- Fred Camper, “The Epistemologist of Despair” (coursepack)
- Laura Mulvey, “Repetition and Return: Textual Analysis and Douglas Sirk in the Twenty-first Century” (coursepack)
- "Irony" (entry in UChicago's critical theory glossary)
1) Sum up one key idea (each) from Camper and Mulvey's essays.
2) Give one specific example of an ironic image (from a film assigned thus far in class) and explain why it's ironic, based on the critical theory glossary you read.
3) Every reading provides a critical tool we’ll try out on the film under discussion. So, suggest one scene from IMITATION OF LIFE for us to look at in class. What "research question" would you like to ask about that scene? Explain how and why Camper's or Mulvey's approach or ideas might be helpful or interesting to use when analyzing the scene. Be very specific.
See the bottom of the first posted reading questions for "tips" on figuring out the answer to question 2, on method.
9 comments:
Christina Freiberg
Week Eight Blog
Douglas Sirk=Campy Melodrama.
In “The Epistemologist of Despair: The Films of Douglas Sirk,” Fred Camper discusses how (embedded in the narrative of Sirk’s films) style and dialogue create an atmosphere that enforces the story structure. Considered mainstream when initially released, all films did not center on happiness, rather relying on sadness and sorrow. It seems, according to Camper, that the German émigré perceived the United States in a state of constant, domestic sorrow. Thus, his films relied on depicting the characters as “real people struggling against fate to find authenticity.” (Camper, 2) The struggle to find the authentic can be translated into the movie, “Imitation of Life.” Camper states how the characters discard any emotional connections and rely on material or status in society to achieve happiness. Both sets of mothers and daughters reach out to find themselves through objective needs: Lora wants to become a successful actor while Annie struggles with her daughter Sarah Jane, who is half-white, in a world where race is still a judging factor. Camper focuses on the ending moments with Sarah Jane and Annie, and how it is only after Annie passes on that Sarah Jane realizes how family is more important than society.
On the other hand, Laura Mulvey writes about repetition and return when analyzing “Imitation of Life.” In a world of DVD menus and chapter selections, it now easier for the cinephiliac to watch films and stop them whenever they need to analyze a scene. What she labels “textual analysis,” she discusses how stopping a film can allow a person to study the mise-en-scene and the formal elements of the cinema. This way, the viewer or scholar can search for the meaning hidden within the film and understand the director’s motive on how the moment on film manifests certain themes, styles, and values. It helps to see past the surface of the movie and dive into the implied meanings that are often hidden. Mulvey, in detail, analyzes the opening moments of “Imitations of Life.” Although, on the surface, Lora is in distress trying to find her lost daughter on a crowded, Coney Island Beach, the moments set up who Lora is. For example, when searching for Susie, she happens to stop in front of a man with a camera, who happens to snap a shot of her, searching out onto the beach. The pose is over-the-top: she holds up her hands and stands on her tip-toes as if she is posing for the camera. Meanwhile, the man who takes the photo, Steve, will becomes an important character himself, always chasing Lora because he is in love with her. The photo taken of her proves how he will always have her around, even when she dumps him repeatedly for fame and fortune.
Irony, defined by the University of Chicago website, states that it has a double meaning: an event/message that has a surface meaning and hidden meaning (what it really means). It is appearance versus reality. One scene in particular that defines irony is the fight over the dolls in “Imitation of Life.” On the surface, the children fight over the dolls, wanting the one they prefer. Since Susie owns a white and black doll, she finds it suiting that Sarah Jane would prefer the black doll and finds it hurtful and shocking when she rejects the black doll. While, on the surface, the argument could seem like child’s play, but in reality, it talks about racially charged issues. Sarah Jane is half-black and chooses to become white in order to fit in. Not only does this scene set the tone for the film, it also discusses the issues of being Black in America during the Civil Rights Movement. It is even relatable today: a documentary was released about a year ago where a black film student took a couple of African Americans girls aside to ask which doll they would prefer: the black or the white. While all said that they look like the black doll, all of them agreed that the “good” one was the white one, and that they wish they were the white one. Society pressures people to act accordingly, especially in terms of race. Sirk touches a chord here, explaining that there is an underbelly to society, where being non-Caucasian means you are not deemed worthy.
Going back to Camper, my question would be how the depiction of despair coincides with the soundtrack of the film. It seems, as the girls get older, the music gets jazzy especially for Sarah Jane. First, jazz is an African American music movement and it seems to play only when Sarah Jane escapes the house to find herself in the real world. How does the music try to heighten her moments of despair and degradation? Is it there to remind us that she is also African American? It seems an odd pairing when she is beaten in the alley by her boyfriend. When he finds out her true ethnicity, he beats her. The jazz music, in a way, contradicts the entire mood of the film. It reminds me more of the rumble scene from “West Side Story.” And yet, it does not make the viewer sympathize with her because she is denying her heritage.
Fred Camper takes to task the casual audience member who is just looking for a light hearted fluff piece in a Douglas Sirk film. The body of work that Douglas Sirk has created over the years is an array of films that ask the viewer to take a step back and realize that everything on the surface is not what you are to see. The films hold more than just pretty faces falling in love at the end. The ideas that surrounds the film and that are woven into the background of the films is everything from the tragic to the downright heartbreaking. Fred Camper lays it out right in the title “If you’re watching Douglas Sirk for the camp value, look deeper.” Relating to the films if you are watching “All that Heaven Allows” and feel happy that Cary Scott and Ron Kirby got together in the end, you have missed the point entirely. Camper asks the viewer to go deeper to find the universal tragedy that nature and personal freedom, and a persons identity should never change just to accommodate your love interests.
Then Laura Mulvey, in her chapter “Repetition and Return: textual analysis and Douglas Sirk in the twenty-first century” she sets up a way in which we can put Fred Campers idea into practice. Her idea of textual analysis, where you can stop on any given scene and dissect it to its many parts allows for the viewer to get behind the façade of the direct meaning and go to the implied meaning. She explained how the use or recent technology allows people the freedom to stop on a scene in areas that were once impossible, unless you actually had a copy of the film reel. Taking moments of the film and watching them as a picture is useful when you want to dissect style and mise-en-scene. Mulvey also encouraged viewers to take advantage of the ability to stop the film you are watching and learn more from it. Years ago it was almost impossible to stop a film and just look at one single frame. It was only possible if the school owned a print. Slowing down a film to its basic form, the still image is the best way to textually analyze it.
A moment of irony one could make out from the definition given to us by UChicago’s glossary would be one of the last scenes in “Imitation of Life”. The scene where Annie goes to visit Sarah Jane when she is working at the Moulin Rouge, Sarah Jane mouths the last words she will ever say to her mother “I love you momma” Its ironic because we know that Sarah Jane loves her mother, but when you love someone you aren’t ashamed of them and where they came from. Her mouthing of I love you momma is almost like she is prodding Annie to leave, like saying “this conversation is over”. It is infinitely sad that the next words she will say to her mother are when she is in a coffin, when Annie can’t hear the words, even if Sarah Jane wanted her to.
While watching “Imitation of Life” I continued to wonder at what point Lora mentally subjected Annie to being her mammy. In the beginning Lora fought the idea of Annie being the maid, but then half-way through the movie I realized that Lora thought of Annie as just the maid of the house. I have a theory that it took place around the time when Lora began to have a career and really make the money in the house. The movie on the surface suggests that the two women are equal friends till the end, but there is an undertone of piety I pick up from Lora near the halfway mark of the film.
Both Fred Camper and Laura Mulvey, with regard to the specific essays that we assigned for today, deal more or less with creating a sense of place via the work of Douglas Sirk. For Camper, the style of Sirk’s films in theory should bring the spectator closer to the narrative but in practice are rather dislocating. “Throughout Sirk’s films,” Camper explains, “compositions fall into fragments. Cuts seem to split the space; camera movements alienate rather than connect” (119) Similarly, Laura Mulvey uses textual analysis of the opening moments from Sirk’s “Imitation of Life” to elucidate the film’s style and how its style engenders a sense of space for its viewer. “The particular beauty of [the opening sequence of the film] lies in the way the cinema translates the resonance of place into filmic space, turning the literal location into the pattern of space on the screen out of which another layer of meaning emerges” (124). Both Camper and Mulvey’s essays also explore the profound effect returning to older films and/or slowing the viewing process of those films has altered the way textual analysis operates today. This point is rather sharp, once one has considered the reality that textual analysis did not truly find a home in academia until well after the films of Sirk were released.
Two ironic images from “Taxi Driver,” are the only two throughout the entire film where Travis smiles: 1) when interviewing for the cabbie position; 2) when speaking with the secret services agent when placing the assassination. These two moments fall under “affects of irony” because both are “affected” in a word “fake,” and both images have a double meaning by means of affect since Travis can only muster expressions in either scene that are half simile/half smirk. These affects convey the storm brewing under the surface when juxtaposed with the sarcastic tone in which Travis speaks to either the cabbie boss or the secret service agent.
To be sure, I feel that the opening sequence of Imitation of Life which Mulvey analyzes should be revisited in class, but I feel that her take on it misses out on the fascinating manner in which camera movement and editing maintain a uniform sense of space that is a contradiction to the classic editing techniques used in this particular sequence. My research question is: how does the dissolve edit from the opening shots of the vast space of the beach to Lora’s feet and legs contradict itself stylistically in the subsequent sequence? In other words, in what way is that particular editing device “ironic” when compared with what unfolds next from a stylistic point-of-view?
In “The Epistemology of Despair: The Films of Douglas Sirk”, author Fred Camper writes that one of Sirk’s central themes is that people discard true human connections for material goods and the sake of appearances. Camper argues that Sirk’s uniquely despairing approach is a reflection of the German fatalism of his background mixed with the anomalies and falsity of 1950’s America. Sirk looks at that world, finds despair and falsity, and makes motion pictures that reflect the way he sees the world. His work seems to have had a lasting impact partially because he saw the world around him from the perspective of an outsider. Perhaps the absurdity of a black servant as “family” to a wealthy white woman in 1950’s America was more evident to a German émigré outsider that it would be to someone from within that culture. The “mess of crawdads” scene and Lora and Sara Jane’s interaction just before would be a good place to discuss these issues in “Imitation of Life”. Specifically, we could look at this series of scenes for signs of Camper’s “despair and falsity” as well as for the perspective of a German fatalist outsider observing, and critiquing, this America.
In Laura Mulvey’s “Repetition and Return: Douglas Sirk”, she discusses how film academia made the switch from cinephilia to a more “serious” textual analysis-based consideration of film theory. Rather than focusing on the auteur’s greatness, film theory and criticism began to focus on the details of a film for deeper meaning and analysis. Perhaps these stages of film analysis are a natural progression for both academia and the film student. I find it particularly fascinating how technology has made this close analysis possible. VHS tapes initially, and the DVD’s with commentary of today have completely changed the way the film theorist observes and analyzes a film. We can look more closely now that we can stop and start a film at will and focus in on the little details. Mulvey talks at length about this “repetition and return”, and discusses its particular relevance to the multi-layered work of Douglas Sirk.
According to my 1700 dictionary, irony is defined as “a trope, in Rhetorick, by which we speak contrary to what we think, by way of Derision or Mockery to him we argue or talk with”. It seems to me that irony in film is a somewhat altered form of that definition. In the fictional world of film, characters can say something that they mean while the filmmakers are actually trying to get us to think just the opposite. In film, or even literature, the author or auteur is often pushing us in the opposite direction when characters they create say or do something extreme. The best example that comes to mind is the Scorsese “44 Magnum to a pussy” scene in the back of Bickle’s cab. Do the filmmakers actually advocate this method for dealing with wayward wives? I think not – that is irony in film.
In his article, "The Epistemologist of Despair," Fred Camper discusses one of Sirk's recurring central themes. He describes it when he writes, "characters discard true human connections, including with themselves, for material goods and the sake of appearances" (Camper 120). This idea is at the heart of Imitation of Life, in which Sarah Jane rejects any connection to her African-American mother. At the same time she discards the African-American connection to herself for the sake of fitting in. This story runs parallel with Lora's, as she discards the important connection with her daughter for the sake of wealth and personal success as a star. Overall, these stories intertwine with one another to contribute to the same central theme of the film.
The article "Repetition and return: textual analysis and Douglas Sirk in the twenty-first century" by Laura Mulvey deals with crucial scenes from Imitation of Life. The main idea of the article focuses around the opening sequence. Mulvey claims that the scene is structured around two "iconic" images. The first, Lora is standing up on a boardwalk, an image that is representative of her "theatrical" persona. Below her is Annie, a homeless woman who works for others. Mulvey points out that the framing of the shot and the placing of Lora and Annie distinguishes them by class. This sequence, according to Mulvey, also says something about each character's behavior. Lora is unorganized, distraught, throwing herself about just like a famous star. At the same time Annie is calm, quiet, and keeping to herself. It is this unity of opposites that make this opening sequence intriguing, which in turn sets up the characters for the rest of the film.
One ironic image from this film is when Sarah Jane serves food to Lora and her associates. In order to make a point of mocking her mother's color, she walks out with the bowl on top of her head, an obvious reference. She takes it one step further by speaking like an African-American woman as she serves. This is clearly ironic because Sarah Jane wants more than anything to be white and to deny all connection to her mother. However, in this scene she acknowledges her heritage full force with this display of behavior.
The moment I'd like to look at again is when Sarah Jane is standing in front of her dressing mirror with Annie in the background. Sarah Jane stares at herself in the mirror screaming, "I'm white!" I think this scene suggests something relating to Camper's ideas about the film's theme of discarding connection.
Fred Camper’s essay explained a simple history/background on how Douglas Sirk’s directorial style was first misunderstood and then appreciated at a later time. Camper’s article discusses several of Sirk’s films but finally, as a last example, gets to Imitation of life which quotes Sirk saying he would have made the film “if only for the title.” Camper identifies the central theme of the film to be: “characters that discard true human connections, including with themselves, for material goods and the sake of appearances.” Camper’s article is a factual mini biography on Douglas Sirk but Laura Mulvey’s reading was much more focused on film theory.
Mulvey begins by explaining the influential nature of Hollywood’s early studio system and that technology brought forth new ways of filming as well as new ways of watching. “Once again, there is an echo across the decades…” writes Mulvey, referring to the extensive effects the DVD and home theater have had on making textual, visual and critical analysis that might not have been previously possible has now become just that. Mulvey states that the reason she had chosen to return to analyze Imitation of Life (1959) was that she found “…previously overlooked details…” Mulvey rediscovers “Sirk’s use of mise-en-scene within terms of a displacement of emotion from character to cinematic language.” An example of this might be when Sarah Jane tries to leave her mother Annie behind just for the color of her skin. She runs away and works nights at a risqué dance club but is in fact running away from herself or her roots. This is incredibly materialized when she and Annie are divided by a mirror’s image depicting Sarah Jane’s alienation from her mother, friends, and ultimately herself.
One ironic piece of imagery I found was when Susie is eventually dancing with Steve wearing her mother’s clothes or at least clothes that look exactly like hers. This situation in itself is ironic as the daughter is feeling rejected from her mother and passing this need for love onto the closest person to her, Steve, who is actually the mother’s love interest as well. Totally scandalous.
One scene/image I’d like to discuss is the diamonds falling in the beginning sequence of the film. What is the meaning or purpose behind this imagery and why are they stacking up or filling up the screen? Is it just about the rich identity and pursued fortune that Lora is after in the film or are they representative or something greater?
In Camper’s article he talked about how Douglas Sirk, the director of Imitation of Life, made movies that seemed based around how material possessions have taken the place of what American perceives as feelings, or love, or accomplishments. His movies are more relevant now, since you can see a certain dark humor in his older melodramas.
Mulvey talked about how the opening sequence establishes two universal themes in the movie; that there is person that is ‘below’ in life, next to a person who is ‘above’. It shows this because the whole opening scene shows Laura on the highest part of the pier looking for her daughter, and she ventures lower and lower, until she is eventually under the boardwalk and finds her daughter there with Annie. Mulvey states that Lara is made to be extremely beautiful so that you can sense it when there is finally a meeting of the two women.
The biggest example of irony that I found in the movie was in regards to Susie falling in love with Steven. When she can’t take it anymore, she confides in Susie, and, while she is talking, we see her mother, Lora, kissing Steven. Susie then finds out that they are going to get married and she is left devastated.
The scene that had the most impact on me was the death of Annie. It felt like, to me, all the characters are more or less falling apart, or starting to fall apart and Annie is no longer the one that can hold it all together. There’s kind of this transference, like, Lara no longer has the support that she needed from Annie and she has to become the support for both of the girls now, and she has to become a better mother than she had been.
Fred Camper’s “The Epistemologist of Despair: The Films of Douglas Sirk” looks into the idea behind Sirk’s great melodramas and how there is actually more to them behind the alluring colors and exaggerative acting. Camper states that in most Sirk films, “the material surroundings are so powerful they can seem to dictate the characters’ actions and even their identities” (Camper, 119). Things in Imitation of Life such as fancy clothing, new furniture and elaborate lifestyle seem to take away from the character, by overruling their life. For example, Lora does everything in her power to become rich and famous, and when she finally achieves it, she pays less attention to her daughter, Susie. In the article, Camper describes this as one of Sirk’s themes, in which “characters discard true human connections, including themselves, for material goods and the sake of appearances” (120). This is one way in which Sirk can show that his films are more than 1950’s melodramas.
On the other hand, Laura Mulvey’s “Repetition and Return: Textual Analysis and Douglas Sirk in the 21st Century” combines ideas from Camper’s article to prove her theories on cinema academia. Mulvey describes how textual analysis can provide “a key means of critical access to a cinema made within industrial conditions for mass circulation” (Mulvey, 228). This notion can relate back to Camper’s idea of the two-tone message hidden within Sirk’s films that make them to be more than a melodrama. She also goes on to talk about the opening sequence in Imitation of Life, which was my favorite part of the article. The article states how there are two images of femininity brought forth between Lora and Annie. Lora is perceived as an eroticized woman, where as Annie is connoted as a domestic and maternal woman. This “opposition between ‘high’ and ‘low’” begin the film with a sense of the two women’s identities and feminine or maternal qualities (233).
Moreover, one of my favorite ironic scenes is from the courthouse scene in Rebel without a Cause. When James Dean’s character is greeted by his parents, he rises, holds out his arms and says “Happy Easter.” This is very ironic because he looks very Christ like, above everyone else while holding his arms out. However, he is also saying “Happy Easter” which is when Jesus was nailed to the cross. According to UChicago’s critical theory glossary, irony is a “double meaning,” in which it may mean one thing on the surface, but certainly has a different level. In this sequence, there is a double meaning behind how Jim is standing and by what he is saying.
One scene that I would like to go back to look at is when Sarah Jane is beaten up by her boyfriend for being black. I would like to propose an essay question in which we could look more closely at the use of mirrors and reflections when Sara Jane is talking about race. It is even mentioned in Camper’s article, when he states that Sarah Jane’s desire to be different is a “fact reinforced by an interposed mirror shot that reveals Sarah Jane’s alienation from herself” (Camper, 120). It would be interesting to see the shots compared to her dialogue about race with this one scene and with the rest of the film.
Camper's arcticle is about how Sirk's films are on the surface, pretty nice , happy films, but when you go deeper, they are really depressing and not happy at all. One of the films he discusses is "All That Heaven Allows" and how it has a happy ending, except that Rock Hudson's character has to change his house to be more suburban. I argue, that the ending once more dissected, isn't happy at all. Yes she decides she wants to be with him, but he has to make his house more suburban, the viewer's haven't seen if the communities and the children's views have changed about the situation, and I highly doubt that they have. Realistically, Jane Wyman is at the same point she was earlier in the film, when she decided to tell everyone about him. Nothing has been brought up or shown to have the viewer think that the whole situation has changed. I agree with Camper 100% that Sirk's films have two different levels. The surface where everything appears to be fine, and then deeper where nothing has changed and the characters are still up a creek with no paddle. His writing reminded me of Perez a little bit because they both really enjoyed the films they talked about and really wanted to find the underlying meanings in the films they were viewing.
Laura Mulvey's arcticle is about the repetition in Sirk's films, and how the meaning of the films has changed with time and the advancement of technology. She goes into great detail about "Imitation of Life" and especially the scene where Lora goes down the steps looking for Susie right away in the beginning. She talks about how with video, she can stop the film, rewind it, and pause it to find every little detail in every shot. She notices by doing this process that a minute or two later, in the background a black lady is repeating, step for step, the movements that Lora just did, but then Lora bumps into the camera and the focus on the black lady is lost. I have yet to look at that scene again to see if I notice it. Mulvey says that it accompany her Lora's first movement, and then if you keep paying attention to the black extra, it foreshadows a few seconds into the future when she goes up the stairs to the cop. Mulvey's writing reminded me a lot of Keathley's arcticle because most of it seemed to be about cinephiliac moments she had watching the film.
An example of irony to me that is evident in "Imitation of Life" is the ending. On the surface everything seems like its going to be ok. Even though Annie is gone, Sarah Jane is back, Lora says she isn't leaving anymore, and Steve is still there. That all seems great and what not, but if you think about it, Sarah Jane has apologized to her mom throughout the movie, and kept turning her away. She will probibily still say she is white, never claiming that is african american. Why should she now anyway, her mom is gone and there is no proof she isn't white. Lora says she is going to be around, but she said that twice before in the movie, then she got a job and was in theater, then she said it again, and then she left to go do a movie. Even if she does stay this time, Susie is going off to college and its too late for Lora to really develop the relationship with her daughter that she wants. My bet is that she will do something to mess up her relationship with Steve like shes been doing the whole film.
That is also the scene I would like to look at again in class, the very end when they are in the car. On the surface it looks like everything is going to be grand, but like I just explained in the previous paragraph, its far from it. I guess a research question would be about the second meanings to the ending and the ways it could be interpreted.
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