Dead Men (1995)

Major Films and Minor Literatures

:45-3:54

Objective Review: 

   The scene I appreciated most was the conversation in which Nobody’s backstory is introduced. Riding behind Nobody, William asks why Nobody isn’t with his own people. He explains that his parents’ tribes disliked him because his parents belonged to warring tribes. When he was hunting, he was captured by soldiers and made a display in an exhibit, first in the United States, then in England. He began to mimic the Englishmen, in hopes they would lose interest and release him, but instead they put him in a school. Eventually he escaped them, and he made his way back to his parents’ tribes, seeing the horrors the Europeans had inflicted on other tribes along the way.

Reaction:  

   Why are gunshots so ineffective in this movie? You get shot in the back and you turn around and shoot back. What happened to falling down and dying? I understood Blake’s exhaustion with life and it made the aimlessness the film began to have less strained for me. It felt very disconnected and identity-based.

 8:58-9:30

Interpretation:  

There are three elements to a minor literature. First comes the deterritorializtion of a major language by someone writing in the language from a minority position. Second, the minor literature is political, “everything in them is political” says Deleuze. Third is the collective value of the minor literature. Although the writer of Dead Men is not from the First Nations, I propose that the inclusion of Native American experts during the writing of the film is enough to qualify the film as a minor literature.

   

The film takes our classic concept of a Western movie and civilization and begins to deterritorialize it. Upon the opening of the film, we are introduced to the territory of an old town in the West, dusty road, horses and men, and gunshots everywhere. Although familiar with this terrain, we quickly become unable to territorialize it. Between public sex, reformed whores being bodily thrown out of bars, and the disregard for promises, we are unable to make the connection between the “honorable” men in classic Westerns and the men inhabiting the town of Machine.

After making the audience uncomfortable with the concept of “noble” old Westerns, we are ushered into Nobody’s world. The writers easily explore the common tropes of the mystic Indian and noble savage. Nobody rescues Blake, trying to pry the bullet from his chest without thought for the waking man’s pain. He then drags him to the west coast due to his belief that Blake is a reincarnation of the poet William Blake. He uses drugs, calling them “the medicine of the Great Spirit” and even leaves the helpless Blake on his own in order to induce a vision quest. This is common territory in many Western films.

Then we begin the deterritorializtion of Native American culture. “The first characteristic of a minor literature in any case is that in it language is affected with a high coefficient of deterritorialization” (Deleuze). We see soldiers knock a child unconscious and steal him away from his people. The government then display him as though he is an animal in a zoo, and not once does anyone pause to consider the perspective of their fellow human being. Even once they understand that he is intelligent and enroll him in a school, they do not consider him a human. He is still a prisoner who must escape to return to his home. Once he returns to his tribe, he is not welcome among them because he no longer understands their culture. They do not believe him as they might believe one of their own, one who was trusted among them and who understands their culture. In one fell swoop, the idea of honorable Americans and advanced civilization back East is ruined.

The political domain has contaminated every statement" (Deleuze). Indeed, the political nature of the film is not so much implied as it is outright stated. Not only do the white men – American and English alike – not consider Nobody a fellow human when they trap him in a cage, but some attempt murder by giving European diseases to the Native American tribes. When Nobody requests tobacco from the trader, he is refused. The same request from Blake sees tobacco produced instantly. The film is deliberately political.

Lastly, we see the collective value of the film. It is not only Nobody who experiences the threat of the white man. It is the ruined villages and frightened forts; the thousands of Native American children stolen from their parents and placed in boarding schools, returned to villages that they don’t understand and rejected by the white man already; the tribes who died on western marches only to be ousted from the lands over and over and over again. It isn’t one voice who protests this. In the film, we hear the collective accounts of every Native American production, from elders’ tales to children’s books. "What each author says individually already constitutes a common action" (Deleuze).

The film is not made solely to display Blake’s journey across the country. The point is not that he dies. We see the worst of the Europeans hunt Blake and Nobody. Cole Wilson murderers the other members of his posse for insulting and annoying him, and proceeds to eat one of them. Once he finds that Blake is out of his reach on a sea canoe, he murders Nobody out of spite. We see the best of Native Americans. Nobody attempts to save Blake’s life, guides him to the sea, and barters for a sea canoe for him. We also see the commonplace views of the time. Nobody is not even considered human despite his ability to read and write. From the west coast to England herself, he is an animal to the white men. He is property. Thus we understand a minority perspective.

Caemeron Cain - http://www.mantlethought.org/philosophy/what-territory

Aejin Hwang - https://immanentterrain.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/what-is-a-minor-literature-3/

Deleuze - What is a minor literature

Koyaanisquatsi (1983)

Life in Clouds and Waterfalls

2:56-6:25

Objective Review:

  The series of scenes which caught my eye in Koyaanisquatsi was the brief series featuring clouds and water. First, great, fluffy clouds roll through the sky without barrier, their only limit each other. Then the scene shifts, giving us a foreground of mountains to hem in the clouds, before switching to a cloud growing like a smokestack. After the clouds, we see water pouring over a cliff side, no moment ever quite the same as another, producing smoke at the bottom of the falls. We then go to the ocean, the end result of the falls, first filmed from shore, then from above, where it resembles clouds. Then we go back to actual clouds, floating past quickly on a sunny day, followed by what seems to be a sea made of clouds. Like waves, they curl over each other and mountains alike, producing a water-like spray. Again, we return to water, waves crashing against the shore, rolling and bucking and crashing almost violently. Returning to clouds, they, like the water before them, roll against mountains, producing a water-like foam from their edges and crashing back into each other. They flow over the earth and brush against the mountains.

Reaction:

  I had watched the movie on YouTube Monday in hopes of having more time to formulate an opinion. I like the producer's manner of organization, particularly the ways the scenes are subtly linked. I feel that the movie is an interesting example of a popular film with a very unusual stage. Although I myself found it somewhat boring, I can easily see why the viewer might find such a film intriguing.

Interpretation:

  Deleuze’s theory of rhizomes is a useful concept for postmodernist thinking. In nature, a rhizome is a horizontal stem of a plant. In philosophy, the rhizome spreads horizontally as well. Almost without structure, it is a way to think in a non-linear and a non-hierarchical manner. Its beginnings are difficult, if not impossible, to find and it has no end. It defies retrospective categorization, and so frees the mind to make new connections to ally with the old. Deleuze says that “The rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers.” Koyaanisquatsi is best viewed with this concept in mind.

ginger rhizome

  Rather than focusing on the beginning and end of the film, the viewer is best served by looking for non-linear developments (Gregoriou). Multiple associations can stem from one scene, the cause-and-effect reactions of the usual three-arc book is gone (Deleuze). In order to understand Koyaanisquatsi, we must understand that no part of the film comes first or last. None of it is confined to a singular explanation or association. We must see it as a whole. Even the very first scene relates to the ending scene.

  This is how I viewed the scene which caught my attention. I had previously associated clouds with good: heaven, angels, and religion. Clouds brought to mind things that were higher than humanity. Water, however, was an earthbound force, associated with rivers, streams, and drinking. The first association which stemmed from this scene was the newfound correlation between clouds and water. Deleuze says that “there are no points or positions in a rhizome” and with that in mind, I began to see the clouds and water as the same substance. Water crashed into the shore and turned back on itself, unique and beginning anew in every moment of its experience. The clouds were no different, pouring over the mountains and ridges, splashing against one another and spilling over the earth. Clouds are associated with air in nature, and so a new correlation between water and air was born. It was not the clouds alone which created such unique patterns, but the air which carried them.

  The movie as a whole brings together man and nature. Great sweeping landscapes are interrupted by roads and buildings, the scenes themselves are filmed from a helicopter. People break into the landscape with factories and cities, polluting the air with chemicals and rivers with dams. Yet they are all connected, for people find homes snuggled against the great factories and barren deserts. In an increasingly horizontal movement, humanity is spreading over the earth, finding foothold in even the most desolate areas.

  Perhaps a unique association the film makes is between different types of nature. Between air and water, between earth and sky. Many animals now reside in cities, hidden, but surviving in the environment humanity has given them. In many ways, everything is associated. Humans cannot live without the animals they are driving out, yet the animals find it increasingly difficult to live without the plenty provided by human society. The rhizome is not limited to clouds and water, air and earth. It is spread throughout the film, throughout the world itself. Life does not begin and does not end, we can only see the centers of it.

Deleuze and Guattari Intro-Rhizome

Gregoriou, Z. (2004), Commencing the Rhizome: Towards a minor philosophy of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36: 233–251. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00065.x
Koyaanisqatsi -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Dsv8E_ALo

RSA ANIMATE: The Power of Networks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmGrNdJ5Gw

Three Minute Theory: What is the Rhizome? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnteiRO-XfU

Brazil (1985)

The Three Orders of Sam Lowry

Objective Review:

 I found that the scene which clicked for me during the film was one of Sam’s dreams. In his attempts to rescue the woman in his dreams, he encounters a giant samurai, dressed in armor and armed with an enormous spear. Even though the other monsters in his dream world are repulsed by it, Sam rushes in to save the woman. Just as he and the samurai prepare to fight, the samurai vanishes. Confused, Sam turns, looking for his enemy. The giant samurai reappears and succeeds in cutting off part of his wing and sending him scrambling for his life. Regaining his feet, Sam darts forward to strike it with his sword, but again it vanishes. Wary now, Sam turns slowly, and when it reappears he engages it in a brief battle before it again vanishes. After one more skirmish, the giant’s spear becomes stuck in the ground. When Sam charges it, the giant vanishes again, but only briefly. It charges Sam, stopped only by his sword in its foot. The samurai suitably occupied, Sam pries the giant spear from the ground and tears open his opponent’s arm and stomach, causing the giant to scream and fall, flames pouring from its wounds. He then approaches and removes its mask, only to find his own face behind the monster.

Reaction:

I find myself tiring of watching films that do not provide intelligent characters. The film seems disjointed at times, with Sam having a firm hold of the Idiot Ball. While not confusing, the ending of the film became emotionally draining very quickly, particularly after it became obvious that it was only Sam’s fever-dreams during torture.

Interpretation:

In order to understand the film, I turned to Lacan’s three psychoanalytic orders. Brazil displays all three extensively, they all “relate to something significant in [Sam’s] daily sense of the world”, and even Sam himself comes to realize that by the end (Loos).

The imaginary takes hold the moment we see Sam. His home has an impressive set up of alarms, breakfast-makers, and other such tools, and they work so long as Sam’s clock does. His work is busy, men in grey coats hustling up and down, papers being finished and spirited away only to be replaced with others. The government is polite and efficient; the girl who answers the Central Services phone is quick to explain, the quick arrival of Central Services to Sam’s home, the kindness of his father’s old friend in getting Sam a promotion, the arrest of “Archibald Buttle.” Everything in Sam’s world is “situated around the notion of coherence” (Loos).

The reality of the situation is much more dire. The moment that Sam’s clock is off or the electricity fails, he has no way to wake up, and, on time or not, his coffee is poured on his toast, rendering both useless. The moment his boss turns his back, the formerly busy workplace is loud with the sounds of the latest movie. The men seem to put more work into maintaining the image of work than doing actual work, as they are all quite busy again by the time their enraged boss opens the door. Although Central Services’ phone is answered by a live person, that person can do nothing for Sam, she doesn’t know if or when help will arrive and can only repeat the same scripted phrase. When, shortly after his call, two agents from Central Services do arrive, he is forced to turn them away so they do not die, protesting “I’m a stickler for paperwork” as they try to barge into his home. In retaliation for this, they tear his apartment to pieces and freeze it. They might not know he saved their lives, but for all they know his home was invaded by a terrorist and he had no idea. His father’s friend is kind, but Sam is miserable at the promotion all but forced upon him, hating the rush of his new workplace. Lastly, a man loses his life for the sake of a letter. The real world is splintered and fragmented, few things being true when looked at without clouded glasses.

The symbolic world is even clearer. While their imaginary world falls apart around the, the citizens of Sam’s world remain determinedly oblivious. His mother ignores not only his protests against her interference in his life, but also the bombing and the bloody people only feet from her. The agents from Central Services hide behind paperwork, holding up papers to allow them to do as they please with Sam. Mrs. Buttle is offered a receipt for her husband. Only a few characters, such as Tuttle and Jill seem angered with the system. Tuttle has disregarded his paperwork in exchange for doing good work and although Jill is baffled by red tape, she pushes until the government wants her dead.

The film is Sam’s realization of these three orders. For all of his life, he has remained in the imaginary. He even ignores those wounded in bombings until Jill corrects his lack of action, despite it being implied that the bombs are responsible for his father’s death. He is thrust into clinging to the symbolic during the film, desperately trying to accept repeated assurances that the imaginary world is real. He even uses this himself, showing his badge to the guards who would arrest Jill to hold them at bay. During his final scenes, he understands the truth. The world is cruel without reason and apologies to no one. The government is infallible, no matter what. He understands the tragedy of Buttle’s death and the foolishness of Jack’s insistence that everything outside of the norm is evil and connected.
The scene brought this together for me when I realized that the giant samurai was representative of Sam's lack of ability to fight back. The real was that Sam could do nothing against the government alone. He couldn't save Jill, he couldn't help Mrs. Buttle, he couldn't even save himself. In his imaginary world, the samurai was symbolic of his helplessness. Every time he tried to fight back, his target vanished.
Sam was a young man of a good family, content with his lot in life, brought low simply because he found truth. Because he and everyone else were part of a world more imaginary than even his own dreams.

Loos, Amanda. 2002. http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/symbolicrealimaginary.htm

Forcault. The Order of Things. Preface.

Dylan Evans. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis