Surrealism in American Film - Essay Example

Surrealism in American Film Introduction Surrealism is a type of artistic movement that was developed in the early 1920’s and can be attached to the psychoanalytical movement that was created by Sigmund Freud which brought to the surface the importance of the unconscious dream state and the meanings that can be attached to the symbols within the dreams. The movement spanned across many mediums, including poetry, painting, and film. Film was a perfect medium for the movement as it offered the ability to express a series of images that could convey a longer visual experience for the viewer. Surrealism is still used in contemporary films in order to cross the lanes from the conscious reality to the unconscious perceptive plane so that film makers can add a depth to their work that is beyond a reflection of what is real. Three American films are good examples of surrealism in the American Cinema. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) by Michel Gondry, Blue Velvet (1986) by David Lynch, and Spellbound (1945) by Alfred Hitchcock all draw upon the cultural movement of Surrealism in order to create their works. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) was written by Charlie Kaufman, well known for his surrealist concepts. David Lynch, who wrote and directed Blue Velvet (1986), is also a well known surrealist who has dealt at length with the theme of the illusory nature of reality. Alfred Hitchcock, whose talents for creating suspenseful films that leave the audience in wonder and shock, has long been an influence to contemporary film directors and writers for the modern interpretations of Surrealism in film. His film Spellbound (1945) is a primary example of this influence. Surrealism Surrealism is a style of art that was developed to create an expressive expansion of the dreams of artists so that the internal could be expressed rather than the external repeated. For Salvador Dali, the work of the Surrealist is “based on phantasms and representations brought about by the materializations of unconscious acts” (Levy 7). The style utilizes what is real but puts it into an unreal framework. A good example of this type of recreation is in Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone, 1936 (Fig 1), where a lobster has been substituted for the receiver of the telephone. The intent was to illicit a response and to ask the viewer to examine his or her response to the recreated dreamlike quality of the artwork (Claybourne 4). Surrealism is the ideas from the dream world that brought into manifestation within a form of art. Fig. 1. Salvador Dali Lobster Telephone, 1936. Surrealism in film was pioneered by artists such as Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, and Salvador Dali who designed a brilliant but disturbing dream sequence for the film Spellbound (1945) for Alfred Hitchcock (Spoto 132). Man Ray saw his films as commentary on the art form of film. His work was about the imagery and felt that when ‘talkies’ were developed, his connection to his viewers was no longer possible. His work was developed through the use of the purity of imagery alone without the use of sound (Baldwin 152). Cocteau left little in the way of theory where film was concerned. However, he did utilize the medium to play with the concepts of time and space in order to stretch the boundaries of the conscious world. He was able to shift and juxtapose “different times and places; and (move) the viewer effortlessly between reality and a dream” (Levitt 43). There are many critics that have addressed the issues of Surrealism in American cinema. Parker Tyler, well known American author, poet, and film critic, stated that Surrealism was an excuse, that it took from art its craftsmanship. He insisted that the technical skill of the artist was being supplanted by the desire to express and that the Surrealists had not driven hard enough to work the craftsmanship in order to express the unconscious. The aesthetic form was as important as the meaning behind that form (Taylor 54). According to Michael Richardson, the American film use of surrealism has tainted the movement, rendering it a used up version of the original intent. He particularly speaks about Lynch, suggesting that the elements of surrealism within his work take the concept of surrealism without the essence of its nature. True Surrealism never fully manifests. Richardson says that “the will to change life and transform the world - seems absent” (73). The main argument made by Richardson is that while the spirit of the movement is present, the engaging dialogue from the imagery to the viewer, which is then driven back by the viewer to the work, is not present. Surrealism in American Film The expansion of Surrealism into the American Cinema coincides with the development of the film noir genre of cinematic style (Borde and Chaumeton 24). Film noir had a fascination with death, with the dark places of the mind that were just outside of the light and dwelled in the shadows of the imagination. According to Sanders and Skoble, the surrealists intended to turn “bourgeois values and moralities upside down” and that these aesthetics still glimmer in even television programming such as the CSI franchise and the Law and Order franchise which peals back the imagined criminal world of our nightmares and exposes the horrors to the audience in darkened shadows (19). After all, who hasn’t wondered why the CSI forensic investigation teams don’t just shut off the flashlights and turn on the lights. The reason is because it keeps the mysteries in the shadows, revealing them when the timing for the shock value is relevant, rather than showing all through the flip of the switch. American film makers have embraced the basic foundations of Surrealism and used them liberally within their works. According to Harper and Stone, surrealism on film can be traced back to theories of Plato and Proust. Plato suggested that “truth is nothing more than the shadows of artificial things; silly things that corrupt our eyes“, and Proust suggested that “ the past was hidden in some material object which we do not suspect” (1). Surrealism in contemporary American film explores the essence of truth by putting it under the lens of the imagined truth. What is believed is put into balance with what is imagined. Perception of the truth and the difference between perception and reality plays a vital role in the way in which the themes and imagery of surrealistic cinema is presented. Fig 2. DVD interior, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2005 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) The main writer on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) was Charlie Kaufman whose first major motion picture script was for Being John Malkovich (1999), which was a strange story about a man who finds a doorway into the mind of the real life actor John Malkovich, who played himself in the film. Kaufman is unique in Hollywood. Most films are credited mostly to their directors, but Kaufman films are just that: Kaufman films. He has used the devices of humor and mainstream films in balance with the qualities of Surrealist film in order to create entertaining movies that also say something and do something that inspires thought about some very important concepts (Mayshark 138). In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the concept of painful memory is examined, as well as the aspects of love and how connections are made between those who fall in love. The initial premise is that a firm has developed a way to wipe out all of the memories of a single incident or person in order to give a client peace of mind so they have no recollection of that time or person and can move forward in their life. The concept seems appealing, but the exploration of whether or not a person would truly wish to not know something or someone who profoundly affected their life is examined through dream experiences as the protagonist fights to hold onto the memories of a girl he loved. He asked for the procedure, but having done so he regrets his decision. One of the devices that is used liberally in the film is to show the events out of sequence. This is similar to the theories of Cocteau who repositioned time and space within his work. The film begins close to the end of the chronology of the story. The events that lead up to that moment are then revealed as the story of Clementine and Joel and their love affair is released in small snippet views that are trapped within the mind of Joel who is chasing his memories trying to hold onto them. The do not come in the order they were experienced and are mostly witnessed in reverse. Events are sometimes overlapped with other memories that were relevant within his mind to each other. According to Erll and Rigney, it is the narrative strategies that are used in making the film that make it so explicitly unique. Most films would use voice-overs and flashbacks, but this film is designed with the concepts of memory at the forefront and the ways in which it can be somewhat fragmented at times and how one remembers things in reverse order, with the most recent events being the most fresh, thus being the ones that are most relevant within the moment of thinking about someone or something (34). With true Surrealistic intentions, the director of the film recreates the thoughts he believes exist in Joel’s mind in order to reveal the story of the romance to the audience. As well, media and objects become connected to the memories and those connections are slowly severed through the procedure that Joel has undergone, creating a commentary on the way in which memory is enhanced by physical and tangible items (Erll and Rigney36). The theme of the film is defined by its revelation of memory and the disjointed and distorted nature of memory affects how emotions are experienced. Fig 3. Blue Velvet, (1986). Blue Velvet, (1986) The film Blue Velvet (1986), is written and directed by David Lynch whose work includes the television series Twin Peaks in the 1990’s, and the films Eraserhead (1977) and Mulholland Drive (2001). Lynch was trained as a painter and many of his style choices are influenced by the work of surrealist painters such as Francis Bacon whose work can be said to be fragmented and without a defined sense of narrative, defying a sense of time and space. Lynch is quoted to have said “If Bacon had made a movie, where would it have been and where would it have gone? And how would the cinema translate those textures and those spaces” (Sheen, Davison, and Lynch 140). Lynch has defined his imagery through this sense of fragmentation. The film Blue Velvet (1986) is reminiscent of the classic film noir with the backdrop set in small town America. Influential films include Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and The Wizard of Oz (1939) (Drazin 74). The film takes a look at the duality of ’small town America’, revealing the sweetness of the surface, and then peeling back the layers to get to the shadowy underworld that operates behind closed doors. The film is similar to Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) in the way in which the romance between Jeffery and Sandy in Blue Velvet (1986) echoes that of George and Mary in Capra’s work. However, a darker side to the town is soon revealed when Jeffery finds an ear in a field, an event that propels him into a world that is twisted with obscenity and violence that exists in-between the perception that he has of the city where he lives. He is a version of George Bailey, although he lives in a world that is morally gray rather than the distinction of the black and white morality that Capra infused in his film. According to Drazin, even the villain of Blue Velvet (1986), brilliantly played by Dennis Hopper, evokes a sense of compassion from the viewing audience (74). A film that has a distinct Surrealistic quality is The Wizard of Oz (1939). There are tributes to this film by Lynch through the imagery of the red shoes and the naming of the damsel in distress, Dorothy, whom Jeffery is trying to save throughout the film (Barney 115). The pacing of the two films seem to fall into step with one another and it is as if Lynch created his own version, seeking to darken the children’s film and immerse it into the shadows (Bronfen 28). The film is steeped in that feeling of wonder as each meeting brings with it a new and often horrific realization of the world that Jeffery has stepped within. The nightmare world that Dorothy has drawn him into through the finding of an ear can be compared to Oz, a world that has a strangeness that he cannot fully comprehend. Jeffery is lost in an alternate universe that exists within his own world. The Wizard of Oz (1939), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Blue Velvet (1986) all have that middle America sense of culture, extracting that societal construct that is the stereotypical universe within the American historical perception of its culture. It is as if he takes that stereotype and twists it in order to tear back the veil and reveal what no one wants to talk about. He shines a light into the sewer, revealing what can’t scatter fast enough. Lynch believes that the stories he tells are reflective of an American tradition of telling stories that are created from the absurd and the Surreal. He is very aware of the way which the American culture has created their reality, all the while knowing that deep within its bowels the shadows exist. He finds interest in the way in which reality is measured against what is created to be real (Rodley 199). Fig. 4 Salvador Dali Backdrop for Dreams Sequence in Spellbound, 1945 Spellbound (1945) According to Harper and Stone, the first Hollywood director to introduce Surrealism to the modern audience was Alfred Hitchcock (115). Influences can be seen in most work that can be considered neo-noir, such as Blue Velvet (1986), from the work of Hitchcock. According to Moral, “Hitchcock’s interest in the modern style of surrealism reflects his own obsession with man’s imbalance and his interest in appropriating a therapeutic discourse in his films” (190). Moral goes on to suggest that there is a voyeurism that emerges within the films as the viewer is allowed access to the inner workings of the minds of Hitchcock’s characters. The most compelling aspect of the film is that the viewer is compelled to look at his or her own self through the lens of the characters within the film, examining his own darker thoughts and how they are in context with his or her emotions and actions (191). The film Spellbound (1945) was the collaboration of producer David Selznick with Alfred Hitchcock. Selznick was in psychoanalysis and wanted to do a film about the theme, both to capitalize on the mystery that surrounded the process and to do some public relations on the theory as it was in the process of being discouraged by other psychology theorists. The story of the film is based on a patient with amnesia who has taken the identity of someone with whom a tragedy has occurred, but for which he has no real memory. He just feels a residual guilt that compels him to become that person. The core moments of the film that relate to the theme of psychoanalysis result with a dream sequence that was designed by Salvador Dali and consisted of images that seemed somewhat random, but were made clear through dream analysis that resulted in solving most of the mystery (Moral 191). The influences of psychoanalysis as they are also relevant to the Surrealist movement are thick and this influenced generations of film makers because the concepts of imagery in films was greatly expanded as the mind became a filmable playground. Hitchcock used Dali because he wanted to “(equate) the psychoanalytical theme and the pictorial element…with the use of surrealist imagery” (Cohen 56). While there is some criticism (Richardson) about the use of surrealism in popular film, that it does not reach the potential that the movement intended, the fact that Hitchcock and those he influenced use the concepts in order to create a deeper experience for the audience suggests that the effect on the modern audience is to provoke thought and create a dialogue between the viewer and the work. Therefore, it does not seem true that the works of contemporary directors who are using Surrealism within their films are failing to meet the potential. The films are connecting to the audience and invoking thought, which is the intention of Surrealism. Conclusion Many films have utilized the concepts that make up the Surrealism sense of creativity. Walt Disney used Surrealism as he felt that the animated medium was a perfect place in which to explore the concept. Dali collaborated with Disney in order to develop an animated film called Destino (2007), which was not actually finished until it was rediscovered by Disney’s nephew Roy in 2003 (Gabler 416). Another film that uses Surrealistic concepts in order to keep the audience off balance is Pi (1998), written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. The film is about a genius mathematician who cannot contain his genius, thus is battered back in forth without a clarity of knowing what is real and what is not real. Aronofsky uses direct images that the Surrealists embraced, such as insects, only with a more subtle suggestion of their presence in order to illicit that same sense of revulsion that the early Surrealists aspired to find (23). In Requiem for a Dream (2000), he takes his aesthetics of Surrealism to weave a dark story about the consequences and horrors of drug abuse, moment by moment destroying the hope and aspirations of the characters until they have been completely taken apart. The Surrealist film makers of the 1920’s embraced the dream theories of Freud in order to examine the visual construction of the mind. Through the dream state, the images could become thick with symbolism with the intention of looking at how perceptions of reality can be formed. Modern film makers have embraced these theories, reformulating the narrative in order to reach a modern audience. Despite criticism that the origins of the Surrealism have been watered down, the modern film uses the concepts to reach a wider audience and therefore has a greater affect on the perceptions of society. The dream state has become a rich landscape in which to define the way in which reality diverges with the perception of reality. Film makers are using this state in order to visually discuss the mind and viewers are being provoked to think about their perceptions from a variety of viewpoints. The modern Surrealist film maker has inspired conversations and realizations to a wide, pop culture based audience. Works Cited Baldwin, Neil. Man Ray, American Artist. New York: Da Capo Press, 2001. Print. Borde, Raymond, and Etienne Chaumeton. A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953). San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002. Print. Bronfen, Elisabeth. Home in Hollywood: The Imaginary Geography of Cinema. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2004. Print. Claybourne, Anna. Surrealism. Chicago, Il: Heinemann Library, 2009. Print. Cohen, Paula M. Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995. Drazin, Charles. Charles Drazin on Blue Velvet. New York: Bloomsbury, 1999. Print. Erll, Astrid, and Ann Rigney. Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Print. Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. New York: Random House, 2007. Harper, Graeme, and Rob Stone. The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism on Film. London: Wallflower, 2007. Print. Levitt, Annette S. “The Cinematic Magic of Jean Cocteau”. Ed. Cornelia Tsakiridou. Reviewing Orpheus: Essays on the Cinema and Art of Jean Cocteau. Bucknell review, 41:1. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1997. Print. Levy, Silvano. Surrealism: Surrealist Visuality. Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1997. Print. Mayshark, Jesse F. Post-pop Cinema: The Search for Meaning in New American Film. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2007. Print. Moral, Tony L. Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2002. Richardson, Michael. Surrealism and Cinema. Oxford [u.a.: Berg, 2006. Internet resource. Rodley, Chris. Lynch on Lynch. London: faber and faber, 2005. Print. Royer, Carl and Diane Royer. The Spectacle of Isolation in Horror Films. Philadelpis, PA: Psychology Press, 2005. Sanders, Steven, and Aeon J. Skoble. The Philosophy of TV Noir. Lexington, Ky: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. Print. Spoto, Donald. Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009. Print. Taylor, Greg. Artists in the Audience: Cults, Camp, and American Film Criticism. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1999. Print. Illustrations Fig. 1. Salador Dali, Lobster Telephone, 1936. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http: //files.myopera.com/edwardpiercy/blog/Dali-Lobster-Phone1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ce lebritiessite.blogspot.com/2008/08/salvador-dali-lobster-telephone.html&h= 309&w=350&sz=116&tbnid=TfJsNgid3zP3aM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=120&prev=/images% 3Fq%3Dsalvador%2Bdali%2Blobster%2Btelephone&zoom=1&q=salvador+dali+lobster +telephone&hl=en&usg=__y8wLiEsJHUhsvsb4LatvcvCybyA=&sa=X&ei=1iTWTJLnH oH98AatyLHsCg&sqi=2&ved=0CCAQ9QEwAg Fig 2. DVD interior, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2005. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.impawards.com/2004/posters/eternal sunshine_of_the_spotless_mind_ver1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.impawards.com/2004/e ternal_sunshine_of_the_spotless_mind_ver1.html&usg=__qp649aOoLznJBVvG0VQk7T VoNeo=&h=755&w=486&sz=96&hl=en&start=4&zoom=1&tbnid=PFcKHoPgvx4LtM: &tbnh=142&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Deternal%2Bsunshine%2Bof%2Bthe%2B spotless%2Bmind%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3 D607%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1 Fig 3. Blue Velvet, (1986). http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot. com/_zOicKVkdK7s/SwxNQzzDnOI/AAAAAAAAARk/pWrG5lCZ1M0/s640/Blue%2 BVelvet1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rialeighrabut.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html&u sg=__Bnm6gyaXS2EZK4P0CFKm5V7-MY4=&h=399&w=600&sz=25&h l=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=uTg0kJl-yQvc3M:&tbnh=132&tbnw=195&pre v=/images%3Fq%3DBlue%2BVelvet%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3D607% 26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1140%2C114&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=649&vpy=15 9&dur=607&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=169&ty=105&ei=DUPWTO3pMMKblgfX4sH CA&oei=DUPWTO3pMMKblgfX4sH_CA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:10 ,s:0&biw=1248&bih=607 Fig. 4 Salvador Dali Backdrop for Dreams Sequence in Spellbound, 1945. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/frank/ Images/dali.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/frank/dali asp&usg=__s7pYEp_TklHE-YApywvnm8CLO2M=&h=295&w=400&sz=32&hl= en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=sa5W2GcEntwfrM:&tbnh=174&tbnw=235&prev=/images %3Fq%3Dspellbound%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1248%26bi %3D607%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C57&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=308&ei=cFfWTMbH MISKlweI5LiACQ&oei=cFfWTMbHMISKlweI5LiACQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=12&ve d=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=122&ty=97&biw=1248&bih=607 Read More