Detroit Rock City: Rock n' Roll All Nite

It is a feeling that could never be captured on a MP3 file. Perhaps it can’t even be pressed into vinyl. It’s the slickness of the sweat soaked through your jeans. The ringing of your eardrums between sets. The arms and hands and elbows of people you’ll never meet but will eagerly knock you to the ground then lift you up and carry you all the way to the stage. It’s going to your first gig in your teens and finally finding a sound that beats through to your heart. That makes you want to roar with approval at the end of each song. When you find a band that gives you that feeling you’ll want to make them your entire existence. 

For high-schoolers Hawk, Lex, Jam and Trip, that band is Kiss, the hard rock band that practically invented the genre of Glam Metal. The four leads of 1999’s Detroit Rock City are all literal card-carrying members of the Kiss Army. Sneaking the band’s albums into their parent’s Donnie & Marie records. Memorizing the band’s history, including the secret of Gene Simmon’s elongated tongue. Even forming their own Kiss tribute band ‘Mystery’, with the ‘S’ predictably stylized into a lightning bolt. These teenage boys embrace Kiss and hard rock to the level of a lifestyle, spending their nights drinking, smoking, tripping balls and playing their favorite hits long into the night. 

 

Set over the course of a single day (either the 21st or 23rd of January if you're curious), the film follows the members of Mystery as they prepare to see Kiss play live at Cobo Hall, Detroit as part of their 1978 Alive II tour. When Jam (Sam Huntington)’s evangelical mother discovers that her son has tickets to hear ‘the Devil’s music’ she furiously burns them and literally drags Jam off to spend the rest of his teens at a Catholic Boarding School. Having lost their tickets and their drummer, his bandmates are dismayed until a stroke of luck leads them to bust Jam out and drive to Detroit, determined to scam, steal, and strip their way into the concert of a lifetime. 

It’s an endearing film with a lot of funny moments and a killer soundtrack (in addition to Kiss the film features the likes of AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and The Runaways). However what Detroit Rock City does best, and indeed is the reason it has become a cult classic among the Kiss Army, is capture the juvenile instinct to make fandom one’s entire life. The first act is spent in at the quartet’s painfully average high school in Cleveland, Ohio. During which time you see how pathetic the non-Kiss parts of their life are. When they can be brought to heel by a conservative mother or forced to run in terror from an Elvis lookalike serving as a security guard. It’s only when they escape from these confinements of Americana are they able to take an active role in their lives. To rip-off a pizza delivery, drug a priest and lay the smack down on a pair of disco-loving wannabes.  

The high school scenes serve to drive home the quartet’s need to see this band. To make you believe that missing Kiss is a threat that might as well be the end of the world to Mystery. It’s nicely woven throughout the film in areas like how cowed is under the oppressive thumb of his mother. After tonight he will likely never see his friends until he’s a legal adult. As the biggest burnout of the group, Trip (James DeBello)’s stupidity is primarily played for laughs. However there’s a tragic quality driven home by his boast that he’s simply going through the motions until he can drop out of High School. This plays no small part in allowing us to sympathize with him even as his tactic of entering the concert is the most thoughtless and crude. Planning to mug a small kid for his ticket. A plan that goes awry when his target (Cody Jones credited only as ‘Little Kid’) calls on his older brother, a towering homunculus named Chongo whose fists thoroughly punish Trip for his foolishness. 

What such nuances make clear is that none of these boys have particularly bright futures ahead of them, stranded as they are in Middle America. Failing High School and with Mystery hardly likely to evolve into a professional band when they’ve only had one aborted gig. For Mystery, seeing Kiss live will probably be remembered as the high point in their lives. This is why being willing to mug small children or perform amateur strip shows seems more understandable than it should. Attending this concert is likely to be the closest any of them will get to living the rock star lifestyle. As a Ticket Scalper (the late Richard Hillman) describes ‘I'm talking about the most voluptuous women hanging out in the audience. I'm talking big breasteses, and tight vesteses, my friend! You're talking people passing around joints in the audience. You're talking about fuckin' Detroit Rock City, brother.’ The film makes you believe that the concert will finally allow them to access the, admittedly shallow, kind of world they dream of. Seeing Kiss genuinely means everything to these characters and so we accept the absurd lengths they’re willing to go to for it. 

This is what elevates Detroit Rock City from being yet another gross-out teen comedy. The character’s love of Kiss and everything they represent comes from an incredibly earnest and relatable place. Some of it likely comes from the edgy feel of youthful rebellion. Enjoying how much the ‘Knights in Satan’s Service’ antagonizes conservative parents and disco loving ‘Stellas’ provides a certain illicit thrill. Almost on par with losing one's virginity in a confessional booth. The film ignores many of the superficial and commercial aspects of Kiss fandom that were popular in the era. By 1978 Kiss were already one of the most heavily merchandised bands with their name and image licensed to pinball machines, action figures, comic books and trading cards. A reality that would undermine the film’s depiction of Kiss as icons of the rebellious counterculture. 

At the same time Detroit Rock City doesn’t avoid some of the more toxic elements of rock fandom, the objectification of women, homophobia and the hostile disregard for any alternative taste in music. Of all areas of toxic fandom this instinct towards gatekeeping is shown to be the most pervasive with Lex (Giuseppe Andrews) proving to be biggest offender of this. Frequently deriding the Stellas and regarding them lower than dogs. This hostility comes to a head during the drive to Illinois, when the quartet has a run in with a pair of especially macho disco freaks. Upon gaining the upper hand they proceed to beat the two men bloody with their various tools of rock paraphernalia (drumsticks, chains, and even Kiss-branded belt buckles). Perhaps inappropriately, the film frames the brutal assault as righteous payback set to Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’. 

The Rock vs Disco dynamic may seem like a small part of the film however it speaks to one of the more pernicious aspects of rock fandom, one which can have devastating real-world consequences. Detroit Rock City is notably set in 1978, the year in which Kiss were arguably at the peak of their career. Their audience attendee figures were the highest they’d ever been and their merchandise deals were netting the band millions. This was also the period in which Rock music in general began to adopt an anti-disco sentiment that escalated to hostile and even violent extremes. 

While Rock had the longer legacy, with its origins dating back to Chuck Berry in the 1950s, the younger, more diverse genre of Disco was derided as the more mainstream of the two. It was associated with colorful, chart-topping bands such as ABBA, The Bee Gees and The Village People (incidentally the genre’s popularity among gay men meant that a lot of anti-disco sentiment was driven by homophobia). The scene was the subject of the box-office smash that was Saturday Night Fever, led by a teen heartthrob named John Travolta. To fans of Heavy Metal bands like Kiss, Disco was everything they despised; shallow, inauthentic, commercial and flamboyant. Entire media personalities like DJ Steve Dahl, rose to prominence by adopting a militant ‘pure-rock’ fandom ethos that turned a music rivalry into a culture war. 

This tension between Rock and Disco reached a tipping point in 1979 when Dahl organized a ‘Disco Demolition Night’ to promote a doubleheader baseball game at Chicago’s Cominsky Park. Offering fans discounted tickets if they brought a disco record to be blown-up between the two games. The event went awry when far more people showed up than the stadium could accommodate, forcing security to padlock most of the gates. Drunken attendees inside threw records along with fireworks and liquor bottles during the first game and security had nowhere near the manpower to police the event. When the actual explosion went off it was far larger than expected, tearing up sections of the outfields. The already rowdy crowd proceeded to storm the pitch, setting records alight and demolishing the stadium. Riot police had to clear out the crowd and the home team ended up forfeiting the second game.  

As bad as the event made the Rock scene look it was Disco that paid the price. The genre went into rapid decline, with bands like The Bee Gees falling out of the charts in subsequent years. Record sales plummeted, resulting in major labels going bust and by the 1980s whatever was left of the US disco scene was adapted into the nascent electronic music movement. The opposition of the Rock scene and Disco Demolition could not take all the blame, but it certainly accelerated a trend that was already underway. With Reagan-era politics about to dominate the country and target both the sexually decadent Disco and the Satanic iconography of Rock. 

With its setting in 1978, Detroit Rock City captures the moment in rock history when Rock was the outlet of choice for angry, disaffected teenagers. Socially and sexually stunted young men with an unchecked aggression towards the popular, colorful and camp new vibe sweeping the country. However, to its credit Detroit Rock City has the self-awareness to confront this hostility.  Shortly after their roadside revenge, the boys pick up one of the disco freaks’ Stella girlfriends, Christine (Natasha Lyonne) and offer her a ride to Detroit. Partially out of concern for a lone woman wandering the freeway and partially hoping to win sexual favors from her. After sharing a joint they leave Christine passed out in the car only for it to be stolen with her in the back. Later, after trying and failing to sneak into the concert as a roadie, Lex comes across the car thieves. Having taken his Mom’s Volvo to a nearby chop shop where they intend to take full advantage of the attractive young woman now at their mercy. Crucially it is Lex then, the one who has shown the most volatile hostility towards Stellas, who ends up saving Christine. An acknowledgement of their shared humanity that far outweighs petty music rivalries. 

In saving Christine, Lex proves that the various members of Mystery can move beyond their zealous worship of Rock. Hawk, Lex, Jam and Trip all begin the film with the same violent hostility towards the Disco scene along with a myriad number of other neuroses. In the process of doing everything they can to see Kiss they all end up expanding their horizons. Musically, psychologically, morally, and sexually, even physically with a last-ditch plan to beat each other bloody and claim to have been mugged for their tickets. At the end they emerge more experienced, possibly even wiser, and ready to face whatever the end of the 70s holds for them. Before that though they are rewarded, successfully scamming their way in to see Kiss and in the process getting revenge on Chongo and Trip’s pre-teen tormentor. On rushing into the concert hall, the titular track ‘Detroit Rock City’ blasts through the speakers and the experience is everything they could have hoped for. 

A year after the Alive II tour, drummer Peter Criss would leave Kiss. Whether he was fired or quit remains a point of contention between band members. Two years later lead guitarist Ace Frehley would also go and the remaining members would proceed to ditch the bands iconic costumes and make-up. Kiss would never fully fall apart as many great bands tended to do, however from the eighties onward it was clear that their best days were behind them. In the decade that followed America would undergo sweeping societal change with the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the rise of the moral majority. The hippies who had led the sexual revolution had grown up into conservative middle-class parents, keen to promote family values and Christian ideals. Emboldened by Reagan they led the ‘Satanic Panic’ a period of hysteric outrage against supposed Satanic influences in youth culture. Especially in bands like Kiss who happily exploited the fears of religious groups for publicity. 

In getting to finally see their favorite band live, the four leads of Detroit Rock City get to enjoy one final hurrah. After tonight they will be separated forever with Mystery potentially never reuniting. It’s unlikely that they’ll ever see Kiss perform in their original lineup again and over the next decade Rock will change into something far beyond their narrow tastes. However, these are problems for the future. For this one night, this one moment in time they can thrash and drink and revel like the rock stars they want to be, all nite long. 

Jump, Darling: A Flourish of Queens

It pains me to admit that I've never been particularly familiar with the career of the late Clois Leachman. In fact it was only because of her passing earlier this year that I learned she was the Grandmother in Malcolm in the Middle. A cartoonish stereotype of Eastern Europeans that Leachman nonetheless grounded with surprising conviction and character.

All of which made watching her final performance in Jump, Darling profoundly bittersweet in a way that can't entirely be attributed to the film itself. The film is hardly a disaster; a prodigal return with enough nuance and charm to be perfectly enjoyable. Aspiring actor-turned-drag queen Russell flees to his grandmother's home in the country following a break up. While there he attempts to reconnect with his rapidly deteriorating relative while getting his grove back on the local drag scene. 

It's a premise that the film does plenty with. As Russell, Thomas Duplessie injects the character with a suitable amount of bitterness and self-indulgence that feels true to the character. Yet, there's a charm to him and optimism which put you firmly on his side. Part of that is admittedly down to him being essentially emotionally blackmailed into playing caregiver to Leachman's Margaret, an endearingly dotty old woman whose faculties are a constant question mark. However Russell's appeal lies in his genuine adoration of aesthetics and theatricality. He has fun performing as a drag queen and we have fun watching him.

The only problem is that there are too few areas in which Russell and Margaret's stories converge. Russell being the only connecting element between the two. It leaves Leachman appearing a little short-changed. Cornered into a well-worn story of a stubborn old woman refusing to be put into a home. The two have such a pleasant, understated chemistry together that it feels like a wild swing and a miss to separate them. 

That said, Russell attempt to forge a new path for himself within the confines of his Grandmother's rural community manage to be novel and relatable. The shame at returning home after leaving to pursue dreams of stardom is palpable in his every interaction with old friends. His attempts to start fresh have an endearing, if plodding quality to them. As though his settling into Margaret's attic or starting a tentative romance with local bartender Justin (Andrew Bushell) is simply going through the expected story beats. Piling on the bittersweet sentiment that, however positive Russell's choices are, they are only temporary.

Duplessie's greatest achievement in the role has to be the authentic energy he pours into Russell's love of the drag scene. From the straight-faced conviction behind his stage personal 'Fishy Falters' to his reverence for his fellow artists to the care with which he handles his costumes and make-up. Duplessie knows that such a role should never be presented as comical or ridiculous, but completely straight. As such he allows us to share in the emotional investment Russell has for this new path he wants to pursue.

Not without its faults Jump, Darling is an immensely pleasant and charming two-hander between Duplessie and Leachman. A unique twist on a well-worn story with an earnest enough approach that the big emotional moments hit their mark.

Dramarama has too much drama!

     Probably could have predicted this but Dramarama suffers from an extreme overdose of drama. The only question becomes if this is a deal-breaker in the overall quality of the film. Some of the drama is rich and relatable and some of it feels painfully confected.

                The film centres on the group of teenage drama nerds assembled for a costume murder mystery party to celebrate host Rose’s imminent departure for New York University. The impeding break-up of the long-time friendship circle exacerbated by the disparate paths each member is looking to take beyond their conservative slice of small town America. Particularly in focus is Gene, hoping to finally come out to his closest friends.

                However, its not too long before the party becomes derailed by the appearance of dropout pizza-guy JD, an archetypal cynical slacker. JD’s contrarian remarks cut deep at the group’s bonds; from their love of drama to their evangelical upbringing, to Gene’s repressed sexuality. Bringing to the surface all manner of underlying tensions regarding the feasibility of their ambitions, insecurities about their own talent and fears that their relationships might not have been as strong as they once thought.

                As material for a coming of age story set over one night that is…a lot. Not that it’s unrealistic that a group of friends might have all these feelings and tensions but to bring all of them out at once is overwhelming to say the least. It feels as though writer/director Jonathan Wysocki was terrified of having a moment of dead air in his feature debut. So he sought to pack every single scene with as many sources of tension between the characters as he could.

                It all coalesces into a satisfying film with realistically drawn, endearing characters. However, try as they might, the young cast can’t overcome dialogue that feels over-written. Especially as they continue to allow JD to intrude on their festivities even as he’s acknowledged to be an obnoxious disruptor. The group’s chemistry is fun, especially the way in which they incorporate their love of theatricality into their merriment. All of which feels genuine while being immensely entertaining to watch. What doesn’t fell genuine is the notion that all this baggage would get let out all at once.

                 Dramarama is, appropriately, a very fun party. It may be a little time in terms of both the content and food quality (seriously, who celebrates with alcohol-free cider?) but that cast of characters are a sweet, well-meaning bunch. For a freshman director like Wysocki it’s a solid effort, with a strong ability to compose ensemble scenes and authentic sense of nineties design (though the period setting is so incidental it feels almost irrelevant). It’s only the script that let’s the film down at points, rendering the many, many sources of drama irritating by their needless spuriousness.

Dune (1984) Glory in Failure

“A beginning is a very delicate time.” Princess Irulan.

It is not casually that David Lynch refers to his 1984 film Dune, adapted from the novel by Frank Herbet, as the only real ‘failure’ of his career. Whatever you may think of the film it is, as all films are, a work of art and art rarely lends itself to binary metrics like ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. Certainly, commercial art can be financial failure, which Dune was; grossing only $30 million against a budget of $40 million. But this is David Lynch we’re talking about and while many of the surrealist’s films have been commercial successes that’s never been the focus of his artistic intent. Indeed, Lynch’s work, more than that of most directors, is so open to interpretation that it feels impossible to label any one of them a failure. Lynch’s work defies traditional concepts of success; is the story to be coherent, is its meaning interpretable, even simply understanding the raw emotions it provokes are warranted? The answers these questions are often wildly divided in the wake of each new film by the director. Yet from Blue Velvet to Wild at Heart to even Fire Walk With Me they all find their audience eventually.

So why is Dune, having since achieved the Lynchian Cult Status, still scorned by its director? Why are the likes of Lost Highway and Wild at Heart misunderstood masterpieces while some versions of Dune have had Lynch’s name removed entirely at his behest? It’s a mess certainly; the story is badly mangled, the effects are laughably cheap, the performances boarder on melodramatic and its portrayal of the villains veer uncomfortably towards homophobic. Yet at the same time it’s utterly unlike any other science fiction film produced at the time. The film remains true to Frank Herbert’s vision and consistently displays the fact that the source material is patient zero for an entire generation of Sci-Fi. So why does Lynch consider still it a failure? The answer lies in the decisions made far behind the scenes of the film. The actions which led to Lynch’s hiring, which gave the film the unique aesthetic that earns it much-deserved praise today. However, those same decisions resulted in the films production and release in being such a messy affair. To understand why these decisions were made we have to understand exactly what producers Dino and Rafaella Di Laurentiis were trying to accomplish. In short, we have to go right back to the beginning, long before the year 10191; to a newly published author in his thirties, witnessing an empire hold back a tide of sand.

Frank Herbert began researching ‘Dune’ in 1959 after a trip to the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon. A vast expanse of desert stretching for miles into the distance with some dunes towering five-hundred feet into the sky. This was where the United States Department of Agriculture were attempting to control the tides of sand by introducing new species of grass. The article that Herbert was assigned to write on the project would never be completed, but the idea of the state attempting to tame such an indomitable natural phenomenon became the impetus for ‘Dune’. A sprawling science fiction epic about an Empire, dominated by feudal houses and a capitalist guild. The fuel of this empire would be the Spice Melange; a mysterious substance found only on the desert planet Arrakis, a substance capable of powering starships, of expanding human consciousness and mutating those addicted to it into strange, psychic creatures. Our protagonist in this epic is Paul Atreides; a prince of a noble house who is exiled on Arrakis. There he finds shelter with the natives, the Fremen, and leads them in an uprising against those who betrayed House Atreides. Ending their control of the Spice.

                Herbert drew on a wide range of subjects beyond ecology to craft the rich world of ‘Dune’. The novel is set during the reign of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and his quasi-feudal power structure. The decline of this empire, blamed largely on the excesses of the Emperor and his loyal servant Baron Harkonnen, closely resembles that of Ancient Rome. However, at every level of authority in the series are the Bene Gesserit; a secretive, matriarchal order with the goal of directing humanity onto what they believe to be the ‘enlightened path’.  In the Bene Gesserit, right down to the name, Herbert draws comparisons to the religious order of the Catholic Church known as the ‘Jesuits’. Frank Herbert was himself raised as a Catholic, largely by his Jesuit mother and ten Jesuit Aunts. Herbert rejected his family’s attempts to force Catholicism onto him much in the same way that Paul rejects the Bene Gesserit in favour of the Fremen spirituality, with its influences in Zen Buddhism While the simplistic nature worship of the Fremen people is viewed as benevolent, Herbert unmistakably paints the Bene Gesserits with shades of Catholic colonialism. Breeding acolytes across the known universe, supplanting the native populations of its many worlds, including Arrakis. Their overarching goal is to give birth to the Kwisatz Haderach (a Hebrew term meaning ‘the one in many places at once’), a male Bene Gesserit and messianic figure. To achieve this the order has been selectively cultivating key genes among the bloodlines of the great houses across countless generations.  Paul Atreides, is the realisation of this dream; born a generation early by the Lady Jessica, Duke Leto’s Bene Gesserit concubine.

                In contrast to the Bene Gesserit, the Fremen culture is a hybrid of eastern religions; Zen Buddhism and Sunni Islam. Herbert drew from contemporary Islam by referring to their crusade against the Harkonnens as a ‘jihad’. This coupled with the Spice Melange serving as an allegory for oil solidifies the Fremen’s role as analogous to the Mujahedeen; the Muslim Warriors forced to defend Afghanistan against Western powers seeking to claim their oil. Their reverence for the Spice is based on its ability to expand their minds and grant them power; reminiscent of the Zen philosophy of enhancing oneself through mindfulness and mediation.

                In ‘Dune’ then we have a mainstream film, produced in the West which is highly critical of Western policies of colonialization, religious indoctrination and rampant consumption of precious natural resources. All while favouring a decidedly Eastern religion analogous to a people who were, at the time, Soviet allies. And that’s before you get to the scale of the story; spanning the known universe and its esoteric science fiction elements. That’s already a messy prospect for any studio, regardless of the calibre of the source material. Yet that is the baggage that Dino Di Laurentiis was taking on when he secured the rights to the novel in 1976. He purchased the option from Jean-Paul Gibon who had been famously struggling to get an adaptation of the book made with Alejandro Jodorosky. Detailed in the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune; the Chilean filmmaker planned an ambitious, mind-expanding adaptation with huge gothic fortresses designed by H.R. Giger, single takes which would cover the entirety of the known universe and a cast including David Carradine, Salvador Dali, Orson Wells and Mick Jagger. After months of planning and fundraising the project collapsed, with no studio willing to trust the highly experimental Jodorowsky. Had it been made it would have likely been a more coherent version than Lynch’s highly compromised effort. However, it would have also likely been much, much longer, with Jodorowsky suggesting runtimes of up to 14 hours. With long sections dedicated to exploring the influence of spice on the universe and drug trip-inspired visual montages.

                What we got instead was a David Lynch’s highly compromised version. A film that tried to cram the entirety of Frank Herbert’s dense drama into a conventional white saviour narrative. All within a runtime of little over two hours at Universal studios’ behest. This was 1984 remember; Star Wars had made its debut seven years earlier and studios were still playing catch-up, trying to find their science fiction epic to break box office records. But while the novel displays many traits that would clearly influence Star Wars creator George Lucas, Dune was never Star Wars. It was never traditional heroic narrative with its morality in black and white. It didn’t have the same influences that Star Wars in its pastiche of pulp science fiction serials, samurai films or World War Two allegory. But rather it was a complex epic about the political machinations of a galactic empire covering themes of ecology, spirituality, resource scarcity and human conciseness. Topped with controversial allegories for contemporary political powers and religions.

It should come as no surprise then that an early rough cut of the film ran over four hours. Universal Studios all but marched Lynch and Di Laurentiis into the editing booth to dramatically reduce the film’s runtime. Entire subplots from the book such as Gurney’s Halleck’s suspicion of Jessica, Thufur Hawat’s captivity with the Harkonnen’s or Paul’s son with the Fremen Chani, were removed entirely. Virginia Madsen’s role as the Princess Irulan, who in the novel is key to Paul’s coup against the Emperor, was reduced to that of a glorified extra. In an attempt to keep the plot coherent new scenes were shot entirely that condensed several pages of plot into a few lines of dialogue. Most of the cast, even minor players, provide a voice over narration and an introduction by Madsen was hastily shot. This monologue was intended to establish the structure of Dune’s universe and the nature of the Spice Melange. In reality, it did little to ease audience’s understanding of the film, though it is possible that this was the inspiration to the ‘Log Lady’ intros that featured on some DVD versions of Twin Peaks. Which comes as some small consolation.

                It’s not hard to see how these changes impacted on the film’s overall quality. While the voice-overs work to spoon-feed the dense plot to the audience we are still being introduced to esoteric terms like ‘Sardaukar’, ‘Gom Jabbar’ and ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ at a frightening pace. With little explanation as to their meaning, unless the cinema was kind enough to include a glossary (which some did). The story opens with a meeting between the Emperor of the Universe and a representative of the Space Guild, depicted as a gigantic mutant within a stasis vat. Yet we never establish who these characters are or why they are important to the plot.  Moreover, the voice-overs are generally dedicated to communicating the emotional states of their respective characters. Shifts in perspective and character that would be far more satisfying to see visually, through the performance of the actors or a subtle score. Whole chapters of exposition and world-building are reduced to a handful of scenes. Resulting in one unintentionally amusing instance of Dr Keynes explaining how the Fremen stillsuits recycle urinate and faeces to Duke Leto, while he’s still retaking the Harkonnen stronghold.

This is how Dune is able to cover all of the essential plot points of the novel; yet at the same time feel somewhat insubstantial. Information comes at us in far too great a rush for an audience to absorb. ‘Dune’ the novel takes place over the course of over two years and takes the time to (no pun intended) space out it’s plot. Allowing us to understand the Duke’s acclimatisation to Arrakis, the planning of House Harkonnen’s attack and Paul’s indoctrination into the ways of the Fremen people. His drinking of the Water of Life is several pages of Paul’s understanding of the universe expanding before our eyes. Represented in the film by a few dissolves of water droplets as Kyle Maclachlan’s zealous voice-over plays while the actor repeatedly throws his head back to expose his 20^th century fillings. The film feels like it is missing time to breathe, to let these moments sink in, to make Arrakis feel like a real world, rather than a few sections of the Mexican desert.

This raises the question then of; if Dune is such a mess, why do I and many others still love it? While I’ll freely admit to being a devotee of Lynch, this is not simply affection by association. That said I would argue that Lynch is enough of a surrealist to bring the surreal aspects of Frank Herbet’s vision to life. Take the production design for example. Lynch’s work often equates industrial environments with corruption; think Spencer’s apartment in Eraserhead or the dockyard in Blue Velvet. And none of Lynch’s locations rank as more corrupt than the Harkonnen homeworld of Geidi Prime. A grimy, steamy factory planet, with a greenish tint sicklier than a Borg Cube. The Emperor’s chamber resembles the Baroque architecture of the Russian Empire. The Guild Navigators are both alien and remote, often confined within stasis tanks or armor of thick black. An on-point representation of the inhumane nature of capitalism. Here Lynch succeeds in creating a world that is utterly alien to our own and yet, reminiscent of the worst eras in our history. The peoples and factions of Dune are human, but not as we know them.

Speaking of humans, I’ve mentioned the stolid performances before however this is less of an outright negative as one might think. Yes, it completely removes the audience’s ability to engage with the characters however it does remain true to the story. As Paul Atreides, Kyle Maclachlan is every bit Duke in waiting; with an air of regal nobility with youthful exuberance. His entire performance captures the energy of Paul, but also a capability that will come to serve him as the leader of the Fremen. His arrogance is charming because we see that it is matched by ability. While the portrayal of the Baron Harkonnen is off-putting; his queerness made explicit by Lynch and the pustules on his face reminiscent of AIDs victims. Still, it is undeniable that Kenneth McMillan brings a strong sense of hostility and excess to the role. To say nothing of esteemed character actors including; Max Von Sydow, Brad Dourif and of course Patrick Stewart. All of whom are doing the best with the material they have been given. Even Virginia Madsen performs well as the ethereal Princess Iluran, even if she barely registers as a character beyond her capacity as narrator. In fact Madsen’s role could be seen as a microcosm of the film’s problem as a whole. Everyone was in such a rush to make sure that the story came across clearly enough that that no one ever gave thought to how to engage, amuse or even entertain the audience. Just as the film’s pace never offers us a reprieve to absorb the story, the character are never given a moment that isn’t rigidly serving the story.

Finally, there is the film’s score, produced by the rock band Toto, with contributions from Brian Eno. Aesthetically speaking this is possibly the most appreciable aspect of the film without any negative drawback to it. Chiming into our ears at the tail end of Madsen’s narration, at her mere mention of the planet ‘Dune’. The long, booming brass instruments serving as a portent for what awaits the Atreides on Arrakis. Immediately introducing it as a place of death. As we pull out the brass fades into softer, more heightened tones, giving us a sense of the infinite wonder that the ‘Dune’ universe holds. The score returns when Paul first mounts one of the great sandworms of Arrakis, this time transitioning into full-blown electric guitar. As though finally understanding its roots in the same pulpy science fiction works that inspired Flash Gordon. One might wonder if Dune would have been better received on release had this campy, energetic tone been present throughout the film.

 Dune is a failure, yes. However, it’s the kind of failure you only get with an indomitable drive to realise a singular vision. Dune was born out of an attempt to realise Frank Herbert’s vision and to make, as Madsen later claimed; “Star Wars for grown-ups’. In essence a trilogy of films that would have the worldwide appeal of Lucas’s franchise but with the maturity and melodrama of De Laurentiis’s more prestigious pictures such as Serpico, Ragtime and Three Days of the Condor. Unfortunately, it was too late that anyone realised that those two identities were utterly incompatible. Yes, ‘Dune’ inspired a generation of epic science fiction, widely seen as the genre’s equivalent to ‘Lord of the Rings’. Its influences can be seen in everything from not only Star Wars but also films such as Alien and Contact, the novels of Robert Jordan, Warhammer 40k and the band Iron Maiden. However, all of these are, for the most parts, works with niche audiences. For all its merits Dune was never going to attract the size of audiences drawn to mainstream sensations, nor the critical acclaim bestowed on prestige cinema.     

 You have to sympathise with Lynch and his own admission that he was ‘selling out on Dune’ in allowing De Laurentiis and Universal to have final cut. However, it’s clear from both the finished product and subsequent accounts that the studio was never trying to take Lynch’s film away from him. Rather they were trying to hammer out something, anything, of a releasable standard from a project that was a mess from the offing. Perhaps simply trying to fit the entirely of ‘Dune’ into one film was always destined to fail. We’ll find out in late 2020 when Denis Villenueve’s take on the project is released. Then again, Villenueve has proven himself capable of making the kind of critically acclaimed science fiction that Dune once aspired to be. Maybe, just maybe, Dune 2020 can learn from its predecessor’s mistake and the influence of Frank Herbet’s novel can roll ever on, like the moving sands of Oregon.

Silence: The Resilience of Faith

Often tests of human resilience are tests we put on ourselves. We ask ourselves: ‘Do I have the energy to undertake this?’ ‘Do I have the ability to accomplish this?’ ‘Can I endure the resistance I face?’ and even sometimes ‘Is this act the right thing?’. However here is nothing more disheartening to our resilience than futility. The sense that you are doing everything right and still you are failing. That is the test that Father Sebastião Rodrigues faces in Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence and that it proves to be his breaking point speaks volumes about the relationship between Catholicism and suffering.

Based on the novel by Shusaku Endo, Silence follows two 17^th-Centruy Jesuit priests Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver). The two receive word that their mentor, Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), the man who first took their confession, has committed apostasy. He has performed Fumi-E, a practice by which suspected Christians are made to trample on the image of Christ. Reverend James Martin, who consulted on the film, wrote about the significance of the act in the Jesuit magazine America.

“A Jesuit’s entire life is centered on Jesus, whom he knows through the Gospels, through the sacraments, through his ministry and through his prayer, especially through his experience of the Spiritual Exercises, a series of extended meditations on the life of Christ…Expecting the Jesuits simply to throw that relationship aside—to apostatize—is wholly unrealistic.”

Indeed, the notion seems unrealistic to Rodrigues and Garupe, who are convinced that this news is merely a Japanese slander. To resolve this, they volunteer for a mission to Japan, to seek out the ‘Hidden Christians’ driven underground. They are to hide amongst them and provide spiritual guidance in secret and to seek the truth of Father Ferreira. It is a journey which tests the resilience of both Rodrigues’s faith and sheer will. He travels to a strange and foreign country, with no knowledge of its culture or language, a country where he will be put to death if he is discovered. He sees men tortured for the faith that he shares. He sees people he believed faithful spit and stomp on the image of Christ. He sees those that refuse given long and agonising deaths; crucified at sea, drowned or beheaded.

Like many who witness such horrors Rodrigues does begin to question his faith. At the beginning of the film we see his relationship with Christ transcend the missional into personal. When he prays, he sees the image of Christ before him; depicted by Scorsese using The Veil of Saint Veronica by 16^th Century artist El Greco. Yet in this foreign country which has rejected Christ, Rodrigues finds God to be silent. God has seemingly turned his back on those who suffer most for him. In spite the horrors he witnesses and the apparent absence of God in the face of them, Rodrigues’s faith remains resilient. When captured he vows to not abandon Christ, remaining convinced that the doctrine of Christianity is immutable:

“…we believe we brought you the truth, and the truth is universal…If a doctrine weren’t as true in Japan as it is in Portugal, we couldn’t call it the truth.”

Rodrigues’s conviction remains resilient not only in Christ but in the value of Christianity. It is not only his faith but the true faith. As earnest as Rodrigues’s intentions may be, he remains a Westerner who believes that his religion is the only religion. I mention this lest anyone feel that Scorsese is in any way portraying Rodrigues determination in an admirable light. Critics have, understandably, read Silence as a white saviour narrative. One in which we are asked to sympathise with the virginal Western priest who suffers horribly in his quest to enlighten a savage land. In this scene Scorsese exposes the arrogance of both Rodrigues and the Catholic Church. As a Catholic himself the director proves himself a sharp critic of its history.

It should come as no surprise that physical pain and threat of death do not convince Rodrigues to apostatise. From its very inception Catholicism has proved an inherently masochistic religion, founded in the name of a Saviour who suffered an agonising death for the redemption of man. Catholic saints Sabastian and Ignatius claimed to rejoice in suffering, believing it to be trials from God. Many of them participated in the mortification of the flesh through fasting and flagellation, a practise that was adopted by Lutherans and other Christian sects. Self-flagellation continued to be practised right through until the 1960s, allegedly by figures as recent as Pope John Paul II. But to the Christian there is no form of bodily sacrifice greater than martyrdom. To die for one’s belief is the ultimate demonstration of faith. In Christianity, those killed for spreading the Gospel are venerated and elevated to Sainthood.

During the time in which Silence is set Japan found itself with no shortage of Christian Martyrs. Since the arrival of Francis Xavier in 1549 the gospel of Christianity had spread slowly, but strongly. The presence of Jesuit priests was tolerated, possibly because of their ability to liaise between Japanese fuedel lords (known as daimyo) and Portuguese traders. By the time Toyotomi Hideyoshi assumed power in 1585 there were estimated to have been 130,000 converts in Japan including several daimyō. It made Japan easily the largest Christian community outside of Europe. Unfortunately, Hideyoshi viewed Christianity as a symbol of European colonisation and outlawed its practise, beginning with the execution of twenty-six Christians in 1597. These were the first martyrs in Japan and in 1862 Pope Pius IX canonized the missionaries and converts, formally recognising them as Saints.

 Throughout Silence Rodrigues romanticizes the notion of martyring himself to an almost psychotic degree. He views his journey into Japan as a mission from God and casts himself as its messianic figure. Likening himself to Christ and other persecuted Christians. On their arrival Garupe remarks on their decision to take the fallen Christian Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka) as their guide. “We ‘ve trusted that man with our lives.” He says with scepticism, to which Rodrigues replies; “Jesus trusted even worse.” When leading mass under the cover of night he likens himself to the earliest Christians, practising in catacombs under persecution from the Roman Empire. While on the run he stumbles, sick and exhausted, onto a pool and sees the face of Christ in his reflection. His messiah complex at its most blatant. So, when he finally is captured Rodrigues shows no fear of death. In fact he outright dares the Japanese to execute him so that his blood may be the seed of Christianity in Japan.

He is not killed though because Inquisitor Inoue knows the danger of a Christian Martyr. According to University of San Francisco Professor Antoni Ucerler; “[The Japanese] realized that the Christians were emboldened by this example of people dying for their faith…What would really break the Christian community?’ they thought. ‘Well, if we could get not only the Christians but also the Jesuits to renounce their own faith, then that would really demoralize the Christians.” That became their approach.” So, Inoue sets about getting Rodrigues to renounce, first by reasoning with him, bringing the highest figures of authority before Rodrigues to patiently explain that Christianity is of no use to Japan and that its continued existence presents a danger to Japanese society. In private he tries to civilly explain the connection between Christianity and the Christian nations which would try to destroy Japan. The, when the time for civility is over Inoue saps at Rodrigues’s will.

 Rodrigues is taken to the beach where his fellow Jesuit Garupe is marched to sea with a flock of apostatised Christians. Even though they have recanted they are taken out to the water and drowned, and Rodrigues is forced to watch as Garupe dies, desperately trying to save them. He sees people die, not for their faith but for the priest that led them. In Garupe he loses the closest allay he has had in this strange land and sees the consequences of refusing to apostatize. The weight of it drives Rodrigues mad and so when he is at his lowest moment Inoue takes him to see Ferreira.

Little is known of the real Cristóvão Ferreira, only that he was a Portuguese Catholic Priest who travelled to Japan in around 1609. He ministered in the country for over twenty years, under the watchful eye of the Tokugawa Shogunate which inherited much of Hideyoshi’s suspicions about Christianity. In 1633 Ferreira was captured and forced to endure five hours of Tsurushi or ‘The Pit’. A practise in which Christians are suspended upside-down in a five-foot deep hole, with an incision in their neck to allow the blood to drain slowly. It results in a long and painful death and after five hours Ferreira apostatised. He subsequently took a Japanese name and wife and wrote several books on natural law before his death.

 In Silence this fictional version of Ferreira is broken, but not by the torment he endures. Rather it is the realisation that the torment, the pain and labour was pointless.  The Japanese who ‘converted’ never fully understood the doctrine he preached. The language barrier caused them to distort the image of the Christian god into one that suited their culture. When Francis Xavier first landed in Japan, he used the term ‘Deus’, the Latin word for God to refer to Jesus Christ. The Japanese mistook this for ‘Dainichi’, their word for the Great Sun Buddha. While the Japanese believed Christianity to be a form of Sun worship, similar to their own Xavier in turn believe Dainichi to be a creator god analogous to Christ. While Xavier would discover his error and aggressively preach Deus as the word of God the Japanese distortion of Christianity had already begun. The depth of that distortion was enough to convince this Ferreira that the Japanese converts were not true Christians. 

“The Japanese cannot think of an existence beyond the realm of nature. For them nothing transcends the human. They can’t conceive of our idea of the Christian God.’

Silence is not subtle about Japan’s form of Christianity only being a distortion. When Rodrigues and Garupe first arrive in Japan they find the hidden Christians believing themselves guided by ‘Jiisima’, an obvious mistranslation of ‘Jesus’. When they baptise a Japanese infant, the parents believe that they will immediately enter paradise, not realising that it is the Christian afterlife, rather than part of the physical realm. A conversation between Rodrigues and his Interpreter (Asano Tadanobu) highlights this cultural divide. The Japanese worship the Buddha, a thing that they believe men can become. In the West they worship Christ, an aspect of God which descended to become a man. The film comes down to the point that this cultural divide is, for the most part, too great for East and West to cross. So, with the thought of innocent people suffering and dying, not for God but for his own stubbornness, Rodrigues apostatises.

You may then ask if his faith was resilient in the end. As mentioned, for one who has dedicated their life to Christ, it would be unthinkable to commit Fumi-E, to trample. But Rodrigues only tramples when he finally hears God’s voice granting him permission. The remainder of the film shows him living in captivity in Japan, forced to take a Japanese wife, to apostatise regularly and write vows of renunciation. He is said to never acknowledge the Christian God, by word of symbol, even until his dying day. Yet when his body is cremated, we see Rodrigues clutching a tiny wooden cross, a handmade gift from one of his Japanese disciples.

The question then is why does Rodrigues remain faithful, even when continuing his faith is a futile act? The Japanese can never truly be converted and attempting to maintain even their parody of Christianity brings swift punishment, as we see enacted on Kichijiro late in the film. This is because Rodrigues’s faith is no longer for the Japanese. In contrast to his egotistical defiance seen earlier his Christianity is something exclusively for him to take guidance from. He is not baptising infants or offering confession to sinners. He is not spreading a Western doctrine in a culture that has no interest or understanding of it. His faith is a personal one and in that form it can remain resilient to the end.

Battle of the Sexes

Battle of the Sexes plays out like 2/3rds of a great movie paired with 1/3rd of Steve Carrel's SNL skits. The plot revolves around Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, a 29-year-old tennis champion who becomes fed up with being offered paltry prize money roughly a tenth of what her male peers earn. Teaming up with editor Gladys Heldman, King establishes her own women-only tournament. Aiming to raise the profile of women's athletics and make the tennis more accessible to the general public King works tirelessly, at great risk to her career. Only becoming distracted when a flirtation with hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) awakens previously unknown feelings in her.

Meanwhile Carrell's Bobby Riggs is...doing other stuff. Namely getting kicked out by his wife after his gambling addiction ticks her off too many times. Seeing opportunity in King's noble cause, Bobby challenges her to an exhibition match to, in essence, prove men's tennis as superior. He treats the entire thing like a sideshow act; training in goofy costumes, posing nude and making attention-grabbing remarks.

Carrell gives it his best. As the Faris's previous film Little Miss Sunshine proved, the former SNL-star is a deft hand at balancing comedy with drama. In Riggs we see a man trying relentlessly to embody the hustler persona he's built for himself, forever struggling to conceal his deep melancholy. It's good stuff, it's just so much less interesting than King's storyline. Which is a shame because they're given roughly the same amount of screen time. As if there's some sort of parity between Riggs' huckster antics and King's cause. Instead the obviously richer, more emotive storyline is undercut in service of cheap jokes. Yes, all evidence suggests that this is accurate of Bobby Riggs' character but is it necessary?

The real story of Battle of the Sexes is one of the systemic sexism within professional tennis, the casual disregard for female players held by the male establishment. From the ease at which Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman) offers meager tournament payouts for women champions to the condescension of real-life sports journalist Howard Coswell draping his arm around co-commentator Rosie Casals during a live broadcast. These are the meat and potatoes of the film while Riggs' antics are clearly the dessert. Having the two so drastically separated though does a disservice to such an otherwise rich story.

A Star is Born

A Star is Born is a classic story of a young ingenue and a veteran star who fall madly in love with each other. However, as the relationship leads the ingenue to greater and greater heights the veteran finds (and it is always a 'his') his career starting to diminish which only exacerbates his addiction and self-destructive behavior. While the 1937 original has inspired countless imitations it's also had three official remakes with the last two trading in Hollywood for the music industry. This version sees Bradley Cooper in the Kris Khristofferson role from 1976, in addition to also writing and directing the film. His ingenue comes in the form of Ally, an aspiring singer with a natural talent for song-writing, here played by Lady Gaga.

Previous adaptations have generally split the focus between its male and female leads either evenly or in favour of the leading lady. However here Cooper's drug-addled country rock star Jackson Maine takes centre stage, occupying the majority of screen time and serving as the audience POV. It's an interesting choice from a storytelling perspective though it's not helped by the fact that Jackson is such a thoroughly unlikable character. A typical hard-drinking, drug abusing rock star who stumbles through every interaction yet also feels the need to dominate every scene. That becomes a problem when it comes to Ally's career, if not their entire relationship.

What at first begins as a mutual appreciation of talent and personality quickly becomes a need for Jackson to elevate Ally, regardless of her feelings on the matter. While it's sweet in intent Jackson's method's boarder on obsessive. Having his assistant relentlessly stalk Ally until she agrees to attend his show whereby he pressures her to perform an unrehearsed duet in front of a ravenous crowd. Because this is a movie this obviously goes down a treat rather than the traumatic humiliation it has the potential to be. But if A Star is Born expects us to embrace a little cinematic magic then it's at painful odds with the first hours, grounded realistic tone. Even if that first hour is the most earnest believable and entertaining section of the film overall.

That it takes a full hour to just complete the first act should give some indication of the films structural problems. While the 1976 version has it's faults it at least spends considerable time showing Esther and John building a life with each other. Cooper's version though is in such a rush to run through it's story beats that everything about his and Ally's relationship post-first act feels hollow and empty. From Ally making his rural house feel like a home entirely off-screen to the casual decision to make Jack play backing guitar because suddenly he's a has-bean. None of it feels real or affecting or meaningful and by the end you're just waiting for the wrap-up.

Cooper's A Star is Born is a solid directorial debut but even as it's well aware of it's own legacy it's a shockingly mediocre version of a twelve note song that been playing on repeat for almost a century. With the sole distinction of perhaps having the best songs of any of its predecessors.