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In 1996, HBO premiered the documentary Paradise Lost on its cable television channel. In the film, three teenagers are arrested, charged, and convicted of the murder. The film argues that these convictions occurred not because of any damning evidence against them, but because they wore black and listened to heavy metal. In effect, it was portrayed that the teens were eyesores on the Arkansas community of West Memphis, and the brutal murders were used as an excuse to be rid of this eyesore. The response to the film was immediate; in the last six years West Memphis police and prosecutors have been flooded with cries from across the nation to free the three young men who have been in prison since 1993. Public support was so great that in 2000 a sequel was also aired on HBO chronicling the appeal process.
The situation and film raises a series of questions. Central to them is this: how was director Joe Berlinger so convicted of their innocence that he devoted an entire film to it? How did this event, as tragic and provocative as it was, galvanize so many people to the support of these teens that HBO was able to warrant a successful sequel when the events themselves seemed so far below our nation’s eye?
It is these questions that are central to discovering the impact of movies on our culture. The glib answer would be to say that yes, movies do affect our culture. This glib answer, however, does not take into account deeper emotional responses to film. In the post Vietnam/Richard Nixon era we live in, we’ve become paranoid of the power held by authority figures. That Joe Berlinger chose to focus on innocence rather than guilt, on police corruption, is a testament to a society that produced it. While certainly true that watching Paradise Lost would push a viewer to contact West Memphis authorities, it is but a symptom of a larger feeling. This is the same society that produced Billy (Dennis Hopper) and Captain America (Peter Fonda) being killed by the older establishment in 1969’s Easy Rider. Therefore, the truth seems to lie more along the lines of film as a description of society. Power is questioned; with leadership is always assumed corruption.
The problem with this answer, that film is only a description of society, does not quite work though. Do movies define us as individuals and as a culture? No. Yes. The great thing about film, the thing that makes it so radically different from other art forms, is the presence of “layers.” A film works on all senses. We see things; lighting is used to give a person menace or warmth, the editing structure allows a juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated elements in a way that produces an entirely new meaning (a great example of this lies in Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein and his early use of montage to tell a story rather than conventional narrative). We also hear things; the menace of a villain’s voice, the sound of a mother’s soothing tone. With these various elements of mise en scene all working together, a new element of “reality” is presented. A dis-embodied voice (in music) or a still image (in photography or sculpture) suddenly becomes a real person or event that we as viewers can identify with. With all this in mind, with this sudden and jarring feeling of real emotion and connection to fictional characters and situations, it would be foolish to assume that films do not affect us in any way. But these ways are less tangible. They don’t change the face of political landscape, they don’t radically alter the way we think. Occasionally these changes that do occur are brief. Since The Big Lebowski came out in 1998, the phrase “you’re out of your element Donny!” has become a catch-phrase. Viewers do not watch these movies and blindly imitate the events. Instead they grapple onto small events and feelings and incorporate those into existing beliefs and feelings.
It’s all these different elements of mise en scene working together that creates such dichotomy. Outwardly, movies seem to affect us. They seem to influence where we side on a murder trial (in the case of Paradise Lost), what we find humorous, and even how we relate to the opposite sex. There’s more to it than this, and that’s why film exists as more descriptive of our culture than prescriptive. Rather than films showing us the way things out to be, at their best they show things as we’d like them to be. The obligatory happy ending in most movies shows this: we’d like to see David Dunn (in M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable) win because our values in this society are that we’d like the hero to win. While in reality the “good guy” may not always win, we’d certainly like to see it.
Orson Welles once said to Peter Bogdanovich, “you’re a successful artist and I’m not.” What makes a successful artist is a connection to his/her audience. While Orson Welles explored social and political issues that were not a part of the society he lived in, Peter Bogdanovich’s subject matter turned out successful because they did. To further this idea, think of the success of Fight Club. While it suffered at the box office, it has endured a following on home video. The reason for this success is not because it told its viewers how or what to think. It did not direct millions of 30-something Americans to believe that their attachment to materialism was misguided. Instead, it succeeded because it described a pre-existing fear among audiences. People who felt they belonged to “no time or place” identified with the film because they could relate to it. The film tapped into their own fears and beliefs about their place in society.
Perhaps a better example in the discussion is Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless. It lends itself so well to this subject matter because the entire film deals with the movies as a prescriptive/descriptive part of society, and like this essay it falls in the middle. In Breathless, Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) evades the law at every turn while trying to get his girlfriend to go away with him. Michel also loves and emulates American film star Humphrey Bogart. He holds his cigarettes the way he’s seen Bogart do it, and he even rubs his lip with his thumb in the same way he’s seen Bogart do it in dozens of movies. This seems to show Michel being heavily influenced by American film, in fact being defined by the movies. Godard knows this, and Michel’s emulation of the movies is part of the construct. All of these elements in Breathless do not make us feel as if Michel is completely defined by what he sees in the movies, but there are elements that he wants to be. He wants to be Bogart and his basic mannerisms are meant to mimic the movies. His whole personality, though, is not Humphrey Bogart. The film deals more with how Michel realizes what he is not. As much as he’d like to be defined by the movies he sees, he is not. Superficial characteristics do not make a whole person.
Most importantly is the knowledge that Michel is a fictional character. While saying that we are not wholly defined by our movies, Godard is at the same time giving us the underdog anti-hero we always root for in the movies. Michel’s the man being chased by the police, but he is so personable he is the film’s hero anyway.
In the end, any movie can be seen this way; as an outwardly affecting yet inwardly describing force to society. While Blade II gives a rush of adrenaline (perhaps influencing our interactions with friends and family), we do not generally run around killing people with a sword. More importantly, we do not find ourselves permanently affected by seeing violence in films. Seeing a movie doesn’t permanently make us aggressive towards others, but the movies’ success does depend upon tapping into a feeling we already have. In early Communist Russia Vladimir Lenin saw this and quickly set about having the Soviet government finance films that show the world how well the new communist empire works. Dziga Vertov’s 1929 Man With a Movie Camera showed Russia as a well-working machine, with everyone having a place in a productive and prosperous new country. The movie did not direct Russian people to believe this. In fact, the opposite occurred over time. Over time, people held less and less faith in the Soviet government until it finally collapsed in the early 1990’s. However, the 1929 film did describe how the people felt about their “brave new world”. At the time Russian citizens were led to believe that anything was possible, and Man With a Movie Camera reflects this optimism.
Largely, it is the films that uphold our morality and work with our ideals that are most popular. While they may not change us morally, they are capable of galvanizing our focus onto issues we may not normally confront. Again, Fight Club worked because of a pre-existing feeling within audiences. For some it may have taken the movie to draw attention to these feelings. An important issue arises in this: how do movies differ from other art forms? If a movie is capable of captivating so many people in this way, why not another artistic medium? We’ve already discussed various elements of mise en scene and how they create layers not readily found in a painting, book, or piece of music. But what about theatre? Doesn’t a play contain the same elements that were previously claimed as elements of success in a movie? The previous claim that we identify with movies because of realism (the very thing movies, according to people such as Andre Bazin, offer in their efforts to ensnare audiences into sympathizing with them) is to claim kin to a theatrical term dating back to 19th century playwrights such as Anton Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen. It would seem that theatre and movies are interchangeable in their efforts on audiences.
There are subtle outward differences between theatre and movies. Restrictions don’t allow sudden shifts in location for a play, while a movie enjoys the freedom to move wherever the story takes it. However, this outward difference as a defining factor is as convincing as saying that movies do completely shape our society. One possible explanation for why movies work is because of their place in mass communication.
In 1936 Orson Welles staged an all-black production of Macbeth. In it, he added elements of Haitian voodoo and a style of chaos in the final act that had never been seen before. Audiences loved it, and so did critics. Today, nothing survives of this performance except for a few photographs and the recollections of surviving cast members. A play is not a final copy. If a person misses a show, it can never be perfectly re-created later. The director may change, casts may change, and each performance is completely unique. Seeing the same show ten years apart will be in fact two totally separate experiences. In short, theatre is what many actors call a “living art form.”
In contrast, every shot and actor in a movie become part of a permanent (as long as the movie lasts, at least) record. Ten years, twenty years, even fifty years after a movie is first made it can be easily produced and distributed all over the world. Vladimir Lenin called the movie “the people’s art form” and saw it as an efficient and effective way to send a message to millions of people. The Maltese Falcon is still Humphrey Bogart playing Sam Spade no matter when or where the movie is seen. Film as mass communication allows different interpretations to come from a single source material throughout time and space. True, other art forms (theatre excepted) also allow for this, but other art forms only work on one or two levels. Seeing a Van Gogh painting today can be as easy as typing his name into a computer search engine. You won’t see the original painting, but you’ll see a fairly exact reproduction. But that painting is only working on a visual level. A movie though can be seen nearly anywhere. It’s inexpensive for a person to rent a movie or see it at a multiplex, it’s easy for everyone to have access to the same material, and it engages the audience in ways no other medium can.
So after it all, do movies matter? In many ways, they do. They serve as a record of their time and place. Fight Club’s Tyler Durden will always be Tyler Durden, and his presence and ideology are a record of what aspects of late 20th century feelings were.
The 2002 Academy Awards featured a series of interview in which the question of movies was asked. What do they mean? What purpose do they serve. Answers were wide-ranging. Some said that movies reflect our morality, some said that they impact our society by reflecting us at our best and at our worst. Most notable was the man who said, “they’re a diversion, a great entertainment…what, you don’t think that’s enough? I think that’s quite a lot!”
From This is Orson Welles by Peter Bogdanovich