Memories of Underdevelopment, Blow Up and Easy Rider - Essay Example

  Memories of Underdevelopment, Blow Up and Easy Rider The movies were critical, in their way, towards the ideas of transformation that occurred in each of the periods. The 1960s was a time of transformative change, as there were revolutions that were occurring around the world, and, even in places where there was not a revolution, per se, there still were cataclysmic changes that were occurring, and the films captured all of this, while showing how difficult it truly is for society to change. Yet, each of the main characters in each of these films exhibited a kind of nihilistic attitude towards life and the changes around them that belied the importance that these characters truly represented. They were neither critical of society, nor a part of it. In this way, each of the main characters in each of these films represented the way that change is inexorable, even if society doesn't really want it, because these figures do not fight for change. They are witnesses to the changes, on the sidelines, yet, at the same time, are driving the revolutions that they are a part of. This is true of all three films – they are not necessarily portraits of people who are railing against the establishment so much as they are portraits of people who, ironically, don't really care about the establishment. This is what makes their characters so ironic and poignant at the same time. For instance, Wyatt and Billy are the ultimate nihilistic characters. One could see that, within their heads, there was never a thought that they would bring about the cataclysmic changes that men like them brought about in the 1960s. After all, the hippies were the ones who helped to end the Vietnam War, who helped usher in a period of civil rights, who preached the gospel of peace and love and freedom. They were the counterculture who helped change the dominant culture, yet there was no sense that these two men even realized how important they were in the big scheme of things. They literally were drifters – they rode their bikes, smoked a lot of weed, picked up a hitchhiker and stayed on the commune for a few days. Then they “crashed” a parade by riding in it as a joke – this got them put into jail, where they met a drunken ACLU lawyer, picked him up and brought him along on their adventure. That lawyer was killed in their camp, and they continued on their way, virtually as if nothing happened, and had a great meal and a visit to a prostitute by using the money found in George, the dead lawyer's, wallet. They give LSD to the two prostitutes, have an interesting trip in the graveyard by the Mardi Gras parade, continue on their way, and both of them soon end up dead. The nihilism of these two is shown in just about everything that happens to the two. Everything's all good, really, even though Billy does try to protest about certain things – the first hippy they pick up pumps gas for them, and there is money in that tank, which makes him paranoid, but Wyatt assures him its all good. They go to the commune and get in with that lifestyle for a little while, admiring the fact that they are living off the land. But what shows the ultimate in their nihilism is how they treated George – the man was beat to death in their camp, and, while they did seem sad about it, they weren't so broken up about it that they used George's money to treat themselves to wine, women and song. The film doesn't even show what they do with the body – presumably they left the body there in the woods, with the sleeping bag covering it. What the film is also trying to show is the struggle that the counterculture had against the dominant culture, assuming that the dominant culture is represented by the policemen who arrested them for “parading without a license,” the men who beat them up in their camp, or the hillbillies who killed them in the end. Which makes their nihilism all the more ironic, because they weren't struggling against the dominant culture at all, so much as they were in their own little bubble of a world. This was especially true of Wyatt, who was the more “go with the flow” of the two main men. Sergio, the main protagonist of Memories of Underdevelopment, displayed the same type of nihilism in the face of revolution that the two men in Easy Rider did. In other words, he definitely wasn't of society, which was changing and had changed while he was there, but he really didn't fight against society, either. In Sergio's case, he wasn't in the middle of the same type of counterrevolution that Wyatt and Billy were in Easy Rider. Rather, he was witnessing the Cuban revolution from his upper class perch, having seen his wife, Laura, leave him for Miami. Sergio is oh so casual about life and everything around him. For instance, when Laura was still in the home, Sergio talks about how Laura is becoming more attractive to him because she is becoming “more artificial,” then goes to tell her that he doesn't like natural beauty, but, rather, he likes a woman who wears makeup, wear good clothes, eats good food, get massages. He likes her artificial, because, when she makes herself up, she becomes less of a “slovenly Cuban girl,” and more of a “beautiful, exciting woman.” This, really, is a summation of his attitude towards the Cuban revolution that is happening before him. He has a bit of an artificial mindset, that really doesn't care about important things. He never really shows that he understands what the revolution is about, or about how it might affect him. What is interesting, though,is that he sometimes tries to give off the pretense that he knows and understands about revolutions and about world developments - in one scene he is seen wearing a pullover with the logo of Kent State on it. This, of course, is a reference to the massacre that happened there as the police were breaking up peaceful student protests. Yet, this nod towards student activism is just a sham, because, throughout the rest of the film, he shows that he just doesn't care. This is also shown with his behavior towards Elena, a 17 year old girl who ends up getting him into trouble as he takes her virginity, without feeling, then refuses to marry her. He ends up on trial for statutory rape, for which he is acquitted, but this really does not excuse his behavior towards the young girl. Elena is emotional, and she cries over seemingly innocuous things, but Sergio makes fun of her, to which Elena accuses him of not having any feelings. Sergio cannot understand Elena, because she is too emotional, and accuses her, in looking back on his affair with her, of not being able to sustain a feeling or an idea without falling apart. He says that this is “one of the signs of underdevelopment – the inability to connect things.” He bemoans the idea that Elena wasn't more complex and interesting, and made him feel underdeveloped, and that he “always tried to live like a European.” Yet, even though he was a nihilist who couldn't care about what was going on around him, and it was telling that he stated that he “always tried to live like a European,” because, in living like a European, he could deny the ugliness of the revolution around him, the country did catch up to him in the end. The socialists took away his apartment house, and he was living off of rents, and he bemoans the fact that “in another time, I would've been able to understand what was going on here. Now, I can't.” If Sergio lived like a European, then the next protagonist, who is unnamed, in the movie Blow-Up, really was European. Unlike the other two men, however, he wasn't necessarily living in the middle of a counterrevolution or a revolution, as he was living in swinging London in the 1960s, and his life was simply taking pictures of beautiful women. His nihilism was not in the face of a world that was imposing its changes upon him, however – this is not the backdrop of this movie. It was more that he had a sense of nihilism that came from being in a world that is equally nihilistic. He witnesses a murder, in that he accidentally took a picture of a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees. He wants to do something about it, yet he just cannot do something about it because things intervene – a party intervenes, and he thinks that somebody was in the park with him when he went back to see the body for himself. The body disappears from the grass, and, instead of the photographer doing something about it, perhaps going to the police with his grainy picture of the body, he ends up getting engrossed in a tennis match. It was almost the same sort of reaction that Wyatt and Billy had when George was killed by rednecks – an almost “ho hum, easy come, easy go,” sort of attitude towards death. And this, too, is something that all of these films also have in common – the easygoing attitude towards death. The protagonists in each of the film are alienated and isolated from the dominant society, and, perhaps, this is something that inoculates them from the world around them, and this also might explain why they are so easy-going about dying and death. Death is not something that affects any of them. With Wyatt and Billy, the easy-going attitude extends to the death of George, and Wyatt, to his credit, did show more emotion when Billy was killed. Sergio had the similar easy-going attitude – he had to. He was a man who was living in the middle of the Cuban revolution and had the insouciant attitude of somebody who was not living in such circumstances. He couldn't care less about the death, poverty and disease that was around him. Laura did – she complained that he sweated too much and smelled bad, but this was a metaphor for Cuba itself. Cuba was what was decaying before her eyes, and she knew it, and that was why she left. Sergio never had that same sense – all he cared about was that Laura should continue to make herself look pretty for him. In the end, he is mystified that he, himself, became a victim to the encroaching revolution, but this should not have dumbfounded him. If he cared more about the people who were dying around him, he wouldn't have been caught dumbfounded by the revolution that occurred and affected him. And the photographer – he was so alienated and isolated from society that he didn't even have a name – he, too, couldn't really care about death. He tried, and failed, to let people know about what he saw on the grass, that he had photographed a body, but, when the body disappeared, he turned his attention elsewhere. He was distracted, as easily distracted as all the other men who were in the other movies which have been reviewed here. And this, in the end, is how each of these films chose to address the cultural transformations that were occurring during this period of time. They chose the address the changes by looking through the eyes of the nihilists and the alienated. The people who really didn't seem to care about the changes that were occurring. They each were affected by these changes, profoundly affected – Wyatt and Billy were killed because they represented a change in society that the mainstream society was not ready for; Sergio was stripped of his wealth by the mainstream society, or at least the mainstream society that was put into place during the revolution in that country; the photographer was really stripped of his humanity, as he was able to put the death of another human being on the backburner while he watched a tennis match unfold. Yet, even though they were affected, they really didn't participate. They didn't participate in the counterrevolutions or the revolutions. They were not active engagers in the movements. Some might say that Wyatt and Billy, just through their actions of going across the country, smoking dope and kicking around without a care in the world, and hanging with the hippies, were the counterrevolutionaries. They were against society, so they were the counterculture. Which they were – but, at the same time, they were not actively promoting another way of life. They were not trying to change minds about them and what they were about. They were not protesting society, so much as just not participating in it. The hippies who they visited, who lived on the commune, were more countercultural then they were, because the hippies on the commune were actively encouraging a way of life. They were actively encouraging people to learn to live off of the land, and showing how this was done. The people who were drawn to the commune were those who wanted to get away from society, because they were fed up with the mainstream culture. And these hippies gave these individuals a chance to do so. This would be seriously countercultural, because they were providing an alternative lifestyle for people – a service, if you will. Wyatt and Billy were not even doing that. They were truly alienated drifters, and this is how the filmmaker chose to portray the revolution that was happening at this time. The filmmaker Alea, also chose the same type of viewpoint and perspective for Memories of Underdevelopment. He chose the show the revolution through the eyes of somebody who just couldn't care less. In the end, this was an interesting take, an interesting perspective on showing what was happening during this time. After all, not everybody who was countercultural was going around protesting and encouraging people to burn draft cards. Not everybody in Cuba was joining in with the revolutionaries or the counterrevolutionaries. There were people who chose to stay on the sidelines and let things happen. These were the people who maybe were unsung and underrepresented, and, perhaps, this was the motive of the filmmakers for these two movies- give a voice to the underrepresented, the alienated, the nihilistic, the ones who just really don't care. After all, these are voices which are important as well. Just because they are not as loud as other voices do not mean that they do not count. As for Blow Up, that film was more interesting, because the revolution or counterculture was not necessarily at the hear of that movie. The sense of alienation and isolation from society was a part of the movie, but the actual revolution was not. But, still, in their way, the filmmakers were critical toward the transformation that occurred during each of these movies' time periods. This was certainly true with regards to Easy Rider. Director Dennis Hopper, who also played Billy, showed how intolerant society was towards those who were different. Who didn't necessarily fit in with the dominant society. There could not have been two more peaceful men then Billy and Wyatt – especially Wyatt. Wyatt was a Pisces, and he has the temperament of a true Pisces. His philosophy of life was definitely “live and let live.” He was unfailingly polite – for instance, when he and Billy went to the commune, two girls wanted a ride over the canyon. Wyatt agreed over Billy's protestations – Wyatt silenced him with the admonishment that “we are eating their food.” Billy was a bit more of a rabble-rouser, but he was a harmless one. He complained a lot, but there wasn't anything about him that was violent. In other words, these were two men who were not troublemakers, despite the fact that the dominant men in society treated them as such every step of the way. They are put into jail for doing something harmless like riding in a parade on their bikes. They are attacked in the woods by some rednecks in the small town who didn't like the way that they looked. They ended up dead at the hands of two other rednecks. The filmmaker of Memories was also critical of the dominant society in his way. Alea, the director, was critical because he showed the horrors of the revolution, and,even though Sergio was above it and didn't care about it, the filmmaker made the audience care about it. This was an awful time of death and mayhem and violence. Of secret police and people disappearing in the middle of the night. It was a time when people could be stripped of their lands, and their lands being made a part of the state. All this was shown in stark contrast to the devil may care attitude of Sergio, and this is how the filmmaker was critical of what was happening in Cuba during this time. Conclusion In all three of these films, there were artistic choices to portray what was going on in the respective times and places by using protagonists who were a part of the change, but not really a part of it. They were not active participants, in other words, of what was going on. They all drifted along in their own little worlds, not really caring about what was happening, along as they were having a good time. This was true of Wyatt and Billy, who only was looking for their next high or lay, and didn't really care about the fact that the world that they were inhabiting was one that was offensive to the dominant culture, and this, in the end, would be their downfall. This is true of Sergio, who, as a wealthy Cuban before the revolution, chose to go on and live life as if the revolution was not really happening, even though he ended up being victimized by the revolution anyhow. This was true of the photographer, who was living during these times, as well, although him being in London, he was more isolated from the changes that were occurring in America and Cuba during this same time. The filmmakers in each of these films were critical of the periods in their way, as they showed how the dominant culture oppressed and repressed those who were really causing no problems or trouble. And, perhaps, this was the overall message of all of them – by showing the changes that were occurring through the eyes of the alienated, it made the violence and the oppression more real and poignant. Because, if the dominant culture could not stand the innocuous people in society, and they had to kill them and victimize them, then what would the society do to the people who did agitate for change? References Hopper, D. (Director). 1969. Easy Rider. United States: Columbia Pictures. Alea, T. (Director).1968. Memories of Underdevelopment. Cuba: ICAIC. Antonioni, M. (Director). 1966. Blow-Up. United States: MGM. Read More