The other day I overheard a conversation in the staffroom in which a co-worker was telling several friends that a lot of people don't understand how Starship Troopers is really a satire.
You already knew that Starship Troopers was a satire, because any time somebody mentions this movie, they follow it up with an explanation of how nobody understands that it's a satire with a glint in their eye that, if you zoom in, is actually the concept of irony dying in a house fire. This is a movie in which the heroes dress in actual Nazi SS uniforms and high school teachers explain "the failure of democracy." The movie uses satire the way an eight-year-old uses curses when her mother is at the grocery store. Everybody gets that this movie is a satire. Everybody.
Although to be fair, although I can be smug and pretentious about it now, I do admit to being very confused about this movie when it first came out.
I think my confusion was mainly due to the disconnect between the actual themes of the movie and the way it was marketed. It wasn't marketed as a satire, it was marketed as just another shoot-em-up science fiction exploitation film.
See also my review of the book Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, and my thoughts on Paul Verhoeven's DVD commentary.
I was 9
years old when this movie came out, and although it was one of many
ultraviolent movies in the 1980s I was forbidden to see, the Robocop franchise (W) became a
cultural phenomenon that was impossible to be unaware of: the 2 sequels (W , W), and the usual publicity campaigns which accompanied their release,
the toys and the merchandizing, the various cartoon spin offs (W, W), and the TV shows (W, W)…and of course all the schoolyard
talk from my classmates who had seen it.
Why I Saw This Movie
Once the hype from the franchise
had died away, the adult me used to just dismiss this movie as another dumb
1980s action flick, and one not particularly worth seeing, but a couple of things
recently put this movie back on my radar:
* My respect for Paul Verhoeven increased
more after seeing Black Book.
* A Scottish friend of mine is a huge fan of this movie,
and, while he was ranting about how it was sacrilege to remake Robocop (W) he was telling me
about all the themes and political satire in the original Robocop, and he increased my interest.
* That same friend, when I confessed that I had never seen
the original, was appalled, and insisted that I come over and watch it with
him.
And so,
here I am reviewing it…
Positives
* Not your standard predictable action movie—there are a lot
of unpredictable elements in the screenplay that keep you guessing as to where
the writers are going with this story.
* Lots of political satire—much of which is arguably just as
relevant now as it was in the 1980s: urban decay, crime, the desire for
law-and-order leading to fascism, the corporatization of the military and
police, the military industrial complex, the role of the media in creating a
militaristic society, the parallels between crime syndicates and corporations,
and the thin line between capitalists operating in legal markets and
capitalists operating in illegal markets, and more.
* Lots of black humor.
* Great acting by a talented cast (Kurtwood Smith (W) is particularly brilliant.)
Negatives
* A bit dated—special effects and action sequences which
must have seemed incredible in the 1980s are now unimpressive.
* The first two acts of this film are brilliant, but the 3rd
act throws away all of this potential and just degenerates into a typical,
boring, action film.
The Review
Not at all what I thought this
film would be—I had thought Robocop (based on my knowledge from the cartoon
series) would be a generic action hero.
Instead, he’s
merely a pawn in the schemes of others.And when he starts following his own agendas instead of his
pre-programmed commands, there are hints of Frankenstein’s monster.
It’s a very
interesting idea which, combined with the political satire, black humor, and
corporate intrigue of this film, make for an interesting premise.
Unfortunately,
the 3rd act abandons all of this potential and degenerates into a typical
action film.
7 out of 10 Stars (If the last third of the film had
maintained the promise of the first two acts, I would have been tempted to give
this film 8 or 9 stars, but alas….)
One of the things hinted at in Roger Ebert’s review, and
confirmed by Wikipedia (W) is that this film had to go through
multiple edits to tone down its violence until the MPAA would give
it an R rating.Even as it is though, it’s
still a very violent film.(….Or at
least it was for its time.After Sin City, Tarantino, and
other films, I think it’s safe to say standards have changed.But leaving that aside…)
In
retrospect, it is therefore strange to remember how much this franchise was
marketed to children back in the day with tie-in cartoon shows and Robocop
toys.(As mentioned above, the cartoon
show and the toys were my only point of contact with this franchise back in the
1980s.)This youtube video here does a good job of pointing out that absurdity.
(The video
hints, somewhat tongue in cheek, that the marketing of adult films to children
was a cultural phenomenon unique to the time period.What do you guys think?True?Or is this not unique to the 80s?)
And one
last link:
I think its
a common experience for people my age to have grown up in the 1980s being aware
of these ultra-violent action franchises, but not being able to see them, and
then only much later to track down these films as adults, and find out they’re
not what we expected at all, and that the original was actually more
intelligent and deep than we gave it credit for, and that it was only the
sequels and resulting franchise that degenerated into the mindless action we
associated with the film.This has been
my experience with Robocop, and it
also parallels my experience (and I think the experience of many other people
my age) with the original Rambo—another
film which I was surprised to find was so completely tonally different from the
mindless action franchise it spawned.An
excellent breakdowns of the elements and themes from the first Rambo comes from Whisky - Prajer.
I rented this movie on a whim, without knowing it was a foreign film. Turns out it's a Dutch movie filmed in Dutch, German, Hebrew and (some) English. Which meant I ended up watching most of it in the Japanese Dub, because that was easier for me to understand than the Dutch and German, and the DVD over here didn't come with English subtitles. I had to watch it a couple times to get everything, but I feel like I got most of it all right in the end.
But I won't bore you with my linguistic problems. Onto the film itself...
This film, boasting the opening words "inspired by true events" is a story of the Dutch Resistance against the Nazis. The story of the Dutch Resistance is a story that doesn't get told often in Hollywood, although heaven knows there has never been a lack of movies about resisting the Nazis in one shape or another.
I like a good "fighting against the Nazis" movie as much as anyone else (in fact I've reviewed a couple of them favorably on this blog) although I do sometimes worry that sometimes the film industry is exploiting the subject matter and just using it as a background against which to tell tales of good versus evil.
I once had a Calvin history professor who said, "You've been taught to view World War II as a conflict of good versus evil. I want to challenge you to view it as a conflict between great evil on both sides." He wasn't talking about the Dutch Resistance when he made that comment, but nonetheless this film is a good example of a story that resists the temptation to retell World War II as good versus evil. There are some good Nazis in this film, and there are some bad members of the Dutch Resistance, and by the end of the film nobody is left with their hands completely clean. I found it a very interesting take.
Despite the words "inspired by true events" much of the incredible twists and turns of the plot of this movie make me believe it must have been loosely inspired by true events. It is however a good spy suspense story. It does a good job of keeping the tension all the way through, and there are a few surprises along the way.
The one thing that I found really incredulous in the movie was after the war was over the Nazis still had the power, according to the terms of the peace treaty, to punish their own men. So someone who had aided the Resistance was ordered executed. Did this kind of thing really happen even after the Nazis had lost the war?
The film is directed by Paul Verhoeven, a Dutch film maker who's had a long career in Hollywood. I started recognizing his name about this time last year when I re-watched "Starship Troopers" and listened to his DVD commentary. The first time I watched "Starship Troopers" it left me scratching my head, but once I learned it was a satire I enjoyed it a lot more, and I thought Verhoeven had some good points on the commentary when he talked about the nature of fascism and militarism. Also in the same DVD commentary Verhoeven talked about some of his boyhood memories of the War. There was no DVD commentary on this movie (at least not on the version I watched) but it is clear these things are all still on Verhoeven's mind.
Link of the Day
More Noam Chomsky videos: Chomsky on the Charlie Rose show (slightly dated now, but still worth watching). A longer video, but good to have on in the background when you're doing something else.
I really am trying to make an effort to watch less TV and read more books, but I do backslide every now and again. But I figured as long as I was watching some movies, I would post some thoughts on this blog.
1. “FahrenHYPE 9/11" and “Michael Moore Hates America”
It probably goes without saying that I’m not in the target audience for either of these movies. But I do like exposing myself to the other point of view every now and again. And I don’t mean that as a chore or something I have to make myself do. If you’re a political geek like I am, there’s something invigorating about watching something you disagree with just so you can gear up your brain to think of all the reasons why it’s crap. Or there’s the human fascination with a train wreck; perhaps the same impulse which makes some people enjoy bad movies makes us enjoy bad arguments.
I realize this isn’t something unique to me. I read once in a newspaper article the theory that a fair percentage of FOX news viewers were made up of liberals who loved to hate it. I’m not sure if any studies have been done to support this thesis, but antidotally it seems true. I know of several liberals who get a perverse kick out of watching FOX news or listening to Rush Limbaugh, and I count myself among them.
(Now, the big question is: is this true for conservatives as well? Again, antidotally I’d hazard a guess at no. Most of the conservatives I know seem to take pride in the fact that they get all of their news from FOX or Limbaugh. And I have yet to meet a conservative who sat through a volume of Noam Chomsky just to see what he had to say. Or went and watched “Fahrenheit 9/11" just to expose themselves to that point of view. In fact many conservative reviewers actually bragged about not having seen the movie they were criticizing. And remember that conservative movement that tried to prevent “Fahrenheit 9/11" from playing in theaters?
But maybe that’s just my liberal bias making selective examples. If anyone can make the case that liberals are just as close minded, you’re welcome to try and convince me.)
Anyway, I digress....The point is these two films.
Ideally, I’d say every liberal should watch these movies, especially if you’ve already seen “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Although I realize not everyone has the time, interest, or energy to sit through all this stuff.
Both of these movies actually make a lot of good points as far as their criticism of Michael Moore. I thought I was a pretty intelligent viewer of Moore’s movies, but its amazing how much of his stuff that I believed at face value is actually mis-represented. It makes me feel used.
The problem with “FahrenHYPE 9/11" and “Michael Moore Hates America” is that they both don’t content themselves with simply correcting Moore’s factual errors. Instead they use this as a way to get their foot in the door, and then they go into a bunch of flag waving patriotic crap about how great America is and how well the war is going in Iraq.
I guess I’m mostly thinking of “FahrenHYPE 9/11" now, which included a speech by Zell Miller about how he found a nest of poisonous snakes under his porch, and he took unilateral pre-emptive action against them without consulting the United Nations because he knew the snakes were dangerous.
(First of all Zell, that has nothing to do with the film. Secondly, that’s a stupid analogy. Thirdly the Japanese already tried that argument in the Far East Military Tribunal to justify their attack on Pearl Harbor. Would you like to guess what the court decided?)
But still, you’ve got to admit Michael Moore himself opened the door for all that himself. If he had made a tighter movie with less misleading stuff in it, then the right wing wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to use this “bait and switch” technique.
“Michael Moore Hates America” on the other hand, actually tries to out-Moore Moore, by using a lot of the same dirty tricks that made Michael Moore famous.
For example, the frame of the movie revolves around this young film maker trying to get an interview with Moore, a la “Roger and Me”. And of course Moore doesn’t grant the interview, so he looks like the bad guy just like Roger Smith does in Moore’s film. But Moore is never going to agree to an interview for a film titled, “Michael Moore Hates America.”
You could argue that Moore is just getting what’s coming to him, but I’m not sure we the viewers deserve to be caught in the middle.
What would be nice is if someone from the left would make a balanced critique of Moore which would point out where he was wrong as well as where he was right. I’m still waiting for that film. In the meantime I guess there’s always Spinsanity. (I know they’ve retired, but you can still read their critiques of Moore in their archives).
2. American Black Out
A very interesting documentary on the disenfranchisement of Black voters in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. It also dove tails this story with the story of Cynthia McKinney and the harassment she got from Republicans. Their website is here, and you can watch a preview for this film here.
They make a very strong case that there was a coordinated effort to prevent minority voters in battleground states during both 2000 and 2004. Of course, just having seen those critiques of Moore, I’m a little more wary of documentary films. Maybe 2 years down the road I’ll read a critique of this film.
Off hand though, it looked pretty solid to me. The only thing I thought was a little strange is that the film was up to date with the 2006 primary election, but not a word about McKinney’s controversy with the security guard. They just gave the impression that McKinney lost the primary because of Republican cross-overs during the primary. (And of course you always wonder, for everything mis-representation I caught, how many slipped by me.)
If you rent the DVD, the director’s commentary is particularly interesting, because they talk a lot about their theories on Fascism, and how Fascism is related to human nature. Over the course of 2 hours, they repeat themselves a lot, but they ask some interesting questions. For example, is Fascism something that is inherently in human nature, and that we have to rise above? And does war make everyone a fascist? They also mention how they tried to incorporate Noam Chomsky’s theories on media into the film. (And you thought it was just a stupid action flick).
Another theme is how many of their critics misinterpreted the film, and thought that they were actually advocating Fascism instead of satirizing it. Although I have to admit I myself was left scratching my head a bit when this film first came out.
4. The Life of Brian
This is another film I’ve seen before, but I haven’t seen it in a long time. I could never find it in any of the video stores in Japan. Sometimes humor doesn’t translate well across cultural boundaries. Comedies like “Dumb and Dumber” do well in Japan, but not so much Monty Python, and especially not “The Life of Brian”.
I think this has got to be my favorite film of all time. Or at least in my top ten. (I haven’t sat down and seriously thought about it yet). No matter how many times I see it, I never get sick of it. It’s one of those rare films that I actually like more and more with each repeated viewing. (And this doesn’t happen often. I love Star Wars, but I got sick of the original trilogy a long time ago. And after junior high school I can’t stand “The Princess Bride” anymore. It got shown at one too many church lock-ins.) But “Life of Brian” each time I watch it I appreciate the satire even more.
And the DVD edition has lost scenes, and a double commentary track with Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, John Cleese and Michael Palin. Well worth checking out again.
Link of the Day
If you need a good laugh (and you probably do), check out this "Neko" video on You tube of cats doing funny things. It got me laughing pretty hard. ("Neko" is Japanese for cat).
