Meditations on Point of View
Movies are always a moody lot. The recent disappointing end to the Sopranos series is an example. There’s a total absence of closure. It doesn’t bother me that much one way or another, or actually it does. The writer producer Steven Chase said in interviews after the series finale that all the pieces were there. I wonder if his intention was to frustrate the audience as much as he had been with the show for the last two or three seasons. There is dissection of the lighting, music, camera angles, dialog and metaphors and fantasies. In the end there is nothing to confirm or deny the intention of the writer in the ending of this series. Time will pass and memories begin to fade.
We recently tried to view a vintage film from 1939 called “The Women”. An all star cast of the period including Joan Crawford, Roselyn Russell, and host of other actresses that I barely know and hardly recognize portraying the mundane and petty lifestyles of a group of upper-class American housewives. It was the adaptation of a play written by a woman of some notoriety. The name was familiar but I don’t know any of her work. To be truthful I don’t have a clue as to who she was. I’ve read a few things from that period and seen more than my share of black and whites that seem to portray a style of storytelling that might be called high art. Trading barbs with witty phrase and complicated analogy and metaphor. I’m not that quick to carry it on very long, especially with someone who’s got the smallest bit of intellectual horse power. This film seemed both a satire and a comedy. The credits portrayed the various characters in the film as there animal counterparts; the cat, the fox, the cow, et al. There were eight or nine covering the range of possibilities of what could be described as the female condition. At once I was struck by this cliché and horrible bit of corn as well how transparent the coming story was going to be. A group of eight women in upper-middle class white America with nothing to do all day but spend money and gossip. The beginning of the story revolves around the rumor that the Polly Purebred of the group (along with her daughter, Little Mary) has a cheating husband. I’m sure as the story moves on there are all sorts of Peyton Place crosses and double crosses, wishes made and wishes granted. A short vignette featuring each of the stars defining the various lives that these women lead was surely to follow. After that, some scene between Little Mary and Polly, her mother that explains the others as mean spirited people whose lives are petty and meaningless therefore they make up bad stories about nice, happy people. We lasted about fifteen minutes before we bailed. I wonder now if we should have. Was it one of those sophisticated satirical slap at the rich and aimless or was it someone even more devious than that. Okay, devious was a strong word.
It was the following day while reviewing our movie choices of the following evening (the second choice turned out as bad as the first) that I babbled my way through a comparison of “The Women”with“Sex and the City”. What could a movie about the trials and tribulations of a group of upper-class suburban housewives in 1939 have to do with a television series about the trials and tribulations of a group of upper-class single urban-sheik women in the 1990’s? Perhaps its the fact that the same group of miserable sods are consuming this drivel. Granted, “Sex and the City” was original and ground breaking for its format and content, but couldn’t the same apply to “The Women”? Here you are portraying a group of stereotypical women living an elite existence grinding through many of the same conflicts and petty annoyances that confront the audience of each of these stories. And yet, each of the stories revolve in a world amongst the rich and famous, where money and security is not an issue and life can take on deep meaning or flights of fancy dependant on the character featured in the vignette. In “Sex and the City”, Carry Bradshaw does a voice over narration that upon reflection isn’t that different from the animal caricatures in the opening credits in “The Women”. Carry always explains the situation or the background to the situation that puts the action in the correct context. The actress introduced as the fox does something crafty. Stereotypical cutout ensemble on “Sex and the City”? The lawyer, the princess, the slut, and the angst ridden narrator with the quirky obsessions. I mean who was Carry modeled on anyway, Robert Crumb? Needless to say the message in both of the series is that money and privilege doesn’t grant grace and self-respect on the holder. There is a message that the lives of these women are not to be desired or envied. That one should be content in that place they were born into and live vicariously though these images on the screen. There was that clarity at the conclusion at the series, each of the women found that having someone to come home to at the end of the day was better than going out to find one every night. I think. I watched the show from time to time but never was a huge fan. It entertained when I caught it but I never made special time for it. I assume that was the message at the end of the movie also. I’m figuring that the character of Little Mary has a significant role in the moral revelation in the movie’s conclusion. Seriously, the character was introduced as Little Mary.
I wonder about the calculation of the marketability of a project. There’s always talk of how the entertainment industry has evolved and changed. One of the evolutions is that I compare a movie with a television series as if they were the same thing, but its not just TV, its HBO. As if that makes all the difference. There is no difference. Both mediums and the stories they convey attempt to take a consumer away from whatever miserable day they’ve had and replace it with someone else’s miserable day. It seems universal that what we crave is more than we have and that these movies convince us that having it won’t change us much. Unfortunately, most people are convinced that the boneheaded mistakes made by the characters on the screen aren’t the same ones they would make, if given the opportunity. And I could have that opportunity if I struggle hard enough. This is America where hard work and perseverance is rewarded. Until then, I’m comforted with the knowledge that those with the privilege and money that I covet so dearly know not what they waste. That was a compelling statement. Almost as cliché as the movie line and series plot that spawned it. Ever heard the phrase ‘let’s put some lipstick on this pig’? The entertainment industry, in a drive for marketable and profitable product, produces what they know sells which is perpetuating the mundane dreams and ambitions of the pedestrian class that consumes it. It’s almost circular except that the dialog is dressed up from the current headlines and fashion magazines. It’s not a conspiracy where everyone gets together and plots it all out; it’s better described as group think where everyone talks themselves down a single path because no voice is heard that can point out an alternative. Are the sheeple the folks that churn out the same crap dressed in different colors year after year or the people that consume the same crap dressed in different colors year after year?
We recently tried to view a vintage film from 1939 called “The Women”. An all star cast of the period including Joan Crawford, Roselyn Russell, and host of other actresses that I barely know and hardly recognize portraying the mundane and petty lifestyles of a group of upper-class American housewives. It was the adaptation of a play written by a woman of some notoriety. The name was familiar but I don’t know any of her work. To be truthful I don’t have a clue as to who she was. I’ve read a few things from that period and seen more than my share of black and whites that seem to portray a style of storytelling that might be called high art. Trading barbs with witty phrase and complicated analogy and metaphor. I’m not that quick to carry it on very long, especially with someone who’s got the smallest bit of intellectual horse power. This film seemed both a satire and a comedy. The credits portrayed the various characters in the film as there animal counterparts; the cat, the fox, the cow, et al. There were eight or nine covering the range of possibilities of what could be described as the female condition. At once I was struck by this cliché and horrible bit of corn as well how transparent the coming story was going to be. A group of eight women in upper-middle class white America with nothing to do all day but spend money and gossip. The beginning of the story revolves around the rumor that the Polly Purebred of the group (along with her daughter, Little Mary) has a cheating husband. I’m sure as the story moves on there are all sorts of Peyton Place crosses and double crosses, wishes made and wishes granted. A short vignette featuring each of the stars defining the various lives that these women lead was surely to follow. After that, some scene between Little Mary and Polly, her mother that explains the others as mean spirited people whose lives are petty and meaningless therefore they make up bad stories about nice, happy people. We lasted about fifteen minutes before we bailed. I wonder now if we should have. Was it one of those sophisticated satirical slap at the rich and aimless or was it someone even more devious than that. Okay, devious was a strong word.
It was the following day while reviewing our movie choices of the following evening (the second choice turned out as bad as the first) that I babbled my way through a comparison of “The Women”with“Sex and the City”. What could a movie about the trials and tribulations of a group of upper-class suburban housewives in 1939 have to do with a television series about the trials and tribulations of a group of upper-class single urban-sheik women in the 1990’s? Perhaps its the fact that the same group of miserable sods are consuming this drivel. Granted, “Sex and the City” was original and ground breaking for its format and content, but couldn’t the same apply to “The Women”? Here you are portraying a group of stereotypical women living an elite existence grinding through many of the same conflicts and petty annoyances that confront the audience of each of these stories. And yet, each of the stories revolve in a world amongst the rich and famous, where money and security is not an issue and life can take on deep meaning or flights of fancy dependant on the character featured in the vignette. In “Sex and the City”, Carry Bradshaw does a voice over narration that upon reflection isn’t that different from the animal caricatures in the opening credits in “The Women”. Carry always explains the situation or the background to the situation that puts the action in the correct context. The actress introduced as the fox does something crafty. Stereotypical cutout ensemble on “Sex and the City”? The lawyer, the princess, the slut, and the angst ridden narrator with the quirky obsessions. I mean who was Carry modeled on anyway, Robert Crumb? Needless to say the message in both of the series is that money and privilege doesn’t grant grace and self-respect on the holder. There is a message that the lives of these women are not to be desired or envied. That one should be content in that place they were born into and live vicariously though these images on the screen. There was that clarity at the conclusion at the series, each of the women found that having someone to come home to at the end of the day was better than going out to find one every night. I think. I watched the show from time to time but never was a huge fan. It entertained when I caught it but I never made special time for it. I assume that was the message at the end of the movie also. I’m figuring that the character of Little Mary has a significant role in the moral revelation in the movie’s conclusion. Seriously, the character was introduced as Little Mary.
I wonder about the calculation of the marketability of a project. There’s always talk of how the entertainment industry has evolved and changed. One of the evolutions is that I compare a movie with a television series as if they were the same thing, but its not just TV, its HBO. As if that makes all the difference. There is no difference. Both mediums and the stories they convey attempt to take a consumer away from whatever miserable day they’ve had and replace it with someone else’s miserable day. It seems universal that what we crave is more than we have and that these movies convince us that having it won’t change us much. Unfortunately, most people are convinced that the boneheaded mistakes made by the characters on the screen aren’t the same ones they would make, if given the opportunity. And I could have that opportunity if I struggle hard enough. This is America where hard work and perseverance is rewarded. Until then, I’m comforted with the knowledge that those with the privilege and money that I covet so dearly know not what they waste. That was a compelling statement. Almost as cliché as the movie line and series plot that spawned it. Ever heard the phrase ‘let’s put some lipstick on this pig’? The entertainment industry, in a drive for marketable and profitable product, produces what they know sells which is perpetuating the mundane dreams and ambitions of the pedestrian class that consumes it. It’s almost circular except that the dialog is dressed up from the current headlines and fashion magazines. It’s not a conspiracy where everyone gets together and plots it all out; it’s better described as group think where everyone talks themselves down a single path because no voice is heard that can point out an alternative. Are the sheeple the folks that churn out the same crap dressed in different colors year after year or the people that consume the same crap dressed in different colors year after year?