Page 95 – Establishing Shot

The Art of Self-Creation: Minnelli’s Brigadoon

Posted on November 18, 2019 by Jack Miller

The cinema of Vincente Minnelli (1903-1986) can be divided into three categories in terms of genre: he made musicals, melodramas, and marriage comedies. Though the pictures in each of these camps differ from one another in tone and technique, it’s always been particularly easy for those of us who love Minnelli to unite them without doing much auteurist detective work, to discern in them the sensibilities and overarching vision of a singular artist. Minnelli’s films are extremely and exquisitely stylized – he began his professional life as a window dresser in Chicago, and this early predilection toward tasteful decoration seems to have informed his cinema a great deal. One might observe that design and décor even fuel the drama in a number of Minnelli’s films, wherein space and texture interact with action and character psychology in illuminating ways. The critic Christopher Small once remarked that he believes Minnelli was attracted to directing Father of the Bride (1950) only because he knew he’d be allowed to design and stage a full-blown wedding ceremony and reception using MGM’s money. (more…)

The Horror and Hope of Rashōmon

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Jesse Pasternack

Poster for Rashōmon (1950) — Poster for *Rashōmon* (1950)

Warning: spoilers throughout!

People all over the world recognize Rashōmon as an important film for many reasons. They acknowledge that it introduced legendary director Akira Kurosawa and his work to the West, that it was the first Japanese film to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and, most famously, that it popularized the idea that human beings all have the potential to experience the same events differently (academic Valerie Aleria called this idea “the Rashōmon effect” in the film’s honor). At the same time, despite its fame, Rashōmon is often misunderstood. It is most remembered for its innovative structure, which is like a Hershey bar being most famous for its black-and-silver wrapper: it’s definitely a part of the appeal, but it ignores what lurks inside of its packaging. By taking a closer look at Rashōmon — namely at the thematic questions it is most interested in answering as well as its true genre — you can find that, despite taking place centuries ago, it still has much to say for our time. (more…)

The Lessons of History: Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Establishing Shot

Still from Cyborgs — Still from *Cyborgs*

Guest post by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed.

This year the Ukrainian Homelands Series screens three films that explore memory from various perspectives. Akhtem Seitablayev’s Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (2017) is one of the films that touches upon the current tragic and traumatic stage of contemporary Ukrainian history: a military conflict in the Donbass involving Ukraine and Russia. The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014 was followed by the occupation of the eastern regions of Ukraine, which are known as the Donbass, an industrial area which is almost totally destroyed today. There are multiple attempts to turn this conflict into a stable narrative, a narrative which would help see how and why this tragedy developed and what it will lead to. In spite of the fact that the war has continued for more than five years, the narrative has not been formed.

One can enumerate a number of reasons for this instability — on the one hand, the conflict asks to consider various opinions; on the other hand, this conflict did not develop within a short period of time, it was not a mere continuation of the Crimea annexation. Within these five years, the Donbass has turned into a space that asks one to not only explore one’s identity, but also to re-evaluate one’s past, to re-visit one’s personal and national histories. The past becomes a territory that can potentially provide some answers to the question that seems to be asked too often: how did Ukraine and Russia end up in an armed conflict? This question is one of the topics that Seitablayev’s Cyborgs explores. (more…)

“Ain’t No Party Without the Music”: Dancing in the Streets

Posted on November 5, 2019 by Establishing Shot

Still from Buckjumping — Still from *Buckjumping*

Guest post by Rebecca Dirksen, Assistant Professor, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.

In New Orleans, there are jazz funerals to dance someone into the next realm after they pass away. Hearty brass bands with trumpets, trombones, and sousaphones accompany mourners as they process from the church down the street alongside the coffin of a deceased community member. The fancy footwork, fashion, and swag are as integral to the experience as the notes played by the musicians. The funeral parade is often described as a percussive, sacred, celebratory expression of liberation. The film Buckjumping offers viewers an intimate portrait of such second-lining, while zooming out to a larger view of the Crescent City’s many exuberant street dancing communities, including those tied to the social aid and pleasure clubs, high school marching bands with color guards, the Mardi Gras Indians, and the bounce music scene.

Meanwhile in Chocó, Colombia, musical street performance both dances children into life and people into stronger understandings of who they are. The film Velo que Bonito (Look How Pretty) shows how Chocoan women—who gather in community in both public and private domestic spaces—use songs, healing practices, and belief systems to help babies and children learn about their social and cultural worlds. Los sonidos invisibles (The Invisible Sounds) in turn reflects on how, in the same region of western Colombia, the classical music instruction of Spanish missionaries has been set against the “traditional” practices of Chocoan community brass bands. As these brass bands explore their African roots through musical performance in the streets, they act against the colonizing forces that would deny their identity. (more…)

Babylon: A Story of Race, Violence, and Sound

Posted on November 4, 2019 by Establishing Shot

Still from Babylon — Still from *Babylon*

Guest post by Marissa J. Moorman.

Babylon opens with protagonist “Blue” running through London streets with his friend Ronnie. Bags held tight to their chests, they jump over curbs and dodge cars in snaking traffic. Seeing two young men, one black, one white, running through gray London you might think they are running from. But, a few scenes later, we learn that they are running to. Ducking into a side street, they run and then hop into the truck their crew has loaded with sound system equipment for a performance. In Babylon running is both a strategy and a necessity. It’s one that Jamaican immigrants and their black British children learn in order to manage racism and xenophobia. It’s one the children learn young. Several minutes in, “Blue,” who at home is called “David,” crumples when his mother knocks on his door and says, “I need your help with your brother. He run away from me yesterday. Take him to school.” (more…)

Scorekeeping: Let’s Take a Roll Call

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Aja Essex

Welcome to Score Keeping, a feature where I dive into overlooked and highly praised songs, scores and soundtracks that accompany great films.

Near the midpoint of Spike Lee’s 1989 generation-defining classic Do the Right Thing, a strange but welcome moment is presented to the audience. Throughout the film a one-man Greek Chorus in the form of a character lavishly named Mister Señor Love Daddy (played by Samuel L. Jackson) takes a moment to stop the action and pay respects to the great and innovative black musical artists, both past and present. You see, Mister Señor Love Daddy is the neighborhood radio DJ in Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy for short) Brooklyn. We Love Radio, 108 FM to be precise. All day he sits in his studio spinning the platters that matter and looking out of his fourth wall, which just happens to be a big glass window facing the street where, on the hottest day of the summer, much of the action takes place. Mister Señor Love Daddy takes it upon himself to comment, interject and set the mood for the folks in Bed-Stuy as the temperature and tensions keep rising throughout the day. (more…)