Burning Questions: Captain Phillips and Ugly Audiences
Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 6:00PM Michael C. here. On the Boogie Nights DVD commentary track, Paul Thomas Anderson tells the story of how the audience cheered at the film’s first screening during the scene where William H. Macy’s Little Bill snaps and shoots his adulterous wife. PTA recalls sinking in his seat, wondering how he stepped so wrong that the moment he intended to be a nauseating gut punch was being received as a crowd pleaser. He was relieved moments later when, as he tells it:
William H Macy's gut punch as "Little Bill" in Boogie Nights
Bill Macy walked out and he shot himself in the face and they shut the fuck up real quick. And they weren’t laughing, and they weren’t cheering, and it was dead silence. And I thought, “Good.” I’ve done my job okay. It’s them that’s fucked up. It’s really the moment where you blame the audience and go, “No, you’re wrong.
The question Anderson asked himself in that theater back in ’97 is one that flares up every time a crowd has the “wrong” response to a movie:
How responsible is the filmmaker when a movie provokes an ugly response from the audience?
The film currently sparking this debate anew is Paul Greengrass’s Captain Phillips, which opens the New York Film Festival tomorrow. When the film's first poster revealed a white Tom Hanks being menaced by a demonic Somali pirate the response was immediate and predictable. Captain Phillips was immediately tagged with the "racially suspect" label. Not because the film itself was racist or presented a skewed portrait of the true story, but because a film where the white hero “stands his ground” against the black invaders will surely be embraced by racists. Even if the consensus is that Captain Phillips is even-handed and honest in its version of events, it already arrives tainted by association. Who wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with some hate-spewing lowlifes celebrating a film where the white heroes beat back a gang of violent gun-toting black criminals.
And if it is that easy for bigots to find validation in the film, isn’t that at least partially on the filmmaker? Shouldn’t they have something in there that shuts those people down, like PT Anderson did in that scene from Boogie Nights?
I understand that feeling, the urge to dismiss a film that earns the wrong kind of praise. Whenever I hear Sean Hannity or his ilk bloviating my immediate impulse is to stand up and declare in the clearest possible terms, “Whatever side that guy is on, I am on that opposite side.” So when he praises Zero Dark Thirty or The Dark Knight as defenses of Bush-era policy my knee-jerk urge is to throw those titles directly under the path of the nearest convenient bus. To be on the same side feels viscerally wrong, regardless if our reasons for standing there are miles apart.
the first and subsequent posters of Captain Phillips
I have to pause to remind myself, that regardless of how carefully a filmmaker controls a movie’s tone a certain segment of the population is going to read into a film what they want to read into it, filmmaker’s intentions be damned. Context will be disregarded. Subtext will be ignored. Many viewers, more than we would probably like to think about really, want only want to glom onto the most comforting emotional response, and will not hesitate to throw overboard everything that doesn’t fit that view.
Simply put, Bruce Springsteen can write the most searing anti-war song he muster, but that won’t stop crowds fist-pumping along to the chorus of “Born in the USA” while ignoring all the lyrics in between.
This is not to say that artists never share in the blame. Some films end up glamorizing the violence they’re supposed to be satirizing. Some films omit complexity because simplicity is more emotionally satisfying. If Captain Phillips ends up depicting the hijackers as a horde of inhuman monsters, then that gross caricature would be on the film. (I would be surprised if that were the case, considering this is the director who took care in United 93 to locate a few shadings of humanity in the 9/11 hijackers.)
Some would no doubt contend that Greengrass should have flat out not made a film that fans these particular flames, but it is the artist’s job to engage reality as it is, not to pick and choose topics that will avoid stirring up uncomfortable commentary from the dregs of society. Added to which it is itself a subtle form of dehumanization to suggest that artists should deny the complexity of the world and stick to positive, noble portrayals of black people. That way Bagger Vance lies.
Paul Greengrass’s only responsibility is to the truth. He need not take into account the potential response of the bigots and hate mongers of the world, and the rest of us don't need to either as we evaluate the film over the coming weeks.
Previous Burning Questions
You can follow Michael C. on Twitter at @SeriousFilm. Or read his blog Serious Film
Reader Comments (24)
Interesting. Do we think QT was trying to incite racism in Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained? Or was post-colonial or anti-facism revenge fantasies accepted versions of race based violence? Isn't it possible to agree with an ending, even if the motivations of one differ from others' motivations, of whom we feel repugnant? Or is this all liberal guilt. Why shouldn't we be pleased that Captain Phillips is withstanding a challenge from a group of international criminals, irrespective of their colour? Or are we just over-thinking a film this is actually based on real life events?
James Cameron never knew he created a white-supremacist wet dream in Terminator 2 -- when a black family is stalked by a military equipped assassin. From his professional point of view he was doing color blind casting and not putting the pieces together of what bigoted audiences in the states would receive from a sequence like that.
I wrote a long post then decided this was better: Yes, the director is responsible for tone. The same story told by two different directors can take on an entirely new meaning. They are not responsible for the audience, but they are responsible for the ultimate impression their film leaves. What people do with that impression once they leave the theater is on them.
I can understand inappropriate audience reaction up to a point. For instance, a lot of the laughter that I heard when I one of my classes screened La Luna was probably uncomfortable laughter. Not my reaction, but I totally get how watching what is more or less a consensual sex scene between a mother and her son...there are all kinds of things (including laughing) that one might due so as not to have to confront that directly with no layer of irony. I get that. But some audience reactions are just...icky.
I remember seeing a Tyler Perry movie, I think it was Daddy's Little Girls. There's a scene in it where one of the sanctimonious male characters hits one of the evil female characters...like, literally punches her in the face because she's being evil and the audience in my theater applauded and cheered.
Even more disturbing was snickering in the audience during the rape scene in Irreversible. That was tough because it in a lecture hall for a class of about 20 people and we all more or less knew each other. Having to sit in a class for the rest of the semester with people who I know were laughing at that scene was tough.
I've been thinking about this issue ever since I saw the "Captain Phillips" trailer right before watching "Fruitvale Station," a film that works extra hard to get behind a newsmaking story about a black man killed by a white cop. "Captain" looked particularly retrograde in that context. (It didn't help that the other trailer shown was for "The Butler," which in the same context just looked confused, to the point where the audience just snickered.)
I cut myself off, but I think identification plays a big role in certain inappropriate audience reactions as well. I think of the reaction during the rape scene in Boys Don't Cry</>, which was met with appropriate solemn silence from the largely white audience and the reaction from a similarly white audience during the rape scenes in Precious, which were met with some really disturbing scattered laughter in my theater. I know it's probably unfair to compare. Different audiences combined with different approaches to filmmaking. I get that Precious has certain flourishes that maybe make it easier to distance oneself from what is actually happening, whereas Boys Don't Cry doesn't really allow for one to escape what is going on. But I definitely think that something horrible or unthinkable happening to the character on-screen can be met with slightly inappropriate reactions from an audience member who (for whatever reason) cannot or will not allow themselves to identify with the character who it's happening to. Sad, but true.
I... could not disagree more with everything you wrote under the United 93 poster, even though I agree with a lot of what you wrote above it.
Look, the process of filmmaking isn't 'pure art', whatever the hell that is. Filmmaking is about compromise. That's even more the case with Hollywood studio films, which is where Captain Phillips falls. Everything is geared towards the audience - in the end, the only thing that decides whether the movie will be greenlit is the projected investment, or the question of would the audience embrace this movie or not. To pretend Paul Greengrass isn't aware - or shouldn't be aware - of this question is simply naive. To pretend that Paul Greengrass is able to tap into some objective truth is even more naive. It's like 'colour blind casting' or whatever you want to call it. It's like the insistence to be historically correct on some aspects of history (e.g. positions of power by POCs) but then making completely laughable leeways on other aspects. People pick and choose which parts of history or 'the truth' to concentrate on all the time. It's a part of human nature. People make assumptions about what the audience would accept all the time. It's a part of the business.
He chose to make this specific story. There's a lot of choices that can mitigate whatever racism can come out of it - maybe he followed them, maybe he didn't. I don't know. I haven't seen the movie. I'm not going to condemn it as racist before I see it. But the fact is, as soon as he's doing a movie adaptation, he's accepting some artistic licence, that's specifically meant to give him freedom to change things. How he chooses to change them is his prerogative. But yes, ignoring that this can be a powder keg of racism by the audience is *also* a choice and should be treated as such.
When I saw ZDT in theaters there were 2 different audience experiences. Many people were solemn, uncomfortable, and taken aback through the movie although they laughed at the rare moments the movie gave. Then there was the audience who seemed to be rooting for the torture scenes, thinking the detainees who were given up information as not human, and then being a bit stunned by the final shot- as if it robbed them of their expectations of the movie in addition to just how shattering the compound raid scene got with the crying children. It seems the critics of the movie pointed to the second audience more than the first among other controversies associated with the movie.
Know It All: It wasn't Daddy's Little Girls, it was The Family That Preys, with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
3rtful: Um...except that's the T-1000 doing that? The T-800 (as he is in that movie) doing that would be a white supremacist's wet dream.
The Pretentious Know It All: I WAS almost laughing during the attempts to "take us backward" in that movie, but the rape scene? Yeah, those people should be ashamed.
This article is over-thinking things. A filmmaker isn't responsible for the ugly reactions that an audience might have to a scene that wasn't intended to elicit such a reaction. I thought that was obvious.
Aside from obviously propagandic art (like Michael Moore's movies, even though I'm actually in political agreement with him a lot of the time), I don't think the artist deserves the blame for inappropriate audience reactions. The key word here is "inappropriate." In a propaganda film, those sorts of reactions are appropriate, because the film is trying to obtain them. Most movies, however, are not propaganda. Some are more manipulative than others, some have more of an agenda than others, but as long as it's on the opposite side of the line from the pure propaganda, hateful and inappropriate audience reactions are solely on the audience. Paul Thomas Anderson was dead on in his quote about the Little Bill incident. There's a certain point when any artist must realize that not all audience members are going to have the intended reaction to things. I once heard of (but luckily did not witness firsthand) a person who laughed during the scene in The Pianist when the old man in the wheelchair is thrown out of the window by the Nazis. Is Roman Polanski to blame for that? Of course not. In fact, I'm sure there are a lot of Neo-Nazis who enjoy Holocaust movies for all of the wrong reasons. It doesn't mean the filmmakers are somehow responsible for those types of reactions.
Look, you take the most objective piece of film imaginable. Let's say, for instance, the Zapruder film. It doesn't have a point of view. It accidentally captures the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Most people find it shocking and disturbing, but there are undoubtedly people who find it satisfying, even entertaining, whether for political reasons (they despised JFK to the point of actually being happy he was killed) or simply because they fetishize violence in any context. Does that mean that Abraham Zapruder, by accidentally capturing the assassination of JFK, is somehow to blame for people reacting to the footage with sick glee?
It would be a very boring world if film makers could avoid ever "getting it wrong" for some segment of society. I understand every minority group that protests what it sees as injustice or false representation and agree with them most of the time, but at some point, we have to admit/agree that all humans being equal, all humans are capable of horrific acts just as they are capable of honorable acts. The facts of Captain Phillips are that the captain is white, the pirates are black. Injustice comes into play if the intention of the film maker (or poster maker) is to demonize the pirates using their race as one of the points. To jump to conclusion out of context (which the poster, is) is wrong. Its what the racists who are claiming it represents their views are doing and what those who are claiming it falsely represents them are doing (I don't hold this is the case with all film posters). Until we see the film, we won't know for sure and probably won't agree even then.
In the past few days a prominent Science site has shut down its comment section because it had become over run with people dismissing the science and trolling to the point where the site was becoming a flame war ad nauseum. My point is that there will always be people who put their agenda ahead of the facts and pick and choose what they wish to promote in any public presentation (like politicians) finding the most obscure points to bolster their argument (like people who claim Streep always gives the best performance possible of a role over the possibility of other actresses---flame war intended). As hard as it is, you have to try and be as objective as possible until you have a chance to examine the property thoroughly and make an informed decision based on all the facts.
And....its easy to claim an open mind, its almost impossible to achieve that a majority of the time.
The weirdest audience response I saw was when I went to see Gran Torino four years ago. I enjoyed the movie itself, but the audience was terrible. It seemed like every single time Clint Eastwood's character said something racist, the other people in the audience laughed. Not "awkward laughter", either. It was big, loud, obnoxious laughter.
I now refuse to see a Quentin Tarantino film, because I know it will contain offensive, racist language. PERIOD.
The audience is going to identify with Tom Hanks in "Captain Phillips' form the trailer it seems as if they try to humanized the pirates- this all they can do to survive- but they are still the movie's villain
I agree that some people will always see (or not see) what they want.
The funny thing is, when I saw the trailer I didn't even think of color (well, Americans are more obssessed with it than other nations). I was thinking that I didn't want to see a film about the heroes and villains with the heores winnings. Or, to be precise, victims becoming heroes and winning.
I didn't like United 93 because I just hate that kind of thing. I didn't find the passengers' actions heroic at all. (Will everyone hate me now?)
this talk of the phillips movie is absurd. Hero? he is the moron who put the lives of the crew in danger. After being warned about the pirates in the area he took his slow ass ship right into their waters. And thats just the beginning. Captain Phillips was capture and did not give himself up to save the ship. It sickens me that the real story is so twisted. How about getting the story from the rest of the crew. Oh nobody wants to know the truth. Shame on Tom Hanks.
this talk of the phillips movie is absurd. Hero? he is the moron who put the lives of the crew in danger. After being warned about the pirates in the area he took his slow ass ship right into their waters. And thats just the beginning. Captain Phillips was capture and did not give himself up to save the ship. It sickens me that the real story is so twisted. How about getting the story from the rest of the crew. Oh nobody wants to know the truth. Shame on Tom Hanks.
Now a days we have to be careful when we laugh during a movie and we must be constantly cognizant of all these liberal "rules" in America.
One day everything will be so watered down, devoid of anything that anyone may possibly find offensive because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
It's so easy to laugh at the lefts mindset(if you can call it that) concerning topics like this.
In this movie the pirates try killing Captain Phillips, that's not racist.... But the white people are?
Nothing, yes nothing about this movie is racist. This is a movie about real events that actually happened. Trying to kill captain phillips and all of the crew members who were mostly white apparently means nothing?
One day the liberals will even ruin movie going.
The water in the movie looked slightly green, what are they trying to say that the water is dirty in that part of the world? How racist!
This one movie had the military kill a guy who killed over 3,ooo people. That's racist!
In a movie set in a large city A guy who's not white killed someone and the racist cops arrested him. Obviously racist.
The man playing the president in the movie is not the same color as obama, clearly the director is racist!
These are things that several liberals think each and everytime they see a movie, this is why people with common sense don't like people on the left.
This problem has actually been dealt with in a movie: see *Jarhead,* and the scene in which the marines getting ready to go off to the first Gulf War cheer the Ride of Valkyries scene from *Apocalypse Now.*
I was surprised to find out Greengrass is the director of this movie. I think he's quite good, and I thought his handling of story in *United 93* was actually very good: what sticks in my mind about that movie is the point towards the very end of the movie when the passengers beat one of hijackers to death with a fire-extinguisher. At that point, I thought Greengrass was showing how the situation had reduced everyone - both hijackers and hostages - to the status of frightened apes. It didn't look heroic - it looked appalling, even while you couldn't help but sympathize with the passengers for doing it. I've never thought that people might cheer at such a moment, and anyone who did... I'd have to wonder about their general psychology, and I don't think that's at all on Greengrass.
But then: I haven't seen it yet, but this one has really gotten me suspecting his motives for making it. It's so obviously "black and white" from the outset, and to that effect, its title alone has a lot to answer for: it's not, say, *Insert title of the ship it all happened on,* it's the title of the principle white character in the story, and he's played by a big Hollywood star. The odds seem stacked to begin with. I'll probably watch it - Greengrass is a technically adept and interesting filmmaker, and as I say, I was impressed by *United 93* beyond those aspects of the movie - but right off the bat it'll be an up-hill climb to convince me otherwise that the movie is inherently a problem.
Captain Phillips is RACIST because IT DOES NOT ADDRESS WHAT THE WHITE CORPORATE POWER STRUCTURE DID TO THE SOMALI COAST to make fisherman turn into criminals, NUCLEAR DUMPING AND MASS FISHING BY US AND RUSSIA.
United 93 is RACIST because IT IS A FAIRY TALE OF something THAT DID NOT HAPPEN,
this country and the world is in big trouble, if you believe PEOPLE WHO COULDN'T EVEN HANDLE FLYING CESSNAS could fly sophisticated aircraft.
Research PNAC and Downing street memos as well as FBI agents who say AMERICA WAS WARNED. btw WHO CREATED AL CIA DA who benefits the most.
Also a 9th grade physics class would be in order.
This movie is about the 5 day hostage situation between the Somalians and Americans only. It were black men taking over a white ship. Period. That is fact. If you cannot consider this face.... YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH.
This movie is about the 5 day hostage situation between the Somalians and Americans only. It was black men taking over a white ship. Period. That is fact. If you cannot consider this fact.... YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH.