Have You Even Seen his Work in ‘Kitty Cat Man’?

I’m going to say something that has come to be a curse among seemingly all fans of cinema: I Love Michael Cera. Based on his recent cinematic draw, it seems that the general viewing public has come to despise young Cera. The generally accepted rationale for this view is that he, “plays the same character,” and “doesn’t branch out.” The reason Cera has been constantly placed in this character is due to his breakout role on Arrested Development. In this role, Cera cemented his ability to play young and awkward, trying to find love where it probably shouldn’t be. His success on the show has led him to be typecast into such roles, but he has played each with their own subtleties. This is exemplified by recent roles in Youth in Revolt and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World where Cera has broadened his range. So, yes, Michael Cera, thus far, has played essentially “one” role, but this shouldn’t be a slight against Cera. For one thing, he is still very young. At just 22 year old is it any wonder that he hasn’t really begun taking more challenging roles? Second, there are far more actors who do one type of character without the audience turning on them. Nic Cage, Sylvester Stallone, and Bill Murray all come to mind, all of which haven’t seen a slip in their returns due to this. So, stop acting like you don’t like Cera because he does the same roles. Just admit to yourself that you hate him because he plays hipsters.

-Dan Perry

History and Film

History and Film: A Lovely Marriage

By Ally Di Censo

“Many characters in historical films seem somehow aware that they are living in the past.”—Roger Ebert, in his praiseworthy review of Marie Antoinette, 2006

The above quote by renowned film critic Roger Ebert is, I believe, spot on. As a history major and a film lover, I inevitably encounter people who love to rip apart movies with a historical setting for being “inaccurate.” Sure, I can understand people’s anger towards lazy research errors, like an iPod appearing in a film set in 1985 (although these errors tend to be exaggerated. All movies, even those set in the present day, contain gaffes—why latch on to minor flaws in otherwise good films?). However, what bothers me the most is the implication, espoused by many fellow history lovers, that if historical movies had only followed history down to a T, they would be better films.

Don’t get me wrong: I am passionate and serious about history. I was History Club president in my high school, I hope to become a history teacher after I graduate—you get the gist. However, I am also passionate about film and literature, and I realize that fiction is a completely different medium than a factual history textbook. Often, a level of anachronism is necessary for a movie to attain its artistic vision. And, as Roger Ebert indicated, this level of anachronism frequently helps a historical film achieve the admirable task of making history come alive. People who lived in, say, 1875 didn’t consciously think that they were living in a historical epoch. They were simply living in the present, their present. A film that becomes too concerned with recreating 1875 at the expense of other aspects, such as character development and story, can feel like little more than an animated museum waxworks display. However, a film that works hard to recreate the details of 1875, but also considers innovative ways to make the past relevant—whether it be by putting in a non-diegetic soundtrack of contemporary songs, or by giving as equal attention to the universal themes of its story as to its historical period—is doing something right.

To illustrate my point, I would like to talk about two films from the past year that received some unfair criticism from history buffs. One of them, Inglourious Basterds, is an Oscar-nominated epic; the other, Sherlock Holmes, is a thinking person’s popcorn flick. Inglourious Basterds sent several historians into a tizzy because—spoiler alert—Hitler and the Nazi high command is killed at the end by the titular group of Jewish-American soldiers. However, Inglourious Basterds was never meant to be an accurate depiction of American World War II combat. It is a revenge fantasy, a fable, made clear by its opening narration of “Once upon a time.” Moreover, like many Quentin Tarantino films, Inglourious Basterds is a movie about movies. In this case, it’s his homage to WWII combat B-flicks and Spaghetti Westerns that always carried a sense of over-the-top heroics to them. Similarly, some critics complained that an action hero version of Sherlock Holmes clashed with its Victorian London setting. Instead, Guy Ritchie’s steampunk adventure brought new life into a literary character in danger of becoming nothing more than a stereotype, keeping the detective’s trademark intelligence and wit with renewed coolness. As such, the 2009 Sherlock Holmes feels more in tune with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original creation than some of the character’s previous, stuffier incarnations.

I agree that there are definitely limits to how history should be presented in film. I People should raise an outcry over films that distort the facts and realities of history to serve an agenda, as these often ignore or grossly misrepresent racial and social tragedies throughout history. These would include movies that gloss over the treatment of Native Americans by white settlers in the West, or movies that provide a glorified picture of the antebellum American South. Movies that completely disregard the troubling aspects of the past in favor of presenting a sanitized version of events are not only a historical travesty, but also hurt present and future efforts at social justice. Also, it’s bad when movies impose modern sensibilities over historical attitudes. For example, some historical films show all of their female characters as being as liberated, accepted, and outspoken as women in 2010. They imply that women have always had it easy, which most certainly isn’t true.

However, a culturally sensitive film which strives to make history as relevant and alive as possible should be applauded. Historical accuracy is not the sole determinate of whether a movie is good or not (trust me, there are plenty of other things that can ruin a film before historical accuracy). Good movies, no matter what their setting, should make people think and inspire discussion. And good historical movies should banish the perception of history as some stodgy and outdated topic. While remaining true to the sensibilities and details of their time period, they should make the audience feel as if they are watching characters with the same concerns and emotions recognizable in our peers today: fear, love, humor, cynicism, outrage, bravery, evil, affection. These emotions are timeless. Let’s stop focusing on petty details and make movies timeless as well.

Radio Editing and Influence

Nowadays, storytelling comes in many forms: the traditional oral, written in books, magazines, or through more modern written word such as through blogs. Each of these has it’s unique benefits and endearing aspects, but the radio show is an unmatched blend of spoken word mixed with music clips, splicing and dicing of audio clips, and is packaged in such a way that combines many different well-planned elements into creating a singular point. In particular, I am pointing to This American Life’s radio shows and their expert editing. The story itself is clearly the most prominent aspect of these shows, but there is so much that lies under the story working to it’s advantage. One may hear the buffer music, the playing of certain clips on top of one another, or even the inclusion of silence on the shows, but these seemingly unimportant details could change the entire perception of a particular show.

Specifically I recall one instance in which I think the use of certain types of filler music have changed the whole attitude of the show and have steered the listener into getting a certain feeling from the episode. In episode 181 of This American Life, an episode titled “The Friendly Man”, the first anecdote narrated by Scott Carrier narrates his journey traveling around to administer mental health tests and then questions his own sanity while viewing many types of mentally ill patients. My first impression of this story was that of peaked interest, as I found these patients fascinating and the storyteller perhaps even more fascinating. A soft, Southern-sounding guitar plucks under Carrier as he has a special moment with a certain patient, and a feeling of camaraderie and mellowness is felt as I listened to the two together. Around ten minutes into the story, however, the plot does not change, but the music does. It’s an almost eerie music-box piano clamoring, akin to what one might hear in a horror film, and that’s when my interest changed and became aware of the chilling madness living inside these patients, and I became less interested, more frightened. As it plays in the background, I see each patient in a different light and the story becomes more and more painful. Undoubtedly the music nudged me into thinking this way, because I had been thinking a different way not three minutes earlier about the same story. Thirteen minutes in, organs begin to play as a mother who claims to be visited by angels is interviewed, dramatizing her religious hallucinations and giving the section an almost funeral-like motif. Later, while Carrier is profiling himself, heavy guitar riffs bang along behind him in the background, as if trying to explain what is occurring inside his mind. The sounds are jagged, low, loud and rough. Again, it is evident that this music choice was no accident.

Something else poignant about the music choices in This American Life are the selections of songs between stories. Between Carrier’s three anecdotes, two songs play. The first is entitled “I Travel Alone”, and seems almost irrelevant to the story itself aside from it’s title. It’s a warbling vocalist from the 1920’s, sounding more like a lovesick young man than anything akin to Carrier. The second song, entitled “Don’t Forget Me”, is the same in its seeming randomness and perhaps it’s melancholy tone. Nonetheless, I believe this is on purpose as well. This episode in particular deals with extremely heavy subject matter, and by cleansing the listener with pleasant music in between stories perhaps keeps the mood from being too overwhelmingly depressing. These songs reinforce main ideas of the stories with their titles but cleanse the palate, in a way, for the next story by providing a few moments of brain down-time.

Editing in these clips is another powerful tool that often goes unnoticed. Simple splicing, moving and overlapping of certain audio clips can change the entire attitude of a certain piece. For example, in This American Life 116, Julia Pimsleur, an open lesbian raised with a Jewish background, struggles to understand the new lifestyle choice of her brother Marc, a born-again Christian living in an isolated village in Alaska. Julia clearly does not understand her brother’s change of heart and finds the whole matter to be rather ridiculous, made very clear at minute 5:51, when Marc is describing in incredible detail a religious revelation but is drowned out as Julia’s voice narrating the odd changes in her brother since her childhood. In the background, Marc carefully describes the experience so dear to him, but the audience is told what is most important: Julia. By blocking Marc out, it is clear whose side the listener is supposed to be on. This happens various other times in various episodes, such as in episode 117 act one, in which the narrator plays her voice over that of her brother’s. This kind of editing gives an annoying, nagging feeling to the person who is played underneath and gives more dominance and power, and almost a certain amount of respect to the person played over. This sets up a hierarchy for the listener and definitely gears them into thinking certain thoughts and making assumptions they may not otherwise have made.

Something else to be noted in these radio shows is the inclusion of clips that may not sound like they’re meant to be there. For example, if a radio show has moments of silence, or moment of random candidness (for example, the bickering we hear in the Pimsleur piece filled with plenty of awkward silences and almost too-personal arguments between the brother and sister). These give a more realistic effect to the piece and instill a deeper sense of trust in the material. In other words, the humanness of the audio pauses and yelling allows the listener to more certainly believe that the piece holds truth. Also, inclusion of seemingly random pieces in the stories, going back again to 117, which for it’s entirety follows the narrator and her struggle with anorexia, but at the end includes a small piece about an aged cancer survivor eager to start her new life. This surprising and irrelevant piece may confuse the listener, but offsets greatly the anorexia patients profiled, who are more than willing to mutilate their bodies. This last character is a foil for the others, and is used to highlight certain aspects in the more prominent characters that one may not have seen before.

Radio is a unique type of storytelling. Not only do we get the spoken word aspect, with vocal inflection, volume, and emotion tied into each story, but there is also an underlying network of editing at work drawing in certain feelings for the reader and keeping others at bay. These edits tell their own story. They tell us what to hear, what to ignore, how to view things. They tell us when to pay attention and when to relax. They highlight and underline, moving our attention, and help the reader along in places where one may not be able to fill in the blanks. They might even stimulate our attentions when a story gets dry and boring. While listening to these stories, I have often stopped to ask myself, “What would this story be like without music? What was the raw footage like?” Editors undoubtedly emphasize the effect of the stories by using their discreet tools to form more powerful narratives. Oral storytelling is a slowly dying art form, and by using editing techniques to sharpen the point made from a story, radio workers are keeping their craft alive, interesting, and easy to digest for the average listener.

----

Check Sunday's post about the arts and culture happenings on campus!

Nicole Colantonio '14

THREE Arts and Culture Events on Campus This Week

STONEHILL THEATRE PRESENTS
"AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE"

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (Nov. 18, 19, and 20) in Hemingway Theatre at 8:00pm!

Tickets are $5 for students and seniors and $8 for the general public. This is a merit point event!
Refreshments will be served.


THE EXHIBITIONS AND COLLECTIONS CLASS PRESENTS
"METALMORPHASIS: ALCHEMY AND THE CONTEMPORARY ARTIST"

Exhibit Opening event in Cushing Martin- come to view the new installments, meet the artists and student curators, and enjoy delicious sweets!

Friday, Nov. 19th from 6pm-8pm


ENGLISH SOCIETY PRESENTS
A NIGHT AT THE HILL

An amazing showcase of talent! Come to see fellow classmates showcase their skills in music, dance, acting, poetry, and other performing arts. Open to all interested in participating.

Friday, Nov. 19th in the Hill from 9pm-11pm.

He’s More than Just Tairy Greene

He’s so much more. Zach Galifinakis should be considered for more serious roles. With his work in Visioneers, Into the Wild, and, most recently, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Galifinakis has proven he is capable of holding his own in more dramatic roles. I’m not saying that he should abandon his comedic endeavors. I relish each and every single one of Galifinakis’s comedic ventures, whether it be in film, television, or online. I’m just saying that Zach Galifinakis has the potential to be a fantastic actor, not just comedian.

-Dan Perry

Anthony the Crossing Guard

I came back from England disillusioned and depressed. It wasn’t that British people didn’t like Americans- it was just that they would rather talk to their fellow superior beings, other Brits. If you made small talk with your bartender, store cashier, or the group sitting next to you in the dining hall, they would of course reciprocate ever so politely- but never would they initiate such a thing, and they inwardly judged you for disrupting Well Established Decorum.

It was a relief, then, come June, to walk the streets of Cambridge- Cambridge Massachusetts, that is. I found it quite refreshing to exchange smiles with strangers on our respective walks to work, and to be greeted by the friendly crossing guard at the corner of Charles and Hurley streets.

“Good morning, Erin.”

“Good morning, Anthony.”

Each day we talked a little longer. I learned that Anthony’s aunt was turning one hundred, but she didn’t want Obama to call her- he does that, apparently, calls people on their hundredth birthday. So Anthony arranged instead for the Cambridge City Council to sing to her on local TV. Anthony was very interested in politics because he used to work “in the media” and once interviewed Walter Cronkite. He had to retire to take care of his aunt, but he keeps his mind sharp by reading extensively and listening to Harvard radio.

Anthony listened to an installment of Wagner’s fifteen hour opera The Ring every Sunday. From seven p.m. to midnight he would follow along with his book and immerse himself in the composer’s imaginary world.

And every week he would update me on what had just happened.

“Brünnhilde is trapped among the rocks, surrounded by fire,” he explained, his eyes lighting up as he described how the heroine raised her voice in competition with the roaring orchestral music meant to convey intensifying blaze. Anthony acted out swordfights and battles, completely forgetting about other pedestrians as they walked unassisted across the ever-empty neighborhood street.

I learned a lot about The Ring from our daily conversations. But I also learned something that has nothing to do with mythology or opera or art.

On my last day of work, I expected to be sad to leave my co-workers, who had become my friends over those eight weeks. I did not expect to miss Anthony the crossing guard just as much.

I hope he found another morning companion…I think he has…every commute could use an Anthony. You never know what you are missing when you only bother about yourself.

-Erin Horan