the horror lies within the mental torture that Jay faces and may have to face for the rest of her life.

Both Halloween and It Follows transcend the stereotypical sexual tradition of their genre, achieving through the metaphorical significance placed upon sexuality within their respective narrative contexts. The two films show two strikingly different eras of sexuality, and their comparison only brings to attention the development of societal attitudes toward sex in the decades that separate the two. Carpenter’s Halloween reflects a view of sexuality forever trapped between eras, partially liberated by the significance of the Sexual Revolution that precipitated it, while simultaneously carrying the weight of the Sexual Revolution’s corpse upon it with the rise of Reaganism. David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows shows us that some horrors are sickeningly human; depressingly timeless in its subject matter, highlighting an all-too-realistic horror. The film contains a message that is only increasing in relevance with the rise of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

True horror seems not to originate in the acts of masked murderers or demonic curses, but rather in the male mind.

Halloween was released in 1978 and It Follows was released in 2014. Halloween (2018), a direct sequel, is currently released in cinemas everywhere. Check out its trailer below:

Raphael Duhamel runs through Anderson’s impressive career leading up to Phantom Thread.

“We’re all children of Kubrick, aren’t we? Is there anything you can do that he hasn’t done?”

– Interview with The Independent, 2008

Paul Thomas Anderson is no stranger to Kubrickian themes. The filmmaker has always been attracted to larger-than-life stories, and his two most popular works, the epic 1999 drama Magnolia, and the 2007 Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood, both match the 2001 director’s grandiose style and remarkable skill. Throughout his illustrious yet still relatively short career, PTA – as many of his admirers call him – has constantly renewed his approach to storytelling and characterisation, while remaining faithful to his penchant for the themes of loneliness and family, regularly depicting characters who are on the fringe of society.

Most of Anderson’s films are set in California, where he grew up among his father’s videotapes and semi-famous actor friends. The Golden State is an inherent part of the director’s work, imbued with the sunny yet wistful atmosphere of the San Fernando Valley, particularly well reflected in the wandering and hopeful souls of Boogie Nights. Though Anderson is trademarked by his lively direction and supported by quick editing and dynamic camera movement (notably achieved through Steadicam, tracking shots and whip pans), his style has greatly evolved since the days of his first features. Frequently collaborating with cinematographer Robert Elswit, they are both avid users of the anamorphic lenses which are almost always employed to achieve a more cinematic effect with a noticeably shallower depth of field.

Anderson’s first movie, Hard Eight – also known as Sydney – was not shot with an anamorphic lens due to budget restrictions, but already showcases the director’s preoccupations. A rewriting of his Sundance short Coffee and Cigarettes, the 1996 film opens with Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) offering to help John (John C. Reilly), a young lost man looking for enough money to bury his mother. It establishes early on the motif of the absent mother in Anderson’s filmography, as well as the one of surrogate families, since Sydney takes John under his wing, providing him with everything he needs to start anew. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as a cocktail waitress who prostitutes herself to make ends meet, and Samuel L. Jackson features as an unscrupulous antagonistic figure, in this Reno-set neo-noir, shot on location in smoky casinos and sordid hotel rooms. As Anderson’s least known film, Hard Eight qualifies as a hidden gem, more minimalistic than any of his other movies. It does mark the beginning of his significant collaboration with Jon Brion, composer of the gracefully melancholic piece “Clementine’s Loop”, which would also appear in his subsequent film.

Boogie Nights, his 1997 follow-up, was developed during the chaotic post-production process of Hard Eight. Anderson’s anamorphic debut tells the story of Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a young man realising his dream of becoming a porn star in the San Fernando Valley of the late 70s, taking on the name of Dirk Diggler. A recreation of his own 1988 short mockumentary The Dirk Diggler Story, Anderson’s film takes its inspirations from Robert Altman’s compelling ensemble movies such as Nashville and Short Cuts. The movie’s opening Steadicam scene is a breath-taking combination of virtuosity and craftsmanship, as the camera flows flawlessly around the dancing cast, recalling Altman’s 8-minute opening in The Player. Philip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly return for Anderson, who brings in many new faces in the likes of Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and William H. Macy. Burt Reynolds makes his grand cinematic comeback as Jack Horner, a director and patriarch at the head of a small pornographic empire, who looks after and cares for Diggler. Boogie Nights explores once again parent-son relationships, as the protagonist’s continual conflict with his mother is alleviated by Julianne Moore’s character, who assumes a surrogate-mother role. Their relationship is still very problematically marked by systematic “incestuous” intercourse, showcasing the era’s sexual frenzy and AIDS-free carelessness. The film ultimately portrays Diggler’s downfall, as he turns away from his friends and sinks into drugs, acting as a cautionary tale on the importance of family.

Magnolia is considered by many, including Anderson himself, as his magnum opus. After Boogie Nights’ success – earning him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay – the director had the opportunity to make his passion project come to life in the form of a three-hour-long choral movie, set once again in the San Fernando Valley. Most of Boogie Nights’ cast returns, with the notable inclusion of Tom Cruise, playing a misogynistic motivational speaker.  Anderson’s anamorphic lens is more present than ever, in addition to his rapid camera movement and quick editing style, all giving rhythm to the overlapping narratives. The 1999 Golden Bear-winning film features one of recent history’s most famous sequences in the form of a sudden frog rain, a Biblical reference which ties the nine main characters’ stories together, and consequently helps Magnolia’s troubled souls come to terms with their personal problems. This deus ex machina’s sheer ambition demonstrates Anderson’s incredibly confident filmmaking, but it also conveys the movie’s main idea, namely that there is no such thing as coincidence. Most surprisingly, the sequence notably shows Stanley (Jeremy Blackman), a gifted and precocious child who is forced by his father to feature on a game show, watching over the frog rain with a smile, repeating “This is something that happens”. Stanley appears to know much more than the other adults, and especially the audience, who is further confounded after witnessing a previous scene where every main character is shown singing, on their own, Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up”. George Toles expertly analyses this sequence, explaining how Anderson “confronts a crisis of truth telling and attempts to resolve it by replacing speech with music”, an unsurprising feat considering the fifteen music videos (to this date) that he has directed for the likes of Fiona Apple, Radiohead, and HAIM. This succession of two audacious scenes further confirms the director’s artistry, as he breaks conventions and redefines the cinematic medium. Magnolia would also, however, mark the end of an era for Anderson, who considered his epic mosaic as the culmination of his San Fernando Valley chronicles, a resolution that would take him on new and unexpected artistic grounds.

Punch-Drunk Love is probably Anderson’s most idiosyncratic piece. In an effort to challenge himself, the director set out to make a romantic comedy, casting Adam Sandler in one of his best roles to date, as Barry Egan, a neurotic and disturbed novelty supplier who falls in love with Lena Leonard, played by Emily Watson. The movie sticks to rom-com conventions while deviating from them, featuring colourful interludes by artist Jeremy Blake, complemented by Jon Brion’s Hawaii-infused music. The anamorphic lens, favouring blue horizontal lens flares, contributes to Punch-Drunk Love’s binary visual scheme: Barry is only seen in his slightly oversized blue suit, while Lena is mostly shown in a red dress, the colour of passion. The story is a strange yet simple one, as Barry gets scammed by a phone-sex line, headed by a mattress-shop owner, Dean Trumbell (Philip Seymour Hoffman), while he exploits a loophole in pudding offers in order to accumulate frequent flyer miles. The audience clings onto Barry’s child-like behaviour and naivety, embodying the oblivious and innocent lover, in a world ruled by racketeers and criminals who take advantage of his solitude, as he mistakes sexual desire for love. Barry is excluded from society – he is rarely seen in the centre of the frame – and his seven emasculating sisters only perpetuate his suffering, reminding him of embarrassing childhood moments when his nickname was “Gay Boy”. Lena, therefore, acts as a welcome maternal presence, echoed by the recurring song “He Needs Me”, taken from Altman’s Popeye. Anderson’s film was a critical success, earning him Best Director at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, but it barely recovered its budget, impeding greatly the development of his next movie, which would only come five years later.

There Will Be Blood, loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, marked the beginning of a new stylistic era for Anderson. After the large-scale experiment that was Punch-Drunk Love, the director matured and delivered, in 2007, what is considered to be one of the best movies of the 21st century. Significantly, none of Anderson’s recurring cast appears in this movie, and features Jonny Greenwood’s music, who would go on to replace Jon Brion as the director’s preferred composer. The Radiohead guitarist’s eerie classical score echoes Kubrick’s flamboyant use of Richard Strauss in 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose beginning sequence is celebrated in There Will Be Blood’s mute opening. Indeed, the film’s first fifteen minutes feature almost no speech, apart from Daniel Plainview’s (Daniel Day-Lewis) groans, as he drags himself through the desert with a broken leg. This opening is a powerful affirmation of cinema’s visual potency, also demonstrating the protagonist’s incredible willpower and unrelenting ambition. Plainview drives the story, shown arriving in California at the turn of the 20th century with his adopted son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) in order to exploit land for oil. Anderson delves into parent-child relationships, portraying Plainview as an unaffectionate father who abandons his son, which ultimately leads to his downfall: once again, those who turn away from their family are punished. Plainview’s trade is also significant, since his incessant search for underground resources allegorises his own hidden origins, which the audience never gets to truly discover. Day-Lewis’ character repeatedly faces Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), the local church’s pastor, determined not to let him exploit the land freely. This conflict leads to memorable confrontations between the two, such as when Plainview is forced to confess, in church, that he has abandoned his child. There Will Be Blood was both a critical and commercial success, with a particularly resonating political message in the wake of the Iraq War, and it signified the beginning of Anderson’s steadier, more cerebral direction, aided once again by cinematographer Robert Elswit, who went on to win one of the movie’s two Oscars.

The Master perpetuates the filmmaker’s stylistic evolution, focusing on what has become a familiar Anderson theme of power dynamics in a father-son relationship. Philip Seymour Hoffman returns as Lancaster Dodd, the leader of “The Cause”, a religious movement partly inspired by Scientology, along with Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Freddie Quell, a World War II veteran suffering from PTSD. The movie’s premise resembles Hard Eight’s, since it features a powerful and wealthy mentor taking a vulnerable man under his wing as well. Both characters act as mirror images: Quell has an aggressive and uncontrollable temper, suffering from regular fits of uncontrollable fury, whereas Dodd is a much more reliable figure, with an air of Charles Foster Kane. The Master’s prison scene is a perfect example of that dichotomy, showing Phoenix and Hoffman in adjacent cells, as the former trashes it in an outburst of rage, while the latter stands stoically, waiting to be released. The sequence ends with both insulting each other, but their contrasting behaviour reveals their innate differences, in an opposition as simple as that of the savage versus the civilised. The film’s main female character, Peggy Dodd (Amy Adams), completes the triangle, acting as a steady and orderly figure balancing out her husband and his protégé’s improprieties. For the first time since Hard Eight, Anderson’s trademark anamorphic lens is absent, while Mihai Malaimare Jr. replaced the unavailable Elswit as cinematographer, privileging 65mm for the majority of the movie to attain a better image resolution – an extremely rare yet judicious choice, which greatly influenced camera movement, due to the device’s sheer size. The Master won the Silver Lion at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, while also earning Academy Award Nominations for each member of its exceptional trio.

Anderson’s 2014 adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice is an enigmatic piece. It has perplexed critics and audiences alike, who have found it to be an imperfect yet enjoyable addition to the director’s filmography. The movie follows Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a stoner and private detective, as he investigates the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) in 1970s Los Angeles. Inherent Vice notably marks Anderson’s return to ensemble casts: the film stars Joanna Newsom, Benicio Del Toro, Owen Wilson, Jena Malone, Martin Short, and Reese Witherspoon, all contributing to the confused and marijuana-infused Californian atmosphere. The story expands to an incomprehensible extent, as Phoenix’s character teams up with Lieutenant Bigfoot (Josh Brolin), a stern, old-school cop from the post-war era, whose temper contrasts with Sportello’s nostalgic 60s hippie spirit. Their shared enemy is a mysterious criminal organisation called the “Golden Fang”, which is surrounded by vague conspiracies, greatly contributing to the film’s paranoid post-Manson killings atmosphere. Inherent Vice’s puzzling narrative proves to be a double-edged sword, since it captures incredibly well Pynchon’s idiosyncratic voice and story – Anderson was nominated at the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay – while also challenging audiences’ expectations, and therefore possibly spoiling their enjoyment of the movie. The filmmaker’s looser direction, featuring a lot of handheld camera movement, suits the story and setting, as well as Elswit’s grainy cinematography, who returned to shoot Inherent Vice on 35mm. The movie also features many instances of slapstick comedy, usually including Sportello in comical situations, and complemented by Jonny Greenwood’s ever-present distinctive score, punctuated by classic rock pieces such as Can’s “Vitamin C” playing in the background of the opening as the green neon title appears onscreen.

Phantom Thread sees Paul Thomas Anderson exploring new territory, as he leaves the United States for 1950s London, in what is supposed to be Daniel Day-Lewis’ final role. It is inspiring to witness such an accomplished director in a constant quest for the renewal of his craft, and his nomination at the upcoming Academy Awards, whatever the outcome may be, further cements his place as one of the 21st century’s greatest directors.

Phantom Thread is out now in UK cinemas. It is nominated for Best Picture at upcoming 2018 Academy Awards, and in the fields of Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Score, and Costume Design. Paul Thomas Anderson is nominated for Best Director.

Milo Garner takes a look at the celebrated Japanese director’s feminist legacy.

Kenji Mizoguchi, born in 1898, was a giant of Japanese cinema. Active from the 1920s, he made his breakthrough in 1936 with Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion. These films, sometimes considered in the genre of ‘new realism’, centred on wronged women in a male-dominated society. As written by Gilberto Perez, ‘women in Mizoguchi are consistently central and consistently portrayed with a sympathy that has no need for idealization.’ Japan’s intense conservatism in this period marks this as especially surprising, though he was not alone. Fellow director Mikio Naruse also concerned himself with the plight of the modern woman, and Yasujiro Ozu too, while more traditional thematically, depicted women in a deeply sympathetic light. A popular counterpoint to Mizoguchi might ironically be found in the Western-influenced Akira Kurosawa, whose women are typically stuck between wickedness and weakness, sidelined in male-led stories.

Mizoguchi’s apparent proto-feminism has, however, been criticized in a personal context. A frequenter of brothels (though not exclusively for sex), he was once described as ‘fond of sake and women – too fond of women.’ After living with a call girl for some time, he was admitted to hospital with a deep gash in his back, which she had given him with a razor. On the incident he later claimed, ‘you can’t understand women unless you’ve got something like this to show.’ The apparent contradiction between Mizoguchi’s personal conduct and filmic preoccupations has sometimes been interpreted as a form of expiation. His personal interest in opposing Japan’s heavy patriarchy – regardless of his hand in it – may be more historical than that: in Mizoguchi’s youth his sister, Suzu, was sold into geishadom by his father (an event mirrored in The Life of Oharu). It seems likely this event had a profound impact on his outlook on life, and was an injustice his films attempted to confront.

By the end of the Second World War, Mizoguchi’s reputation had waned in Japan. His films were considered old-fashioned in style, especially when compared to his up-and-coming rival in Kurosawa. The 1950s came as a second breakthrough point for the director, particularly with The Life of Oharu itself. Released in 1952, it was the first of his films to be screened at an international film festival – Venice, specifically. Here it was received rapturously by European critics, particularly the Cahiers du Cinema. Jean-Luc Godard said of the film: ‘as foreign as Mizoguchi’s language and culture may be, he spoke the language of mise-en-scène. And anyone who loves cinema could not help but understand it and be moved by it.’ It was awarded the silver lion (bested by Kurosawa’s Rashomon for the top prize), and his two subsequent films, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff, would win the same award in 1953 and 1954. The Life of Oharu was also a success in Japan, reviving not only Mizoguchi’s career but that of its lead actress, Kinuyo Tanaka, who would go on to become Japan’s first female director one year later. Critic Jonathon Rosenbaum, writing in 1974, considers this no coincidence. For him, The Life of Oharu ‘comprises the most powerful feminist protest ever recorded on film.’

The film began its life during the shooting of Utamaro and his Five Women in 1946, at which point Mizoguchi and regular screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda began work on an adaptation of Ihara Saikaku’s 1686 The Life of an Amorous Women. Saikaku was a famed Japanese poet and author, responsible for the ‘floating world’ genre of Japanese prose. He was also famously prolific, having allegedly composed over 23,000 haikai stanzas over the course of a single night in 1677. His Amorous Woman was primarily work of satire, set around an anonymous prostitute who would tell tales of her life for coin. It is told in first-person and focuses on the lewd and erotic, a biting social critique lingering close to the surface. The eponymous amorous women is the daughter of a samurai, and as such begins as a lady of some stature, but after falling in love with a lowly page (and consummating that love), she is exiled from Kyoto. From here she falls across the social strata, becoming a concubine, a geisha, and a nun – among other things – across the novel’s length. The satirical potential is evident.

The Life of Oharu, while surprisingly faithful to much of the content, is notably contrary to its source material in tone. Described by Dudley Andrew as a ‘pure and unremitting example’ of the suffering of women, it abandons comedy for a deeply affective melodrama, following the tragic decline of a woman in society. Mark Le Fanu considers Mizoguchi’s version ‘an effort to humanize, or deepen, Saikaku,’ with its central character ‘endowed with a soul.’ Notably the version of the script first submitted to the censorship board in 1948 – and declined – was more satirical and featured far less pathos. Whether the script accepted in 1951 was a tempered edition of the original or indeed a reconsideration by Mizoguchi is unclear, but makes for a drastically different product. Filming took place in 1951. Mizoguchi directed with near dictatorial presence: he would avoid leaving the set unless absolutely necessary, employing the use of a urinal bottle when need be, and would be consistently unreasonable in the pursuit of his art, firing crew on a whim. His regular set designer, Hiroshi Mitzutani, is perhaps the undersung keystone to Mizoguchi’s production, building authentic and complex sets to accommodate for Mizoguchi’s intricate camera movements and the crane accompanying them. Takana immersed herself completely in the role of Oharu, which at this point in her career was very much against type, helped by the utilization of actual antiques throughout the production. The stage was very much set for what would become one of Mizoguchi’s finest achievements, a searingly beautiful examination of the suffering of a woman under a cruel patriarchy. But how women are represented in The Life of Oharu deserves further scrutiny.

The camera of Mizoguchi is, from the first frames of Oharu, essential in understanding its thematic direction. The first shot of the film tracks a woman walking alone, her face set away from the lens. The initial line of dialogue identifies this as Oharu, but it is the camera that has set her as the progenitor of the story, her movement motivating the cinematic space as much as it will the following narrative. Mizoguchi’s camera is unique in style, often compared to the floating world of woodprint art; particularly to that of Kitagawa Utamaro, with whom Mizoguchi felt an artistic kinship. Distant long-takes from a high angle are the basis for this style, with the camera tracking and panning across Mitzutani’s sets. This is complimented by theatrical and kinetic acting, comparable to Kurosawa’s style in its Kabuki origins. Starting with 1948’s Women of the Night this style was tempered with what some have suggested (such as Noel Burch) may be Western sensibilities, such as the use of shot/reverse shot on occasion, though others have argued this is related to technical limitations in ever-more complicated sets. One element that remains is the interaction of the camera-as-narrator to the diegesis. Contrary to the classical Hollywood style, designed to imply the viewing of an objective reality via an invisible camera, Mizoguchi’s camera is granted an agency of narration that isn’t at all concealed. That the camera might reveal elements of a scene, or focus in on a certain area, is displayed as a third-person exploration of the narrative. As explained by Chiharu Mukudai, ‘the narration of Mizoguchi’s films is inscribed within the text by obvious camera movements.’

This camera movement is used to reveal key thematic elements of the film. One of the initial scenes of Oharu’s extended flashback features an admirer, Katsunosuke, appearing outside, having misled her into believing she would be met by a man of higher stature than himself. The camera, positioned inside the house, tracks on Katsunosuke as he attempts to win Oharu’s favour from outside, following him as he opens several shogi doors; he is creating vulnerability both literally and metaphorically. Oharu’s eyes are averted, as Andrew points out: ‘if they look at each other she is lost.’ She eventually does look, and so falls into Katsunosuke’s arms – a secret love reciprocated, it appears. The camera has by now followed them to a funerary garden outside, and here Oharu faints. Katsunosuke carries her out of frame, and the camera tilts down, two grave markers creeping further into the now empty frame as it does. Between these lies Oharu’s slipper – an omen for the life she has now unwittingly abandoned, and the doom she and Katsunosuke will face.

Shortly after this incident the two are accosted at a sort of brothel, and sentenced – Oharu to exile, Katsunosuke to death. Katsunosuke’s death scene concludes with a similar downward tilt, here focused on the executioner’s sword; a synthesis of these two shots is established in a third, Oharu’s death run. After discovering Katsunosuke’s fate, and reading a letter from him that encouraged her to marry for nothing but love, she runs into a bamboo grove, her mother on her heels. The camera tracks her run for over a minute, as she tries to kill herself with a knife. She fails, but the resting frame again features two grave markers in the background. Her death will not be physical like Katsunosuke’s, but it will be perhaps as severe. That both might suffer in such a way indicts the classicist feudal state in which they live; that Oharu might live, but a life of suffering, foreshadows the irreversible consequences a woman might be subject to, even if she is not killed outright.

The camera also uses perspective and angle to convey the film’s substance. An example of the former is in Oharu’s positioning relative to other family members. Shortly after her exile she is seen approaching her new home, her mother on the veranda and her father within. These three distinct dimensions of the frame are clearly designated as separate, suggesting the distance between Oharu’s father and herself, both physically and emotionally. In a later scene featuring a potential suitor this is reversed, with Oharu in the background and her father occupying the foreground, her mother again separating the two between. Relative to the scene, the father always occupies the position of power, feeding into the general tone of male dominance throughout the form and content of Oharu. The use of angles is also key, particularly regarding bridges. Prior to the flashback, we see Oharu as a prostitute taking refuge under a bridge. A holy man looks down on them from above – a clear representation of the social stratum Oharu finds herself in. This is a shot reflected later in the film, after Oharu is banished from Kyoto in flashback. The camera tracks across the bridge as Oharu crosses, the angle growing lower as she reaches the other side. Then, in a single graceful movement, the camera pushes below the bridge and peers at the exiles travelling beyond it. The camera has, in this instance, taken the point of view Oharu will eventually occupy, implying a future already established in the narrative. Like Oharu, the film often finds itself in descent.

However, as abovementioned Mizoguchi’s style had wavered since its zenith in The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums in 1939 and The 47 Ronin two years later. By the 1950s there were many more instances of shot/reverse shot, and one of Oharu’s crucial moments is captured in this manner. Shortly before the commencement of the flashback that will encompass most of the film, she enters a Buddhist temple filled with Gohyaku rakan statues. Here she fixes upon one, and sees the face of her lover, Katsunosake, which induces her to remember all that had led her to where she now was. This interaction is captured from both Oharu’s point of view and the statue’s. In an interesting subversion, Oharu is the subject in this scene, and the statue (and, by extension, Katsunosuke) the object. Robert N. Cohen argues, via Laura Mulvey, that the use of shot/reverse shot is generally an extension of an inherent patriarchy in classical filmmaking. Women are almost always the passive object, and men the active subjects. Though this scene does subvert that theme, it is an exception in the film.

Cohen’s position holds that, while sympathetic, Mizoguchi is more disparaging to women than many acknowledge, in form and content. For example, Oharu’s daydream could be interpreted as an extension of the trope that holds women as hysteric and psychologically unstable. That this daydream finishes with a dramatic faint, one of many in the film, supports this notion. This can be countered by the suggestion that such histrionics are essential to the melodramatic form, but this is Cohen’s point. That genre, and many other elements of The Life of Oharu, are built on an inherently patriarchal framework. While Cohen’s argument is not inherently incorrect, its utility must be questioned contextually. The Life of Oharu is not radical feminist cinema, and that expectation should not be placed upon it. Mizoguchi was a mainstream director working in Japan during the 1950s; his work reflects this, even if it does subvert elements of the society in which it was created. It is unlikely that Mizoguchi would have defined himself as a feminist in the modern sense, or even that he believed in the equality of the sexes. Rather, the content of Oharu speaks to a sympathetic humanism core to much of his ideology.

The question of passive object against active subject pervades the film in other ways. Beyond simple questions of the male or female gaze, the men of the film ‘initiate the actions… carry on the way of the world… [and] are suited for action [and] progress,’ according to Dudley and Paul Andrew. Though Oharu has some moments of agency, she is by and large considered and treated as an object by the men who surround her. This, however, seems to be part of the point. While Oharu is not an empowering film by any means, that it presents a realistic world that portrays women as they were, or indeed are, treated is the very basis of its text. More curious is Oharu herself – is she an individual woman, or simply ‘woman’ in general? The basis of the film’s story lends itself to the latter, with Oharu occupying a cross-section of social roles across Japanese society from opening to closing. While some have identified as many as ten separate positions, the film implies eight distinct sections, each divided by a fade transition; this conclusion is supported by the eight headshots of Tanaka featured on an original poster.

Mukudai goes further than this, suggesting that Oharu herself is not written a psychology that might allow her to be considered a particularly complex character. This feeds into a more general theory that links to Mizoguchi’s change of style in the 1950s, here suggesting that his later films are defined by an ‘absent cause’. As writes Mukudai via Kinoshita, ‘events cannot be anticipated before they occur and cannot be rationalized until the following scene is given as the consequence of the events.’ He notes that Oharu is quick to identify with any social role she is given, and some of her actions, such as her decision to become devoted to Daimyo Matsudaira during her stint as concubine, cannot be justified by any evident psychology. His argument is strengthened via Carole Cavanaugh, who compares Oharu to Ayako, the protagonist of Osaka Elegy. Ayako, who might be quickly described as a ‘modern woman’, has a consistent identity as ‘an “unwritten text” which leaks from the “prewritten” social texts that determine her destiny.’ Oharu, on the other hand, only resists her later ‘prewritten’ texts due to her attachment to her first position in society, which she longs to return to.

While it is certainly true that Oharu is a less psychologically interesting character than those of Mizoguchi’s earlier films, and that this is reflected in other later films of Mizoguchi (such as 1954’s The Crucified Lovers), Oharu is not governed by such an ‘absent cause’ as suggested. The basis for much of her action seems to be focused on Katsunosake’s dying wish that she find love. This is an idea that might explain her intention to become Matsudaira’s lover, but also her continued efforts to discover and contact her child with him after she is cast out. A very brief spell of happiness in the middle of the film, in which she is married to a kindly fan merchant, seems to distil the point Mizoguchi was making through Katsunosuke: that, in finding genuine love, women might be spared from the worst of patriarchy. It’s hardly an ideal solution, as is made clear across the film – upon the fan merchant’s death Oharu is again left in misery – and certainly not feminist by a modern definition. But, in the context of the film, it is certainly reasonable. Cohen finds further issue with the conduct of Oharu, though in his mind she is presented not as psychologically empty, but as a narcissist. While Katsunosuke died with the hope that society might change, Oharu spends the rest of her days simply reaching for happiness; it’s likely that if she could regain her former position, she would. Cohen considers this tacit support of the patriarchy, at least at a structural level. This theme might well be identified in the film’s narrative. While playing samisen for coin on the street Oharu spots a palanquin going by. The initial suggestion is regressive – early in the film she is seen carried in one. But it is then revealed that she is not looking to her past, but the future, as her son is revealed from its interior. Cohen perhaps expects too much of Oharu, and values too heavily the words of a man in no position to execute them.

The Life of Oharu also considers another notable concern for women, both in its 17^th century setting and contemporary release – that of appearance. In the first shot of the film, which tracks on Oharu, she is veiled and keeps herself unseen; the camera respects her dignity. Not long after, it is remarked that ‘a woman of fifty can’t make herself look twenty,’ as Oharu tells her friends of an episode with an old man earlier that day. This man had approached her, and apparently wishing to solicit her illicit service taken her to a dingy building. Here, he revealed her to his students, telling them not to fall foul of the temptations of the flesh – they age poorly. When this scene is later shown in flashback, the humour of Oharu’s retelling is replaced by an intense pathos. That a woman treated with such immorality should be used as a moral lesson is difficult to watch, but also a relevant comment on society. As written by Mark Le Fanu, this is ‘the double-edged spell of female beauty: that, for a beautiful woman who has fallen from caste, there is not escape from the flesh.’ While in her position as a lady of the court her beauty was admired, but never expected, as soon as she is considered ‘fallen’ male-dominated society considers her differently.

A nun at one point tells Oharu, ‘all is truly impermanent in this world,’ but that is untrue – her past is indelible. Consider Jihei, the merchant who takes Oharu in during a time of struggle. He is kindly and respectful, until he discovers she had been a geisha. At this point he becomes lascivious, remarking on how ‘naughty’ Oharu must be, making sexual passes; finally, and predictably, he rapes her. Despite her conduct in the present, her actions of the past – generally beyond her control – dictate her fate. It should be noted that the men of Oharu are not presented as particularly evil. As Roger Ebert writes in his review, ‘Mizoguchi makes no attempt to portray any male character as a self-aware villain. The men behave within the boundaries set for them and expected of them by the traditions of their society.’ It is this society that Mizoguchi rails against. Even the women, such as Jihei’s wife, often find themselves enabling it. Yet she is also a victim – having lost her hair during a bout of illness, she hides her baldness from her husband. She fears that should he find out, she might be cast out, or lose favour. Her appearance is essential to her stake in society – by the time Oharu’s fades, so does any chance of her climbing that ladder.

Yet so long as it survives, she is commodified to an almost comedic extent, with Daimyo Matsudaira’s requirements for his concubine being so exact as to include ‘detached, translucent lobes.’ Even her uterus undergoes this treatment. A servant corrects her after she says she has given birth: ‘you’ve been “allowed to give birth.”’ Rosenbaum describes it as ‘a materialist analysis – a depiction of women treated, traded, valued, degraded, and discarded as material object,’ and in that he is correct. In fact, the only moments Oharu might feel some sense of safety are those in which she is veiled. Mukudai notes that the fall of her veil often coincides with victimization in some way. Her veil falls before she enters her long flashback; before Katsunosake seduces her; before Jihei rapes her. By the time her beauty does fade, the scenery reflects this: a dilapidated wall forms the architectural centre of what appears to be a red-light district. Her fellow fallen women seem to take some solace in their position, in that they are now free from stringent female responsibility. ‘We’ve fallen this far. Might as well do what we want,’ says one.

The final shot of the film is significant, and has been interpreted in several ways. After attempting to see her son, and being threatened with restriction to the late Matsudaira’s court, she absconds and becomes a mendicant. The camera tracks her as it did in the first shot, and stops as she does, praying for a moment to a pagoda in the distant background. She begins to move again, but the camera permits her to leave the frame – her ordeal is done. Audie Bock takes the position that this represents the end of a spiritual journey to transcendence, and that she has suffered enough to cast away her social identity and discover a greater truth. Her prayer, according to Bock, is one for humanity. Mukudai takes issue with this conclusion, seeing Oharu’s lack of agency throughout as an inherent contradiction to the ‘spiritual journey’ Bock implies. Cohen introduces a valid consideration when he discusses the desexualization of Oharu by this final shot. She is now dressed in ambiguous clothing, and presumably sexless given her new occupation. As said by Mary Ann Doane, ‘in a patriarchal society, to desexualize the female body is ultimately to deny its very existence.’ Here we see Oharu’s only escape is to totally disown her identity – not only her personal history, but her womanhood. In doing this, we might hope Oharu finds some modicum of peace.

The Life of Oharu was released in 1952.

Calvin Law examines a common television archetype through two cult shows.

(WARNING: spoilers for Stranger Things and Stranger Things 2, Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return)

In many ways, David Lynch and Netflix could not be more diametrically opposed. Nonetheless, the long-awaited return of Twin Peaks and the arrival of the new Stranger Things begs the opportunity to draw parallels between the two series. There’s an argument to be made that, as much as Stranger Things loves Spielberg, Dante, Carpenter, and Carven, it has its own fair share of Lynchian themes. Outsiders with strange abilities, an otherworld one can be trapped in for a long time, a quirky sheriff’s department, and – perhaps most notably – the intriguing fashion in which it handles its two principal ‘jock’ characters: Dana Ashbrook’s Bobby Briggs and Joe Keery’s Steve Harrington.

Given how indebted it is to nostalgic 80s pop culture references and homages, one might have expected Steve to bite the dust in the first season of Netflix hit Stranger Things. Jocks with mousy hair don’t end well in 80s fare: from Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid and Biff in Back to the Future, to Stand By Me‘s redneck hooligans and the hapless secondary characters in any number of horror films, they’re usually obnoxious jerks who at best learn a bit of humility, and at worst die. Keery, however, so impressed the Duffer brothers on-set with his charismatic performance as Steve that they decided to not only let him (Steve, not Keery) live, but make him an essential part of the series’ climax.

In season 2 of the series, Steve not only returns but takes on a much expanded role; he becomes a sort of guardian angel to the kids, like Josh Brolin’s character in The Goonies with even nicer hair. It’s an inspired choice by the screenwriters, and makes great use of a character’s change of heart to turn him into an endearing, goofy, and altogether pretty awesome hero. It’s particularly fun to see him interact with Gaten Matarazzo’s Dustin, as they make a winning team.

Steve is a great example of making an unlikeable character gradually likeable. That brings us to Bobby Briggs. At the start of Twin Peaks, Bobby, Laura Palmer’s ex-boyfriend, is – for lack of a better word – a bit of an ass. He’s callous, uncaring, indifferent, obnoxious to pretty much everyone, and doesn’t seem to care much for Laura or her demise. One of the most brilliant parts of Twin Peaks is its ability to take apart soap opera caricatures and makes them vivid, realistic human beings. We begin to see the more tender side to Bobby over the course of the series; we see his hopes, his worries, and in a brilliant scene between him and his onscreen father (the magnificent Don S. Davis), the potential to become a better person – which he certainly fulfils in The Return. It may seem a bit odd at first to see Bobby Briggs in a position of authority, but as a deputy in the Twin Peaks’ sheriff’s department, we see he has grown from young punk to a wiser man. Steve and Bobby are two fantastic examples of how the medium of television can be used to create such complexity in its characters; whether over two years, or twenty-five, so much can be done with care and attention to detail.

Caroline Colvin explains how Donnie Darko remains a touchstone of millennial film culture.

Woozy time travel, a loveable bad boy, a hulking, mangy hare and a trippy, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ending: no one watches Donnie Darko and forgets about it. Since the film hit cinemas sixteen years ago, its generations of viewers have been touched by unease and confusion. And it’s this confusion, for better or worse, that has defined the legacy of Donnie Darko.

I was too young to watch Donnie Darko when it was first released in theatres. In 2001, my cinematic tastes were just shifting from Toy Story and Mulan to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films. So, as many people my age have told me, Donnie Darko arrived in early high school.

It came at the perfect time. When I wasn’t rolling my uniform skirt and smudging on Taylor Momsen levels of black eyeshadow, I was rocking fingerless gloves, piles of lace and a healthy heaping of plaid. Marilyn Manson was my style icon. Something dark and early 2000s like Donnie Darko seemed right up my alley.

Along with being smitten with its titular character (a mouthy but thoughtful Jake Gyllenhaal), I remember finishing the film in an impressed but stunned haze. I sat there thinking, “Okay, so what the hell did I just watch?”

Speaking with my peers, I found that therein lies the beauty of the film. Donnie Darko taught us young millennials, who were just developing our philosophical compass, how to think more existentially.

Little exchanges like “Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?” “Why do you wear that stupid man suit?” sparked that metaphysical consciousness. What does it mean to exist on this Earth? In this time frame?

Now, more than a decade removed from its release, Donnie Darko has become a film we can watch over and over again. There will always be something new to pick up on.

For all its darkness, the romance struck up with Gretchen Ross (an endearing Jena Malone), Drew Barrymore’s cameo as Donnie’s English teacher, and the Smurf sex discussion still sparkle all these years later.

And of course, Donnie getting ahold of the microphone and cheekily proclaiming to Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), “I think you’re the fucking Antichrist,” never fails to elicit chaotic glee. You’d be hard-pressed circa 2012 to find a soft grunge or pastel blog on Tumblr that didn’t have a desaturated or black & white gif of Donnie calmly destroying a school assembly.

Another gem that stands the test of time is the soundtrack. The tunes setting that dark and dreamy, late ‘80s mood are oft cited as the film’s selling points.

Gretchen and Donnie’s party scene is book-ended by “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and The Church’s “Under the Milky Way.”

The film is credited, too, with helping Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” pop off; and to this day, whenever I hear “The Killing Moon” by Echo & Bunnymen, my mind flashes to Donnie Darko.

Despite the fondness the film conjures up for millennials, not all memories are nostalgic. Sometimes, watching Donnie Darko post-high school reveals that your obsession with this boy and this rabbit and this esoteric, jumbly storyline was just a hallmark of your hipster phase. There is also the tough question of mental health portrayal. Donnie’s schizophrenia can be eye-opening to a young person sorting out their own mental health issues. But looking back as a better informed adult, you wonder.

Perhaps there is a dangerous slant, wherein Donnie Darko isn’t just representation. It might be accused of glamorization of mental illnesses and romanticization of suicide. How fair is it to folks with schizophrenia that Donnie’s episodes are tied to violence and his hallucinations are simply plot devices?

And for some, that first-watch confusion also did not age well.

As Roger Ebert wrote of Donnie Darko when it came out, “I could tell you what I think happens at the end, and what the movie is about, but I would not be sure I was right… The plot wheel revolves one time too many, and we’re left scratching our heads. We don’t demand answers at the end, but we want some kind of closure.”

Naturally, many millennials, who saw it when I did, hopped on the Internet ASAP to get some answers. That in itself speaks volumes about the legacy of Donnie Darko. We were far enough down the line that Donnie Darko had cemented its cult status. So we watched with a treasure trove of discourse on Reddit already available at our fingertips.

But still, for some, the lack of explanations don’t come off as clever or poetic. Donnie Darko feels unfinished and convoluted.

Be that all as it may, love it or hate it, Donnie has left his mark on our generation. Even for those lukewarm on its merits, the film comes highly recommended. And if not our warmly held Halloween-time favourite, at least Donnie Darko can be a reminder of why we started watching difficult films in the first place.

Donnie Darko will be screened tomorrow November 15th, at 6pm. VENUE: Drayton House B03 Ricardo LT. >> FACEBOOK EVENT <<

For future screenings and other events check out our Facebook page.

Caroline Colvin discusses the social implications of sexual assault allegations against famed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault

From the #MeToo’s solemnly lining your Facebook feed to investigations launched by Scotland Yard, it seems once again the issues of sexual assault and gender-based violence are at the forefront.

Journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey blew Hollywood open last month by revealing how Harvey Weinstein, a renowned Hollywood television and film producer, has been paying off those who accuse him of sexual assault. This doesn’t just concern a one-off incident: this has been taking place since the early 1990s, in the U.S. and U.K., over and over and over again.

Most notably, Weinstein reached a settlement with actress Rose McGowan in 1997 and model Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez after a 2015 incident. But those encounters are just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the people Weinstein sexually harassed and assaulted did not even get to the point where they could take legal action. And herein lies the problem: a culture of complicitness and a strictly enforced “code of silence.”

In 1997, Asia Argento also experienced unwanted sexual advances from Weinstein. So did Ashley Judd. So did Mira Sorvino a few years before. So did Emma de Caunes in 2010, Jessica Barth in 2011 and Lupita Nyong’o, too, when she was still a student at Yale University. So did Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. So did Lea Seydoux.

Every survivor’s story follows a similar pattern. As a bright, young actress looking for a breakthrough, they leap at the the chance to meet with a powerful Hollywood producer like Weinstein. He invites them to his hotel under the guise of talking roles, and suddenly they find themselves alone at dinner or alone in his hotel room. He switches the script from business to personal, exposing himself to the person in question and pestering them to give him a massage.

Sometimes, after a tense exchange, they’ll leave unscathed. But many survivors will be forced to endure more from Weinstein, much to his almost unbothered delight.

There are some variations. In her Weinstein encounter, Cara Delevingne was subjected to both invasive questioning about her sex life with female partners and derision for her sexuality.

Of course, the way they “suddenly” find themselves alone isn’t so sudden. Many executives at Weinstein Company, particularly women, were enlisted by Weinstein to be a trap for his targets. They would sit in on the first half of meetings to help put actresses at ease. It’s clear that Weinstein had this process of ensnarement and coercion down to a science.

The Weinstein story and its details all point to a bigger truth: that gender hierarchy is still alive and well today, and permeates every aspect of our lives. Elevated to a god-like status by his peers, Weinstein felt he could get away with whatever he wanted. With an immense amount of social, political and financial power at his disposal, he could.

We live in a world where no matter how talented a woman is in her field, her body is considered first. Sure, there is a certain aspect of physicality crucial to some arts, acting among them. But the way Weinstein objectified these women is uncalled for. He abused the fact he held their futures in his grubby hands. These sexual assault allegations speak to the sense of entitlement men in positions of power feel toward women’s bodies.

Weinstein is addicted to abusing women, to humiliating women, to violating women. Weinstein is addicted to power and his ability to abuse it

— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) October 11, 2017

Don't allow the dialogue around Weinstein to perpetrate the harmful belief that sexual assault is about sex. It never is.

— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) October 11, 2017

Over the past two decades, business associates of Weinstein’s have aided and abetted sexual assault – if not directly, then by maintaining the “open secret” of Weinstein’s behaviour; and if not by covering for the acts themselves, by creating a culture of fear where no one at the company or in Hollywood felt as if they could speak out.

Some of the ways rape culture is perpetuated in the arts community aren’t so subtle. According to reports from McGowan, Ben Affleck knew about Weinstein’s behavior and did nothing. Quentin Tarantino knew and did nothing. Lindsay Lohan has come out to defend Weinstein. Fashion designer Donna Karan has asked if the survivors coming forward were asking for it. Woody Allen, who has been accused of child sexual abuse, likened pursuit of Weinstein allegations to a “witch hunt.”

Weinstein’s legal team is known to be ruthless and relentless. It’s no surprise Argento, Sorvino, de Caunes, Barth, Nyong’o, Judd and many others all reported feeling as if they couldn’t say a word against Weinstein’s reputation. Retaliation in the form of blacklisting was surely in store. As young actors looking to break into that tight-knit, cut-throat circle called Hollywood, that was a risk they could not afford.

Many of these actors did go on to find great success, but at what cost? As cinephiles, we claim to value these artists. But from the pervasiveness of Weinstein’s mistreatment of women, it’s clear we do not value these actors as people. It doesn’t matter how talented or beloved these women are. As a woman, your personal excellence will not erase the gender-based violence you will come up against. The concept of shattering a “glass ceiling” is a myth. If anything, that ceiling is lined with polycarbonate to catch bullets: it’s impenetrable, if not completely shatterproof.

Deep-seated issues like this one don’t go away overnight. The main way we can start stripping away the layers of misogyny and violence hanging over our communities is by holding people accountable. This means legal action as well as social action.

The burden of defending a workplace from sexual predation cannot be carried alone by women and our whisper network.

— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 6, 2017

It seems the film industry has already started to stand up in small ways. Judi Dench, as well as Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Mark Ruffalo and Judd Apatow, have publicly condemned Weinstein. BAFTA revoked his membership. Shortly after, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts did the same and the Television Academy are looking for proper punishment to fit allegations against him.

First and foremost, as lovers of the arts, we must also stop supporting abusers and their enablers moving forward. In Weinstein’s case, this doesn’t mean forget that you ever loved “Arthur and the Invisibles” and “The Great Debaters” as a kid. This doesn’t mean that now “Project Runway” or “Inglorious Basterds” or “A Single Man” or “Django Unchained” or “The Butler” or “The Imitation Game” or “Peaky Blinders” can’t make your heart sing as an adult. But it does mean we have to think critically about what we put our love toward and our money into in the years to come.

Weinstein has since been fired from his company and has resigned from its board. At the very least, this means the hex Weinstein has cast over Hollywood and adjacent film industries has been broken. But there are countless other sexual predators who still haven’t answered for their abuses and remain on our artistic pedestals. It’s through taking a stand (long-term, not just when fresh allegations are on a front page) that we can follow through on the conversations about gender hierarchy and sexual assault.