"Brida" - Paulo Coelho

I've just finished "Brida" by Paulo Coelho yesterday. It wasn't as fascinating as his other books to me. However, a quote at the end of the book made me completely forget about the parts I got bored while reading. I'm once again glad that I've just finished a Paulo Coelho book.

And here is the quote, (if you want to read the book of course don't read this part) :)

"People give flowers as present because flowers contain true meaning of love. Anyone who tries to posses a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower in the field, you'll keep it forever.
That is what the forest taught me. That you will never be mine, and that is why I will never lose you."

Istiklal Avenue Diary

When I was here, I used to can't decide which films to go to because there were so many options. But this time I couldn't find a film to go to. Two of my favorite movie theaters are closed. The remaining ones, except for Beyoglu Theater, show films like “Twilight” or “The Sorcerer's Apprentice”. So almost no independent films or European cinema anymore. =(

In Ada Bookshop, they introduced a new section called “Vampirizm” for the vampire related books. I assume this is due to the effect of “Twilight” books and I liked it. Even though, I didn't read “Twilight” and am not keen on reading it, I like vampire related literature a lot. It's nice to have a section for this.

The police in Istiklal Street use mini-coopers or jeeps. Some people get shocked when they see these cars. I heard reactions like “wow, our government is actually rich!”. I found this funny and I don't like seeing cop-cars here. Actually, I don't like seeing cars at all here.

The shops in Halep Passage change places in the passage but remain the same. Also, it's always easy to find things for a present in this passage that reflects my thoughts about the person I buy the present to.

This street changes rapidly and some of the things I really really liked about it are long gone now. I wish I could bring them back. However, it still makes me happy to be here.

Even just walking here makes me happy.

Because I have some of the most striking memories of my life here. Some of the most important people of my life became one of the most important people of my life here. This street let me be who I am without caring about the other people around here. So it keeps the beautiful, joyful moments of my life. It keeps my excitements, discoveries. It keeps my shameful, heart-broken memories. And no matter how rapidly it changes, it'll continue keeping them for me, ready to give them to me whenever I visit.

"Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira" (Blindness) - José Saramago

What does it mean “to see”? What does it mean “to be blind”?

Who sees? According to whom? According to what?

In the land of the blind, what should the one who sees do? Should she/he lead the crowd, take action when people mess things up, or should she/he let the crowd figure things out for themselves?

Are the blind really blind or do they just avoid looking at the places that will make them see?


This book made me question all these things. It has pretty strong metaphors while telling its story. However, even if you don't care about the metaphors and all those questions above, it still has a pretty strong story to tell. That's a huge advantage for this book and its movie adaptation.

This was actually something I've watched and read long time ago but I wanted to write about it now.

"When you're going to love you as much as I do"

This sentence is from the song "Winter" which is written by Tori Amos. Whenever, I listen to this song, it reminds me of my parents because various things that can indicate the meaning in this sentence are said to me by my parents.

I've never loved myself as much as my parents love me. There were times, especially in my high school years, that I questioned this situation a lot. How could they love me this much? I didn't do anything to deserve this love. I always felt bad about this whenever I saw how hard my mom tried to stop my tears, or my dad hurting even more than I do whenever I had a stupid clumsy accident.

But then I understood when I started university. That was the first time I left my parents for that long and I realized what they really are to me. They aren't just my parents, but they are also my best friends, my best teachers, and my companions. Seeing my mom crying destroys my heart and I just want to hug her and cry with her. When I see my dad locking himself in his own world because he is really sad, I try any stupid thing that can get him out of that world and cheer him up. Whenever they have a fight and get separated to different rooms of the same house, I rapidly go back and forth between them, like a tennis ball, to make them forget what just happened. When I can't hear from them for a while I get worried, as they get worried when they can't hear from me.

Now they are also my kids and I also have to be their parents now as much as they have to be my parents, although I am not as good as them yet in being a parent.
Considering someone as your kid makes you realize how meaningless the rest of the world compared to him/her. That's how I understood how can my parents love and value me even more than I do.

We are the three musketeers no matter where we are. :)




For the interested the full lyrics of "Winter" is as follows. (And I love you dear Tori Amos)
I think Tori Amos wrote it for her dad.


Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting
Withering where some snowman was
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace
But I only can see myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know dad the ice is getting thin

When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Hair is gray
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change
My dear

Hunger - A scene to remember

Imagine a prison, a prison that keeps political prisoners, members of IRA in this case.

There is a long corridor, cells are facing each other on both sides of the corridor, in each cell there are one or two political prisoners. There are no beds or toilets in the cells. Prisoners collect their shit and paint the walls with it. The walls and the prisoners are disinfected periodically.

The prisoners also collect their piss and spill it from under their cell door. The corridor becomes full of piss. A guard first throws some disinfectant over the piss and then passes over it with a broom. The scene that shows this process marks one of the most effective scenes of this film, in my opinion.

As the guard passes over the piss starting from the beginning of the corridor, the corridor becomes shinier and shinier, it turns almost to a mirror and it reflects the cell doors, the ceiling of the corridor and the guard that passes by. The scene ends with passing over the reflections on the floor closely and Thatcher's voice starting to play commenting about the prisoners soullessly.

It is a pretty long scene and some people might find it boring. However, the image it created in my mind was how many nations managed to cover their shit by just slowly sweeping it from their history. They swept it and they left out the shiny parts on the surface.

The film has many striking scenes. This was just one of them. I strongly advice you to watch it if you have a strong stomach.

Velvet Underground - I'm Sticking With You

I'm sticking with you
'Cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

You held up a stage coach in the rain
And I'm doing the same
Saw you're hanging from a tree
And I made believe it was me

I'm sticking with you
'Cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

People going to the stratosphere
Soldiers fighting with the cong?

But with you by my side I can do anything
When we swing
We hang past right or wrong

I'll do anything for you
Anything you want me too
I'll do anything for you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you


This song starts as a very childish love song. Some people might think it is a very stupid and immature love song. However, I think it is one of the most meaningful love songs ever. If you listen carefully you realize that the lyrics and the voice of the singer gets more and more mature as the song goes by. This makes me interpret this songs in two ways, either this song tells about a love story of a couple who started their relationship when they were little kids or this song tells about a love story which started as a simple fun relationship and then grew to be a very strong bond between two people.

In the first interpretation, we have a couple whose love started when they were kids. Now they are both grown ups and their relationship still continues. Therefore, the song might be telling us a long love story of two people who grew up together and their love also grew with them.

In the second interpretation, we have a love story that started as a childish love. As two people stayed together and shared more and more things together their love grew. At the beginning of the relationship the couple didn't think things seriously, they were together just to have fun in their simple relationship. However, as they spend more and more time together, their relationship became more sophisticated. They learned how to really love each other, how to sacrifice things for each other and how to stick together.

I think, both interpretations are very meaningful and they can also be combined. This song shows that, sometimes you don't need to write and perform very complicated songs to express love. This song is short and simple but tells a lot about love.

Oguz Atay - Gunluk (Diary)

When I started reading Tutunamayanlar (The Disconnected) a year ago, I remember saying to myself “This is something like I have never read before”. And it really was something I have never read before. Characters that behave as if they are always hanging from the edge of some hill and they do not have any strong ropes to hang on there, the writing style that chances from chapter to chapter magnificently, the analogies that use scientific stories to symbolize some everyday life social events, the word games, the very smart sense of humor, the chaotic representation of a mind’s thoughts, ... Oguz Atay immediately became one of my favorite authors ever.

Then I have read his Tehlikeli Oyunlar (Dangerous Games), Oyunlarla Yasayanlar (Those Living With Plays) and Korkuyu Beklerken (Waiting for Fear). These books, although did not affect me as much as Tutunamayanlar did, was successful in being different and original as much as Tutunamayanlar. Almost all the stories have a very important common factor; a smart lonely male character that keeps drowning in his own thoughts. In fact, if you try to empathize with that character, it is guaranteed that your mind will become very very tired and you will be very depressed because of trying to follow his thoughts’ flow. You can ask yourself; “How can a person possibly think that much?”and I have always thought this common main character is maybe an exaggerated version of Oguz Atay himself. Now reading his diary made me realize that I was not that mistaken.

However, Oguz Atay’s thoughts are not as depressive as his characters’ thoughts. They might be chaotic sometimes but this is due to his will of putting his ideas on paper so that later he will not forget them. These are mostly ideas related to the books he plans to write and some small articles. As a person who have read those books, reading Oguz Atay’s notes during these books’ creation period was really a great pleasure.

Oguz Atay is a civil engineer. He even published a textbook on Topography, which, according to my dad, was different then any of the textbooks he had ever read and reading it was like reading a novel. Despite being a successful engineer, he is also full of knowledge on things that are not considered as related to engineering. One can see this from his diary, since he makes references to many other authors, films or books. An engineer who loves reading and writing material that are not related to her/his field is uncommon today. Being graduated as an engineer who loves reading books and watching films a lot, while reading this book I felt like I have found a new friend. In the science community, I have seen many people who think reading material not related to your field is useless or boring. This can really be discouraging sometimes when you try to make conversations with people on topics not related to your field. My trade-off is I don’t know as much stuff related to my fields as those people but they don’t have knowledge on film and book literature as much as I do. I don't know which way is better.

Oguz Atay is my favorite Turkish author and one of my favorite authors in general. He has a direct, honest way of saying what he really wants to say and he is courageous. He is not afraid of criticizing himself or the group of people he is associated with. That is the reason he is remembered as “always the opposition”. He is even opposition among the left-wing. This can be seen in his article about Turkey in his diary, which was one of the best articles I have read on Turkey. He, as a person that knows the ideals of the left-wing, well-educated society very well since he was one of them, manages to analyze and criticize both the left-wing and right-wing acts among the different ideological groups in Turkey effectively and he also makes sincere comparisons between eastern and western world as a person who supports the enlightenment ideas of the western world but criticizes the capitalist and pragmatic ideology of the same culture.

I am really happy for the day that I have first heard this guys name. =)

Otto; or Up with the Dead People

I have never watched a film that is as wonderfully weird as this one.

Based on the brief interview with the film’s director, Bruce LaBruce, after the film, I can say that this film has typical properties of a road film, is about alienation and is open to different interpretations on several issues in the film.

Otto; or Up with the Dead People is a road film. Otto, is like a bildungsroman character. At the beginning of the film, he acts like he is new to life. He does not remember his past. He is in wrecked clothes. He does not have a concept of home. He wanders around as if he is unaware of the world around him. Actually, he made me remember Travis’ state at the beginning of Paris, Texas; he is lost in time, space and in his own being. He is on a journey, which he (and we, as the audience) will learn about his past and who he really was.

This film is mainly about alienation. Otto was a vegetarian. He was gay. He was happy. Now he has an identity crisis. He thinks he is dead, a zombie. He is definitely not a vegetarian. He eats lots of meat since he thinks he is a zombie. He is still gay, but he is not happy anymore. He realizes he does not really fit in anywhere now. He had an alienation. He became a stranger to the society he was living in. There are many references in the film that highlights Otto’s alienation from the people once he was living together with.
This alienation is a reflection of Bruce LaBruce's own alienation in his life. During the interview he told us that he and his friends were gay punks. Since they were gay, they felt like they did not really fit in among other punks and since they were punks, they did not really fit in among other gays.

Film is open to interpretations on several issues. First, there is nothing in the film that shows us whether Otto is really a zombie or not. This is something that is left to audience’s interpretation. Second, there is a female director in the film that makes a political zombie movie. She makes some political comments throughout the film. However, we cannot be sure whether Bruce LaBruce tries to be serious with these comments or he is actually making fun of them.

I enjoyed a lot the concept of “gay zombies” and the fact that all the characters in the film are either gay or we do not know about their sexual preferences. There is also a character that is only shown as if she is from an old black&white film all the time, which was a nice detail. Finally, the road movie elements and the gradual reveal of the reasons for Otto’s alienation and his past is beautifully done.
This film was one of the most interesting films I have ever watched, and one of my favorite films ever today. The film is not only weird in a funny way, but also succeeds at being meaningfully sad. And when something is both funny and sad at the same time, I am in all the way.

Blue Velvet

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

The academic analysis I am going to review for my midterm project is Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet by Irena Makarushka. In her paper Irena Makarushka discusses how David Lynch breaks down the traditional illusions about American Dream and the ambiguity of the good and evil definitions in society. She supports her thesis with a lot of examples from the film. In addition, she shows parallelisms between David Lynch's style of questioning things in Blue Velvet and some concepts that are discussed by Nietzsche; like nihilism and postmodernism.

According to Irena Makarushka David Lynch subverts the idea of the Eden; the “American Dream” for Blue Velvet. She gives the opening scene as her most significant example for this. In the opening scene of Blue Velvet we see the traditional icons of the American Dream; a home securing fence, beautiful flowers, a smiling and waving fireman, a crossing guard that helps school kids on the street, etc. where the main colors are simple primary colors like red, blue and white. Then David Lynch tears this too perfect image of the town Lumberton, the town where the film takes place, by showing Jeffrey's dad having a heart attack. Following this event Jeffrey founds the mysterious ear on the floor which emphasizes the idea of “things are not always what they seem” (Makarushka, 31). With these disturbing events David Lynch starts to show us that the dream is not that simple and perfect. Colors get more complicated and darker and we see that the “American Dream” is tentative like Eden was tentative for Adam and Eve. There are so much more underneath the surface in reality but the people, like the people from Lumberton, tend to deny that reality and turn a blind eye to it. Irena Makarushka especially gives the examples of how Jeffrey's mom and aunt behave throughout the film for supporting this idea. Jeffrey wants to open his eyes and dive into places where he can get more knowledge about the world but this is going to cause him and Sandy to leave their illusionary Eden, “American Dream”.

Irena Makarushka also argues that in Blue Velvet David Lynch questions the ambiguity between good and evil, right and wrong, and shows that their definitions are not that simple as they exist in traditional sense. The film's narrative starts with characters that seem to represent those traditional simple definitions but then as we start to know them more the answer to what is good and what is evil gets complicated. Irena Makarushka says “The narrative, which follows the classical lines of a detective fiction, appears to be quite simple and straightforward. Jeffrey, the handsome and brave hero, with the help of his beautiful blond girlfriend, sets out to rescue the dark lady, Dorothy, from the clutches of the evil drug dealer, Frank. However, upon closer scrutiny, the story is far from simple.” (Makarushka, 33). Irena Makarushka gives Jeffrey's inner battle as an example for this. Jeffrey, who thinks himself as a good boy, realizes that he also has some evil in himself from his experiences in Dorothy's world. Both Jeffrey and Sandy think they are in this detective mission for good but especially Jeffrey sometimes finds himself in the position of a pervert after spending more time with Dorothy. According to Irena Makarushka, David Lynch supports as people start to experience things rather than just believing their simple illusionary surface they realize the ambiguity in traditional definitions. David Lynch does not show good and evil or right and wrong as opposites but instead he shows they exist together and this is especially emphasized in Jeffrey's inner struggle after he experiences Dorothy's and Frank's world. This is Jeffrey's loss of innocence and as Frank says in the film Jeffrey is like him.

In addition, Irena Makarushka informs us about how Nietzsche argues on some definitions that are related with David Lynch's narrative style in Blue Velvet. She gives the definitions of postmodernism of reaction, postmodernism of resistance, passive nihilism and active nihilism and she interprets them according to Nietzsche's arguments. She claims that David Lynch work in Blue Velvet uses postmodernism of resistance while questioning the traditional images that are represented by postmodernism of reaction and David Lynch also presents the ambiguity between passive nihilism, which can be thought as people wanting the illusionary comfort of the past and traditions, and active nihilism, which can be associated with people's resistance against the old fixed traditional beliefs.

I am not going to comment on how David Lynch's work in Blue Velvet can be explained with Nietzsche's ideas about postmodernism of resistance, postmodernism of reaction, passive nihilism and active nihilism because I do not have much knowledge about these terms. However, I agree with Irena Makarushka on her thesis about how David Lynch questions the “American Dream” and ambiguity between good and evil in Blue Velvet. When I tried to read the subtext of Blue Velvet for the first time what immediately came to my mind was “American Dream” is being torn down. Then after I have read about some symbolisms that were used in the film I realized that the film was also about Jeffrey's inner struggle while dealing with the concepts of good and evil.

Most obvious example on the subversion of “American Dream” is the opening scene of Blue Velvet as Irena Makarushka also mentions. For me those images at the beginning were so disturbingly perfect that I was happy when I saw they were interrupted by Jeffrey's father's hearth attack. Then David Lynch dives his camera to the ground where he makes us see lots of bugs under the beautiful green grass. This emphasizes the idea of things are not what they seem like on the surface. You have to start to look beneath the surface to wake up from the dream and face the reality; and the reality may contain non-pleasant things, like bugs. After that, Jeffrey finds the ear and things get more and more complicated for the simple “American Dream”.

David Lynch also plays with the simple traditional definitions of the concepts good and evil or right and wrong. Questioning the ambiguity between good and evil becomes the maturation process for our protagonist Jeffrey. He realizes he is not just a good boy-next-door but he can also experience evil in himself. For example, in the scene where he first refuses Dorothy's sick request but then does what she wants, which is hitting her, David Lynch places a roaring sound in the background which can be thought as the sound that represents evil. Then we hear a similar sound when Frank is shot by Jeffrey and it is like David Lynch wants to make us hear the moaning of the devil at that moment when he is shot. In traditional definitions Frank is already an evil and he is also aware of that. Therefore, hearing that kind of a sound when Frank is shot is normal for us. However, David Lynch show us under the perfect handsome-good-boy image of Jeffrey we can also hear that evil sound because once Jeffrey starts to experience things rather than believing the illusions of the society we see that he can do some evil, too. Therefore, good and evil are hand-in-hand in every person no matter what they believe about themselves.

To sum up, I agree with Irena Makarushka's thesis in her paper Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet. David Lynch subverts the idea of the “American Dream” and shows the ambiguity between good and evil in his film Blue Velvet. He tries to show us what are behind the curtains and makes us realize that they are not as simple and perfect as some people blindly believe them to be. Therefore, although Blue Velvet is not an entertaining film to watch; it leaves you with a lot of important questions to think about which I think what makes this film or any other David Lynch film great.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

The victims of the Tobe Hooper's 1974 made horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are five young hippies with their mini-van, horoscope book and humanistic behaviors. This is not just a coincidence for this horror film, because while victimizing the hippies the film focuses on hippie culture as a threat to the middle-class American society traditional values and hippie culture's relationship with the country life and working class.

American horror films are considered to focus on the fears of the conservative middle-class American society. Therefore, the victimization of the people who belong to the hippie culture in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is significant. Hippies are thought as a threat to the traditional values in the conservative capitalist American society. Their lifestyle and the values they support are challenging for the conservative minds of any society. They are against any kind of violence, especially wars, so they acted against most of the actions that USA took in its foreign politics, like the Vietnam War, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tells its story in a post-Vietnam American society. In this society hippies were the problematic kids of the society that had become known with their movements against the Vietnam War, hence against the USA government which the American middle-class, with its traditional values, put their trust on. Hippies also believe in free bonds in sexual relationships which is a very big controversy for the American middle-class conservative people. In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre we see this representation of the sexuality in hippie culture especially through the female characters of the film. Overall, the film's victimization of the young hippies can be thought as legitimate for someone that believe in traditional American middle-class values because hippies are bad kids that do not behave appropriate and create problems in their secure capitalist society.

In his film Tobe Hooper presents a contradictory perspective about hippie culture's relationship with the country life and working class. Another important aspect of the hippie culture is that their denial of the capitalist lifestyle. They criticize the capitalist values of the American society, which glorifies mass consumption in an unnatural city life, and put emphasis on natural and simple ways of living like a working class country person. On the other hand, hippies generally do live in a city but not in country areas and they are not from the working class. In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this contradiction about the hippie culture is presented successfully. We learn that the Leatherface and his family had been workers in the slaughter house that had been owned by Sally and Franklyn's family; so our victims, who belong to the middle-class society and are hippies coming from a city life, travel to a country area, which they are going to meet working class people, for their vacation. However, throughout the film we see that they are aliens to the country. They do not know how to live in a country area; they have several difficulties on their vacation like finding gas and being disturbed by the insane hitchhiker who belongs to the working class. In the end, they even become the victims of the country because they are defeated by the working class people, Leatherface and his family. Therefore, the film over-emphasizes that those hippies do not belong to the country and have no association with how the working class people live.

In conclusion, in his 1974 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper chooses hippies as the victims of his horror film. They are great as a victim choice for a horror film because they have clashing values with the traditional, conservative, capitalist American middle-class society. In addition, Tobe Hooper shows a conflicting issue about the hippie culture that actually has its roots from the cities and middle-class people but supporting a natural country-like lifestyle and working class which according to his representation they do not belong at all.

Cabaret

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

In classical Hollywood musicals life is usually portrayed as beautiful and worth living. Things are colorful and light. Love is in the air for everyone to experience it and you have a happy ending no matter what you have experienced in between. On the other hand, in classical Hollywood war films there is a life completely different from the ones in bright, optimistic Hollywood musicals. One's purpose in life seems so meaningless in a Hollywood war film because no matter what one plans to do with her/his life there are very strong external factors that interfere with people's lives during war. Love leaves its place to violence. Bright colors become dark and life turns into death. However, in 1972 film Cabaret which was directed by Bob Fosse the musical is used for portraying war. The film is colorful but the colors are dark and the songs performed in the cabaret are supposed to be lively, funny and entertaining but instead; they are disturbing because of the editing.

We see lots of different colors in the film Cabaret; especially, during the cabaret scenes but they are usually dark tones of those colors and low-key lightning is used. This separates this musical film from other musicals where we see lots of bright colors. This also reflects that this movie is not like other optimistic musicals. It is going to be dark and portray a pessimistic world view like in a war film. The main characters in the movie seem like they are all trapped in their little world no matter what kinds of dreams they have for their future. Especially, the character Sally has her big dream of becoming a famous actress but no matter what she says neither we nor she believe that she is really going to be a famous, successful actress in her future. The film's dark atmosphere does not let us see this kind of a bright future for any of the film's characters, because under the surface Nazis are getting more and more powerful, and there is going to be a war. There is not going to be a bright future for anyone because of this war.

Since it is a musical the film also has lots of songs. The songs are actually fun to listen and with all the dancing in the cabaret they are supposed to be entertaining. However, they are far from entertainment because of the editing of the movie. The songs are about and go parallel with the events that are happening outside of the cabaret. While they are performed usually the scenes from the external world are put in between and those scenes are generally from the most terrible events of the film; like when a communist is beaten severely by the Nazis and Jewish Natalia's dog is killed brutally. This makes the song performances pretty disturbing rather than fun. They emphasize the terrible events of the film rather than giving us happy moments like a classical Hollywood musical supposed to do. Instead the film does what a classical war film supposed to do; alarming about the coming war and its disastrous dark world.

To sum up, in his 1972 film Cabaret Bob Fosse does something pretty interesting and combines a musical film, which is supposed to be optimistic according to the classical Hollywood musical films, with a war film, which is supposed to show a pessimistic world according to the classical Hollywood war films, that gives us a dark musical film as a result of this unlikely combination. There is not a direct representation of war but its darkness, violence and far from ideal world is indirectly emphasized everywhere throughout the musical and its songs. And I think, this gives Cabaret a very important and special place among the other Hollywood musicals and war films.

Blood Simple

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

The Western has its roots from America as a genre and an American Western film is a place to reflect the American identity. With this definition of the Western film, it is normal to expect from the Westerns getting the role of identifying the current problems of American society, because problems about being an American at the contemporary time period is quite related with the American identity. In the film Blood Simple (1984), which was written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen brothers successfully emphasize several contemporary problematic issues of the American society of 1980s; especially individualism, lack of communication, money and violence.
In the opening scene of Blood Simple we hear Private Detective Visser narrating about individualism in Texas. He gives the example of Russia and actually compares the roles given to people in terms of their relationship with the other people in the society by communism in Soviet Union, in theory, and by capitalism in USA. In 1984 the Cold War between SU and USA was still going on and this comparison shows a glimpse of this contemporary problem for the American society. However, the comparison is mainly about individualism and being on your own in Texas but this can be extended to the American society since Western is about American identity although the films mostly take place in Texas. Everybody is on their own throughout the film and we can see this in the struggles of the four main characters; Ray, Abby, Marty and Visser. Visser is very greedy and tries to clean up his own mess on his own. Marty is pretty selfish and he just wants Abby for himself. He cannot accept the fact that his wife can be another man's woman which is a way of thinking in terms of private property, but in this case it is very disturbing because the property is Abby, a human being. Abby and Ray are relatively innocent in the movie because especially Ray does what he does for the woman he loves. However, in his struggle he is all alone. He has to survive alone and he cannot manage to do it in the end. In Abby's case she is the only one survives at the end of the film. In Westerns the person who manages to survive at the end of the film is usually the hero but the hero should also rescue other people with him/her; that's why we call him/her a hero. However, in this film Abby only manages to save herself. She does it on her own with nobody's help and she helps nobody for their survival.
The lack of communication is another problem which is portrayed in the film; especially between Abby and Ray. Ray tries to bury Marty because he thinks Abby shot her and after he buries Marty he goes to Abby. They both sense there is a misunderstanding about the events but none of them tells one another what he or she actually thinks right that moment and did the day before to clear things out. Because of this lack of conversation between the two, Abby will think that Ray killed Marty, Ray will die and at the end of the film although Abby manages to survive on her own she is going to have no idea about what really happened.
Money is also a very important issue for the American society. We see this in the relationship between Marty and Visser. Marty has the money and he has the luxury to spend it on stupid things. Visser is a private detective and his main interest in his job is money. Marty decides to spend his money on killing Abby and Ray. Since he has the money he can make people do anything he wants with it. At least, this is how his mind works. Luckily there are people like Visser that can do anything for money, like killing people. This aspect of the film shows us that in the contemporary society some people can make other people do anything with their money, and some people can do anything for money. This is a very controversial issue considering both Marty's and Visser's deaths just because of a large amount of money.
The Coen brothers do not afraid of showing violence throughout the film and they portray it so successfully that it emphasizes how meaningless people do it today. Ray buries Marty alive because he wants her girlfriend not to be caught. Abby thinks about killing her husband at the beginning of the film because she cannot bare his personality. Marty wants to kill both Abby and Ray since Abby cheated on him and Visser accepts Marty's offer for killing Abby and Ray for money and kills Marty instead for his money.
To sum up, since the Western is purely American and achieved the role of representing American identity it is normal to portray contemporary problems of American society through Westerns and the Coen brothers do this very successfully and sometimes very disturbingly in their film Blood Simple by mainly focusing on concepts like individualism, lack of communication, money and violence.

Paris, Texas

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

Classical Hollywood films are economic and use as minimal stylistic detail as possible in a scene to establish the meaning it really wants to give to the audience. Every detail should have a purpose and play an efficient role in terms of achieving the intended meaning in the scene. The opening scene of the Wim Wenders' film Paris, Texas is a good example for this way of capturing the intended meaning. It creates a mise-en-scène with as little detail as possible but tells us a lot about the movie's main character Travis Henderson. In that mise-en-scène; the appearance of Travis and the idea of a man wandering on his own in a huge landscape shot establish the main character and give a good direction to the audience for the rest of the film.

The appearance of Travis is pretty wrecked in the opening mise-en-scène. His clothes are very dirty. His beard and hair are long and untidy. His eyes look so sad and tired. This look of Travis symbolizes that our main character is also wrecked at the beginning of the film. We, as audience, get the feeling that he has not changed his clothes, got a chance to shave his beard and hair and got a good night sleep for a long time; meaning that he has not been to a proper place or a place he can call home for a long time. He has currently no one to take care of him and does not seem aware of his wrecked situation. With all these interpretations, he gives the impression of a man that has been an outcast for a long time and lost in time, space and his own being.

There are many extreme long shots in the opening mise-en-scène that shows Travis as a man wandering on his own in a huge land. Travis seems so little and the world around him seems so huge that this exaggerates his unimportance for this world. Also, there is almost nothing around him in the landscape which shows his loss of the people that once were around him. He almost lost everything and is not aware of his own state and we start to wonder what circumstances brought him to this state. This is a direction that tells us there is a mystery to be solved and the film is going to be an odyssey both for Travis and us that has to be taken to solve that mystery. Travis is going to be like a typical bildungsroman character and try to solve his conflicts with his own life and the world around him since he is now an apprentice to life and his mission is to master it. We are going to try to learn and understand what events caused Travis to end up in this empty land alone as a lost being.