FIU - Philosophy Department

Category: Film

Pre-Oscar Movie Wrap-Up

We’re over a year into COVID, which led loads of people to watch more movies. I wish I could say I got to see more films too but for half the year I was experiencing vertigo, which prevented me from watching as many movies as I’d like.  

The strongest Oscar-contenders this year, I believe, are in the best feature-length documentary category. I think documentaries deserve their own list, and I loved so many of them this year (including Crip Camp, My Octopus Teacher, and Time – all nominated- but so many that deserved a nom and didn’t get one). 

For this brief post, I’ll tell you the three categories I’m looking forward to while watching the Oscars, and then list some movies I really enjoyed this year. 

Cinematography: Joshua James Richards, Nomadland

I think Zhao’s The Rider is a far superior movie (see my letterboxd review), but I do think the cinematography in both Nomadland and The Rider is drop dead gorgeous. And both were thanks to Joshua James Richards.

Writing (Original Screenplay): Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7

You either love Sorkin or hate him – and I love him. I think it’s a weakness. I just love the dialogue and hope he wins for this movie. President Bartlet forever. 

Directing: Another Round, Thomas Vinterberg

*I* *haven’t* *seen**Minari**yet* – so I know I’m not a competent judge.  But I do love Vinterberg for his moody interiors and strained relationships. I’m a Dogme95 fan (The Celebration)– and he seems to work well with Mads (he’s excellent in Vinterberg’s The Hunt). I was charmed by the movie – drunk it in. 

(Although I think it would be awesome for an Asian woman to win the best director…it’s just hard for me to give Zhao it for this one. I hope that now she’s getting the attention she deserves she doesn’t cave to corporate control. Amazon got off way too easy in Nomadland.)

Here are some great movies from this past year that got ZERO Oscar recognition:

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Family Romance LLC  

This technically might be 2019 (?) but wasn’t available to me until 2020. Directed by Werner Herzog, it reads like a documentary, although it is a fiction film. I won’t give too much away but it is about a Japanese man who runs a business “renting out” actors to perform important social roles (think rent a father for a wedding, or rent a girlfriend for a family dinner). It so easily could be morally flatfooted, but isn’t. 

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Never Rarely Sometimes Always

I don’t quite understand how this got nominated for nothing. It’s on a bunch of critics ‘best of’ lists – and is on mine. The teenage actors were great – and the titular scene was heartbreaking and beautiful. 

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I’m No Longer Here (Ya no estoy aqui)

Beautifully shot! Director of a fav tv show of mine, “Los Espookys.” This movie follows teenagers who are obsessed with the cumbia music and dancing scene. I found the movie mesmerizing. 

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Controversial likes from this past year: Cuties/MignonnesBacurauDeerskin, Tommaso

Favorite horror from 2020: Gretel & HanselShe Dies Tomorrow   

*I haven’t seen Possessor yet (but like both Cronenberg the elder and younger)

Top 5 (Top 5 Documentaries)

First I want to say that the name of this post is a reference (homage?) to an underrated Chris Rock movie, Top 5.

But today I wanted to talk about “Top 5” lists. Recently I wrote two Top 5 lists for Aesthetics For Birds: my top five movies of the past ten years and top five novels of the past ten years. Aesthetics For Birds did a series of top five lists for movies, writing, art, TV shows, games, music, and a really fun top ten anything list

Well, my movie list (with brief justificatory summary) was overwhelmingly non-English speaking and male. On the foreign language heavy focus of my list: I’m with Bong Joon Ho whose Golden Globe speech implored folks to get beyond the “1-inch tall barrier of subtitles.” Your world literally opens up if you watch world cinema. However, I do feel uncomfortable with the maleness of the list I presented. 

When I think of some of my favorite documentaries of the past ten years, my list is overwhelmingly English-language but not that more gender-balanced. So I urge you to read everyone’s lists over at Aesthetics for Birds, and I’d like to add a list of five favorite documentaries of the past ten years below (in no particular order): 

  1. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Herzog, 2010)
  2. I am not your negro (Peck, 2016)
  3. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy? 2010)
  4. Faces Places (Varda and J.R., 2017)
  5. Shirkers (Tan, 2018) 

I’m not including The Act of Killing on this list, since it made my overall best of the last ten year list (but The Act of Killing is a favorite documentary of mine). And I’m not even sure if these are the documentaries I think are *the best* but they are the ones I’ve enjoyed watching the most. 

Some honorable mentions: Finding Vivian Maier, Leviathan, Kedi, and The Black Power Mixtape. 

Moral Monsters and Magnificent Movies

Hi all! I wrote this years ago when I was working at the Grand Illusion Cinema and thinking about these issues (Midnight in Paris must have just come out). This week in class we will be talking about the artwork of moral monsters, so I thought I’d dust this off to give my students some context on the directors I would be discussing. There is a really good Aesthetics for Birds roundtable on this very issues which you can find here.

“Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that every nasty thing ever said about Woody Allen is true. What would that then imply about his movies? Can the man and his work be separated, or are the two inextricably entwined? And if they are entwined, are you – the movie goer – doing something wrong in enjoying and supporting the film? 

These sorts of debates have been going on in the super-tiny bubble world of philosophical aesthetic for decades and have been pushed to the forefront by the recent attention given to Allen’s personal life. It is important that this is not the first time in American cinematic history someone’s character has been invoked to besmirch artistic achievement.

In 1999 Eliz Kazan received lifetime achievement award at the Academy Awards despite providing names of fellow actors and directors to the House of Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. Kazan, who had been a member of the Communist Party for two years (1934-1936), turned “friendly witness” for the HUAC and named several of his friends and colleagues associated with the Communist party, effectively ruining their careers. Kazan believed either he testified or he would never make a movie in Hollywood again. His first hit after this affair, On The Waterfront, was written by (Budd Schulberg) and acted in (Lee J. Cobb) by other HUAC informants. What does Kazan’s moral digression show? Many believe it showed a true lack of loyalty, but can we see any of that in On The Waterfront? Perhaps. Brando’s character named names against corrupt labor leaders, and is doing so is valorized. Thus, the rat (in this case) is vindicated. As Jules Dassin stated, a screenwriter that Kazan blacklisted, “There is no way for the films of Kazan to be amputated from the rest of him.”[i]

The classic example given in these cases is that of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. Generally regarded as a cinematic masterpiece, the movie glorifies the Nazi party. We might be able to say that while the technical achievements are no less marvelous, the movie would have been better –all things considered– if it hadn’t heralded a morally despicable cause. Or, is what we like about the picture precisely the bizarre juxtaposition between artistic exemplariness and its extreme moral wickedness? 

And of course who can forget Roman Polanski’s rape of an underage girl while in Jack Nicholson’s hot tub. The man still won the best picture Oscar for The Pianist, although he could not re-enter the United States to accept the award. Here we might ask: do Polanski’s movies glorify rape or rape culture? Does the morally objectionable thing he did seep into his work somehow? I would argue no; there is nothing in The Pianist that glorifies rape culture. In fact, the movie reminds us of what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil,” and I would say the “banality of good,” – it reminds us how people are capable of unfathomable cruelty and unexpected kindness in almost equal measure. Further, Polanski’s Repulsion is a movie that, I believe, demonizes rape culture. The protagonist of the film (if you could call her that) is perpetually terrified and lashes out in violent ways. We learn she has become this way because of what men have done to her. It is, I believe, an anti-rape movie — one made by a rapist.

And finally, Woody Allen. Ah, Woody Allen whose movies often have a ‘Woody Allen’ character in them: Alvy Singer of Annie Hall, Isaac of Manhattan, Harry Block of Deconstructing Harry, and Mickey of Hannah and Her Sisters, just to name a few. It is much harder in the case of Woody Allen to separate the man from his work because the man is literallyinhis work. In the grand tradition of other auteur directors, his work is about his life. We believe Guido Anselmi (played by Marcello Mastrioanni) is some sort of wish fulfillment on behalf of Fellini in his 8 1/2. Similarly I suspect Woody Allen’s ‘Woody Allen’ characters are half fact, half fiction. Again we can ask: is there anything about Allen’s films that glorify rape culture, sexual abuse, or child abuse? And it is here where you have to be familiar with the movies to come up with an answer. Isaac in Manhattan has a sexual relationship with a seventeen year old, the ultimate conclusion of which is (perhaps) that the child is more grow-up than the man. (See Joan Didion’s 1976 scathing review of Manhattan for more on this theme)[ii]. As a young woman watching this movie for the first time at 17, I found the premise incredibly creepy. ‘Who would want to date that guy?’ I thought. 17-year-old me shrugged it off as yet another man living out in film what he couldn’t and/or shouldn’t do in life. (To be fair to auteur directors with wish fulfillment, at least Guido’s banished women staged a revolt!) 

What’s interesting to see is how people responded in these three cases. In the case of Kazan, people who attended the Oscars but who were outraged that the man was receiving an award refused to clap when he was honored: a small, silent protest captured aptly by the cameras for the viewers at home In the case of Polanski, a documentary film was made examining his arrest and subsequent abscondment (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, 2008). And in the case of Woody Allen, some people have boycotted his films since the first allegations of child abuse came out (for example, my mother), but most have ignored the issue. 

Do you praise the work and demonize the man? Do you boycott anything related to Woody Allen, as my mother has done for decades? Do you watch the movies, and discuss the moral implications with your friends afterward? Do you try to separate, the best you can, the artist from their artwork? This is your – the movie goers — choice. Being reflective about this choice is a good first step.”


[i]http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9903/16/kazan.oscar/).


[ii]Find it here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1979/aug/16/letter-from-manhattan/

Here are some relevant articles:

On John Wayne, Cancel Culture, and the Art of Problematic Artists

Aesthetics for Birds: The Art of Immoral Artists

Dylan Farrow’s Open Letter

What Do We Do with the Art of Monstruous Men?

Imaginative resistance and the Woody Allen problem

Best movies of 2018?

Best films of 2018?

The Golden Globes have come and gone, so have the SAG awards. But we’ve yet to get to the Oscars so it means that it is the perfect time for film year in review! It’s so hard for me to come up with my top films in a ranked list, so I’ll mention some films I liked in three tiers, but allow the films to remain unranked within each tier. That being said, my favorite film of the past year is probably ROMA. I was lucky enough to see it at a movie theater and I think that made all the difference. It’s a beautiful film, which requires a large screen and undivided attention (in my opinion).

TIER I

Roma

Shoplifters

The Rider (this movie is not getting enough love!)

 

TIER II

The Favourite

Leave No Trace

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Sorry to Bother You

Happy as Lazzaro

 

TIER III

BlacKKKlansman

If Beale Street Could Talk

First Reformed

Eight Grade

Shirkers

The Other Side of the Wind

Faces/Places

Transit

 

Films I still need to see that might change this list:
Cold War

Burning

The Wife

I am not a witch

Zama

 

Enjoy – or rage at my quasi-rankings! Either way come chat with me about these films. I have office hours Tuesdays-Thursdays.

PHILOSOPHY OF FILM COURSE

It’s beginning to look a lot like…time to sign up for Spring courses!

Since starting my career at FIU, I’ve been teaching Philosophy of Film every spring. It is probably my favorite class to teach. I get to introduce students to some of my favorite films and learn theirs. For those of you who don’t know, my first career was in TV production, at Henninger Media. I know a bit about TV and Film production from that time in my life (and from making student films in college). One of my favorite memories from college is hiding out in our library during closing time (literally hiding) so we could use the Steenbeck and edit our films all night! I’ve also spent a fair amount of time working at art house cinemas (as a manager and as a 35mm projectionist). I miss my West Coast cinemas (The Grand Illusion in Seattle and The Clinton Street Theater in Portland) – so teaching this film course is the next best thing!

Here’s the flyer for the course. The images are taken from movies we will be watching for the course.