a critical analysis of tom ryall's 'course construction: the conceptual field'

Discussions about genre theory have been prevalent since the work of the auteur theorists of Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s. At the forefront of the debate in this field have been a number of critics, each presenting their own views on the subjects of the notion of genre as a whole, the genre film and the difficulties that present themselves in studying genre.

The work of Tom Ryall is seen by many as presenting some of the most significant developments in genre theory and specifically the study of genre itself. His articles The Notion of Genre (Screen, Vol. 11, no. 2), Teaching Through Genre (Screen Education, no. 17) and Course Construction: the Conceptual Field (The Gangster Guide, BFI, 1978) have provided the framework for much critical discussion and counter-argument, most notably so by Steve Neale. Using Ryall’s article Course Construction: the Conceptual Field, I will attempt to analyse what place it has in the ongoing debate of genre theory and assess its strengths and weaknesses in terms of its effectiveness as a teaching guide. Furthermore, I will identify the crux of Ryall’s argument and consider this in relation to other work of genre from such critics as Edward Buscombe, Colin McArthur, Judith Hess and Steve Neale.

Edward Buscombe, in his article The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema (Screen, Vol. 11, no. 2) begins with a set of questions aimed at reflecting on the ways in which genre can be actively studied. He states:

“There appear to be three sorts of questions one could profitably ask: first, do genres in cinema really exist, and if so can they be defined; secondly, what are the functions they fulfil; and thirdly, how do specific genres originate, or what causes them?”

It is these questions that, by large, critics have attempted to answer in their work on genre, and although Ryall does not endeavour to answer all of these questions in The Conceptual Field, he does attempt to rethink the way in which genre should be addressed by both teachers and students alike. Ryall’s earlier work on the subject was concerned with the process of defining the term ‘genre’, concluding, “the notion of a network or complex of films is essential, if the word ‘genre’ is to be used successfully.” However, Ryall moves away from a general consideration of the term ‘genre’ and the idea of categorisation in The Conceptual Field, favouring a new approach, which brings the role of the film to the forefront. This new approach can in some way be summed up by the title of the article itself, the emphasis being on conceptualising the notion of genre rather than the notion of genre itself, which places emphasis on the process of definition as aforementioned.

Ryall identifies early on in the article the ‘traditional’ view of genre as being divisionary in terms of categorisation of films into ‘commonsense’ groups (the western, the musical, the gangster film etc.) and that the boundaries of these groups are governed by two things; the first being subject matter and the second being what he calls ‘content embracing historical material’ Based on this idea, Ryall suggests that a study of genre would be relatively simple, calling on students to only take into account a) the historical context in which the classic gangster film takes place, and b) the iconographical and thematic consistencies that present themselves in the films that make up the genre.

However, recognising that this alone would not be an adequate enough base on which to study genre, Ryall proposes a new direction that can be best summed up in the following quotation from The Conceptual Field:

“There is, however, a third area of study and that is the critical analysis of individual films, a study of their particularity… when we look at the most influential genre texts (Kitses, McArthur) we find that the theoretical chapters dealing with the notion of genre are not related in a precise way to the discussion of individual films.”

Ryall goes on to stress the importance of concentrating on the idea of studying a film using genre notions rather than using genre as a tool by which to allocate a place for a film within the restrictions of that genre.

In a very general sense, the problem that presents itself when studying genre as a whole is that it is a massively complex and interrelated system, encompassing ideas of iconography, thematic similarity, visual and narrative style as well as social, cultural and historical contexts. As Ryall states, these issues become topics of discussion in their own right, thus drawing attention away from the films that are supposedly the very basis of genre. Essentially what Ryall is arguing is that within the context of genre, an individual film should act as the basis for study as it will undoubtedly call upon different areas of genre theory. Using the idea of iconography as ‘patterns of visual imagery’ consider the example of two gangster films that follow a different narrative structure, one conforming to the more classical model of the ‘rise and fall’ narrative trend and the other utilising the concept of a retired gangster, drawn back into a life of crime unwillingly. Iconographically, a gun is often portrayed as a symbol of power or status in the former, whereas it is more likely to symbolise the reality of being drawn into the criminal underworld in the latter. Such examples of iconographical disparity can be commonly found in the gangster film – the idea of milieux being another. The classical Hollywood gangster film is set most commonly in Chicago where gangsters populate the streets and speak easys in the dead of night, so what of Scorsese’s Casino set in Las Vegas or de Palma’s Scarface set in Miami often in the light of day. McArthur’s idea of iconography seems to leave no room for adaptation or development, a process that is inevitable and surely welcome given the confinements of genre. As Steve Neale writes in his book titled Genre, with regard to the concept of iconography,

“It is worth asking to what degree these categories [McArthur’s] can be used in the analysis of genres other than the gangster film / thriller… how would the third category [technology], for instance, apply to the musical or the melodrama – what is the force of the term technology within this category?”

This is yet another example on the limitations that can be imposed on the study of a genre film when it is approached from the angle of ‘traditionally’ accepted genre criticism. If the notion of iconography is to be considered a useful tool in the criticism of film then surely it must apply to all kinds of film, not just a handful. It is the reading of the film that will lead to the areas of genre theory that need to be looked at, and thus, it is the reading of the film that takes priority over these areas of genre theory.

Having established the need for the redirection of the study of genre, Ryall moves on to look at the relationship between the film itself and the audience who are watching it, bringing in the idea of audience expectation. At the beginning of the article Ryall presents his triangular theory in the form of a diagram; this theory sees the film, the audience and the artist as part of one interrelated system. Ryall incorporates this strand of argument into his article by looking at the gangster film in terms of how it is read by the viewer, who base their reading of the film on a set of conventions that have already been established between the filmmaker and audience. In the case of the gangster film, Ryall argues that the merit of looking at a gangster film in the context of genre is not to prove that it is, in fact, part of the gangster genre. Using the example of The Roaring Twenties (dir. Raoul Walsh), Ryall suggests that there are very few people who would not recognise the film as part of the gangster genre because of the pattern of conventions that is apparent in the film and the codes that they have acquired to be able to read those conventions. Ryall proposes that a more useful means of looking at the gangster film is to “examine how the film depends upon genre knowledge in order to be understood or read." Again, this emphasis on the importance of the reading of the film is apparent and Ryall asserts that it is the ‘operations of reading’ that will enable the teaching of genre to bridge the gap between the genres themselves and the films which make up the genre. It is this, Ryall says, that is most commonly missing from the study of genre.

Elaborating on the notion of reading, the central theme to the article, Ryall brings forward the idea of realism in films as inseparable from the study of genre. Ryall puts forward the idea that to dismiss a film for being historically inaccurate would be to read the film incorrectly. To do this would be to confuse fiction with history and to judge the fictional for containing too little of the historical when essentially they are two separate things. To return to Ryall’s argument that the understanding of a film is governed by the audience having acquired codes from viewing similar films previously, the problem of what is ‘real’ arises. For many, what is known about how the West was won will have been attained directly from films that they will have seen about the subject. Similarly an audience might only understand the period of American history known as the prohibition era due to watching films such as The Roaring Twenties or Scarface (dir. Howard Hawks, 1932). This kind of realism however is problematic in that only two genres, the western and the gangster film rely on, or heavily draw upon, a historical knowledge of the period in which they are set. It is this problem that leads Ryall to the acknowledgement of a second sense of the word which stems from the way in which genre films have been produced. The implication of the ‘real’ in the second sense is, rather than historical actuality, a reality that is born from the resemblance of a film to previous films of its type. Studios have for some time relied upon previous successful films as models on which to create new films in the hope of repeating that success. Ryall, therefore comes to the conclusion that:

“The concepts of realism and convention are aligned in the sense that films are seen to be realistic insofar as they adhere to the conventions of their genre, i.e. to the conventions established by previous films.”

Considering this line of argument, I believe there is a contradiction, on some level, in Ryall’s dismissal of categorisation. This position is perhaps best summed up by Ryall himself earlier in the article;

“Indeed, the key to understanding the theoretical foundations of the concept of genre, of understanding its use value in terms of film criticism, lie in pushing beyond such classificatory exercises”

Although Ryall successfully argues that there is no critical merit in simply observing that one film is like another, the idea of using the ‘cross-generic’ sense of the word realism seems to rely upon the notion of categorisation to some extent. That is to say if the audience is to take a sense of realism from a film, it will more often than not come from the viewing of similar films in the same category. Of course, if the historical context of a film is crucial to the understanding of the film, this can be provided within the text of the film itself, albeit a scaled down account of what information is needed. Therefore, though the uses of categorisation are greatly played down by Ryall, they surely remain the most prominent tool used by what Ryall calls the ‘competent film reader’. The codes that are acquired by the audience are based upon the notion of categorisation itself – the recognition that one film is like another. Ryall himself states that an audience is much more likely to recognise White Heat as a gangster film than a Walsh film. However, despite the apparent contradiction between notions of categorisation and realism, there does appear to be an argument to support the need for Ryall’s second sense of realism. In order to fully articulate this, it is worth quoting Judith Hess at length:

“All of these genre films, science fiction included, present a greatly simplified social structure. However frequently this kind of very limited social structure may have existed in the past, it no longer exists in the present. Thus, genre films are nostalgic, their social structure posits some sort of movement backward to a simpler world. And in this simple structure problems which haunt us because of out inability to resolve them are solved in ways which are not possible today. Genre films reject the present and ignore any likely future.”

So essentially what Hess is arguing is that because the majority of genre films are so far removed from the idea of the ‘real’ or that of realistic depiction of every day life, it becomes necessary to think of realism in the secondary sense that Ryall presents. Since the audience will not be able to see the realism in the historical actuality of the film, they will take from it what they can, the similarities between the film and others of its type.

Although the crux of Ryall’s argument, that of the redirection of genre study and the placing of emphasis on the reading of the film, is presented in study area one, Ryall does move on to identify areas that can be useful when studying genre. Ryall explains in this section the importance of the Hollywood production base in its role of establishing the genre film within the industry as a whole. Ryall makes two main points in this section, the first being that despite the close association between certain studios and certain genres (Ryall uses Warner Bros. as a short case study, showing the reasons why this particular studio were linked with the gangster genre and thus, why other studios were linked with other genres) the studio still had to maintain ‘a balance between formula and variation’. The second point that Ryall makes is that any consideration of a big-budget Hollywood picture must take into account the differing perspectives of those involved in making the picture. Ryall describes two opposing groups of people; ‘the creative personnel’ (directors, writers, actors and designers etc.) and those on the financial side of the production. Given the differing roles of the two groups of people, their concerns are likely to be markedly different. Ryall sums up this section briefly by stating that the aim of studying the production base is to make students aware of the various limitations and obstacles, provided by the conditions of production that the filmmaker has to rise above.

Ryall, finally, considers the role of the social base in relation to genre, outlining the many problems that can be encountered when trying to apply the notion of social, cultural and historical aspects to the subject of genre. Ryall argues that just as the production base imposes constrictions upon the filmmaker (and by way of this the film) so too does the social base. As a footnote in the introduction to the article, Ryall explains his use of the phrase ‘social formation’ as opposed to the more commonly used term, society;

“the term ‘social formation’ is used in preference to the more usual word ‘society’ in order to stress that what is being referred to is an entity composed of a variety of practices (including the artistic) which may be in conflict at any given point in time. The term ‘society’ suggests a rather more harmonious, organic entity.”

This explanation itself offers a good insight into the reason why the social base may provide a problematic layer to the study of genre. Furthermore, the idea of cultural specificity, stemming from a difference in class, gender or race, is raised. There is no way that a film can be viewed in the same way by every person who sees it, mainly due to the aforementioned differences inherent in the viewer. Ryall concludes that the only way to ensure that a film is read correctly is for it to be studied in the context of the social, cultural and historical actualities of which it was produced. This argument, in a sense ties together the article as a whole. As I have already shown, Ryall places a great deal of emphasis on the correct reading of a film, but in order to do so a student must first be aware of the production base of which it is part of. As a result of this knowledge, the social base, and ideas of cultural specificity, will then come into play.

Edward Buscombe writes, “Since we are dealing with a visual medium we ought surely to look for our defining criteria at what we actually see on the screen” and, although this statement is lambasted by Neale in Genre, it does seem to be in keeping at least on some level with the idea presented by Ryall. Ryall is principally concerned with the redirection of genre criticism and I believe that in The Conceptual Field he presents a valid and well informed argument for the focus of genre criticism to be shifted. Furthermore, Ryall identifies areas of study that are problematic and presents a way around these problems, leading the reader to a series of solutions that all stem from Ryall’s main argument.

Problems of the classical Hollywood narrative / art cinema dichotomy

“The classical narrative cinema – paradigmatically, studio feature filmmaking in Hollywood since 1920 – rests upon particular assumptions about narrative structure, cinematic style and spectatorial activity… the art cinema defines itself explicitly against the classical narrative mode.”

- David Bordwell

The mainstream Hollywood feature film and the art cinema are commonly presented as polar opposites. David Bordwell’s ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice,’ one of the most influential pieces of writing on the art cinema, seeks to emphasise just this. In it linear, cause and effect narratives populated by goal-orientated characters are pitched against episodic and accidental sequences of events revolving around psychologically complex characters. Clarity, consequence and internal logic are pitched against ambiguity, the loosening of causal relations. In one style is unobtrusive, the other seeks to foreground it, the aesthetic becoming as central to meaning as narrative cohesion. They are the antithesis of one another, inhabiting completely different worlds.

What is troubling about this premise is the undeniable relationship between the two supposedly separate modes. Following the court rulings which made illegal the practice of vertical integration, effectively ending the reign of the major Hollywood studios in 1948, the American film industry, for at least a period of time, relied heavily on an influx of European ‘art’ films in order to fulfil quotas. Far from being a passing trend, audiences began to warm to these films and soon enough ‘art house’ cinemas were specialising in exhibition of films by the likes of Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, François Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa. Art cinema was slowly working its way into the consciousness of the American public, offering an alternative to the generic gangster films and westerns that had for so long dominated the American film industry.

This depiction of art cinema, as a cinema that is entirely at odds with the Hollywood narrative film, is to some extent accurate when considering the time period in which art films were first introduced to the American film industry. Art cinema does utilise its own set of conventions that often place it firmly at odds with the Hollywood narrative film, and this is certainly true of the art films of the 1950s, including, for example, Fellini’s La Strada (1954, Italy), Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957, Sweden), Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959, France) and later in the 60s, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’avventura (1960, Italy). Most of these films, however, are products of cinematic movements such as the French New Wave and Italian neo-realism which were born out of political and cultural events and situations that are specific to their countries of origin. The introduction of these films into the American industry at any point would have inevitably sparked debate as to their difference with the Hollywood narrative film. They are different for many reasons, as Bordwell comprehensively discusses, and are as different to each other as they are to the American cinema.

The art film and the Hollywood narrative film share further links. The highly regarded film noirs of the 1940s – 50s are commonly cited as taking inspiration from the visual style of German expressionism, as pointed out by Michael Walker in ‘The Movie Book of Film Noir;’ “In particular, critics have sought to relate the noir visual style to the imagery of the German Expressionist movement of the ‘twenties.” This influence is usually characterised by the use of expressionistic lighting techniques and a distinctive use of shadow, a perfect example of this being the sequence in Stranger on the Third Floor (dir. Boris Ingster, 1940) in which the film’s protagonist Mike Ward catches a glimpse of the ‘stranger’ (played by Peter Lorre) on the stairway of his apartment as their shadows stretch jarringly across the walls behind them.

The movement of German expressionism itself is credited by some as giving rise to the art cinema, and evidence of expressionistic influences on the film noir cycle can also be attributed to the emigration of popular German filmmakers and actors to America during the 1930s. Peter Lorre had his first starring role in Fritz Lang’s M (1931, Germany) and went on to act in several successful German features until the rise of the Nazi party led him to flee the country in 1933. Lorre came to prominence in Hollywood by embracing his reputation for playing foreign villains and went on to star in a number of films that are seen as being instrumental in the film noir cycle including The Maltese Falcon (dir. John Huston, 1941) and Casablanca (1942) which was directed by Michael Curtiz, another emigrant director who travelled to America during the height of the expressionist movement.

Fritz Lang’s emigration to America in 1934 is also significant to the rise of film noir. Lang is a perfect example of Walker’s accomplished émigré directors “who contributed most impressively to film noir… [and] had a direct or indirect association with the expressionist movement,” citing also Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder and Michael Curtiz. Lang’s appeal when making films for UFA in Germany centred on his ability to mix popular narrative trends with expressionist techniques as cited by Michel Mourlet, “[in the films of Lang] an aesthetic is outlined which naturally took its basic elements from the state of the contemporary cinema [and this is] compensated for by distorting appearances into visual metaphors.” In this sense, Lang’s films can be viewed as a perfect example of a Hollywood narrative film / art film hybrid, securing for him a reputation as a filmmaker capable of courting mass appeal and yet critical acceptance as a figure of the art cinema. This premise is furthered by the film noir cycle, in which Lang was a prominent figure. Film noirs often utilised existing generic narrative templates such as the gangster film and the police procedural while incorporating the aesthetics of expressionism, particularly the aforementioned low key lighting and resulting use of shadow.

Occupying, as it does, a place in the history of the American cinema, film noir’s expressionist influences are well documented and widely accepted. With expressionism giving rise to the art film and film noir representing a cycle of films that owe as much to art cinema in aesthetics as they do to the classical Hollywood film in narrative, the impression that art cinema has made, through various means, on the Hollywood narrative film seems not only obvious, but undeniable. Therefore, the classical Hollywood / art cinema dichotomy proposed by David Bordwell, although useful in determining the formal differences between the two modes, cannot be accepted as an blanket truth. Far from being the polar opposites that they are commonly thought of being, art cinema influences Hollywood just as Hollywood influences art cinema. When treating the two modes as intrinsically linked, it is possible to assume that the ‘seed’ of art cinema was in a sense already planted within the consciousness of the American public as far back as the 1940s. The noir cycle essentially primed the American audience for the introduction of the European art film into the American industry in the 1950s and 60s.

The increase in critical debate over this introduction should be viewed as nothing more than a reaction to the assimilation of a foreign product into the American industry, which had been self reliant for as long as it had existed.

Art cinema in the context of American independent cinema

“Exactly how ‘independence’ is defined can vary in both form and degree… [there are] three main points of orientation: the position of individual films, or filmmakers, in terms of (1) their industrial location, (2) the kinds of formal / aesthetic strategies they adopt and (3) their relationship to the broader social, cultural, political or ideological landscape.”

- Geoff King

Aside from the specific origins of art cinema and its assimilation into the American film industry, one thing can be considered a truth: its impact created a demand which was to be met by both the major studios and independent filmmakers in the Hollywood era post 1950. American independent cinema, more so than the cinema of the Hollywood majors, has been seen to embrace the notion of art cinema, and therefore has become a breeding ground for the more diverse cinematic conventions and traits that are inherently linked with the art film. King goes on to establish the numerous ways in which the American independent film distances itself from the mainstream Hollywood product; “they are produced in an ultra-low budget world a million miles from that of the Hollywood blockbuster; they adopt formal strategies that disrupt or abandon the smoothly flowing conventions associated with the mainstream Hollywood style; and they offer challenging perspectives on social issues, a rarity in Hollywood.” As with Bordwell’s criticism of the art cinema, the underlying premise of King’s discussion of independent cinema is its polarisation with that of the mainstream Hollywood dominant mode, and essentially for the same reasons. Chuck Kleinhans in his article ‘Independent Features: Hopes and Dreams’ encourages an understanding of the term ‘independent’ “as a relational term – independent in relation to the dominant system – rather than taken as a practice that is totally free-standing and autonomous.” This serves to strengthen the line of criticism that translates to little more than a comparison of the two modes and furthers the view that they are opposites, linked only by their disparity.

This, just as is the case with the classical Hollywood narrative / art cinema dichotomy, is problematic, if only because of the extent to which major studios take interest in the independent sector. Based on the huge success, in terms of critical reception and box office return, generated by a number of independent features in the mid 80s and early 90s (a period in which Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape (1989) won major awards at both Cannes and the Sundance film festival and talents such as Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers began to emerge) Hollywood studios began to sense that money could be made. Major studios began bidding for independent features and before long every major studio had a production arm specialising in the development of independent film; Sony Pictures created Sony Pictures Classics, Twentieth Century Fox created Fox Searchlight and Paramount established Paramount Classics. Miramax and New Line Cinema, two of the names at the forefront of distribution in independent films are now owned by major studios, Disney and Time-Warner. Lionsgate Entertainment and Artisan Entertainment, the two largest non-studio owned production and distribution companies merged in 2003, creating a so-called ‘mini-major’ studio, but despite owning a back catalogue of films more than capable of providing financial stability, Lionsgate still frequently acts as a co-financier and silent partner in the co-production of major studio Hollywood films. In addition to this, the company often takes on the distribution of films that are deemed too risky or controversial to be handled by the distribution arms of Hollywood majors. Dogma (dir. Kevin Smith, 1999), a film that provoked moral outrage at the hands of the Catholic Church, was one such case. The relationship between the major studios and the independent sector can be seen as an exploitative one, with the majors only stepping in when they see an opportunity to make money or are unable to handle a film, but the independent sector undoubtedly benefits from major studio involvement in terms of potential for profit and attractive marketing opportunities.

One of the general conceptions based around the differences between the major studios and the independent sector is that the former is profit orientated at the expense of artistic merit and the latter seeks artistic acceptance at the expense of profit. Although this is to an extent true (an extent which will be decided by the preferences and interests of the individual), the interrelationship between the two makes this more complicated. What is certain is that independent filmmaking, in the sense of film production that is completely separate from major studio interference, attributes a level of freedom to the filmmaker unprecedented in the major studio climate. This freedom is of paramount importance when making a film that is ‘meant’ to oppose the stylistic and narrative conventions of the Hollywood narrative film.

In short, independent filmmakers have the freedom to adhere to principals of art cinema, but also the freedom to emulate the classical narrative film if they wish. In this sense, the American independent sector has the necessary autonomy to act as a link between mainstream Hollywood productions and art cinema making a strict dichotomy between the two even harder to define or defend.

Darren Aronofsky: part mainstream, part art house, part independent

What I hope to have shown so far is that while the relationship between Hollywood, art cinema and the independent sector is often presented as a series of dichotomies (Hollywood vs. art cinema, independent cinema vs. Hollywood) they are all actually part of a complicated relationship that draws on all aspects of their economical and artistic positions. It is possible for a film or a filmmaker to draw on the narrative and stylistic qualities of all three modes in order to create a product that exists as both part of the independent sector and the wider art film movement whilst adhering to the more conventional aspects of the classical Hollywood narrative film.

This will be the focus of my discussion from now on. I have chosen the films of American writer / director Darren Aronofsky to demonstrate this possibility, and will do so through a formal analysis of his three films to date; Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000) and The Fountain (2006). I believe that Aronofsky’s films represent the link that I have established between the classical Hollywood narrative film and art cinema. As a writer / director he is located firmly within the independent sector having had no involvement with the major studios during the production of his first two films. His third marked a move into the major studio production climate, and I will evaluate the implications this had on his filmmaking in my chapter on The Fountain. Bearing Aronofsky’s location in the independent sector in mind, and the importance of this in terms of the freedom it creates, I will include a summary of each film’s production in order to give an account of the hardships of independent filmmaking.

My main analysis will centre on the functions of narrative, theme and visual style in each of Aronofsky’s films, all of which utilise conventions that are apparent in both mainstream Hollywood cinema and art cinema. Aronofsky’s narratives are based on cause and effect logic, yet lack the closure demanded by Hollywood blockbusters. A great deal of emphasis is placed on hallucinatory sequences and flashbacks which blur the line between reality and fantasy (what Bordwell calls “the familiar ‘illusion / reality’ dichotomy” ) yet the films retain a level of cohesion that is indicative of their Hollywood influence. Thematically his films deal with internal psychological issues and in the case of Requiem for a Dream these issues are linked with specific social problems. On an aesthetic level Aronofsky often seeks to foreground visual style, but never does he let this overpower the narrative of his films, believing that to do so is to undermine the message of the film and create a culture of ‘MTV films’ which ultimately place style over substance.

Central to the films of Aronofsky is a constant return to the theme of obsession and addiction. Pi’s protagonist Max Cohen is obsessed with the possible use of mathematics to unlock hidden patterns in the stock market; Requiem for a Dream’s characters are all victims of drug addiction, desperate to escape their realities and in The Fountain, the protagonist Tommy obsessively searches for a medical cure in the hope of saving his wife from her inevitable death. This obsession is not only portrayed explicitly through narrative means; visual motifs and narrative structuring exposes and enhances the dilemma of the characters, foregrounding their struggle. Editing is used to great effect, and the aforementioned hallucinatory sequences serve to portray the extent of each character’s descent into the depths of fixation. Bordwell suggests that in the art film “the protagonist’s itinerary is not completely random; it has a rough shape: a trip, an idyll, a search…” and this is certainly true of Aronofsky’s films. The character’s obsessions lead them on journeys, both literally and metaphorically, and they are constantly searching, frantic in the hope of accomplishment or just a longing for peace.

This focus on addiction and obsession perhaps best typifies the influence of the art cinema in Aronofsky’s films. His characters are psychologically complex; their obsessions block the path to their goals and forbid them the luxury of performing as classical Hollywood protagonists. For this reason, the underlying theme of addiction and obsession will feature prominently in my analysis of Aronofsky’s work. Further consistency in thematic representation through visual style and narrative function gives rise to the premise of a cinematic vision permeating Aronofsky’s films. Through an analysis of the areas that I have proposed I will uncover a unified strand of filmmaking that stretches through Aronofsky’s three films despite their radical shift in subject matter and initial aesthetic qualities.

A night to remember: Elbow's triumphant homecoming

"Throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year'd see me right..."
- On a Day Like This, Elbow

The closing moments of Elbow’s triumphant homecoming show at Manchester’s M.E.N. arena, their largest in the city that they so charmingly often apply as their muse, provided a wonderful sense of closure. As the crowd made their way out of the venue, their feet wading through the confetti euphorically fired from cannons during the set closer On a Day Like This, a curious graphic was displayed on the screen behind the stage. The lid of a cube, as seen on the cover of The Seldom Seen Kid opened and invited in a cloud of starlings, surely the same as those which supply that very album’s opener with such a tender metaphor, before sealing them inside. The image could not have been clearer in it’s meaning given Guy Garvey’s earlier statement that the band may not been seen live again for up to two years while they work on a new album. Put simply, Elbow’s return to the city that they love and the city that loves them equally in return is the last in a long line of shows in support of their Mercury music prize winning album (144, to be specific) and indeed, the end of an era.

It was fitting on such a night when the sense of occasion was so palpable that the Manchester quintet’s opening three songs played in the same order as on the album that has propelled them to such dizzy new heights of critical and commercial success. With the dreamlike guitar and piano that signaled the beginning of Mirrorball many of the crowd will be forgiven for thinking that they would be treated to a start-to-finish rendition of The Seldom Seen Kid, as with their previous recording for the BBC at Abbey Road studios earlier this year. But tonight was reserved for a more traditional set list, one which served to highlight the extraordinary career of a band that has so often in the past been overlooked and underappreciated. And rightly so, for there are few who understand that Elbow have written and recorded consistently brilliant music across all four of their albums rather than just the one that delivered them such elevated media attention better than those in the crowd before them.

It is testament to Guy Garvey’s ability as a frontman that he both commanded the stage with such confidence as well as exuding a charismatic warmth that seemed to make everyone in attendance feel welcome; no small feat when considering the size of the venue. The band as a whole have been well versed in playing to large audiences, having made various appearances on the festival circuit over the years, but rather than providing the feeling of awe that can often accompany viewing a show in such an open space the band succeeded in crafting an intimate atmosphere more in keeping with the humbleness that Garvey himself seems to display as a person. His banter in between songs, often anecdotal and insightful, was full of humour and praise for those that have had a hand in helping the band achieve what for so long looked like it may never come. One memorable remark came as Garvey discovered that his band mate had had his flies undone prior to a stripped down version of Weather to Fly which saw the band huddled in a tight group on the stage: “biggest gig we’ve done and you’re selling hotdogs!” Another came as Garvey fumbled the opening riff to Mexican Standoff, quickly righting his wrong with a deadpanned “it’ll be alright, there’s not many in.”

Indeed it was also a night for breaking records. The eagle-eyed among the audience will have spotted in the tiers flanking either side of the stage, a section of the crowd all dressed in white, before the band even stepped foot on the stage that they so convincingly made their own throughout the course of the night. Shortly before the unassuming acoustic intro of The Stops, Garvey introduced the as-yet unnamed contingent of the audience as the Elbow choir – proudly announcing that the 2,700 strong assembly will be recognised as the largest choir in history by the Guinness book of records. Taking duty on a number of songs, also including the anthemic Grounds for Divorce, the audible effect of the added vocals was, in honesty, lost around the entire arena but the theatrics were certainly not. Those placed closer to the front must have been treated to the most extraordinary experience whilst those at the back and in the gods will hardly be heard complaining.

To pick a highlight of the show would be difficult for many fans. More appropriate, for me at least, would be to pick the show as a highlight amongst the many that I have seen. Nevertheless, certain moments did serve to thrill; a rendition of the superbly cinematic The Fix, in which the band were joined onstage by their collaborator Richard Hawley (“can we get a move on? I’ve got a bus to catch”, he quipped). The hazy euphoria of The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver, with its sweeping strings and languid vocals, arguably translates better as a live song than it does on the album. Live favourites Forget Myself and Station Approach, the latter part of a series of encores spurred on by the crowd singing All You Need is Love as requested by the band, proved memorable as did the climax of Newborn. In truth, however, it was the final song of the night On a Day Like This that really illustrated the bands ability to whip up an emotional frenzy. With it’s timeless string motifs and salt-of-the-earth lyrics, the song means much more than the sum of it’s parts and to have seen it performed as flawlessly as it was on this night is a memory that will endure.

Never has the appeal of this band been clearer as when they made their way from the stage, wading through the adulation of their truest fans every bit as much as those same fans waded through the confetti. Elbow make beautiful, heartwarming music, music that will always find an audience that is indifferent to the fickle attitudes of the media and the mainstream. This audience in particular will await the return of their heroes, a return that will see them stripped of their underdog status and affirmed as one of the most strikingly talented bands that have ever emerged from the United Kingdom, let alone the city that they hold so dear.

Through time, space and Tsarist Russia: Mastodon's Crack the Skye

“It’s about a crippled young man who experiments with astral travel. He goes up into outer space, goes too close to the sun, gets his golden umbilical cord burned off, flies into a wormhole, is thrust into the spirit realm, has conversations with spirits about the fact that he’s not really dead, and they decide to help him. They put him into a divination that’s being performed by an early-20th-century Russian Orthodox sect called the Klisti, which Rasputin is part of.

Knowing Rasputin is about to be murdered, they put the young boy’s spirit inside of Rasputin. Rasputin goes to usurp the throne of the Czar and is murdered by the Yusupovs, and the boy and Rasputin fly out of Rasputin’s body up through the crack in the sky and head back. Rasputin gets him safely back into his body.

That’s the basic story… but it’s all metaphors for personal shit.”

– Brann Dailor

As the above quote might suggest, there is a certain cinematic quality to Mastodon’s music. As a gift to those who pre-ordered new album Crack the Skye from iTunes, the band made available each track as an instrumental, or as what they describe as a ‘score’. In fact, it seems that Mastodon’s heavily conceptualised brand of rock can no longer be contained by music alone, with the band planning to release a 50 minute film as an accompaniment to their latest opus. With Brann Dailor’s summary of Crack the Skye’s bizarre concept fresh in mind, such an offering would surely be welcomed by all.

Mastodon’s first album proper was 2002’s Remission which, through a staggering display of aggression and raw power, represented the ‘fire’ element in what would be their first of a four-part series. 2004’s Leviathan showcased the true scope of the bands conceptuality by taking the narrative of Melville’s Moby Dick as its theme, thus representing ‘water’ in the band’s grand scheme. Garnering almost unanimous critical acclaim, the album went on to be voted the 3rd best metal album of the last 20 years by leading publication Metal Hammer. It also proved to be the band’s last release for their highly respected, albeit independent and therefore constraining, label Relapse Records before they signed with Warner Bros. 2006’s Blood Mountain (representing the ‘earth’ element), the band’s highly anticipated major label debut truly propelled the band into the upper echelon’s of the hard rock scene with lead single Colony of Birchmen earning them a Grammy nomination. Again, the band enjoyed almost unprecedented critical acclaim and by the time the Blood Mountain world tour had wound down Mastodon sat comfortably on throne as metal’s new champions. Although at this point everyone knew which element would follow to complete the cycle, few could have guessed the impact that the concept of ‘air’ would have on the band’s sound. On Crack the Skye, Mastodon have all but completely transformed themselves into one of the finest musical acts on the planet.

Mastodon’s real triumph as a band has always been their ability to utilise their talent as songwriters to convey a theme or concept. Each album post-Remission tells a story from start to finish, both lyrically and musically. Despite the lyrical cohesion of each collection of songs, the crux of each album’s narrative doesn’t rely solely on what is being said; the music plays an equal, if not bigger, role in telling a story. For instance, the Moby Dick inspired lyrics on Leviathan are mirrored by fluid guitar work and wonderfully absurd nuance (see Megalodon’s seat shanty segue). The album consistent evokes the feeling of being lost at sea, far from safety from its blistering exposition to the final 14 minute marathon of Heart’s Alive. Blood Mountain, too, is a unified work of speculative fiction as Troy Sanders explains; “It’s about climbing up a mountain and the different things that can happen to you when you’re stranded on a mountain, in the woods, and you’re lost. You’re starving, hallucinating, running into strange creatures. You’re being hunted. It’s about that whole struggle.” The album’s psychadelic lyrical content is matched with earthy guitar tones, churning riffs and an emphasis on rythym.

Having adapted possibly the greatest seafaring work of fiction for Leviathan and created an entire world for Blood Mountain, Mastodon will have been well aware during the writing process for Crack the Skye that their tendency to better themselves demanded of them nothing short of the delivery of a masterpiece; anything less would sit uncomfortably with their previous work. Put simply: they deliver, making it seem as effortless as it would be had there been no pressure on them whatsoever. What the band offer this time around is nothing short of a complete reinvention of themselves, and whereas die-hard Remission lovers may be left reeling by the circumvention of breakneck pace, cartilage wearing drum fills and blistering rage, true Mastodon fans will recognise the sheer magnitude and importance of what is likely to become one of metal’s all time great albums.

Crack the Skye introduces the band as a different beast altogether; this is a Mastodon matured, wiser and, frankly, better than before. And as hard as that is to believe, repeat listens (or, if you close your eyes, viewings) of their new offering will convince you that even if you don’t quite get it at first, you are witnessing something special. At face value the album is slower than almost all of the band’s previous material; Brann takes a step back from his trademark style of busy, jazz infused beats punctuated by wandering drum kills, instead ‘locking into a groove’ as he puts it, perhaps a consequence of his playing to a click track for the first time on a Mastodon album. More likely is that his alteration of style is dictated by the style of the songs themselves; he merely plays what is required of him although that is not to say that he doesn’t stand out as the remarkable drummer that Remission, Leviathan and Blood Mountain have shown him to be. In fact, it is fair to say that the album doesn’t really get going until he does; his perfectly measured cascading drum fills introducing album opener Oblivion before giving way to a time signature change that instantly banishes any fear of the band having strayed from their progressive roots. Some haunting vocals (courtesy of Brann himself) and a masterful guitar solo round off the band’s statement of intent, giving way to the album’s obvious choice for lead single; Divinations. Clocking in at 3 and a half minutes and the album’s shortest song by some distance, the up tempo track is somewhat of a curveball when heard in isolation; it is as different from the rest of the material on display as Crack the Skye is from Mastodon’s previous material, but such are the demands of major label politics.

So just how does Crack the Skye conspire to convey it’s extraordinary story musically? Detractors will point out that the album is a lot more polished than its predecessors and use this to fuel the argument that it isn’t really metal at all. They might be right. Crack the Skye doesn’t appear at all concerned with being ‘metal’ and as a result stands out as the band’s most unified and complete offering. Brendan O’Brien’s production allows the songs to realise their ethereal intentions, born of the band’s decision to leave behind their more complicated guitar work in favour of riffs that, at times, approach ambience. Quintessence is a perfect example; a song that soars into space with its airy guitars and spiralling synth licks whilst losing none of its power. Mastodon have never sounded so uplifting, Sanders’ vocals ascending above the rich, layered tapestry of music that his band creates. The Czar, a ten minute, four part piece of pure prog-rock indulgence enters as a slow burner, guided by dreamy synth and guitar before exploding into a groovy urgency. As with all of the band’s previous material, if you stick with it you will be richly rewarded for your patience – a transcendent acoustic break gives way to a wonderfully lush classic rock section led by a melody reminiscent of Ozzy Osbourne. Brendt Hinds’ mesmerising guitar solo leads the song full circle for its denouement and you realise that whilst you have been floating around in space you have lost ten minutes. Not that you’ll mind.

As un-Mastodon as you may consider it to be, the production is flawless and may prove to be one of the factors that will see Crack the Skye go down in history as one of those timeless albums that sound as fresh as the day they were made 20 years after their release date. In 2006, the band contributed to Kerrang!’s Remastered, a 20th anniversary tribute to Metallica’s seminal Master of Puppets, covering the instrumental track Orion to a degree of perfection that the original writers of the song must have been proud of. Paying homage to one of the founders of modern heavy music must have been an honour at the time, as would be the opportunity to join them on a 2009 European tour had Crack the Skye not just been released. But the fact is that Crack the Skye may just be the Master of Puppets of generation now; the album that goes on to serve as a benchmark for rock music for the foreseeable future. Crack the Skye will go on to top album of the year lists around the globe, but something more important is harboured within the 7 tracks and 50 minutes of this record, something that escapes the immediacy of as many listens that can be crammed into even a whole year.

As with Master of Puppets, only time will truly reveal its greatness. I think I know how important this record is, but I know that time will prove me wrong because in the future I would not be surprised if bands are lining up to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Crack the Skye.

Watch Mastodon play Oblivion live here.
Listen to them talk about Crack the Skye here.

Old School American Horror: Hatchet

The first person to die in Hatchet, Adam Green’s 2006 throwback to the truly bloody days of American horror, is Robert Englund; the man responsible for bringing us the iconic figure of Freddy Kruger. The relevance of this first blood is obvious; it is a mission statement from the debutant writer / director who wishes to make it clear that whilst what has gone before is important, it is far from sacred. The golden age of the slasher film may be dead and buried, but Hatchet demonstrates that the sub-genre still has plenty of mileage, even if it seldom strays far from the path that has been previously laid.

Hatchet is a proud film. Whilst Hollywood turns its attention to fields afar, looking for a new lease of life to breath into the horror film, Hatchet confidently mocks the masses whilst taking matters into its own hands right underneath their noses. It declares itself as ‘old school American horror’ on the cover of the DVD case and defiantly adds that ‘It’s not a remake. It’s not a sequel and it’s not based on a Japanese one.’ It is fair to say that from the very word go, Hatchet sets out to put right what has gone so wrong with American horror.

In just two years Hatchet has developed cult status, something that very few American horror films have managed in the last two decades. I would suggest a number of reasons for this. The term ‘cult film’ can only be applied retrospectively; there is no handbook for those who wish to make a cult film and therefore a film either gains cult appeal or it doesn’t. Whilst Hollywood continues to source material from oversees, a lot of which already has cult appeal, the likelihood is that they will not be able to replicate such a status domestically. In any case, they wouldn’t want to. Cult films are often independent and thus have a low production budget, minimal exposure and as a result do poorly at the box office. The Hollywood ethos, which has been apparent since the immediate success of the blockbuster, aims for maximum exposure and maximum profit. The chance of a post-1990s Hollywood film gaining true cult status is not only slim but hardly a priority for the major studios.

Hatchet, on the other hand, fits the bill for a cult film perfectly. Its approximate 1.5 million dollar budget was secured by way of the production team showing true guerrilla filmmaking grit and determination. With nothing but belief and a handheld camcorder, Green and producers Sarah Elbert and Cory Neal flew to Louisiana to make a trailer for the film with no financial backing in place or any guarantee that the film would be made. In the resulting teaser a slow, mesmerising camera shot floats through a swamp, just above water level, whilst an eerie childish voiceover recounts the tale of poor Victor Crowley, the film’s antagonist lying in wait. The team were confident of creating a huge buzz on the internet in order to snare a production deal, and by the time that Bloody Disgusting.com and Ain’t It Cool News had had their say, securing the finances for the feature was never in doubt.

It is worth noting that almost all of the horror classics were similarly low key affairs. Black Christmas, the film that truthfully started the slasher cycle, was made with a budget of only 620,000 dollars. John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is more commonly referred to as the origin of the sub-genre, was produced on an even more modest budget of 325,000 dollars. Friday the 13th, Hatchet’s closest compatriot, was made to capitalise on the limited lifespan of the slasher flick and despite being a commercial success, was completed with only an estimated 550,000 dollars. These films were the genesis of American horror’s most prolific era; they provided a foundation for a number of successful franchises as well as a host of instantly forgettable cash-ins. They didn’t disappear overnight, but their quality certainly did. With the exception of Wes Craven’s Scream franchise and Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, American horror has never quite managed to scale the dizzy heights that it managed in the 70’s and 80’s.

Like all the classics, Hatchet revolves around a myth. All the kids told stories about Freddy Kruger, whilst the figures of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers hang over Camp Crystal Lake and the community of Haddonfield like unspeakable and immovable secrets. Crowley, Hatchet’s soon-to-be horror icon, is no different. In fact the character shares such blatant parallels with the likes of Voorhees, Leatherface, Kruger and The Burning’s ‘Cropsy’ that he can hardly be considered original. All are deformed, clear examples of each character’s evil being externalised through visual means – think Bond villains; metal teeth, scars across the eyes etc – and all serve to exact some kind of revenge for their afflictions.

Crowley’s myth shares a particular resemblance to the story of Jason Voorhees. Crowley, born deformed, was taunted by the local kids due to his appearance. His father, who loved him despite his burden, cared for him and tried his best to shield him from the abuse of the other children. One Halloween, a group of trick-and-treaters tried to scare Crowley out of his shed deep in the swamps of Louisiana, but the prank backfired – the shed caught fire with Crowley trapped inside. His father, upon his return, tried frantically to get him out, eventually resorting to using a hatchet to break in and save his son. Unaware that his son’s face was pressed up against the inside of the door the father hacked away, resulting in Crowley’s death. But they say that if you go near the old Crowley house, deep in the thick of the swamp, you can still hear Victor Crowley crying out for his father. When a group of tourists, some of which have hidden agendas, find themselves stranded whilst on a haunted swamp tour, they realise that there is truth to the myth and very little chance of escape.

So just how does Hatchet manage to breath life into the slasher film? The narrative is formulaic, relying on well established themes and stylistically it does nothing new. Perhaps one thing should be made clear; Hatchet is not responsible for reinventing anything. The slasher sub-genre, perhaps more than any other, relies on a set of well versed conventions and Green, keen to give the die hard horror fans what they want, sticks to these stringently. To talk of Green as the saviour of horror would be unwarranted, I actually think that this film could have been made by anyone with an interest in the genre. What Green has done, albeit with conviction and competency, is make a film that was guaranteed to be well received providing that it reached the right audience and given that horror is possibly one of the simplest genres to successfully market, those who put up the money will have been fairly certain of recouping their investment.

Narratively, Hatchet is everything that we have come to expect from the genre. There are no high concept ideals or labyrinthine subplots; the film essentially revolves around a one dimensional plot with the intermittent deaths acting as gruesome set pieces. The question of whether the onscreen events are plausible rarely enters into the equation – what this film needed to deliver, and does, is an impressive body count and not much else. Green’s script work is impressive, switching between light-hearted comedy and no-holds-barred terror often quite whimsically. Green feeds his audience this rich vein of comedy throughout the film, making the expositional scenes seem less tedious and more enjoyable. When the heads start to roll (both figuratively and literally) Hatchet comes across as a well rounded exercise rather than seeming flimsy and disjointed.

Where Green really shines is in delivering the all important sucker punches that the audience love to hate. Crowley’s introduction is a prime example of this; a breakneck shot reverse shot places our unfortunate throng at the bottom of a hill, on top of which lies Crowley’s eerily lit and seemingly derelict shed. An agonisingly slow SteadiCam shot creeps up the slope, switching perspectives from higher to lower ground as the group makes slow progress. After what seems like forever, Crowley bursts through the doorway of his hut, charging down the slope towards the foremost members of the group whilst wielding his hatchet. In an instant Crowley goes from fabrication to fact and it takes him seconds to begin his killing spree. Crowley is light years away from the methodical Michael Myers, as soon as he arrives on the screen the pace of the film lifts, buoyed by the monster’s energy and kineticism. Whereas Myers stalks, Crowley is more comparable to Leatherface; both are a relentless force of evil, lacking direction and restraint.

On an aesthetic level, Hatchet is hard to fault despite never wowing the viewer with slick camerawork. There are no grand establishing shots or any real aspects of cinematographical brilliance; one assumes that the modest budget left little room for experimentation. The fact that the film is set almost entirely at night does well to mask the shortcomings presented by the budget restrictions. The lighting is sparse at times and the intermittent rain appears to be sketchy in widely framed shots but such shortcomings can be forgiven; the overall look of the film is unharmed. If anything, the low-fi aspect of the film is charming. The slasher sub-genre worked through its golden era without any of its flagship films exceeding 2 million dollars in production costs and I have never come across an article criticising the classics because of this.

Of course the most obvious aesthetic element is the film’s special effects, all of which were shot in-camera, in keeping with the old school ethos that the film proudly heralds. Given the advancements in make up and special effects since the heyday of the slasher movie, the effects in Hatchet are equally as impressive as anything that the godfather of gore Tom Savini came up with in the 70’s and 80’s. John Carl Buechler, who has previously worked with both Freddy and Jason, really delivers on this film, which goes the extra mile in terms of blood and guts. The elaborate and memorable deaths in Hatchet easily match those of Halloween, Friday the 13th and the Nightmare on Elm Street films – even surpassing them in terms of inventiveness. Crowley’s most effective weapon, aside from his eponymous hatchet, seems to be his brute strength which he uses to horrifying effect numerous times. His first post-Englund victim is hacked in two from the shoulder down through the torso, his second has her head pulled apart from the jaw upwards, leaving her tongue waggling sickeningly in the air. It’s not so much that these incredibly violent deaths look real but more that their graphic nature renders any notion of realism irrelevant.

Unnerving as it is, the death scenes really are the film’s triumph. After all, what is a slasher film without them? Horror fans will relish the back to basics approach of the film’s special effects team in the face of Hollywood’s CGI fixation and whilst the weak stomached will disagree, there is a grotesque beauty to be admired when considering the amount of craftsmanship that has gone into the execution of each demise. More importantly, the special effects of Hatchet hark back to a time when things couldn’t be achieved with a computer and the crew had to work extensively to achieve the image that they had in their heads. Hatchet captures this artisan mentality perfectly and the film is much better off for it.

One thing that gains Green points is his bypass of the ‘final girl’ convention, which despite being the widely accepted mode of closure in the genre has now undoubtedly grown stale. One of the drawbacks of such generic material is the ease with which the audience can guess exactly what is coming next and when the film is going to end. Traditionally, when the cast is cut down to the last person, and she is female, it’s game over. This is perhaps the only area that Green sees fit to leave uncovered, instead playing out the film with one last obligatory scare that many won’t see coming. If not exactly refreshing, the ending is certainly welcome and it alludes to the fact that true horror fans are hardly concerned with closure. What some would regard as leaving the cinema with a bad taste in their mouths is exactly the opposite for the target audience of this film.

Hatchet may be an exercise in nostalgia, but few could argue that it came at the right time. The cycle of the slasher film came to an end because its formula was being abused, resulting in films that were unworthy of being mentioned in the same category as the classics. Green took it upon himself to pay homage to the films that we all remember from our youths and for that alone he should be praised. The fact that he has delivered a feature which is arguably on a par with the films that it aspires to be is a magnificent achievement for the young director. If Hatchet had been made in the golden age we would be lauding it as one of the greats; it is almost a shame that it missed the boat by 30 years.

Watch a trailer for the film here.

A magnificent double death scene can be found here.

Mulholland Drive, Part 2: a Phenomenological View

Phe· nom· e· nol· o· gy [fi–nom–uh–nol–uh–jee]
– noun
1. the way in which one perceives and interprets events and one’s relationship to them in contrast both to one’s objective responses to stimuli and to any inferred unconsciousmotivation for one’s behaviour.
2. in psychology, phenomenology is used to refer to subjective experiences or their study.
eg. “from a phenomenological perspective, I didn’t feel that way…”

That David Lynch sometimes prefers to direct his actors in metaphors is remarkably appropriate; it would take one to describe my feelings about Mulholland Drive. I am not brave enough to attempt any lengthy in depth analysis of his film, least of all his unfathomably enigmatic third act, but in some way I understand everything that I need to about it. I am comfortable in the absence of a definitive meaning of the film, knowing that Lynch himself would cite the feeling that it gives me as proof enough of its influence.

Mulholland Drive has always seemed to me profound, not in terms of artistic statement or aesthetic beauty, but something more; something that I would find it extremely difficult to articulate. I have long since stopped trying, knowing that I would never be able to craft an accurate description of how the film makes me feel. Simplistically, Lynch’s cinema, and in particular Mulholland Drive, has the power to provoke from me a huge range of emotional responses. I find the film at parts extremely unsettling; a number of scenes frighten me more than any horror film has managed to. The man who lives behind Twinkies and the hallucinatory nightmarish ending have both at some point proved too scary for me to watch and I am not exactly sure why. It seems obvious to me that Lynch isn’t trying to scare me, and perhaps knowing this scares me even more. At the same time I find the film achingly beautiful. The establishing arial shots of Los Angeles seem to belong in a blockbuster, so detached are they from the visual style of the rest of the film. Yet they are timeless, flawlessly photographed and therefore return to me as an element of the film that I love.

Many of the emotions that I experience when I watch the film are provoked by both the music and the sound design of the film. The ‘Club Silencio’ scene, one which is heavily reliant on the relationship between the visual and aural components of cinema, is one that I am particularly intrigued by. A personal response to this scene is that Lynch is toying with his viewers, not in a manipulative way, but rather by adopting the theme that all is not what it seems as a microcosm for the film as a whole. In any case, the scene is a spectacle. Peter Deming’s floating, disembodied camera announces the arrival of a shift in tone; we are not aware of what is going to happen, but we know that it is something significant, something meaningful.

Angelo Badalmenti’s score is another aspect of the film that I consider hugely important in my response to it. Music in film is important, but so often it is not given the chance to have a significant influence on the film and an impact on its audience. Badalamenti worked closely with Lynch, often writing music based on Lynch’s attempts to verbalise a mood or feeling. The result is a score that is every bit as responsible for the film’s tone as Lynch’s direction, the cast’s performances and Deming’s cinematography. Using a subtle blend of synth and strings, Badalamenti enhances the power of the image, often giving it a new dynamic in the process.

My emotional involvement with this film peaks at the same point every time I devote 2 hours and 20 minutes of my life to it. The following sequence, which is represented in Lynch’s mind by the image of a glowing red lamp according to his chapter prompts on the special edition DVD, occurs well after we learn that all is not what it seems; during and after the ‘Club Silencio’ scene. By this point in the film my reoccurring thoughts and theories have been put to bed, in their place lies a sense of relief as I realise that my curiosity and intrigue has survived another viewing. Long may it do so. The day that I watch the film and realise that I am no longer affected by it in the same way will be the day that it loses its power over me.

The transcription that follows is of my favourite scene of the film.

A phone rings. The camera pans down past a lit red lamp, cutting to a wider angle to reveal Diane walking into the room as her answering machine message picks up the call. “Hello, it’s me… leave a message” – the lack of a given name underpinning the ambiguity of character. The caller’s tinny voice through the speaker is not quite as unrecognisable as her character has become, nevertheless we intuit her identity. The conversation that ensues, one sided and wracked with condescension, reveals the setting of the next scene as the camera slowly closes in on Diane’s face. 6980 Mulholland Drive. The synthesised score creeps in as Diane’s despondent expression, framed against a wall absent of discernable colour, fades from the screen.

A shot of Mulholland Drive’s street sign, identical to the one that introduces the film, hangs dreamily at the top of the frame. It wades through soft focus and the glare of oncoming headlights as the camera passes below. A black limousine, the same which ushers Rita to her misfortune almost two hours before, winds its way through the Hollywood hills before drawing to a stop. Betty, who occupies the rear passenger seat in place of Rita, ominously utters the words “we don’t stop here…” whilst the eerily hypnotic score works with our expectations to contrive a sense of threat.

“A surprise” remarks the driver, who does little to allay Diane’s concern. The car door opens and Camilla, appropriately silhouetted, descends the forested incline by the side of the road and approaches the car. “A shortcut” she explains, leading Diane out of the car and back into the undergrowth with a soft word or two. Angelo Badalamenti’s orchestral score swells as the pair move on; no other arrangement could better accompany the couple’s ascent, its beauty making their destination irrelevant. The camera tracks their movement, switching perspective from higher to lower ground. We cut to a shot of their clasped hands from which the camera pans upwards to linger on Diane’s spellbound smile.

Lights ahead of the couple signal their arrival; the alluring musical motif dies away to be replaced by the intentionally inappropriate sound of diegetic jazz, revealing their location as utterly unworthy of its poetic foreword. The shift in tone is almost heartbreaking, inspiring in the audience a profound sense of disappointment which remains evident for the coming scenes. The introduction of Adam Kesher, the director with whom Camilla is having an affair, marginalises Diane, who is forced to watch as she toasts “to love” with her new lover. After an agonising exchange with Kesher’s mother which serves to devalue Diane’s position in the group even further, they make way for the house – tellingly, Camilla and Kesher lead whilst Diane follows behind them.

Over dinner, Diane is revealed as the outsider that the disdain of her hosts suggests she is. As she begins a clumsy anecdote, Lynch allows only an indecipherable blur to set the scene before snapping his camera into focus. Kesher’s mother feigns interest whilst clawing at a bowl of nuts, Kesher himself speaks Spanish with Camilla and an out of shot other; Diane clearly doesn’t understand. After dinner, as Kesher and Camilla announce their engagement, the scene descends into parody. The previous restraint shown in light of Diane’s presence has vanished; a sequence of shot reverse shots reveals both the new couple’s sickening, almost insincere joy and Diane’s agony at the news.

From this point onwards is where some claim to be able to make sense of the film. Diane, unable to cope with the loss of her love, hires a thug to kill Camilla. Then, tortured by her decision to do so she kills herself in a scene so unnerving that my best efforts to describe it would prove thankless.

After that... silencio.

Although out of context and therefore presumably lacking much of the emotional substance that I have tried to convey, the scene can be viewed here.

Science (versus) Fiction: Sunshine

Sunshine is British director Danny Boyle’s 2007 foray into the science fiction genre, a venture that he had been planning for many years. It is his third collaboration with British writer Alex Garland who also provided the concept and screenplays for The Beach (2000) and 28 Days Later (2002). It seems that the duo have established a winning formula; if not commercially, without question artistically, with Sunshine being perhaps the most impressive example of their creative partnership given the film’s complexity and scale.

If the Hollywood megastars have been missing in Boyle’s post The Beach career, he has made up for it ten-fold with ambition. He cleared the streets of London (albeit not at rush hour) in his not-a-zombie-movie 28 Days Later, effortlessly running his digital camera over landmarks and landscapes whilst conjuring a sense of apocalypticism that had been missing from British film for some time. With Sunshine he goes a step further; crafting an equally isolated setting in space, leaving Earth completely untouched save for the ultimate shot of the film in which he again treats us to his apocalyptic vision.

Set 50 years in the future, with the Sun’s power drastically deteriorating, a team of astronauts and scientists are sent on a mission to reignite it with a massive stellar bomb. Their ship, Icarus II (a name in which all manner of irony and cynicism can be found) travels directly towards the dying star, protected by an enormous circular heat shield. Upon reaching the ‘payload delivery point’, the bomb is to be released and propelled unmanned towards the Sun’s surface, whilst the ship thrusts in the opposite direction. We join the crew several years in, just as they prepare to enter the ‘dead zone’ from which they will lose the ability to communicate with Earth. As tensions between the crew begin to mount, they pick up the distress signal of the ill-fated Icarus I, which failed to complete its mission for unknown reasons. Faced with the choice to remain on course or intercept the stranded vessel, the onboard physicist Robert Capa (played by Cillian Murphy) decides to risk the detour for a second chance at completing the mission should their first attempt fail. This decision, which proves divisive amongst the crew, sparks a chain of events that puts their lives and their mission in jeopardy.

The focus of my discussion will be to challenge a line of argument which has somewhat damaged the critical reception of the film post-release; that of its scientific inaccuracy and perceived lack of plausibility. A number of issues have contributed towards this argument – which was made by a review of the film in New Scientist magazine and a column in The Times, both written by journalists with backgrounds in solar physics – and if you are cynical enough to sit through the film with nothing but fierce scepticism with regard to the film’s inaccuracies, these are some of the questions that you might ask: why are the astronauts walking and not floating? Why, to an exact degree of scientific certainty, is the Sun dying? Isn’t the Sun supposed to burn for another 5 billion years? Wouldn’t it take a bomb much much bigger to reignite it anyway? And, of course; isn’t it true that as our Sun dies it will in fact produce more heat, engulfing the Earth as it enters its red giant phase? These were the questions on Anjana Ahuja’s mind as she watched the film, leading her to the proud assertion that “Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy”. Unfortunately, all Ahuja has demonstrated, despite scoring points with her solar-physicist fraternity, is that she is incapable of understanding the workings of cinema, much less succumbing to its power. I wonder; does she watch all films expecting such a rich, unbroken vein of realism?

Due to this attack on the film’s credibility, the filmmakers themselves have been put on the defensive, having felt it necessary to offer some of the answers to these questions – answers that are extraneous to the film itself. Frankly, this is a shame, not least because it weakens the integrity of the film. Imagine if David Lynch were forced into a dialogue that revealed the innermost secrets of his films because an expert on dream interpretation demanded that he clarify certain things. Granted, with science it is different; science is the study of fact, of which there can be a degree of uncertainty, but little room for interpretation. As such, scientists are quick to pounce on mistakes that relate to these facts. Art, which can loosely be defined as a pursuit which is opposed to science, is an area in which many of these mistakes (or misinterpretations) are made. In Sunshine, and indeed the wider focus of the science fiction film, this dichotomy of art versus science is extremely prominent. The ‘art’ is, of course, that of cinema whilst the ‘science’ is represented by the film’s subject matter, and because of this it has an influence on both the narrative and the aesthetic qualities of the film. As an artist, Boyle is faced with the task of seeing things from a cinematic perspective first and foremost, whereas the film’s detractors have clearly chosen a scientific perspective and thus disregarded the cinematic conventions to which the film must adhere.

A number of examples can be used to illustrate this dichotomy. The first is the temporal setting of the film; the year 2057. This seems to be the source of much of the film’s derision by critics, who frequently point out that 50 years in the future is not a significant enough timeframe for the Sun to have reduced in power. Boyle’s reaction to this specific line of questioning has lead to the following explanation: the Sun is not dying in terms of reaching the end of its life cycle; it is suffering from an infection caused by something called a Q-Ball that has been trapped in the Sun and is sapping its power. This explanation was included in the back-story of the film but didn’t make the final cut, leaving the floodgates open for scientists to pounce on the film’s inaccuracy. In fact, Boyle took artistic licence in placing the film 50 years in the future so as to maintain a level of familiarity which would allow the audience to relate to the characters and their mission. If the film were to take place 5 billion years in the future in order to completely satisfy all scientific parameters it would be impossible for an audience to empathise with any part of the film. Such a level of alienation would not only trivialise the importance of the mission but essentially give infinite scope for both the narrative and aesthetic qualities of any film. Put simply, even an artistic interpretation of events that take place 5 billion years in the future would be an exercise in futility.

Another aspect of the film that scientists have taken exception with is that of the artificial gravity onboard Icarus II, which is apparent but never explained. Stemming from this line of argument is a further criticism which relates to a scene towards the end of the film in which the concept of gravity itself seems to unravel as the bomb grows nearer and nearer to the Sun. To avoid the failure of their mission, the remaining crew are forced to detach the bomb from Icarus II and manually arm it, meaning that they must accompany it to its delivery point. The bomb itself is a massive cube structure on which the surviving members of the crew stand. When they are forced over the edge of the cube, they plummet downwards but gradually begin to slow before coming to a stop and finding themselves able to stand. It is a disorienting visual experience, with Boyle refusing to establish a definitive horizontal or vertical plain.

On explaining this short scene the scientific impossibility is obvious, but on my first (and subsequent) viewings I found that the film offers a subtle and clever explanation. When charged with making the decision as the whether the crew should alter their trajectory to rendezvous with Icarus I, Capa is seen mulling over the physics of their task. The computer generated images before him show the payload delivery procedure whilst the ship’s onboard computer (Icarus, a nod to both Mother and HAL) gives a running narrative. As the bomb nears the surface of the Sun, the projection crashes with Icarus stating that “[the] reliability of projection has dropped below 45%; remaining projection is not open to useful speculation; variables infinite, accuracy unknown.” Capa clarifies; “Between the boosters and the gravity of the Sun the velocity of the payload will get so great that space and time will become smeared together and everything will distort. Everything will be unquantifiable.” My assumption, one which I thought to be quite reasonable, was that this lack of gravitational cohesion was a cleverly stylised way of portraying the distortion of time and space – after all, it occurs at the right point in the film; as the bomb is heading into the Sun. It turns out that I am wrong when I could have quite easily been right. In an explanation prompted by further derision, Boyle explains that within the cube there is the compressed mass of a small moon, which explains the reason why there is artificial gravity as well as why the crew can stand on both horizontal and vertical plains.

This seems absurd to me, and if anything a little harder to believe than my own theory, but one must remember that this explanation is not included in the film. Whereas scientists who have ‘reviewed’ the film have lambasted the lack of scientific precision, I believe that Boyle should be praised for refusing to over-explain every aspect in-film. Would a Sunshine constantly bogged down with jargon and science be half as entertaining, even half as interesting? A science fiction film, to an extent, writes its own licence to challenge certain things and therefore any element of ‘realism’ is apparent entirely at the filmmakers’ discretion. In any case, a ‘realistic’ sci-fi film is one that would eschew the very qualities of the genre that make these films so fantastical and awe-inspiring. If sci-fi films sought to convey a realistic and unchallenging vision there would be little need for a science fiction genre at all – in what way would it distinguish itself from other genres? Science fiction, and Sunshine, is so intensely cinematic that its epic scale and ambition could seldom be captured by any other medium.

It is really a shame that Sunshine’s filmmakers have been forced to fight their corner and in the process unearth a series of explanations that undermine the film that they have made. When a film is faced with the question of cinema vs. science, it is quite obvious that some decisions have to be made to purposefully contradict scientific fact in order to be in keeping with audience expectations and, more importantly, create a sense of excitement. Sunshine could have quite easily been a science lesson, but cinema is only an educational tool when it wishes to be. A didactic approach to telling this story would have ultimately made it void of emotion, passion and excitement. Sunshine’s real strength is it’s manipulation of the cinematic medium itself. Due to the film’s highly stylised aestheticism and artistic vision, a viewing is more an experience in which the visual qualities of the film by far outweigh the scientific element. For this reason alone the line of argument that I have focused upon is almost irrelevant as what Sunshine strives for more than any other thing is a form of visual expression.

It is with regret that I have ignored the aesthetics of this film, which really deserves two reviews; one to argue for the film’s artistic integrity in terms of narrative as I have attempted to do, and another to pay tribute to Danny Boyle’s virtuoso directing, which results in a film so aesthetically outstanding that it makes a serious case for being the 2001: A Space Odyssey of the 21st century. Narratively, Sunshine skilfully manipulates the generic conventions of the science fiction film whilst incorporating an existentialism that clearly owes a debt to Kubrick’s masterpiece. Elements of psychology and religion further enhance the experience, creating an extraordinarily well rounded film in a genre that has in the past offered limited scope.

Sunshine should not be judged on the reviews that it has been given, in which scientific inaccuracy has been given precedent over cinematic vision. Boyle has crafted a remarkable film, one which takes it’s viewers on a journey and shows them places that they have not previously seen; a rare thing indeed. His vision, demonstrated here, far outshines the arguments that have been made to counter my opinion of this great cinematic achievement.

Watch a trailer for the film here.