Press Play Video Blog

Watch: What Makes GHOSTBUSTERS a Classic? A Video Essay

One thing that became resoundingly clear after the death of Harold Ramis was that the films he was involved in–‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘Animal House,’ ‘Groundhog Day’–had an undeniable solidity to them, regardless of what you might say about their degree of refinement. This video essay by Bob Chipman, who also calls himself MovieBob, digs into the particular solidity of ‘Ghostbusters,’ a film which would appear on the surface to be light entertainment, but which reveals itself, under the eye of this sharp, dense, and fast-moving analysis, to be a complexly conceived and brilliantly executed project, on several levels. One important and interesting point the piece makes is that the film’s three central characters don’t undergo tremendous changes during the film–there’s no apparent character arc. The movie resists, as well, tried-and-true developments such as a switch from disbelief in ghosts to belief in ghosts. Additionally, Chipman discusses the fact, all too true, that the film grew out of–and commented on–a ghost craze that swept American film during the late 1970s and early 1980s, notable examples of this trend being ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘The Exorcist.’ And capping off this elaborate examination is a serious look, without too much fannishness, at the extent to which the movie looks at questions of mortality and faith through the lens of Sumerian mythology. Chipman assigns Ghostbusters a fair amount of profundity, signing off with a rousing coda and ending with "Ghostbusters is really. That. Good." This is the first in a series, in which Chipman will delve into classics and determine why they endure.

Watch: David Fincher’s Early Film Work: A Video Essay

The early years of David Fincher were, to watch this installment in the excellent Directors Series by the Raccord collective, very different from the later years, at least in content. The nearly-half-hour-long piece details how he got his start making music videos for the likes of Rick Springfield, Paula Abdul, and The Motels, even making a documentary about Springfield called The Beat of the Live Drum. We’re given a hint of the discomfiting approach to come in a short film Fincher made for the American Cancer Society in 1984 featuring a (cigarette-) smoking fetus, modeled after the Star Child from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Watch it: it’s truly disturbing.) We also learn about his travails with the maligned Alien 3, his first feature film. What’s happening here, with these early projects of Fincher’s, is what would be best called the finding of a form. Just as you might be able to tell a lot about a writer by reading his or her first book, we can see a lot of the later Fincher in his 1980s videos–the steely sheen that lies over everything, the sense of perfection, and the sense of pure mania that lies beneath that perfection. For anyone who wants to learn a little about artistic development, and in particular about Fincher’s development, this would be a good piece to watch.

Watch: How the Boulder Scene from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Was Made and Why It Lasts

There were many scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark that thrilled my preteen mind: brushing the spiders off a man’s back, the melting eyeballs, the unleashing of the power of the Ark. But, in the end, a scene of Indiana Jones being chased by a large boulder down a long tunnel wins. Why? Not sure. It has metaphorical power, I suppose–maybe it’s the opposite of the myth of Sisyphus, in which a man pushes a boulder up a hill for eternity? Maybe because it was the sort of gut-level entertainment that we rarely see in unmitigated, pure form in films these days? In any event, this brisk and informative "Art of the Scene" installment from Cinefix lays out the history of the film, and, for our edification, the details of the making of the boulder scene. We learn, among many other things, that George Lucas got the idea for the boulder from a Scrooge the Duck comic book, and that the sound of the boulder rolling is actually the sound of the wheels of a Honda Civic, rolling on gravel. Enjoy!

Watch: The Power of Reflection in 120 Films (in Five Minutes)

Reflections
are a common find in every type of film, but what can we learn from them?
What does it mean when a character gazes emptily into his or her own
reflection? What is communicated when the filmmaker decides to focus on
the characters’ reflections rather than on their actual bodies?
There are several ways a reflection may be presented to us–we see
them in mirrors, windows, water, shiny surfaces–each holding numerous symbolic
interpretations. Of course, just as sometimes a "cigar is just a
cigar," a reflection is often just a reflection. If a character is
grooming in the bathroom, a reflection would clearly be a natural part of the
scene. But even in cases such as this, the way the said reflection is
presented to us may hold deeper significance.

A recurring
idea expressed through reflections is duality. Travis Bickle talking to
his reflection in Taxi Driver, the gasoline puddle foreshadowing Harvey Dent’s
disfigurement in The Dark Knight, and the overwhelmingly disorienting
mirror placement in Black Swan are prime examples of duality expressed through
reflections. Reflections shown in the mirror of a vehicle can often
express regret, dwelling on the past, and isolation. In Brokeback
Mountain, Jack watches as Ennis becomes belittled by the distance in his side-view
mirror. In Drive, we are frequently presented with the driver reduced
down to eyes in the rear-view mirror–this is all he has. Sometimes
reflections are manipulated to help us feel the inner turmoil of a
character. Rayon is pigeonholed into the tiny makeup mirror reminiscent
of his lifestyle in Dallas Buyers Club, Lou Bloom’s inner disconnect is
portrayed through his fragmented reflection in Nightcrawler, and Ed Avery’s
unpredictable state of mind is visually expressed through his fractured mirror
in Bigger Than Life. Reflections presented in reflective surfaces other
than mirrors seem to suggest an intrusion of some sort. As the elevator
doors close in Lost in Translation, Bob’s own identity is forced into his
view. During Clarice’s close-up in Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal
Lecter’s reflection in the prison wall monopolizes the frame–he is in
control.

When used in a
significant manner, reflections can effectively communicate intricacies of a
character’s thoughts, feelings, and secrets that would otherwise not be
expressed visually. Here is a look at significant reflections in 120
films.

Watch: Why the Colors of ‘The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ Are So Important

On what level do we notice the colors a director of a film or TV show chooses? When we watch, we’re noticing all kinds of other things: the dialogue, the intrigues, the humor, the suspense. We don’t necessarily always consciously notice the way directors help these things work together; we don’t necessarily instantly analyze what’s happening on screen; we don’t necessarily think of film as a visual phenomenon first. And why should we? Why should we view these works with special technique-detecting goggles on? We shouldn’t, but, as Todd VanDerWerff points out in this excellent Vox video essay, there may be a reason for our positive response to a show or film, and that reason may lie with the director’s ingenuity, rather than the twistings and turnings of individual taste. It’s a simple point, possibly, and almost tautological, but one worth making, lest we see ourselves as mindless amoebae, wondering from one stimulus response to another. VanDerWerff trains his sights here on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, one of the more interesting serial dramas around at this moment, novel for both its storyline and its hyper-caffeinated, fresh-from-left-field approach to storytelling; there have been precious few TV dramas that made cults an integral part of their storyline, though they might have appeared in the occasional school-of-Law-&-Order procedural every now and then. The piece clues us in to the director’s ingenious use of colors here, primarily, also giving us a small glimpse of enough TV history, via a clever timeline and some fast shots of older shows, to drive home the idea that experimentations with the clash of Day-Glo colors and milder hues, of the colors of emotional overdrive with its bland opposite, are yet another indication of the rare and strange period of TV history in which we live. A piece like this reminds me of what a writing teacher once said after a rather long monologue on technique: "These are terrible things to think about, but they’re wonderful things to have thought about." If you’re a fan of this show, maybe this careful examination will make you more aware of technique the next time (or two) you watch.

Watch: A Supercut of Over 300 Ass-Kicking Women

There’s a lot of visceral pleasure to be had in Entertainment Weekly‘s new supercut of "women who kick ass." First, there’s the title. What does it mean, exactly? If someone "kicks ass," does that mean they’re vindictive? Don’t take prisoners? Judge with an iron fist? Yep. Or could it mean the individual in question is a trendsetter (hateful word, but accurate)? Or is it just a sexiness thing, the thought being that once a woman reaches a certain level of sex appeal, she can be said to… "kick ass"? Or maybe the "kicking ass" came first? Whose ass, exactly? Everyone’s? One person’s in particular? Sure, it’s a metaphor, but the farther you dig into it, the more elusive it becomes. In any event, the video is wonderful. It’s fun to watch Joan Jett do anything, but singing "I Love Rock’n’Roll" is one of those things. The same goes for Nancy Sinatra and "Bang Bang." Or Mary Poppins. Or Madonna. The way Jonathan Keogh mixes and matches these images of women in moments of power and electricity is thrilling–two particularly choice moments were watching Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice dancing to "All the Single Ladies" or hearing Maureen Stapleton’s Edith Bunker shout "I ain’t taking no orders," followed immediately by Ellen DeGeneres saying, "Yes, I’m gay." But there are many others. These clips have nothing and everything to do with each other–they illustrate a paradigm that has survived and grown through a century of cultural rippling, a paradigm of matriarchy, a paradigm of femininity.

ARIELLE BERNSTEIN: How ‘The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ Skewers Empowerment Culture

Back in the early 2000s, a friend and I worked together on
creating a musical medley based on all our favorite songs. We featured artists from
Ani Difranco to Radiohead. Our favorite silly addition was a song by Ja Rule
and Ashanti called “Mesmerize” which was utterly and fantastically terrible. In
my favorite line of this atrocious song Ashanti sings about how, for a woman,
love is always pain, to which Ja Rule sweetly and patronizingly replies, “It’s
a man’s world. But I understand.”

Barring the fact that these lyrics seem like a complete non
sequitur, the assertion that female pain is a kind of status quo smacked deeply
of condescension. The fact that this catchy and absurd song got airplay
multiple times a day, as if we all could seemingly care less about what a dumb message
this was sending us, made it feel as though it were actually benign.

I laughed when I first heard the lyrics. I grew up in a home
where a woman’s identity was measured by suffering. In the world of my mother’s
telenovelas, women were constantly
beating their breasts and crying and cursing the heavens. To be a woman was to
endure various pains—the pain of childbirth, the pain of philandering boyfriends
and husbands, often the pain of domestic abuse. Young beautiful women
experienced pain at being harassed, and older, less beautiful women faced
instead the pain of invisibility.

I think for a long time I felt that if I could be as “American”
as possible I could be free from this old-fashioned and debilitating portrait
of what it meant to be female. After all, in America I received lots of
messages of “girl power.” But these messages never seemed to reach the women of
my generation, myself often included, and, ten years later, many of my young
American female students are consumed with the same fears and kinds of sadness
that I tried to shut my eyes to when I was young. They worry about how they
look, and if they are likeable enough. They worry about if they are too girly,
or not girly enough. They worry about whether they’ll be objectified or
ignored. Room after room of young women who feel no more empowered than I did
at their age. Room after room of young women who laugh off a sexist song
because it just hurts too much to actually confront what it means.

The Unbreakable Kimmy
Schmidt is about a woman who was kidnapped by an insane preacher when she
was 14 years old, and held underground in a bunker for 15 years. When she
emerges she’s ebullient. Her personality is infectious. Her desire to rebuild
her life and not be seen as a victim is palpable. In the opening credits, we
get this nifty autotuned theme song with the catchy lyrics, “White dudes hold
the record for creepy crimes. But females are strong as hell.”

This idea of female strength and solidarity pervades the
entire series, as Kimmy offers words of wisdom to her boss, Jacqueline, who is
struggling to come to terms with her life after her divorce. “I survived,”
Kimmy opens up to her, “because that’s what women do. We eat a bag of dirt,
pass it in the kiddie pool and move on.” In one episode, Kimmy attempts to give
a pep talk to a bunch of women awaiting plastic surgery. In another, Kimmy
helps rescue a bunch of women from an exercise-based cult.

One of the most subversive things about The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is the way the show satirizes the way
that survivors are often victimized by a culture that cares more about juicy
details than actual healing. The show also demonstrates how the “women are
strong” narrative that emerges from this culture might not be as feminist as
one might hope. On the one hand, the narrative of female strength frees women
from the stereotype of femininity as weak and submissive. On the other, it
presents female strength as deriving entirely from the ability to endure
patriarchal injustice after patriarchal injustice over and over again. In this
way, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt also
skewers “empowerment culture,” from the girl power ethos of the 90s to today’s #yesallwomen
activism. Women in empowerment culture band together out of necessity, not
necessarily because they have a lot in common as individuals, or truly want to
be friends, or comrades in arms. The four “mole women” could not be more
different from each other in interests, attitudes in life, cultural background,
or intellectual ability. Similarly, Kimmy and Jacqueline bond over their
identity as women and survivors, but could not be more different in about every
other way imaginable.

Over the last several years, funny women like Tina Fey, Amy
Poehler and Amy Schumer have been heralded as ushering in a new wave of
feminist comedy. I feel lucky to be living in a time period where women’s
rights provide a topic of popular conversation, but I can’t help but also sometimes
feel frustrated by the popular response to shows like these, where we’ll laugh
at how terrible sexism is but feel powerless to actually change the current
culture. While humor is an effective way to get people to think more critically
about sexism, I also worry that many people are completely content to laugh and
then go along with the status quo.

And sometimes I do feel like a “humorless feminist” when it
comes to certain topics. I don’t think domestic violence or rape or eating
disorders are funny. When people talk about women’s strength as coming from
surviving these types of experiences, the only thing I can think of is that
dumb Ja Rule lyric from over a decade ago. It’s still a man’s world. I don’t
want to be told I’m strong anymore. What I want is for the culture to actually change.

In one of my favorite moments in the series, Kimmy’s close
friend Titus offers to be in charge of music for her birthday party (all of
Kimmy’s musical knowledge is based on 90s hits from when she was barely out of
middle school). After playing a bunch of house music, Kimmy asks for some music
with lyrics and gets the charming little ditty, “I beat that bitch with a bat,”
of which there is both a club version, and slower acoustic version. It’s
shocking and funny and ridiculous, except that we’ve all been to a party like
that, where we’ve heard similar kinds of lyrics. We laughed at it until we
didn’t, and then the words just faded quietly into the sound of everything
else.

Arielle Bernstein is
a writer living in Washington, DC. She teaches writing at American
University and also freelances. Her work has been published in The
Millions, The Rumpus, St. Petersburg Review and The Ilanot Review. She
has been listed four times as a finalist in Glimmer Train short story
contests. She is currently writing her first book.

Watch: An Unsettling Mash-Up of Terrence Malick’s ‘Days of Heaven’ and Woody Allen’s ‘Manhattan’

Terrence Malick and Woody Allen would seem to make a rather odd pair, but the reality is that, as this piece by Vince Di Meglio shows, the two have more in common than one might think. Di Meglio has taken the opening voice-over from Malick’s Days of Heaven and spliced it over the opening shots of Manhattan–and then done the reverse, taking Woody Allen’s novel draft stops-and-starts from Manhattan and placing them over the opening scenes from Days of Heaven. And… to be honest… it works quite nicely. The angst-ridden tones of the Malick film complement Allen’s vast, black-and-white Gordon Willis vistas, just as the aspirational tone of the Manhattan voice-over portends the desperation soon to be seething in Days of Heaven, after its opening frames. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the movies were relatively close in release date; their evident sympathetic relationship here could be because they were part of a larger, more romantic zeitgeist than the one we have at present.

Or maybe not.

Watch: How Can Music Shape a War Film?

Just as war is inexplicable, music is inexplicable. We can describe both: one is violent, savage, sometimes needless, uneven; the other operates by relationships between sounds that simply work, remaining in our memory for reasons we can’t pinpoint. It makes sense, then, that music would be important to war films. It’s hard to forget, for instance, the sound of Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkryies" blasting from the helicopters in Apocalypse Now. The tension in the "I don’t know but I been told" marching song in Full Metal Jacket is palpable, especially given what lies ahead of the singing trainees. And the whistling melody from The Bridge Over the River Kwai is a classic–which I once whistled with a small group during summer camp as a child, not realizing the full significance of the tune. This video essay by Ian Magor uses these and other scenes to show us how music can affect the way we
perceive war in movies–and can "allow us to rediscover our humanity."

Watch: The Gangster Face in 50 Movies: A Compilation

What is it about the gangster face? Not so long ago, we ran an excellent video essay by Nelson Carvajal that celebrated the brash, tough, hypnotic, quintessentially macho quality of "gangster culture" in film. Now, Jorge Luengo has posted a piece digging into similar territory but with a narrower focus: the face. The alternately calm and monstrous face of Robert DeNiro’s Al Capone in The Untouchables. Or his affable but menacing face as James Conway in Goodfellas. Or… the grizzled visage of Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello in The Departed. Or the near-theatrically sad, almost noble face of Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Or Al Pacino’s twitching, ever-animate countenance as Tony Montana in Scarface. Or, reaching back a little, Warren Beatty’s handsome Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde. Or James Cagney’s craggy Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces. Strung together with the ubiquitous "Little Green Bag" song from Reservoir Dogs, this piece truly makes one reflect on the face of the gangster, in every sense of that phrase. So what is it, I ask again, that’s so fascinating here? Is it the fact that we can’t be entirely certain what lies beneath that face? Or is it that the gangster isn’t sure either?