Oak Street Films

As terrified as I am with the prospect of Sarah Palin having any chance whatsoever at holding a position of power on the national (and, de facto, global) level, I’m surprised that I didn’t make the connection earlier. Like many other Americans I have been utterly transfixed by the political goings-on of this historic presidential campaign cycle, and after watching Palin embarrass herself–and indeed, all of us–with her frankly idiotic responses to Katie Couric’s questions last week, I admit to tuning in to last Thursday’s Vice-Presidential debate with a certain impish feeling of schadenfreude. As I sat watching Palin’s mechanical detachment from the proceedings–including her open and unabashed refusal to respond to Gwen Ifill’s questions–a name popped into my head: Chauncey Gardener. On the strength of that impression I decided it was time to give Hal Ashby’s Being There another look. It’s a film which excoriates the televisual superficiality of our times like no other, and apart from its broad critique of our collective inability to see reality even as we stare straight at it, it’s also an eerily relevant film at this exact moment thanks to Peter Sellers’ brilliant portrayal of what amounts to a male version of John McCain’s running mate.

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The phenomenon of narrative features posing as documentaries has gotten way out of hand in recent years. While not in and of itself a loathsome cinematic device, it’s easy enough to loathe the kinds of films which make use of it. The Blair Witch Project and Incident At Loch Ness (why, Werner, why?) are execrable throwaways not only because they are children of the ludicrous notion that all manner of silliness instantly becomes believable if wrapped in a thin husk of formal “realism,” but also because they, in sum, convey nothing more than that the filmmakers are winking at us. While being able to quote from a one-page summary of Jacques Derrida’s writings on Deconstruction might seem mildly impressive on the campus of a Community College, it is hardly enough to constitute an earnest filmmaker’s complete Weltanshauung. These are gag films–unfunny cinematic one-liners. We seem to be headed toward a world in which, rather than making or watching actual films, we’ll instead be writing and reading pithy single-paragraph “conceptual synopses” in which filmmakers unveil their latest twists on the same old gags. In fact I’d not be surprised if I were to learn that a “dystopian pseudo-documentary” based on that very premise–and a remake of its sequel–were already in production. Peter Watkins‘ documentary-inflected films, Punishment Park being a prominent example thereof, manage to avoid seeming like a Freshman’s Media Studies term paper, both because they began to appear so far ahead of the cultural curve and because Watkins uses the form to provoke political discussion instead of merely to crack wise.

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There has recently been a fair amount of long-overdue critical attention directed at the work of Charles Burnett, mainly thanks to the recent restoration and subsequent DVD release of his lyrically naturalistic 1977 film Killer of Sheep. Formerly available only on low-quality VHS tape (which is unfortunately how I first experienced it), the film has gone, until recently, all but completely unnoticed by the general filmgoing public. It is wonderful to see that Burnett has finally been able to find a wider audience for his painstakingly honest depiction of blue-collar life in the Watts of the 1970’s–however, it is unfortunate that even less written criticism regarding his short films seems to have been undertaken, particularly in light of the fact that several of Burnett’s shorts have also been restored and released along with Killer of Sheep.

However unfortunate this critical oversight might be, it’s far from surprising. As a general rule, the short film as a form tends to be all but ignored by critics and audiences alike, perhaps at least in part due to its association with student films and an attendant knee-jerk assumption of amateurism. Burnett’s The Horse skillfully transcends such notions by virtue not only of its aesthetic and formal brilliance, but also of its dense subtlety of figurative suggestion. It is anything but the work of an amateur, and nothing if not a clear demonstration of the inherent power of the short-format film.

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I suppose it’s no coincidence that the term neo-noir only applies to films made after 1960 or so (the end of true film noir is often popularly seen as coinciding with Orson Welles’ stunning 1958 film Touch of Evil); the social and political climate which gave birth to the classic films noirs–the Great Depression and World War II being the most recognizable historical signposts of that era–had by that time begun to shift to one of revolution and anti-establishment protest. Noir had always been about the moral and existential quandaries born of a world seemingly poised to destroy itself.  By the time the 1960’s had headed back to the dressing room and the 1970’s had slouched onto the stage, a new kind of malaise had infected the popular consciousness, and it’s one from which we still suffer today: namely, cynicism and a general sense of collective self-disgust. The political, ethical, and psychological inclinations of a Polonsky or a Tourneur had in some fundamental way lost their social currency, and it is for this reason that film noir ceased to be a common cinematic type–not, as a more cursory examination of film history might lead one to believe, because of a sudden shift in film aesthetics. The “revolution” of the 1960’s had failed, and so irony (the handmaiden of cynicism) became a dominant artistic mode. It is within this unfortunate set of historical circumstances that Buzz Kulik’s Shamus is situated.

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