Distant Relatives: Lawrence of Arabia and The Lord of the Rings

Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film.

Heroes, Real and Imagined

"The Lord of the Rings" was originally published in 1954, eight years before the release of the film Lawrence of Arabia. Technically it came first. Then again T.E. Lawrence rode through Arabia in 1916 besting J.R.R. Tolkien's adventure by 38 years. Really, if you wanted to continue down this path you'd have to go back invention of the epic hero tale itself. This is why these films make for a fascinating fit. They are, arguably, the greatest cinematic epic based in realty and the greatest cinematic epic based in fantasy. They have similarities as a direct reflection of their status as epic hero storytelling, and similarities so specific they transcend that label. Then there are the differences. You won't see me use the term "reluctant hero" here because Lawrence, though he may get there eventually, starts off expecting his adventures to be "fun." Frodo not so much. And it's safe to say without a spoiler warning, that you're aware that Lawrence didn't do anything in Arabia that saved the world, even on a small scale, yet that's just the mission that Frodo is tasked with. Lawrence's mission is a little more vague, creating chaos, trotting from one quickly conceived battle to another, eventually perhaps uniting the Arabs. Quite a ways from Frodo's to destroy the ring of power, save the world. But both are attempting to bring some sort of perceived restoration to a land and both are at the whim of a towering ancient history, of which they will soon become a part.
 
Both stories start off similarly enough with a singular character chosen for their je ne sais quoi and sent off to a far away place. Although that je ne sais quoi may be some combination of strength, resolve, and perhaps to their detriment, innocence. In other words, they both understand, or will understand that the trick to standing the fire is "Not minding that it hurts." Immediately there is danger, harsh foreign landscape and people, separated by clan or by race, defined by differences; the Bedouin, the Howeitat, the Dwarfs, the Elves forced to work together, united for the purpose of our hero. Following this is the hardship of travel, the escalation of war, battles by name (Aqaba, Helm's Deep, Damascus, Gondor), and an inhuman enemy, actual non-human Uruk-hai for Frodo, and for Lawrence, the Turks represented only briefly by the Bey of Daara who tortures, though not much more than we've seen of some of our heroes. Sometimes the pure evil of fantasy is less unsettling than the complexity of reality. Finally there is a resolution, an ending, or a semi-ending. But I'd argue that in both cases the resolution is only partially relevant.

Into the Darkness

We already know that Frodo will achieve much and Lawrence will achieve little. Their journeys foresee those ends quite quickly. What's more important is how those journeys will alter them, and not for the better. The term "epic hero tale" conjures up images of bravery and glory, but Frodo and Lawrence experience a whirlwind of darkness, fear, and corruption. Of course, the one ring is a symbol of power and with great power comes great corruptibility. Frodo falls deeper and deeper into darkness until he's won over by Gollum. Lawrence too lets his building grandeur fill his own head. But there's an even greater darkness at play. Early in the film, after Lawrence kills a man he laments, not that he may have to do it again, but that he enjoyed it. In so many ways, these men are the keepers of life and death. Victories slowly come filled less with jubilation and more with relief that the end is one step closer. Meanwhile the old men who run the world sit at tables and make declarations and have no idea just how little power they have, and how much belongs to one little person.

Epic hero tales that give us everyman protagonists, exotic locales, and thickening drama are a staple of storytelling. Here, even at opposite ends of the fantasy/reality spectrum we find two films that meet all the criteria for a quality epic. Did T.E. Lawrence's story make for a great film because it naturally met all the criteria of the genre? Because it seemed to be scripted? Is The Lord of the Rings such a beloved tale because despite the fantasy, the emotions, the personalities and the conflicts are so close to what we see in reality? These films cross over each other and back again and still are only bookends for cinema's rich collection of epics whether fantasy or reality.

Other Cinematic Relatives: Star Wars (1977-1983), Princess Mononoke (1997), Ben-Hur (1959), and The Harry Potter Series 

Distant Relatives: The General and How to Train Your Dragon

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week we continue the admittedly pointless but always fun Keaton vs. Chaplin debate and contrast it with the Dreamworks vs Pixar animation debate. The important thing is to remember that you can love all of these films and it's not a competition.

Last week I started off with Modern Times representing the Chaplin collection and WALL•E as the Pixar film and declared them the "frontrunners" in our non-competition based on the fact that more people could identify Chaplin's Tramp and WALL•E than could Keaton or Dragon's protagonist Hiccup, which seems like a fair assessment. But that's about as far as I and many others are willing to go. Quality is a different question. Indeed the days of Chaplin towering over Keaton as a matter of fact are long gone, and probably were never really that significant to begin with (indeed Keaton was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar before Chaplin). And let's not forget that the first Best Animated Feature Oscar wasn't awared to the Pixar powerhouse, but a Dreamworks film. If Chaplin and Pixar represent old-fashioned, sentimental storytelling, then Keaton with his stone-faced subtlety and Dreamworks with it's clever revisionism (think twisted fairy tales in Shrek or villian protagonist in Despicable Me) are, and have frequently been declared the more "modern" sides to this debate.

Men with Certain Talents

One immediate difference that viewers of The General and How to Train Your Dragon will notice from their Chaplin/Pixar counterparts is that these films' heroes, Hiccup and Johnny Gray have serious talents. They're not just characters of coincidence. Nor do they have only their determination to guide them. Oh, they have determination but their possession of a singular specific talent that elevate them above others in their world is a characteristic simply not found in last week's films. These abilities are thus: Keaton's Johnny Gray is a train engineer, and clearly an industrius one at that. Hiccup is something of a Dragon engineer, possessing the ability to train and ride the creatures that his people are at war with. 

In fact, both films are set during a time of war, In Dragon it's a war between those mythical monsters and Hiccup's people, the vikings. In The General, it's the American Civil War.

Unconventional war heroes and r-e-s-p-e-c-t after the jump.

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Distant Relatives: Modern Times and WALL•E

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week we jump into the admittedly pointless but always fun Chaplin vs. Keaton debate and contrast it with the Pixar vs Dreamworks animation debate. The important thing is to remember that you can love all of these films and it's not a competition.

But if it were a competition (and it's not), we start with Chaplin and Pixar because they're the obvious frontrunners. By that I don't mean that they're better, but they have the name recognition, the marketing, the cultural branding. Chaplin built for himself an image that now almost a century after his first shorts, is still recognizable. Pixar meanwhile, in just over fifteen years in the feature business has introduced a slew of films and characters that have become iconic. While quality is mostly the cause, it doesn't hurt to have most of your films named after their title characters (why Nemo will always be more recognizable than Carl Fredricksberg). So, Chaplin and Pixar are both heavyweights. They share that. They also share a sense of style and innovation, a desire to elevate their genre beyond it's conventional expectations, a love of traditional arcs, and a soft spot for over-sentimentalization.

Lovelorn tramps in the future

Among the Pixar canon, the best film for our Chaplin comparison is WALL•E because, well a fair portion of its marketing to the online film geek world involved the constant reminder that animators took much inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, although the connections were already pretty evident. To put it another way: you didn't have to read an article on the Chaplin/WALL•E inspiration to see it, but you probably did. WALL•E follows a hapless, lonely, poor protagonist who falls in love and must suddenly achieve something great to get the girl while simultaneously getting the girl to achieve something great. It's one of the few Pixar films that places a strong emphasis on its romantic plot, and WALL•E himself, the nearly silent, occationally prat-falling protagonist is the perfect Chaplin descendent. So WALL•E is an easy choice, but why Modern Times?

Modern Times is unique among Chaplin's films in that a unusually strong focus is placed on the source of The Tramp's discontent. In most other films, The Tramp is a generic vagrant, downtrodden for many unnamed reasons. In Modern Times, he's not a vagabond, he's a worker. His oppressor isn't whatever bully or police brute or aristocrat might be antagonizing him that scene, it's the whole out-of-control industrial complex. It's the giant face of the uncaring corporate class. Yes, it's undeniably political. And so is WALL•E. As much as Pixar attempted to quell controversy, insisting that any politics present were simply there to serve the story, there's no escaping the fact that WALL•E's oppressor is also a giant corporation that cares far less for its workers (in WALL•E's case robots) than for its image and its profits.

Romance and politics and a happy ending.

For both films controversy was unavoidable, and in both cases the filmmaker's weren't shy about subtley commenting on what they were stirring up. A scene in Modern Times where The Tramp inadvertantly leads a communist parade and ends up cast out from society was prescient in regard to Chaplin's eventual career. As for WALL•E, it's hard not to see a sly wink to that year's upcoming US presidential election in a scene where the whole of humanity decides that "blue is the new red." Yet, overtly political as they are, both films do a good job of avoiding platitudes and focusing their attention on their little man main characters whose humanities are being crushed under the threat of their brave new world. Of course, throughout it all, love prevails. Love, that great cinematic motivator, proves that our heroes are more than just cogs in a machine, and capable of doing great things; little great things in the case of The Tramp or big great things in the case of WALL•E.

This is probably the most significant thematic difference between the two films. Chaplin's Tramp wants to get the girl, but WALL•E is tasked with getting the girl and saving the world. Of course, WALL•E's plot gives the film no other choice. Perhaps it the modern mindset that demands a whole world-saving happy ending, or perhaps it was impossible to place that old trash compator WALL•E in a trash-ridden world and not expect him to exceed in the biggest scale imaginable. Either way, Chaplin's film can leave the world a mess while Pixar's cannot. Still, both films serve up a decent serving of uncertainty for their finales, emphasizing that the real important goal, the pursuit of love, has been met and the rest will somehow be okay. Sentimental yet socially conscious, Modern Times and WALL•E are brethren that aim to entertain and enlighten and propell their lovable protagonists into a satisfying future.

Other Cinematic Relatives: Meet John Doe (1941), The Apartment (1960), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Avatar (2009)

Distant Relatives: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Blue Valentine

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Blue Valentine explore the same territory but come at it from entirely different angles. Woolf is deliberately theatrical, full of delightfully big performances, long monologues, and crescendoing clashes. Everything that's wrong with George and Martha's relationship gets said and said again. Blue Valentine is insistently realistic, filled with small moments and quiet regrets. All that's wrong with Dean and Cindy's relationship is encompassed by things gone unsaid. Ultimately though, both are marriages on the brink of collapse, a subject covered many times since the invention of film, or the narrative story itself. What makes Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Blue Valentine interesting companion pieces is that both juxtapose a middle-aged couple with a young couple.

A Tale of Four Couples

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, introduces us to the middle-aged collegiate couple George and Martha (Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, of course) as they're introducing themselves to a younger couple Nick and Honey (George Segal, Sandy Dennis). Nick is a new teacher at the school, filled with ambition. George is not. Honey is a fragile little thing. Martha is not. Over the course of one night filled with lots of booze and BS, both relationship, but particularly George and Martha's, for that's the important one, will be bent to their breaking point. The middle-aged couple in Blue Valentine are Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams). Dean is a bit of a layabout and treats life as if it were as easy as he wishes it were. This leaves the majority of the work to fall to Cindy who can't really find the time in her schedule for anything resembling fun and at this point has pretty much given up on wanting to. And the young couple in Blue Valentine are the same Dean and Cindy, at the beginning of their life together, filled with love and optimism. It's not a "feel-good picture."

This isn't to say that the young Dean and Cindy are directly equatable to Nick and Honey or that the older Dean and Cindy are the same as George and Martha... (more after the jump)

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Distant Relatives: Psycho and Contagion

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. A brief warning this week. If you don't know the identity of the killer in the film Psycho, this week's entry includes SPOILERS for you.

 What is Horror?

When Steven Soderbergh described his movie Contagion as a "horror film" it seemed like one of those things that directors say to generate a good sound bite in the hope that writers will run with it, which they have. After all, the prospect of a major virus wiping out a good portion of the world's population is nothing if not horrifying. But how much does it really have in common with classics of that genre? The answer probably depends on how you define "horror film." For most people, a horror movie must have some element of either the supernatural or mentally deranged from which the danger eminates. If this is your definition, then Contagion doesn't qualify. But semantics aside, one can still find plentiful similarities between Soderbergh's film and a classic, defining film of the horror genre like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Psycho is about a killer and the people who come in contact with him. The film starts with a bit of misdirection as Janet Leigh runs off with an envelope full of cash. Soon she meets hotel proprietor Norman Bates, a soft spoken, well meaning, boy next door type, who turns out to be not so well meaning. Then, a surprise death sets the real plot into motion. Over the course of the film we'll spend time with the victim's relatives, investigators and experts. Contagion is about a killer and the peopel who come into contact with it. It too starts with a bit of misdirection involving suburban wife and mother Gwyneth Paltrow and a possible extramarital liason. But this is dispensed with soon, and a surprise death sets the real plot into motion. Over the course of the film we spend time with the victim's relatives, investigators and experts. Of course, in Contagion, the killer isn't a mad man, it's a virus.

...the harmless killer after the jump

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