Don't call it a comeback
I been here for years...
I been here for years...
Well,
technically, I haven't, but whatever...
The
good news is since my last post, lo so many moons ago, I've taken a big step and
gone back to school to study film. Yeah, I know, it's quite a shocker.
Anyway, not only have I gone back to school, I'm already done. Yea me! Of
course, now that I’m done with this degree I’ve realized that I want more. More
films that explore the culture of a era, American or International, and its
social-ideological values. More theories that explore gender, race, and class.
More genre, auteur and psychoanalytical film theory. I want more.
And
that my friends means Grad school. With a capital “G", that rhymes with
“C” and that stands for cash! (Yes, I did just quote Robert Preston from the Music Man, I played trombone in Jr. High. Uh,
let's just keep going.) Originally, I wanted to start this fall, to keep the
ball rolling so to speak, but that hasn’t quite played out the way I expected.
Instead, I'm going to apply to schools in the fall for entry in 2013...
In
the meantime, I plan on learning Italian (well, probably just some of it), watching a ton of films, reading a
ton of books, and writing a ton on this blog. Sometimes it'll be reviews,
sometimes more scholarly academic pursuits, and sometimes it'll just be me
bouncing random thoughts off the walls. First though, let me give you an idea
of what I've been up to.This is one of my favorite papers from my Film Theory
and Criticism class. It's short, to the point and it's a film that cuts to the
heart of the social-ideological questions that fascinate me. And in my book,
you can't go wrong with a little Agnès Varda.
OK film fans, here we go...
In
VisualPleasure
and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey quotes film director Budd
Boetticher regarding the role of women in film. “What counts is what the
heroine provokes, or rather what she represents… the love or fear she inspires…
In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.”[i] As we witness
the final weeks in the life of Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire), primarily through
the recollections and perceptions of others, the question of her importance,
her value, is asked throughout Agnès Varda’s Vagabond.
Before
her death, Mona, as the French title Sans
toit ni loi describes, was homeless and lawless. She lived
without regard for the norms of society. In flashback, we see her wander out of
the sea, naked, with the sun shining on her back like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
The image seems to establish Mona as an unfettered, force of nature; however,
it is contrasted with a sequence of immature boys ogling postcards of naked
sunbathers and remarking, “A girl all alone is easy.” With this statement still
in mind, the score turns ominous and in dread we watch as Mona begins to
hitchhike. Director Varda’s message is clear: Mona’s life, as a ‘girl all
alone’ will always be in peril, marginalized and of a lesser value than those
with the protection of a man and society.
In
TheTerror
of Pleasure Tania Modleski notes, “in many of the films the
female is attacked not only because, as has often been claimed, she embodies
sexual pleasure, but also because she represents a great many aspects of the
specious good…”[ii]
Both of these representations are established in Vagabond. The first ‘witnesses’ of Mona’s life are two men, a truck driver who picked her up and a construction
worker who saw her sleeping in an abandoned house. Both view her as a sexual
object, the latter referring to her as a ‘prize’. The first woman ‘witness’, a
teenager who gives her water, envies Mona’s freedom, noting “She goes where she
likes... I’d like to be free.” However, this freedom is depicted as hollow
throughout the film. Mona is free to
wander, but the majority of society, as seen primarily through the eyes of the
male witnesses, views her as free with a different definition: without value.
We
learn little of Mona’s past, only that she was a secretary who hated bosses;
most of what we glean about her is through the eyes of people with whom she
shared brief encounters. Her rootless wandering may seem to embody freedom, but
without having anyone who truly knows her, the character can only be what she
provokes in others. Conversely, as a woman, Mona is of great value, reflecting
how societal norms and paternal mindsets have stripped women of their ability
to live carelessly free.
[i] Braudy, Leo and Cohen,
Marshall (2009). Film Theory and
Criticism, 7th ed. USA: Oxford University Press. Pg. 715.
[ii] Ibid. Pg. 625.
