Arts Notes on Film
posted by on January 16 at 13:29 PM
I should acknowledge first that I may be taking offense at Charles not having any interest in Children of Men after reading my review (assuming he’s read my review), but this is mostly bullshit.
It’s boring to think that theory begins and ends with your professor (especially a relatively minor figure like Steven Shaviro), and even more boring to misinterpret him. Children of Men is not science fiction; it’s fantasy. There’s no attempt to construct a plausible bridge between cause (environmental pollution?—then why not all other animals? God’s wrath?—then again, not science fiction) and effect (universal human infertility); nor between cause (universal human infertility in 2009) and effect (near-immediate collapse of all societies by 2027, an economic downturn before the youngest humans have even reached the work force, implied widespread war over resources that can only be more available than they were before). The only link that makes strict sense is people fetishizing the youngest humans and coddling their kittens.
Does Children of Men collapse the future and the present? Sure. The action and mise-en-scène are explicitly about today’s politics and today’s preoccupations—terrorism, immigration, global Islam, torture, cheap sentimental culture, and celebrity, with environmental crisis as subtext. But really, what’s so fascinating about that? Cultural studies and, especially, historical fields like American studies love to take science fiction from the past and discover the way its preoccupations twine with the cultural climate of its day. But simple one-to-one correspondences—i.e., the torture of hooded prisoners=Abu Ghraib; concentration camps for British immigrants=American, British, and Western European anxiety about immigration, especially when it threatens the current hegemony in a visible way—aren’t going to be fertile ground for the cultural critics of tomorrow.
Furthermore, does this kind of mimesis truly induce “cultural estrangement”? I would argue no. Alfonso Cuarón’s mimetic mise-en-scène (and yes, of course it’s mimetic) doesn’t make your world unfamiliar. Your world is there, in front of you, just as it is today—only worse. Historical contingency is actually diminished, because we can’t imagine any true historical shifts. What we have today merely deepens, turns hysterical, and explodes.
Finally, that review neglects the essentially cinematic form of mimesis that immerses you in Cuarón’s world. Despite the stunted imagination in the scenario, I think the hand-held camera, peripheral action, and long takes (meant not to provoke orgasms in form-obsessed cinephiles, but to remind you of newsreels and documentaries) successfully drag you into the action and make you forget to ask, “Why are only women infertile?”, “Why are only humans infertile?”, “How is Kee immune?”, and “What the fuck is the Human Project? Noah’s Ark?”
Indeed, I think some of the most interesting ideas in Children of Men—the ones that may indeed provide ground for future cultural critics to till more deeply—are the echoes of Bible stories, from the Nativity to Moses to Noah, and the masochistic religious revivalism that the film imagines taking root in the face of universal despair.
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Also, I have to say this. Meryl Streep is a wonderful actor, a perfect actor, an always fascinating actor. But she did not deserve a Golden Globe for The Devil Wears Prada, and she does not deserve an Oscar. Film acting is as much about casting as it is about the actor, and Streep was cast in Devil not because she can convincingly portray a one-dimensional bitch whose third-act transformation is truly a shock (see the terrible but entertaining roman a clef by Lauren Weisberger), but because of her star power. Her character should have been a scary harpy. Instead, she was a sympathetic, driven woman whose purported bitchiness was clearly, from the beginning, a simple prerequisite for her job. That gaping disjunction ruined what should have been a trashy but amusing movie.
Speak for yourself. Meryl ROCKED in Prada!
Let me get this straight. Your response to the observation that the premise and plot of "Children of Men" are totally incoherent is "yeah, but the experimental cinematography is cool and there is a lot of cryptic symbolism." This is your way of encouraging people to go see this film?
Annie,
I can understand how your review might not have inspired Charles to see the film. I don't mean this as criticism of the writing or the issues you brought up in the review; more just that it seemed like a fairly tepid review when it came to a question of "Should I see this film or not?".
Children of Men is a film that's worthy of a larger audience than it's getting, and your review, I thought, didn't effectively hone in on the things that make it a compelling movie. It is compelling, as you say now, despite the fact that the plot is not as fully realized as it could have been (I tend to think of this as one of the film's strengths rather a weakness).
After seeing Children of Men, I remember being surprised that your review (which I'd read prior to seeing the movie) wasn't more enthusiastic. When I went back to re-read it, I found myself wishing you'd cut everything between the first and last two paragraphs of your review, and spent more time talking about issues similar to what you're discussing in this post.
Uh, I am speaking for myself. Obviously.
David: I'm of two minds about Children of Men—as is, I think, almost everyone I've talked to about it (not counting those on Slog, who seem to be more full-throated in their enthusiasm). Some people love the scenario and feel let down by the chase thriller (eg Josh Feit, Tim Keck); and vice versa. I'm in the latter camp. It's not that I don't think the scenario is intriguing; I do. But I also find it frustrating. I do not agree that it fits the definition of science fiction as set forth by Steven Shaviro, and therefore cannot be championed by reference to that definition. But overall, I think it's a thrilling, fascinating film (this right here is a fascinating debate), and that's why people should see it. Mmm, ambivalence.
Oh, and my hypothetically taking offense at Charles not being interested in a movie I found interestingly flawed is not supposed to rational. Whose offense has ever been rational? I was mostly joking, anyway. Except in rare cases (United 93, Me and You and Everyone We Know, L'Intrus, Innocence; and in theater, WET's Crave come to mind), I don't write reviews meant exclusively to convince the skeptical reader to watch a movie they wouldn't otherwise see. But I do hope that when I'm interested in something, I can express that interest in a persuasive way.
So I guess this is where I defend myself. These points are all well-taken and I did notice the contradictions you pointed out in the film and I do think to critique them is certainly valid. I think the question of whether science fiction can dispose of causation is really interesting and can definitely be open to debate. Honestly, I haven't really thought too hard about that myself. I suppose also my view of whether this present-mimetic future as you call it can expose contingency is less answered than revealing of the coming closing of the gap between the present and mimesis or between reality and allegory. I suppose that's what I saw as interesting about the film. It seemed to consciously position its future as so closely resembling the present to make the point that the distance between allegory and reality is rapidly closing, or that we're near the point where historical contingency will cease to exist (i.e., the end). So yeah, it doesn't make your world as unfamiliar as other sci-fi or fantasy films, but I think that's what makes it so brilliant. It's just unfamiliar enough to point to the eventual disappearance of historical contingency.
Oh also
Meryl Streep for Devil Wears Prada, wtf?
Wow, that was the most boring thing ever written. COM rocks and if you didn't tear up a little at that one part, you need to move back to Scandinavia.
I agree - far better choices for that category than Meryl Streep, IMHO.
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