Love and War

by Jean Roberta

Movies have been described as a modern version of opera. They have everything: costumes, sets, music, drama, sometimes choreography. As a child, I was lucky to be taken to watch live musicals even before I started school, and I’ve always been attracted to big shows, the ones that resemble operas.

Two movies about war and star-crossed love (those standard subjects of opera) linger in my memory.

I heard the soundtrack of West Side Story long before I saw the movie. In 1962-63, I was in sixth grade in California, where my academic father was writing his Ph.D. thesis at Stanford University. I had a glamorous teacher who looked like Elizabeth Taylor and who had avant-garde taste, which she demonstrated by playing the vinyl record of West Side Story (“Maria!” “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way”) during free time in school. My parents were avant-garde too, which is clearly why they didn’t complain about a teacher who exposed their innocent child to a musical about juvenile delinquents. I knew that my mother had grown up in Manhattan, but I was sure her life was nothing like the plot that was suggested by the music on the record.

Years later, I watched the movie, made in 1961 and based on a hit Broadway musical which, in turn, was an Americanized version of Romeo and Juliet. I was riveted. By the time I saw Natalie Wood playing Maria on the screen (“When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong”) she had already died under mysterious circumstances. The creepiness of the star’s actual tragic death enabled me to forgive her for not being a very convincing Puerto Rican on-screen. (Maria is supposed to be fresh off the boat from Puerto Rico and still thinking in Spanish.) The luminous, hopeful quality of the two stars as lovers is heartbreaking against a background of gang warfare.

Bear in mind that when the movie was made, the Civil Rights movement hadn’t yet made much of a dent in American racial/ethnic segregation. By the standards of the time, the love affair of Tony (a white boy who is not exactly WASP) and Maria is interracial. And urban violence is the context in which the lovers meet and recklessly dream about a wedding. Teenage boys with switchblades and brylcreemed hair are the stars of this show. They wear jeans (not allowed in public schools at that time), while their girlfriends sashay up to them in outfits that would induce hissy fits in every school administrator in the nation. There was nothing I couldn’t love about this movie, except maybe the polarized gender roles and intense heterosexuality presented as Fate, but those features were part of the Shakespeare tragedy on which the plot was based.

Then I met my Spouse, a Latina from Chile. We both joined the local queer choir (part of an international network); actually Spouse has been musical all her life, spawn of a musical culture, so I felt she was born to sing, while I was there to keep her company and support the soloists by singing harmony. When the choir did a medley from West Side Story, I was chosen to do a very brief solo: “Maria!” (spoken in the voice of lovesick Tony, gazing up at Maria’s fire escape). This is the introduction to the song of the same name, in which Tony (represented by the whole choir) serenades the girl of his dreams. Spouse and I had both been fond of the movie before that time, but since we actually sang the music together in public, it has seemed like part of the soundtrack of our relationship.

And then an epic movie about actual war came to the local Film Classification Board in 1995. By then, I was privileged to be part of a small board of citizens whose job was to watch brand-new Hollywood movies that arrived at our basement screening room in cans. (Only one member of our board knew how to run the ancient projector that constantly threatened to burn up the celluloid with an open flame.) We took notes, discussed what we saw and voted on a classification (General, Parental Guidance, Parental Accompaniment or Restricted) which then became law throughout the province of Saskatchewan. Our ultimate boss was the Minister of Justice.

When I learned that on my next shift, I was assigned to watch Braveheart, featuring Mel Gibson in a kilt, playing fourteenth-century Scottish hero William Wallace, I told my family. Spouse and I were still raising all three of our kids: her two sons and my daughter. Youngest Stepson, at age 14, was more excited by my news than by the release of a new video game. He desperately wanted to come to the basement screening room with me, and see Braveheart before any of his friends. Please, please, please, he said.

So Spouse and I brought Stepson to the very first screening of that movie in our neck of the woods. The head of the Film Board was not impressed that I brought such a young family member, considering the amount of onscreen violence. Technically, though, the film had not been rated yet when we all watched it, so the presence of Stepson didn’t violate any laws.

Gratuitous violence in movies generally turns me off, but anything that might encourage young people to study history usually overrides my aversion to blood. The scenes of late-medieval warfare with shields, bows and arrows in Braveheart are spectacular. And the hero (as distinct from the actor) is irresistible: a Man of the People, but fluent in Latin as well as several more current languages. (He actually delivers lines in non-English words, with subtitles.) The significance of the Scots as underdogs was not lost on Stepson, the son of two political refugees in Canada.

And then there is the French princess, played by Sophie Marceau, who has been imported to the English court as a bride for the king’s son and a means of continuing the line of succession (the time-honoured role of princesses). It was heartening to see her admiration for Wallace, a fellow-outsider, and to watch her play her trump card after Wallace has been condemned to death. As the king lies dying, she whispers in his ear that she carries in her womb a child that is not of his line. Checkmate!

Even though I was watching in an official capacity, it felt like a family date night. Stepson asked me questions about the actual history behind the movie which encouraged me to think he might grow up to be an intellectual who would make all his parents proud. For weeks afterward, he seemed like a vicarious Scottish nationalist with an interest in claymores.

In my mind, I won several imaginary arguments with lesbian-feminist friends who seemed to disapprove of: 1) movies about war, 2) Mel Gibson, 3) sons in general, including stepsons (a child who is not of my line, but mine by choice), and 4) popular culture as a bad influence on the young. Hell yes, I thought, I watch epics about patriarchal bloodshed and intrigue, and expose my loved ones to such stuff. I also teach the literature of the past. Bring it on.

There is nothing like an ambitious movie to take me out of my everyday life while showing me that the most over-the-top spectacles can serve as metaphors for things I’ve seen in real life.
--------------

Three from the Vaults

By Lisabet Sarai

When you've been around as long as I have, you have to work hard not to repeat yourself.

Our topic for the next fortnight is movies - something of a relief from the relatively heavy issues we've been discussing over the past month. I've been blogging here at the Grip since 2009, and I've written a number of posts on this topic:

“Beauty and the Bizarre” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2011/08/beauty-and-bizarre.html)

“Just for Fun” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/12/just-for-fun.html)

“Anatomy of a Blockbuster” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/04/anatomy-of-blockbuster.html)

Furthermore, I have a list of my favorite movies on my website (http://www.lisabetsarai.com/aboutlisabet.html), though it desperately needs to be updated.

Anyway, I thought that for this post, I'd take a trip back in time and talk about three memorable films that strongly influenced my sexuality.

Cabaret (1972)

I've seen this classic, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minelli and Michael York, at least three times, but the first was when I was in college. At the time I was painfully shy and socially inept, with little sexual experience. I was fascinated, nevertheless, by anything with an erotic theme.

In case you're not familiar with the story, Cabaret takes place in Weimar-era Berlin, famous for its decadence and hedonistic excess. American wild child Sally Bowles (Minelli) performs risqué song and dance routines in the seedy Kit Kat Club, sometimes accompanied by the disturbingly crude Emcee (Joel Grey). A bookish young Englishman, Brian Roberts (York), moves into Sally's boarding house and eventually the two become lovers. Sally befriends Maximilian, a rich playboy baron who whisks both her and Brian away to his lavish country estate where he showers them with luxury.

Although lively and funny, Cabaret is a serious movie about the ascent of the Nazis. It does not end happily. In later viewings, I tended to be more aware of the ominous backdrop of rising fascism and anti-Semitism. The first time I saw the film, though, I was mesmerized by the hints of Brian's bisexuality and the implication that Sally, Brian and Maximilian were involved in a carnal ménage. The movie is suggestive rather than explicit, which only heightened the emotional impact for me.

I had no knowledge about or experience with homoeroticism at that point. Sally and Brian have a quarrel, after Maximilian has tired of their company and left for Argentina.

Sally harps on Maximilian's generosity, his good looks, his wealth. Brian becomes increasingly impatient with her apparent obsession.

Brian: Oh, fuck Maximilian!

Sally: (after a pause, with a triumphant smile) I do.

Brian: (with quiet intensity) Well, so do I.

It's hard to convey, now, how thrilling I found this interchange. In fact it's a sign that the lovers' connection is unraveling, but that aspect was secondary to me at the time. I was overwhelmed by their bold admission of sexual transgression, especially the notion that Brian could have had both female and male sexual partners.

When I remember that scene now, eons later, I still get goosebumps.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

I didn't see this rock horror musical - written by Richard O'Brien, directed by Jim Sharman, and starring (among others) Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Meatloaf - until 1976, when it achieved almost overnight fame as a midnight cult classic. A lot had changed in my life by then. I was in grad school and my first long term sexual relationship. Under the influence of my boyfriend and his cohorts (and maybe my own inner nature), I'd become less timid and a good deal more adventurous.

Someone in our circle told us about the movie and the outrageous crowd scenes that had come to accompany it. I saw it three nights in a row, as I recall, each time bringing additional friends to the cinematic party. However, the crazy interactions within the audience were not really what drew me to the film. No, once again it was the theme of polymorphously perverse sexuality, on a far grander scale than in Cabaret.

Just in case there's anyone who does not know the plot of RHPS, I'll summarize it here. Innocent, newly-engaged young couple Brad and Janet (Sarandon) are stranded by a flat tire and forced to seek assistance at the creepy mansion of Dr. Frankenfurter (Curry), a “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania”, who parades around in full make-up, corset, garters and high heels. “I'm not much of a man by the light of day,” he sings, “but by night I'm one hell of a lover.” And indeed he is, seducing both Brad and Janet. The latter also finds herself seeking physical solace with the creature the mad doctor has constructed in his lab, a handsome body builder named Rocky who Frankenfurter claims “is good for relieving my tension”. Things begin to fall apart, however, as the cross-dressing evil genius becomes jealous, with Frankenfurter compelling everyone involved to participate in a sexy floor show and then an orgy.

“Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.

Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh.

Erotic nightmares beyond any measure

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever.

…

Don't dream it, be it...”

Yes, I know it sounds silly now, but these lyrics spoke to me. Over the next few years, one might say that I adopted them as my personal anthem. I followed my fantasies, eager to make my dreams real.

RHPS doesn't end well either. Frankenfurter is overpowered by his servants, who tell him “his mission is a failure” and that he “lost out to extremes”. The creature is executed and the mansion is revealed to be a space ship, which blasts off taking the inhabitants back to the planet Transexual in the galaxy of Transylvania. Frank and Janet escape, but are, one suspects, irrevocably damaged.

Actually, I've been toying with the notion of writing an erotic story featuring Janet as a character, thirty five years later. Brad is terrified by the sensuality of Frankenfurter's world, but Janet embraces it (“It's a gas that Frankie's landed – his lust is so sincere”, she sings.) What would it be like to have one's “mind expanded”, as she puts it, through a night of intense sexual pleasure, and then to lose it all? I picture her as a cougar, seducing young men in an attempt to recapture the thrill of that night, but incapable of satisfaction with a human lover after experiencing the extraterrestrial mojo of both Frank and Rocky.

Unfortunately, I haven't got beyond this initial premise. All the ideas I've had so far have been either ridiculous or utterly depressing. I do identify with Janet, though, especially as I age and look back upon my out-of-this-world experiences as a young woman.

9½Weeks (1986)

I suspect that there's no reader of the Oh Get a Grip blog who has not at least heard of 9 ½ Weeks. This somewhat infamous erotic drama. directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger, was panned by critics and received three Golden Raspberry nominations the year it was released, including Worst Actress and Worst Screenplay. Nevertheless, the film has a place in my personal erotic history, because it was the first time I'd seen a BDSM relationship played out on the screen.

As far as I can recall, I saw the movie not long after it had been released, and I believe I'd already read (with highly mixed feelings) Elizabeth McNeill's memoir of the same title, on which the film is based. I was only a few years married at this point, and my own experiences with D/s prior to my marriage were still fresh and almost painfully arousing. I must have dragged my husband to the movie too – we rarely engaged in separate recreation. I strongly suspect he hated it, but he endured it for my sake.

In a recent post on the ERWA blog (http://erotica-readers.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-inner-eye.html), I suggest that reading allows more room for the play of imagination, and thus provides a deeper and more satisfying experience than watching a film or video. While I believe this is true, actually seeing forbidden acts can be more exciting and disturbing than reading about them, especially before one becomes jaded. I had little patience with Kim Basinger's character, but I found Mickey Rourke compelling and plausible in his role of the dominant John Gray. (What is it about these Doms, that they all have the same surname?) He's not really all that physically attractive, which for me made him more real and more exciting. The fact that some of the trials he set for Elizabeth mirrored challenges from my own lost master only made the effects stronger.

I fantasized for weeks about the film, inserting myself into Basinger's place - and changing the ending. In both the book and the film, the relationship is portrayed as unhealthy and abusive. Eventually the submissive heroine manages to break away from the dominant's influence. The implication is that she has “escaped” back to a normal sexual existence. This interpretation really bothered me, perpetuating as it does the popular myth that people who engage in kinky sex are somehow sick or damaged, or that a vanilla relationship is intrinsically healthier.

Looking at the success of FSOG, it appears that this mistaken notion is still prevalent.

Zalman King co-produced 9 ½ Weeks. Perhaps if he had been more intimately involved, the film would have been a bigger success, both commercially and artistically. He's a master at portraying passion on the screen, as witnessed by such works as Wild Orchid, The Red Shoe Diaries, and Two Moon Junction.

But those titles will have to wait for another post.

Giving Short Stories The Power Of A Movie

The spinning top pictured at the beginning of this post comes from the movie "Inception".

The conceit around which the movie is built is the ability to enter a person's dream, shape it and plant an idea that they will later think of as their own. This of course grants great power over the dreamer. As one of the characters puts it, "The seed that we planted in this man's mind may change everything."

On one level, "Inception" is an explanation of what movies are: they shape the collective dream and reach out beyond the dream into the real world. They make the dream more than real and add dreams to our reality.

Movies can plant an idea deeper than just about any other medium. Our conscious minds see them just as entertainment and sometimes that is all they are, but many times, perhaps most of the time, the surface narrative hides the real interaction between movies and our way of viewing the world. We leave the movie without fully realizing the nature of the seed that has been planted.

Often the movie-makers explain their intent:

“Fight Club” was a wake-up call for the IKEA generation who were being sold a consumer dream that they were paying for by spending more and more time at work; they were wasting their lives chasing a dream rather than living in the here and now. The narrator lays this bleak thought before us when he says, “This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.”

“The Village”, is about a group of people who have constructed a way of life that is meant to keep everyone safe. But the Village is built on a lie that the elders know and will not discuss and which the young feel but cannot name. The message is pitched by one of the main characters, “We cannot run from heartache... Heartache is a part of life. We know that now.”

“The Matrix” was, in its way, another look at the truth that “Fight Club” set out to plant. At one point the “truth” about the Matrix is explained: “… you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.”

Yet even when the movie-makers tell us clearly what they are doing, we leave the theatre with so much else in our minds (“The first rule of Fight Club is…” “I: Let the bad color not be seen. It attracts them...” “I need guns. Lots of guns”) their inception passes unnoticed. When, slowly, the opinion forms that all might not be what it seems and the truth is ours to discover, the idea seems like our own.

When I write short stories, I aspire to use my few thousand words to carry out an inception of one kind or another, but I am aware that text is sometimes less effective than movies at this kind of thing.

I am passionate about movies and novels and short stories and yet I recognize that I experience and remember them differently.

Few things in life give me more pleasure than movies. I don't just watch a movie, I enter it. I concentrate on it to the exclusion of everything else.

A good movie will slip into my mind and stay there forever. I replay scenes in my head, sometimes without realizing that I am about to, long after I have seen the movie.

Of course, novels and short stories also have their place in my mind but it seems that the interaction with my imagination and memory is different.

Texts tend to devolve into plots and characters and flashes of language. They are driftwood on the beach; ready to be reworked into something else.

Movies seem to retain their integrity. They colonize my imagination, growing into a spectacular coral reef that each movie adds to.

So what is it that makes the difference? What lessons should I carry from movie-making into short story writing that will help me to colonize the imaginations of my readers?

I believe that the power of the movies comes from one simple shared assumption between the movie-maker and the audience: nothing in a movie is unnecessary, irrelevant or accidental

Real life is so full of random noise and mindless soul-numbing repetition that even those rare moments that mean something to us can sometimes slip past unmarked.

Movies are packed with 100% meaning; this is what gives them the intensity that makes them so much more attractive than real life.

I think there are five “take-aways” from movies that will increase the meaning in my stories

1. Editing
The average movie does not have long to tell its tale and plant its ideas, typically between 90 and 110 minutes. The main purpose of the editing after a movie has been shot is to make sure that not one minute is wasted.

The difference between a good movie and a great movie is often about the decisions that were made in the editing suite. In movies, every moment, no matter how beautifully shot or skilfully acted or perfectly scripted, has to fight to show that it is necessary to the meaning of the movie.

Take-away: try to shorten your story without reducing its impact or diluting its meaning

I fall in love with my prose as I write it. I need to fall in love to get it right. Sadly, not everything that I love will pass the tests of relevance and intensity of semantic value. I need to leave myself the time to get the distance to see this and then cut away some of what I loved to make the rest better.

2. Meaning in a movie is collaborative
The story is told not just from the script but from the the lighting, set dressing, the costumes, the acting, the filming, the directing and of course the editing. Movies are so rich because their meaning is built in layers that complement or counter-point one another like chords being played on some great organ.

Take-away: align the different elements of story-telling to maximise the meaning and the impact

Go back through your story and make sure that the elements of your writing are appropriately aligned. Do the language and imagery build the meaning of the story in the way that film music and lighting would? Do your descriptions of places and people dress the set and establish location? Does your narrative drive the flow of the reader's imagination the way a camera angle would? Can you get the same meaning with less words by changing the balance of what you try to achieve through these different elements so that each of them makes the optimal contribution?

3. Meaning in a movies is emergent
The audience builds the meaning of the film as it goes along. The movie guides them in arriving at the intended meaning by various forms of foreshadowing or the recurring use of symbols, colours or sounds.

Take-away: give your reader's clues to follow and patterns to spot and trust them to make the connection

If your readers trust that everything in your story has meaning, then they will enjoy spotting where you have foreshadowed the development of plot or character and they will read day to day actions as having significance beyond their surface appearance. In my recent story "Coming Home" I described the mundane act of a man arriving home from work by saying he: "put down his suitcase and laptop bag in the hall and dropped his keys and his phone into the square leather tray that Gina had taught him to use. She had bought the tray out of frustration at his endless ability to mislay the things that were most important to him."

One of the first comments that I got on the story recognized that the whole focus of the story was the man's endless ability to mislay the things that were important to him.

4. Meaning in movies is condensed through the use of known tropes, plots and stereotypes.
Movies are clearly labeled. The audience walks in with an expectation that needs to be met. The use of tropes, stereotypes and well-known plot lines speed up the immersion of the movie goer into the move. They provide a familiar landscape for meaning to emerge into.

Take-away: don't be afraid to draw on tropes and archetypes to move your story along.
Clichés, stereotypes and tropes can be your friend in keeping a short story short. I agree with Sam Goldwyn's view that, "What we need are some new clichés". This needs to be done with skill or it ends up being boiler-plate. Think of it as evoking an image or relationship in your readers' imagination without needing fully to describe it.

5. Movies play Find The Lady with meaning
Movies use tropes and stereotypes to misdirect our attention and lead us to the wrong conclusion. They play with time-lines to reveal information that changes what we thought we understood. This delights the audience if it's done well (The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, Memento, The Illusionist) and reinforces the idea that you should pay attention to every moment of the movie.

Take-away: it pays to surprise your reader without making them feel tricked.
This can be done by the use of an unreliable narrator, or by planting a hook at the beginning that sets one expectation and then flashing back to show another interpretation,or by taking a stereotype and giving it an unexpected twist.

I’d like to share one last idea. The seed for this one was planted in my mind by “Inception”. The movie explains that there is a risk to shaping dreams. To shape a dream you must enter it. You must believe it. You must belong in it. How then, will you know that you are dreaming and not living? That is what the spinning top is for. You take it into the dream with you and spin it. Only in a dream can it spin forever.

Writing is an isolated introspective business. We spin tales from the fabric of our lives and imagination and doing so can be thrilling. But we also need to live and to connect. We need to know that in real life the top stops spinning and we need to welcome that.

Just for Fun

By Lisabet Sarai

No, please! Don't spoil my movies, too!

Garce's topic this week is "Movies and the Art of the Story". Now, I know that Garce tends to analyze the films he sees, trying to figure out what makes them work. He and I have had a number of email conversations about "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Das Boot", among other films, in which he waxed eloquent regarding what he'd learned about characterization of villains and the slippery nature of evil. I deeply respect his dedication to his craft. But for me, most of the time, movies are entertainment, not education.

I've been an avid reader since I was a toddler. Alas, since I've begun writing professionally, reading is not the same. Most of the time, I can't turn off my inner critic. I find myself noticing flaws -- flat characters, rough passages of prose, anachronistic detail or implausible turns of plot. Meanwhile, my admiration for well-crafted fiction is tinged with sour envy. I still enjoy reading, but it's no longer purely recreation. My perspective has been irrevocably changed -- I might even say tarnished -- by my author's vocation and the painful knowledge that comes with it.

I really don't want that to happen to film. For me, an effective film is still pure story. The best movies whisk me away to another world, immersing me in the lives and emotions of the characters. If I were to start analyzing the dynamics, the writer's or the director's artistic choices and strategies, that would pull me out of the experience.

Not that I can't appreciate an ingenious plot or a particularly adept characterization. I remember being impressed by both aspects of the 2006 film "Inside Man" (Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Denzel Washington). I recall thinking, in one scene, "Wow, this is a great way to reveal her character." But that kind of reaction is moderately unusual, especially for a movie that succeeds in pulling me in.

I'm much more likely to notice the visual aspects of a movie. Among my favorite films is "Winter Sleepers" (1997), directed by Tom Tykwer. This movie uses color as a mirror for its elegant structure. In each section of the story, the characters are wearing a different hue, which is also echoed in the sets. This may sound silly and overly formal, but it really works, in my opinion.

If you're curious about my other favorites, you can check out the (relatively short) list on my website. I haven't updated that page for a while, but reviewing it, I'm surprised that "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" isn't listed. Other candidates include "Earth Girls are Easy" (1988, starring Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum), "After Hours" (1985, with Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette, directed, I just discovered, by Martin Scorsese), "The Comfort of Strangers" (1990, starring Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren), and "Bound" (1996, with Jennifer Tilley and Gina Gershon).

I realized in searching IMDB.com for this information that all of the movies above have an element of eroticism. Not all that surprising, I suppose, given my chosen literary genre and my self-confessed (see my bio!) "lifelong interest in sex", but this may give the impression that sexy movies are the only ones I see (or like), which wouldn't be true at all. But it does appear that an element of sexual passion contributes to my remembering them.

When I was a kid, going to the movies was a big deal. It didn't happen very often and was a special treat. In my teens, I could still count the films that I'd seen on two hands, and could tell you the plot of each one. At this point in my life, I've probably seen close to a thousand movies. It's a bit disturbing how few of them have stuck in my mind.

Perhaps if I analyzed the ones that I do remember and cherish, I'd find that they demonstrated the elements of craft that I recognize in my reading. Who knows, perhaps they are especially good examples of "the art of the story".

I don't really care. When it comes to movies, I would like to remain innocent, to react without trying to figure out exactly why. Sorry, Garce, but I watch movies just for fun.