Rush 9: Doubling, Cinema, and Diagesis

'Doubling,' or an individual encountering oneself has long been a fixation for the narrative arts. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Sebastian and Viola both double into Cesario. In Edgar Allen Poe's "William Wilson," the eponymous protagonist is haunted by an exact double of himself. etc etc. From these examples we can see that our notion of a 'substance encountering itself' is not sufficient to describe comedy, as Twelfth Night is a comedy, but "William Wilson" is not. 

Now let us leave these two examples for a moment to consider the interdiagetic nature of both Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Ben Briand's "Apricot." In both of these films, clever assemblage is used to place the character in relationship to himself or herself. Through "L-cuts," the protagonists voice is played over scenes of their past selves; Far from being the narration of a memoir, however, we come back to see the characters themselves speaking the words in question. Both narrator and memory exist as characters. However, only in Eternal Sunshine do the characters encounter each other. Joel stops talking and moves from narrator to memory in a seamless moment, whereas the female protagonist in "Apricot" never comes into contact with her memory. The doubling is not 'substance encountering itself.' In these two examples our theory holds -- Eternal Sunshine can be said to be comedic, but "Apricot" cannot.

I'm still troubled by William Wilson, however. Perhaps the work is a comedy? Perhaps a 'substance encountering itself' is necessary but not sufficient for comedy? Further reflection along these lines is needed.

Rush 8

The film, "Being John Malkovich" begins with a puppet overture: We see a marionette, controlled by one of the film's principle's, Craig Schwartz, go through several motions which will have dramatic significance in the film. The puppet looks in a mirror, displays shock, reaches out touches it, looks up, recognizes its puppeteer, then dances before collapsing in a corner weeping.  This overture is then paralleled later in the film when Craig Schwartz guides John Malkovich through similar motions for the amusement of Maxine Lund (John Malkovich looks in the mirror, reaches out, touches it, displays shock, dances, etc).

These two shots parallel each other almost perfectly (though Malkovich does not smash the mirror and sweep the objects of the table onto the floor as the puppet does), and in them we see philosopher Alenka Zupancic notion of a "substance's alienation from itself," as being critical to true comedy. A dancing Malkovich in itself isn't necessarily comic (even if he's not particularly good at it), but in the shot by shot recreation of the marionette seen, a new context for the object, 'John Malkovich' is created -- he is not a man at odds with society, as we might see in the concrete-universal play of a tragedy, but rather he is an immutable substance which no longer relates to itself in the most basic way - it no longer controls its motions or destiny. In this we can see Malkovich as being part of a tradition with all stock comedic characters. We do not see him as a tragic individual, but rather a recognizable substance which is alienated from itself -- Malkovich is not Malkovich, just as Groucho Marx is not "Groucho Marx" so to speak.

Rush 6: The Brit Shot

In a scene occurring an hour and eight minutes into, "Bridge on the River Kwai," we see four British officers traveling across the River Kwai via ferry. The shot is a long shot, uninterrupted by cuts. The camera is fixed on the ferry and the officers, meaning all dynamicism in the shot is provided by the  background: the River Kwai itself, and British soldiers jumping, playing, splashing, and possibly working in the water around the bridge.

The scene is ultimately a comic one. The assertion by the uptight officers that good British values will construct a bridge is contrasted by the care-free cavorting of the troops behind them. This ironic juxtaposition is further highlighted by the difference between the solid foreground of the four British officers, and the wild background of the jungle and splashing troops. If tragedy is a story of clashing values (family versus country, etc), then this scene is not yet tragic. We see officers who are oblivious to the world around them, assuming that their values will readily supplant the ones ignored behind them.

In terms of impacting the historical audience for the film, 1960s America (not the diagetic context of the film, WWII), there is the connotation of the war in Vietnam, but there is also the question of the emergence of Japan as an industrial power post WWII. The logic of the film up to this point, and this scene in particular, posits that the Japanese were incompetent when it came to the quality control and rigor needed for modern manufacturing (they created the environment of chaos personified by the jungle and revelrous British soldiers), and that it was the influence of the western world which would provide the stability and eye for detail which ultimately enabled success.

Rush 5: The Non-Diegetic Soliloquy and the Performer's Relationship to the Audience

Chief among the pantheon of techniques of artifice which signal that we are in the realm of the theatrical is the soliloquy. Outside of the theater, speaking one's thoughts aloud is generally considered to be a sign of flagging mental well being; to talk to oneself is a sign of agitation or altered social mores. Yet this speaking aloud otherwise private thoughts is extraordinarily present in our theatrical tradition.

Though the Greek tragedy, "Antigone" does not have the same soliloquy's of "Hamlet," or "Oedipus Rex" it is replete with long didactic speeches and a chorus who speaks to the audience in very plain terms about the stakes and themes of the play. These theatrical methods of direct addressed survived and evolved for thousands of years. But how has direct address translated to film, a theatrical medium wherein the actor is nowhere near the audience being directly addressed? One example to consider is Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Hamlet. Hamlet's first soliloquy (Act 1 Scene 2 "O that this too too solid flesh would melt [...]") is spoken partially aloud, and partially as non-diagetic narration heard by the audience, but not spoken by the actor on screen. During the long stretches of non-diegetic soliloquy, we the audience are left only to contemplate Olivier's facial expressions.

If we are to naively speculate on reasons why Olivier may have chosen the non-diegetic or intra-diaegetic over-narration  for this section of the film, we can consider many possibilities:

• The prevalence of psychology and notions of the subconscious in the 20th century made the idea of an "internal monologue" a compelling one for audiences, and something which could be explored more easily using recorded sound on film than in spoken theater
• Silence and suffering are interesting correlatives which are not explored very effectively in theatrical tragedy: What is a Hamlet like when he bemoans less loudly and more internally?
• The relationship between the audience and the actor is fundamentally changed when a play is filmed versus when a play is performed. Would Olivier's soliloquy be somehow 'worse' if it was performed as though for stage? 
• Audiences themselves changed: Suppose that the long speeches of 'Antigone' seemed naturalistic or realistic to Greek audiences? We can easily imagine that people spoke in a longer, more considered way in ancient Greece than they do today; or in 1948. This presentation of the soliloquy as internal could seem equally 'real' to the 1948 audience as the wholly spoken soliloquy did to Hamlet's original audience.

Rush 4: The Pottersville Mob, and the Perambulators of Bedford Falls

As, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a film which is about the individual's impact on the community, it only makes sense that we would see said community represented onscreen. And indeed, "It's a Wonderful Life's" scene's are packed with extras. Except for a few private spaces in the film (George's home; George's few moments of introspection on the bridge; etc), the principal characters are always accompanied by secondary characters, or nameless extras. 

Were one to chart the blocking of these extras, one would see that they are blocked one of two ways in each scene: There are perambulators (extras who are milling about on warm summer evenings, or those who are going about their business in an orderly fashion, whether their business is getting a drink at Martinis, or filling out a deposit form at the bank); Then, there is the crowd extras. These extras push and undulate, leaving little to no room between each other and sometimes the principal characters. 

The contrast between these two blockings can be seen very clearly when contrasting the two bar scenes. At Martini's bar in Bedford falls, extras remain seated around tables, and there is clear and orderly floor space in the bar. At the parallel bar in Pottersville, "Nick's," the extras crowd and jostle for space. This same crowding can be seen elsewhere in Pottersville: In the neon-lit main drag we see crowd after crowd pushing to get into strip clubs and dance halls. 

To the extent that Bedford Falls stands for middle-class American values, and Pottersville stands for seedy economic corruption, we can extrapolate the film's value judgement onto these two blockings. The orderly walkers are good; the mobs are bad. Indeed, the Pottersville crowds have two antecedents: There is the run on the bank, then there is the Martini's family during their move, and the opening of their new house. The mob at the bank run represents a low point for the life of George, and an allusion to the possibility of the seedy mobs of Pottersville. George, however, tames the mob, and by the end of the scene they have begun a line to orderly collect a small sum of money. Martini's family, in what seems to be a xenophobic move on the part of the film makers, during their move allude to teeming masses outside the value system of the middle class Bedford Falls. Their crowded multitude is once again brought under control by George's establishment of the family as middle class home buyers. 

From these contrasts, we can see that the most of film, "It's a Wonderful Life" is saying in no uncertain terms that the mob is a threat, and order and individualism are good. However, the very last scene of the movie does trouble this thesis in a way which might redeem the film from simply being a polemic to American Individualism: In the end, George is saved by a mob of people who shower him with money. The mob in this case is not something to be contained or controlled, but rather a benevolent force greater than the will of the single individual.

Rush Three: Short Circuit

Mistaken identity has long been used to comedic effect. ("The Comedy Of Errors," "Twelfth Night," "The Parent Trap"). We can easily map this confusion of identities onto Freud's notion that wit occurs when two separate concepts are "short-circuited" or when two concepts are expressed as similar, as when a pun links different meanings via the sound of a word. In mistaken identity comedies we "short-circuit" all difference associated with an individual psyche to conflate two people on the basis of their appearance.

Freud goes on to differentiate between "good" witticisms made in this manner (those that evoke a similarity or contrast between the underlying concepts being evoked) and "bad" (witticism that do not grant us any insight other than a superficial similarity between the two concepts evoked). The ultimate scene of "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin clearly falls into the former category. In this scene, the Jewish barber is confused for the dictator of "Tomainia," entirely on the basis of his appearance. However, he exploits this confusion to give a speech espousing peace. The "short-circuit" here functions as a "good" one under Freud's taxonomy -- it highlights the absurdity of following the whims of one demagogue as the Tomainian (or German people had done), especially when said demagogue is fickle and can be replaced on the basis of appearance. Furthermore, the short circuit allows us to imagine that peace and war are equally viable possibilities depending on the whims of the man at the podium.

This rush sees itself on the street and feels afraid

According to many folk traditions, to see one's double, or doppelgänger is to see one's death. The unease felt by encountering a doppelgänger is captured especially poignantly in F. W. Murnau's "The Last Man."   Encountering one's uncanny double is lent a capitalist context, in the scene where the film's protagonist sees an unknown man wearing his same uniform -- the doorman's uniform -- in the revolving door at the entrance of the hotel.

Though the two men are drastically different, physically (the protagonist is old, fat, and bent, the new man is young, lean, and virile), the audience immediately understand the doubling owing to the simple fact that both characters are wearing the same hat and coat.  And indeed, encountering this double does portend a symbolic death for our protagonist. This man takes over his job, and thus his station in life.

The revolving door is important, also. Murnau's innovative camera techniques allows this moment to slow down; we are inside the door itself, and each pace is felt as we see the protagonist seeing himself. This exaggerated slowness of movement emphasizes what is otherwise (and elsewhere in the film) an everyday and rather quick action -- the passage of people inside a revolving door. And of course, capitalism depends on just such everyday revolutions: the old worker is replaced by the young, and the business survives unchanged. To the individual, however, this changing of the guard can mean death. Were it not for the author's unrealistic intervention at the end of the film, our protagonist would die a broken man.

In addition to the uncanny doubling, the film offers us a more optimistic form of recognizing oneself in others as well. At the end of the film, when the protagonist lucks in to inordinate wealth, he hands it out freely to the night watchmen, as well as tipping other porters outside the hotel. In the very last scene, he invites a previously unseen tramp to ride in his carriage with him, even though the doorman attempts to shove the tramp away. In this scene, the doorman represents the disdain the wealthy have for the poor. However, rather than internalize this disdain himself, the protagonist recognizes the tramp as another human being. In contrast to the moment of recognition inside the revolving door, this moment is a call for empathy. The prior, cold and separated by glass, the former, warm and whimsical.