Propositions, hic et nunc
All Westerns are about law and space. They remark not simply on notions of justice but value and measure - more or less explicitly, then: capitalism. Some - the best ones - regard this as a more brutal process than most. The Proposition, the bargain that is struck as the plot of the film, signals the advent of the contract, in no way either voluntary or generalised, of a very particular calculus, a putatively indifferent measure in which lives are brought into equality and, therefore, the conditions under which this life can be exchanged for that one.
Reviewers have routinely talked about the The Proposition in terms of ‘Australia’s past’, in what seems like a desperate attempt to innoculate the present from the sense that it might make, here and now. For while the film is indeed set in the 1880s and in Australia, it would make no sense if it were, simply, about ‘the past’ or about Australia. The other thing reviewers keep noting is that there are no heroes in the film, the presence of a resolute and transcendent Good that might redeem the General Equivalent of its indifferent violence.
However, the two things John Hillcoat (dir) and Nick Cave (scr) keep repeating, in each interview, and respectively: they wanted to criticise is the idea, (as they put it) “prevalent in the US”, that there are neat categories of Good and Evil; and, they wanted to show that “nation-building is an extremely violent process”. Neither of these confine the sense of the film to either ‘the past’ or ‘Australia’.
To be sure, there are specific aspects of the film that can’t be dispersed under the humanist rubric of ‘universal themes’, they remain particular to the formation of Australia. For instance, the cotton wool which, for English colonists situated in the Southern Hemisphere, stands in for snow as part of the Christmas (Christian) decor that they want, desperately, to install. The particular relation to a landscape in which the claims of European belonging are always anxiety-ridden, doubtful. Etc. These aspects are not ‘universal’, but on the contrary, remarks about difference. But, it would take some effort to avoid being seized by the sense of the film, here and now. The here and now in which the film’s exploration of the themes of violent nation-building and the division of the world into Good and Evil are a commentary on the current state (and statecrafts) of the world.
Haven’t seen it yet but I’m looking forward to it. Saw Nick Cave on The Movie Show last night and was pleased to see that he’s got a moustache very similar to mine. Must be getting ready for Movember (http://movember.org/).
I saw ‘Serenity’ a few days ago. Have you commented on it here yet Ange? Anyway I enjoyed it a lot. I’ve watched maybe 2 episodes of Buffy and none of Angel or Firefly so I can’t say how it compared to Joss’s other work.
WARNING MAJOR SPOILER BELOW
Anyway I thought it was cool that the Alliance’s worst enemies, the cannibalistic Reavers, were created by an Alliance terraforming project gone wrong. Echoes of Al-Qaeda and the CIA perhaps?
cheers
Pete
Pete [October 6, 2005 @ 3:36 pm]
I think your mo is much nicer Pete. If I recall right, there are more moustaches in Hillcoat’s earlier film, Ghosts of the Civil Dead.
I did see Serenity, and I was disappointed. I vented over at Ben’s blog. Yeah, it was cool, but kind of obvious don’t you think?
Anyway, I know others who like it a lot, so maybe I’m being contrary, but I figured where the plot was heading when they mentioned the planet ringed by Reavers, and then just got bored + annoyed with the sentimentality. Maybe it’s because I’m too familiar with Whedon’s writing, the way he paces the jokes, etc. I think there are episodes of Buffy and Firefly which were way much better than this. But, then, maybe my problem was that I don’t think Whedon does epic or mythical - to take up the space of the big screen - so much as operate within the realm of tv, as a kind of genre of its own. That’s not a remark about one being better than the other, but I think they have a slightly different visual language.
That movember thing is funny.
s0metim3s [October 6, 2005 @ 3:54 pm]
Speaking of the Movie Show, where is Megan Spencer? I want her back on the screen. Fenella Kernebone and Jaimie Leonarder somehow manage to annoy the shit out of me every single episode of the show — the drab pseudo-intellectual , mini-essay reviews, chock full of cliched adjectives; Kernebone’s over-identification with characters and her resulting defensiveness when films she liked get panned; the way that Leonarder and Kernebone both patronisingly pitch their reviews to the status quo that some imagined average home viewer might appreciate, rather than simply expressing their own preferences and letting the audience figure it out; the muddle-headedness that passes for ‘intellectual rigour’, etc.
az [October 6, 2005 @ 10:29 pm]
I agree with the comment you made on Ben’s blog about the Chomskyite scandal stuff being lame.
I saw Ghost’s of the Civil Dead about 10 years ago but it didn’t make much of an impression.
Anyway my uber-geek friend/personal trainer, S. has Firefly on DVD so I’ll try and watch it at his place sometime.
Pete [October 6, 2005 @ 10:41 pm]
The Movie Show people annoy the shit out of me too. Jaimie couldn’t fit the stereotype of an arty wanker more if he tried. Although I suppose that goes for most of the pseudo-intellectuals who present the various arts shows on ABC and SBS.
Pete [October 6, 2005 @ 10:47 pm]
Sorry, forgot to say thanks for you kind words about my mo. So, thanks Angela.
Pete [October 6, 2005 @ 11:02 pm]
This, from the Age’s Short Cuts, about the recent Q&A screening of The Proposition with Cave and Hillcoat:
And the mo, yep. It’s very nice.
s0metim3s [October 6, 2005 @ 11:20 pm]
That’s hilarious.
Tangentially, I saw Robert Fisk speak at the ANU on Tuesday night. There seemed a real desperation among the middle-aged, middle-class audience for some hope in the face of this increasingly insane world. Fisky’s point that there was a real disconnect between governments and the people they represent was greeted with sustained applause.
Pete [October 7, 2005 @ 3:01 pm]
Az, haven’t you got Fennela and Megan the the wrong way? Isn’t Fennela the one who globetrots whilst Megan sits there having to deal with that fuckwit in the studio.
If we are going to off these people, can I add Slavoj Zizek to the list? Talk about annoying film reviews. Hitchcock subverts X! No wait, Lynch subverts X! No wait, the Matrix…yawn.
I don’t know. I am not a fan of westerns. Actually, I hate the genre with a passion. I can’t see how you would approach it except to do an autopsy. I just keep remembering that for every cool Morricone soundtrack there are seven thousand charges of the cavalry against Mexicans and indians. If there was a genre of film set in Nazi Poland in which the major theme was the the hunting of Jews, in which every once in a while someone struck a deal that involved killing more Jews, taking over their land or reclaiming the stolen land for the original thieves, in which if this were represented as a tragedy at all it would have been the Jew-hunter’s tragedy and not the Jews’, there would be a scandal, and we would not be talking about the finer details of it and how it shows the harshness of deal-making. Whenever I see a horse riding into the sunset, well, all I can think is: this guy is a murderer, he is off to kill my greatgrandparents’ people or he just got away with it. Fuck that for a joke. I’d rather watch WWII movies. Besides, most westerners culminate with the stoic heroism which asserts the triumph of the Deal over the Deal-breakers, and of the Moral Code over the degeneratation of Currupt Law and of Protestant Man over the rapacious greed that grows in liminal land of The West, near the Catholic dagos and injuns. Maybe it hurts the hero, who has to do these deals, but it is his pain . Ugh. Fuck that for a joke.
differenzmaschine [October 8, 2005 @ 11:06 am]
No, T, they seem to be alternating Kernebone and Spencer; but Leonarder for some reason, stays put. Perhaps some boy-girl combo they imagine is, who the hell knows … And when it’s Kernebone and Leonarder, the commentary is just knee deep in platitudes.
As for Westerns, how could anyone possibly dislike a whole genre? What a given film does in the context of a particular genre, sure. But genres mean, if anything, a particular network of codes and an idiom that, any specific film within a genre is invited to respond to. And, unlike those films which present themselves in an ostensibly ‘non-genre’ form, they are much more explicit about the confrontation with an idiom. Just like the zombie films you like to watch, there’s a conversation and a debate at work in Westerns. That the Western touches on any deliberation of ‘primitive accumulation’ is enough for me to find it interesting.
s0metim3s [October 9, 2005 @ 3:12 pm]
Maybe I was being a bit harsh, but it is very hard to have anything good to say about a genre of film that mostly revolves around exterminating my ancestors and divvying up the spoils; it’s definitely a location thing, since I like the Kurasawa films which are essentially the same as westerners, minus the west. I shouldn’t comment too much, since I also don’t really like Nick Cave, so there is zero chance I am seeing this film. But there are a few odds an ends which I think are tolerable, or even good. Heaven’s Gate is a masterpiece, and I kind of like Viva Mexico and also some of the very early silent westerns, they had a very melancholy feel. And as I said, I really like Morricone’s scores, and if I am drunk or stoned enough, I will definitely enjoy a Fistful of Dollars and so on. But I just find it impossible to get past the abysmal premise of all these films, which is that, hey, we’ve just offed the natives, let’s reenact the social contract! Maybe there are interesting things about these films, I wouldn’t deny that, just as there are interesting things about Soviet Social Realist films which I could not watch if I was paid to. Now, Soviet Sci-Fi, that’s something else!
TCO [October 9, 2005 @ 7:20 pm]
TCO, I get your point, but there really is quite a lot of latitude within the Western genre. It’s not a genre I’m naturally drawn to, either, but I’m going through quite a few Westerns as part of my Latin America on Screen project, and that’s driving the point home to me.
I mean, I don’t see that The Magnificent Seven, say, is so much more or less troubling than any other instanceof Hollywood liberalism.
Jon [October 9, 2005 @ 7:36 pm]
Fixed the link, Jon. I noticed you’re discussing Gilda - now there’s a film one could talk about for ever. Also Solaris, but I have to - sheepishly - admit a preference for Sodeberg’s remake.
s0metim3s [October 9, 2005 @ 10:04 pm]
I’d be curious to know your thoughts on Roeg’s “Walkabout”? Not a western, but does address law and space.
Amie [October 10, 2005 @ 1:46 am]
No, I agree that the Solaris remake is more enjoyable. Of Tarkovsky’s films that’s probably not my favourite - Stalker is far better, not to mention Andrey Rublyov. The bell casting scene in that film is the best film sequence I have ever seen. I was more thinking of Soviet B-films. They’re hilarious.
Jon, love the site. Are you going to go through Exterminating Angel?
TCO [October 10, 2005 @ 10:55 am]
I’ve been running for myself something of a Tarkovsky season, too. I think The Sacrifice is still my favourite, with Andrei Rublev a close runner up.
As for Exterminating Angel: well, for the purposes of this project at least, I’m taking Buñuel’s Mexican films to be, indeed, Mexican. I know there are some grey areas here, not least with films such as El mariarchi, but I am trying to stick to non-Latin American cinema.
Jon [October 10, 2005 @ 11:46 am]
Amie, I haven’t seen Walkabout since I was in grade 4. My memory of it is impressionistic, though this may have something to do with the film itself, going by other Roeg films. What I do recall is that my jaw dropped at the opening sequences, and then I had some difficulty enduring the rest. I can’t recall much more except some comparative butchering.
You’ve likely seen it more recently than I. I get the space reference, but I don’t remember the law aspects. Care to elaborate?
s0metim3s [October 10, 2005 @ 3:01 pm]
A., It is actually several years since I’ve seen “Walkabout,” though some of it somehow still sticks with me.
The law reference? Well, the law of abandonment, survival, and the inexorable “return to civilization.” But to not be utterly impressionistic, I’d have to see the film again, and perhaps reread Nancy’s “abandoned being.”
( my vote for fave Tarkovsky — “The Mirror.”)
Amie [October 11, 2005 @ 3:07 am]