Jesse wrote:
So. Out of curiosity rising like the water in the bayou, I rented Beasts of the Southern Wild this morning. I anticipated hating it, based on the cacophony of aversion from the movie noggin crowd and from what little I knew about it already, but in a flip-floppy turvy-topsy what-in-the-bloody-fuck-is-
Now, while I understand some of the arguments against it, I feel that they're unfairly venomous and misdirected. I don't think Zeitlin intended to make anything but a fairy tale-type story--a female-centric Where the Wild Things Are--and perhaps impetuously decided to contextualize it in a setting that had sensitive connotations to just about anybody with a beating heart. Maybe he's a snot-nose. I don't know. I have some browser windows open right now of interviews with him and the cast that I have yet to read, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. To me, he didn't set out to fetishize or even really dramatize this community of people and their lifestyle. Maybe he wanted to tell this coming-of-age allegory so badly that it blinded him to the possibility that his film would be viewed as anything but. Maybe. Maybe maybe maybe. All of this is maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be King Douche and felt it was his duty to give these people some acknowledgment. But just putting them on screen isn't enough, and if he really wanted to document this world, there would be more direct references exploring it. All of the speeches in the film aren't time or place specific. Maybe the accents and dialect are, but the gist is general "Be Good" rah-rah. It's a gentle, watered-down (sorry) version of this story. And I get that's part of why people are so perturbed by it, but I didn't even consider it as being an option. At some point during it, I thought, "Oh. This is just a movie." And while it has its flaws as a film, I enjoyed watching it and I thought it paid off extremely well.
What Iiiiiiiiii liked about it WAS that gentleness, as well as Quvenzhané Wallis, its terrific score and most of all, Hushpuppy's face-off with the liberated ice cube creatures. All of that worked really well for me.
I replied:
I don't think Zeitlin's a bad guy. One quote I remember reading from him is that he fell in love with New Orleans and wanted to tell a story that captured the spirit of the people who live there. No harm in that, but my perception it is that he's super-naive, however well-intentioned, and comes from a relatively well-to-do, insulated perspective. Sure, he's a debut director and tackled something admirably ambitious, but I think the sociopolitical broad strokes in Beasts are writing checks his filmmaking (and the screenwriting) can't cash. I don't remember all of the details since I saw it months ago, but this reply will give you the basic overview of my beefs.
On one hand, Beasts can be taken as a fairy tale--just like you described with the Where the Wild Things Are comparison, which really fits. I think that's why most people who love it love it. On that level, it's harmless and sweet. Even heartwarming and restore-your-faith-in-
On a purely nuts and bolts level, the handheld camerawork really distracted me and I didn't find the film beautiful to look at at all (outside of the brothel scene which had some really pretty shots). I didn't get why it'd had earned so many raves about its aesthetic appeal. So watching the film in the theater, my first reaction was just to be annoyed I had to sit through the wobbly ugliness while listening to these semi-poetic-but-kinda-
What really irked me personally about Beasts was the messy soup of sociopolitical ideas that I picked up on, whether intended or not (and I really think that the ideas were not thought through on any soul-searching level by Zeitlin or the other screenwriter). The plainest way I can say it is that it felt like poverty porn. It romanticized or glossed over alcoholism, child neglect, living in filth, refusing medical aid and destroying public property in the name of civil disobedience.
Self-reliance was a really big deal in this film. Great. But not to the point that providing medical assistance for a clearly sick father is seen as an evil plot. The escape from the hospital really rubbed me the wrong way because of that. In its aww-shucks way, the film celebrates isolationism and makes government seem nothing but fearsome. I'm surprised the Tea Party didn't endorse Beasts.
I was also troubled by some of the gender details. Being a "pussy" was the worst possible fate and it felt like a criticism of femininity vs. generic weakness. (I'm trying to remember now if the mom was a whore or just a cook at the whorehouse, but it seemed that womenfolk in the film were good for just those things. There was the one female teacher, but she talked like a crazy woman and hated "pussies" too.)
I don't think Beasts is racist, but it did remind me of The Help (which I also hated) in being a story about the lower-class being told by the upper-class in a sugar-coated, condescending-yet-
Jesse replied:
See, I can completely understand you having those reactions and if I'd seen the film earlier on, I may have teetered over to your side. The sociopolitical soupiness struck me as secondary to the character-specific journey. None of it seemed worth taking seriously enough to get miffed about, whether he intended it that way or not, because here's the thing: It's not going to change the world, let alone someone's perception of those people and the way in which they live. Its sociopolitical impact is about as effective as a foam finger fwapping at the air above our behinds. Prior to the hospital/shelter scene, I'd given up on any scene in which the father was the centerpiece. That man has no business being on or off or near camera. An actual actor may have been able to communicate more or even just a smattering of motivation and emotion in that scene, but with this guy we get Fisher Price acting and therefore a Fisher Price scene.
Now, I do agree with you about the handheld camera being too distracting (I tweeted about how, after his Oscar nom, here's hoping Zeitlin will now be able to afford a steadicam). I normally don't mind shaky since I grew up with a camcorder attached to my eye, but it was tough in Beasts to take in the scenery. The salient shots were effective--the running-with-sparklers, the ice cube creature stare-down, and the finale--but the glue holding them together was all kindsa drippy.
All the "pussy" talk didn't bother me, mainly because the intention behind it was to communicate to the girl that she had to be strong, which isn't a bad message. It felt authentic within the realm of this particular interpretation of this world. Also, all of those speeches were placed in the mouths of women. They weren't saying "You have to be manly." At this point, acting like a "pussy" isn't gender-specific. Uh... right?
Boiling it down, what little works in this film works really well. The rest is forgivable because it's completely ineffectual. There's no explicit statement being made, and if Zeitlin's trying to make one with this film, then he's proven himself incapable of articulating it. What's riling or inspiring people is more about what they're bringing to it than what's being communicated on screen.
P.S. Fuck The Help forever.
My turn:
I think you really got to the heart of the matter with this: "There's no explicit statement being made, and if Zeitlin's trying to make one with this film, then he's proven himself incapable of articulating it." I agree completely. "Inarticulate" is a perfect way to describe his filmmaking, at least as it applies to Beasts.
I know what you mean in that what each person brings to the film informs what they walk away with, but I'd say that applies to most divisive films. I think Zero Dark Thirty is an especially vivid example of that. I don't think Beasts is going to radicalize anyone, but I do think it may reconfirm in some viewers, however subconsciously, the idea that the impoverished are best left to their own solutions. Filmmakers have a right to convey any message they want in their work, but for a seemingly clueless lad to float a notion like that in a film that's so candy-coated and appealing to the masses is worrisome to me. Ineffectual and inarticulate people can do damage when they have a big enough platform (e.g., George W. Bush--I know, outlandish comparison, but you get what I mean).
Sexism-wise, I think it's even more subversive to put subtly anti-feminine sentiments in women's mouths, BUT I don't think Zeitlin earns the handle of "subversive" here either. I'd really need to watch it again to pinpoint the gender stuff I noticed, but I can't bear the thought of watching that movie ever, ever again. That said, it's reassuring to know a film that I couldn't stand could at least trigger an interesting conversation between us.
7 comments:
Great back'n'forth on a sinewy film. I'm more with Nictate on this one, though I do get Jesse's point about "allegorical gentleness". I actually wish the movie had gone more completely over into that realm with Cocteau-like fearlessness.
I think that for me, the "seat" of the film's condescension toward its subject-milieu is the tonal confusion--I don't really mind the overgrown warthog stuff, or the very Tashlin-esque way that the bulbous rump of Hushpuppy's mom can set stove burners alight without making contacting with them, but this numinous content is made silly (and dangerous) by a few scenes of "real world" context (eg, Hushpuppy's dad rejecting medicine). I would have expected a more nuanced view of magical belief from the scion of anthropological academics, one that reads such choices as an interpretation of experience and not necessarily a disavowal of "reality" or even of "science". (The movie's sociological conception of faith doesn't stretch much beyond James George Frazer's dusty scholarship.) But, perhaps for the sake of dramatic expediency, the film opts for a "this-and-not-that" approach, whereby the audience is kept comfily distant from the characters' naive strength. (Western audiences, anyway. I'm really curious as to how this thing would play in parts of Africa, or the Australian bush.)
PS - Double-fuck THE HELP.
Hey guys. This was an interesting read. Thanks. I wanted to expound on my reading, since it admits elements from both angles of your discussion, and yet, it doesn't end up in a wishy-washy middle. Here's what I tweeted last July when I saw it:
"The unforgiving adversity of narrative and milieu shunts the audience and camera into an alliance of grace...Quvenzhané Wallis was thoroughly excellent, but I don’t know that it helped the film that she couldn’t possibly have been a cuter kid."
My claim is that, in Hushpuppy's mother's absence (and the conspicuous absence of almost any traditional femininity whatsoever), the film is asking us to take her subject perspective. It's interesting that Nictate brings up the idea of the Tea Party backing the film, because for me, more than any film I can recall, BEASTS asks us to bring a staunch "liberal guilt" (can I say empathy or compassion maybe, is that ok?) to the screen. In fact, I think it requires that we do. The operative dramatic effect comes from the fact that Hushpuppy is surrounded by these pent up waters of fiercely imbalanced masculinity. A masculinity which, while it attempts to take care, ends up doing more damage than it might like to admit. Meanwhile, we gaze upon Hushpuppy with a loving mother's eye: a romanticized long lens where every hour is the magic hour. So the catharsis I felt in the brothel was tremendous. For a brief moment, this grace, which had been been haunting me in its absence, finally touches down in the narrative world. There is a shot where Hushpuppy is waltzing on a woman's feet (the cliché is girl & daddy, not girl & mommy), while the woman's head extends above the frame. This, I think, is what the film has been doing all along: asking us to carry the heavy subjective burden of an archetypal mother. One who would give Hushpuppy the tenderness and "feminine" affection it's so clear that she (and the bathtub) needs.
So, while gynophobia, xenophobia and alcohol-fueled neglect are all extremely operative in Zeitlin's bathtub, their depiction is somewhat redeemed by our ability to see them for what they are. To funnel those emotions of outrage, disappointment and injustice back into the narrative. The thing that gets in the way for many, I think, is that Zeitlin employs an unusual aesthetic mapping into cinematic language. I think it's prima facie absurd to say that his romantic lens is heroizing these brutal surroundings, given their status as the immanent narrative antagonism. But I think Nictate makes the smarter claim: that he's inarticulate, writing checks he can't cash. Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe he's treating us to a subtle perspective. One which is wholly unusual: art is multiple enough to incorporate works which become *more* artful when the spectator brings their own values to the screen, despite the ideal of film world aesthetics. Just as the more typical choice relies on us to bring our culture, our intertextual history and our analytical capacity.
Now, this may be asking too much, but if Zeitlin had chosen an uglier kid, one less adorable but no less deserving of our empathy, the film *really* would've been a pure test of humane spectatorship. I was looking at Quvenzhané Wallis with a mother's eyes by the end of the first scene. I assume the feeling came so quickly, at least in part, for cheap physiognomical reasons. My inner heartless douchebag didn't stand a chance. ;)
PS - Thanks to insightful cinephiles like y'all, this heartless douchebag never even gave THE HELP a go!
Thanks for your cogent response, Kurtiss, as it allowed me to clarify some of my own objections:
"So, while gynophobia, xenophobia and alcohol-fueled neglect are all extremely operative in Zeitlin's bathtub, their depiction is somewhat redeemed by our ability to see them for what they are."
I wouldn't say that the milieu is romanticized exactly, either, but there's an undeniable undercurrent of blind pride that crescendos with the valedictory triumphalism (triumphalism that, for me, isn't earned by the plot or any of the characters' actions). The dichotomy you draw between the film's "feminine absence" and "deleterious if well-intentioned masculinity" is a fair challenge, though I dislike the "mother's gaze" theory for mostly semantic reasons. (Finding something "cute" doesn't necessarily make one a matriarch or even an involuntary protectorate.) But accepting your for the most part well-reasoned masculine/feminine reading--isn't it even a little distasteful that the former is linked to aggression and occasionally even "realism" (eg, the hospital refusal, the crab eatin's) while the latter provides only fantastical respites from the former? (The brothel scene is nothing if not a dream, and Hushpuppy's mom is spoken of as though she's capable of kinds of magic...femininity, however atypically represented, is for all intents and purposes a "myth" in the film.)
Now I'm not saying that a movie shouldn't or can't address realistic issues with retreats into phantasmagoria. (The unfairly maligned TIDELAND does precisely this, although its "fantasy" realm is arguably just as traumatizing as its more "realistic" one, and that symmetry gives the poetic indulgences a kind of psychological agency.) But if Hushpuppy is the film's middle ground between masculine aggression and feminine forgiveness (she's capable of both "beasting it" and of treating her father with daughterly grace), she should also provide the film's balance between fantasy and reality. Yet she doesn't, and the story as a result bothersome-ly lacks that balance. (Only the scene where her rage burns down a trailer offers a hint of this synthesis, and it's not exactly a mature manifestation of it.) There's no proof that what she's learned has enabled her to cope with the "reality" of her surroundings' gynophobia, xenophobia, or alcohol-fueled neglect. (We see those things for what they are, but does she? She seems more acutely aware to the magic that keeps appearing around her.) It's telling that her final showdown isn't with some avatar of "poverty," or her abusive father, or the virtual extirpation of the Bath Tub's denizens by the harsh elements. (One couldn't depict a climactic "showdown" with most of those abstract antagonists anyway.) It's with giant warthogs, whose tete-a-tete treaty with Hushpuppy allows the film to flip-flop from a dirge to a pulled-out-of-thin-air celebration. I'm not convinced that Hushpuppy's ability to keep fake beasts at bay enables her in any way to deal with flesh, blood, and meteorological ones; you could argue that this cynicism was intentional, and makes the ending more "subversive," but the tone is pretty dead-set on throwing a silly victory parade...which is really the only thing with which I vehemently take issue, though this, along with the inanely Instagram-y roman candle opening, cripples the movie for me at both ends.
Heartless douchebags unite...
Thank you so much for contributing to the conversation, Kurtiss and JJL. I'm reveling in the richness of thought. Who would've guessed Heartless Douchebags could write with such TLC? I want to spend more time digesting your points when I get a little breathing room time-wise, but for now: you guys are awesome.
The cold, clinical douchebag in my chest runneth over and out the nozzle with Nictate love...
This is what I call a target-rich environment. All my favorite people in one place.
I'd like to ask Zeitlin how it feels to be on the front page of every newspaper in the English-speaking world.
It baffles me that no one ever talks about Life Is Beautiful in this context. If Roberto Benigni is allowed to make the Holocaust cute, then by God, Zeitlin gets his turn making Katrina cute. I'm currently making a film about the Tashlin-esque hijinks of a misbegotten kitten who's looking for a way out of the Twin Towers as they're collapsing. Sarah Silverman is doing the voice of the kitten (imagine "mew...mew?" done in shades of panic or befuddlement). Seth Rogen plays a fireman whose pants keep falling down and there's an overly-enunciatory pigeon (Christopher Plummer) who's always looking for a place to take a shit in peace.
"Quvenzhané Wallis" is an aesthetically overbearing name which may as well have been Zeitlin's doing, given his proclivities in that regard. But let me ask you something. If you had to go into battle, would you want her with you?
Jesse says, "At this point, acting like a 'pussy' isn't gender-specific." Now I'm not gonna sit here and blow sunshine up his ass but he's right.
Jon says, "I'm really curious as to how this thing would play in parts of Africa, or the Australian bush." I'm setting up a double feature with Johnny Mad Dog as we speak. (The word "bush" is a decoy--what Mr. Lanthier really wants is a black-out-drunk homoerotic episode with Donald Pleasence in an Outback shack.)
Kurtiss says, "While gynophobia, xenophobia and alcohol-fueled neglect are all extremely operative in Zeitlin's bathtub, their depiction is somewhat redeemed by our ability to see them for what they are." Very sound point.
Nictate says, "I think the sociopolitical broad strokes in Beasts are writing checks [Zeitlin's] filmmaking (and the screenwriting) can't cash." Yes, ma'am.
Zeitlin is an affliction. But there will be others. You can count on that. You gotta let him go. You gotta let him go.
Just remember, when it's over out there, we're all on the same team.
P.S. You know who liked The Help? The list is long but distinguished.
P.P.S. Did anyone catch Top Gun in IMAX last week?
I think Zeitlin made this film already. It was his short "Glory at Sea" and its melodrama and whimsy were just enough to fill a short film. Making a feature just burst the seams of patience and tolerance in most viewers, including me. I am almost afraid to revisit the short (which I loved) after seing the feature, but I dare say it's a better piece of filmmaking.
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