Germany, Pale Mother (1980) Adding Female Gaze to New German Cinema
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Author Archives: hydertg
Quarantine Machine woo woo
Since quarantine and continued through this past week, I have been watching relatively less movies than I used to. I was better at planning out my days with physical school and since deadlines are constantly floating around my head I can’t justify watching the amount of movies and tv shows I used to. I saved my media consumption for the weekends and we are seemingly in a purgatory-esque Sunday evening.
I do spend a lot of time on the internet, though, streaming youtube links that I am recommended by friends and family (Connor O’malley, Tim Heidecker) and browsing social media. I have been watching a lot of comedy on Youtube and Twitter since quarantine. Since last Monday I haven’t seen any new movies or tv shows except the tiny clips I find in the film facebook groups I frequent and Film Twitter. Besides, of course, the two first episodes of Babylon Berlin which I watched today. Before this class I discussed this TV show with Dr. Bodek and watched the first two episodes and nothing more. I plan to finish the season this time.
I did memorize the “I am your mother” monologue from Hereditary (2018) from watching it on repeat one restless afternoon. I also heavily discussed Funny Games with my highschool friends. They watched the original Heneke version (1997) and I have seen the, shot-for-shot remake from 2007 starring my treasured Naomi Watts a couple years ago so basically the same movie. They discussed the cleverness of making a movie so blatantly in the control of the character yet still terrifying an audience since they are witnessing it happen. This movie makes fun of you for your empathy creating a psychological thriller that sticks with you, in the comfort of your home. I kept thinking back about our discussion of the use of showing sexual assault in film. In the case of this movie it really is just there for the horror-factor, which does feel cheap to me.
She is made of money
The last scene of Joy showed her selling bands of bills to people to throw on dancing women. The people shown dropping money on the dancing women are men and other well-dressed women who we can assume are Madam type since they hold power. This shows the cyclic nature of the livelihood Joy has to make for herself which we discussed on the voice thread. In the screencap, one of the ladies is lines up with the money in Joy’s hand symbolizing their connection. Money and the role that woman throwing money play in society trickle down money to the ones who dance or do sex work. These women and men literally dropping money on the dancers is a closer look to the broader scale of oppression. And Joy is there, trying to sell the money that is used to be thrown at women. She is forced to be a part of this economy because of patriarchal structures that exist in societies, not to mention globalism in general. Since the opprotunity for lucrative sex work exists in these other countries.
This Boy’s Life
This documentary uses the life of a young boy on the island to compare to the dangerous lives of the refugees seeking asylum. Using footage from the boy at the doctor’s office versus seeing the doctor treat men off the boat let’s the viewers realize just how different these people have it than this privileged, untouched child. The little boy experiences shortness of breath from his anxiety while the people under the decks on ships cannot breathe due to the burning fumes that are present in the boat. Putting these experiences side-by-side reveals how much status, race, and socioeconomic status have a role in shaping the lives lived by people. The doctor is used as a vessel connecting these worlds so it is appropriate that the director include a scene with the boy at the doctor’s office.
Cultural Differences
Almanya does an excellent job of conveying cultural differences through different scenes in the movie. The fact that Muhamed is terrified of Jesus is very funny since a crucifix is not supposed to illicit fear. He is scared because he learned from his friend that Germans (Catholics) eat the body of Christ every week, which is true, except for one important detail which is that the body of Christ is actually not flesh. This dream sequence says a lot about the perception of what Germany will be like versus the reality which we see throughout the movie. Muhamed has endless cokes in his own bedroom with luxurious linens. Living in Germany proved to be not so opulent for Muhamed and his family.
Irony in Inglorious Basterds
Despite the Inglorious Basterds being an empowering group of mainly Jewish Soldiers fighting Nazi’s, the fact that Brad Pitt is not Jewish and leads these men is a bit ironic since Tarantino gave Jewish soldiers only so much agency. The idea of a “Bear Jew” bludgeoning Nazi’s with a baseball is epic. An american emblem killing a soldier who represents the exact opposite of American ideologies… or does he? Scalping Nazi’s grants the soldiers the retribution they deserve while referencing the atrocities the American people and government have subjected Indigenous people to. Even though Brad Pitt’s character claims Native American ancestry I’m calling an Elizabeth Warren. Because even if his character is, Brad Pitt himself is not Indigenous so his character isn’t.
Place, Space and Time , in Transit
28.03 – 29.03
This scene takes place in the line for visas and transits. Even though Georg repaired Driss’ old radio in the previous scene, the lobby has a TV screen with changing photos of ships from different eras of time cementing that not only are we in transit geographically, but also in space and time. Narrated similarly to Casablanca, another in-transit classic, we learn that this lobby is the place where people tell their stories. People tell stories of their near-death experiences to feel more alive. When Max leaves the hungry conductor to talk to the familiar dog-lady, she tells the story of the self-seeking Americans whose dogs she is caring for. “I hate them and their mutts,” she says to Georg. I believe making the dogs American was a conscious decision that references America’s lack of assistance during World War II. Maybe “mutts” refers to the mixing and assimilating cultures in America. The fact that these people left their dogs with their architect solidifies their tactless nature that is representative of the actual American government. The same government that’s refugee and immigration structures made it virtually impossible for Anne Franks’s family to come here. In January I learned that the number of refugees that the American Government accepts dropped from 110,000 for the fiscal year of 2017 to 30,000 for 2019 despite the fact that we are in a displacement crisis that has been expedited by US imperialism.
Zaveri, Mihir. “Anne Frank’s Family Was Thwarted by U.S. Immigration Rules, Research Shows.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 July 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/anne-frank-family-escape-usa.html.
Blizzard, Jeanne Batalova Brittany, and Jeanne Batalova. “Refugees and Asylees in the United States.” Migrationpolicy.org, Migration Policy Institute, 2 July 2019, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states.
Dopplegangers and Beard Play
A main theme in To Be or Not To Be is the idea of “the clothes mak[ing] the man.” This line comes from Shakespeare which is another theme throughout the movie, which we know from the title. This is displayed in the first couple minutes of the movie when the director tells Bronksi that he isn’t believable as Hitler, followed by the rest of the cast assuring him that Hitler is “just a man in a mustache.” This representation of Hitler, in my eyes, proves that this movie was not offensive to Jewish People or Polish people and was made to make fun of Hitler. The backlash this movie received reminds me of the contentious The Interview, which was made in 2014, making fun of the dictator Kim Jong Un. The screencap that truly encapsulates this is when 5 men are standing around the dead body of the man that Joseph Tura was performing as. Each man in this scene has a twin which serves as a brilliant, ambiguous visual gag. The audience is fully aware of the ridiculousness of Joseph Tura but the theme of performance is directly portrayed when we see all 6 men with their twins. From hairstyle to outfit.