So here it is, the film that I’ve been dreading for, well, years. Yes, I’m back from my grand adventure (thanks for your patience!) and ready to jump back into our BPs. The Silence of the Lambs (1991; Strong Heart/Demme Production, Orion) beat out a couple of worthy contenders to grab Best Picture, namely Disney’s masterpiece Beauty and the Beast, the first completely animated, full-length film to nab a BP nod. The Silence of the Lambs is a landmark film as well, though. To date, it is the only horror film to have won the Academy’s highest honor–unless Alfred Hitchcock’s spooky Rebecca (1940) can be considered a horror movie. Just a handful of horror flicks have even been nominated for BP, so The Silence of the Lambs‘ win is a pretty big deal.

It also still stands as the most recent winner of the “Big Five” Academy Awards (Actor, Actress, Directing, Writing, and Best Picture), the only five Oscars The Silence of the Lambs won for its seven nominations (it lost in the Film Editing and Sound categories). Clocking in with a mere 16 minutes of screen time (some people claim it’s only 12 minutes!), Anthony Hopkins won Actor in a Leading Role for playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter in a performance that would end up defining his career. Jodie Foster won her second Oscar in three years when she took on the role of Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who develops a freaky trust with Lecter while tracking another serial killer. Best Directing went to Jonathan Demme, and Writing (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published) went to Ted Tally for his adaptation of Thomas Harris’s very successful 1988 novel of the same name.

Granted, The Silence of the Lambs, along with its precursor Red Dragon (novel, 1981), its sequel Hannibal (novel, 1999), and the series prequel Hannibal Rising (novel, 2006) are not for the faint of heart (or weak of stomach). They are gruesome, psychologically disturbing, and downright disgusting. Still, I must admit that the storyline is engrossing, and it was difficult to look away from the screen (except during the bloody parts when I hid under a blanket…). But I won’t be watching the rest of the series. I’ve had enough violence.

Speaking of violence…Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs, did his research prior to beginning his famous works. In the late 1970s, he visited the FBI Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, where he sat in on classes and interviewed agents about serial killers and the FBI’s role in pursuing them. Harris and the FBI would have had a lot of “material” to work with at that time in U.S. history. Some of the most notorious serial killers had their heyday in the 1970s: the Manson family, the Zodiac Killer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), the Hillside Strangler, and Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple cult, to name a few.

1991, the year the film version of Harris’s novel was released, saw its own share of violence. The new year wasn’t even a full month old when serial killer Aileen Wuornos was arrested. Wuornos, whose childhood was its own horror story, had murdered several men in Florida (Ironically, Charlize Theron won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Wuornos in 2003’s Monster). Dr. Jack Kevorkian was also a frequent player in the news in the early ’90s. “Dr. Death,” a proponent of euthanasia, claimed to have assisted in the suicides of at least 130 patients–until the State of Michigan barred him from using his suicide machine in 1991. So perhaps what is most freaky about The Silence of the Lambs is that, with all the violence prevalent in our culture, the film’s premise is not really too far-fetched after all. Disturbing thought.

For more on The Silence of the Lambs and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!

Hello, Everyone!

I know you have all been breathlessly anticipating the posts for our next film, 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, so I regret to inform you that you’ll be waiting a little longer. I am on a very impromptu vacation of sorts and will be taking a short sabbatical from FlicksChick.com while I’m gone.

Thank you all for your patience, and best regards!

Sarah

I will (probably) never watch this film again. Here’s just a few reasons why (spoiler alert!): the horse dies, the wolf dies, the quirky transport wagon driver is murdered by “evil Indians,” and the kind Sioux chief also gets killed in battle (by the same bad guys). But to be honest, the death of the wolf, Two Socks, is downright traumatizing–one of the most disturbing images I’ve personally ever seen in film and one I wish I could forget.

I hate films that go for “thrill violence,” or violence meant to shock or entertain the audience (2000’s Best Picture winner Gladiator addresses this idea in our own culture). While this doesn’t seem to be the case with Dances with Wolves, the film does cross a line, I think, with its drawn-out scenes of vicious attacks on settlers by Native Americans and the nauseating massacres of Lieutenant John Dunbar’s animal friends by heartless white soldiers. So if it’s not hoping its audience will enjoy all the carnage it presents, what point is Dances with Wolves exactly trying to make with all its violence?

My theory with regard to the above question is that the movie wants to make the point that the “conquering” of the American West by white settlers killed something both wild and wonderful that the land had possessed. Two Socks, the lone wolf who befriends Dunbar, is particularly emblematic of this idea. He is curious about the white man who moves into his territory, willing (and maybe even eager) to get to know him, but definitely not tame. In the adorable scene which leads to the Sioux nickname for Dunbar (“Dances with Wolves”), the lonely white man and the wolf of the western wilds frolic together, neither quite trusting the other, but both appreciating the togetherness that they had formerly lacked. Dunbar, because he loves the land in its original, unspoiled state and values its wildlife and native peoples, can have this relationship with Two Socks. He has earned it, in a way.

But others, namely the rest of the white men, have not earned this privilege. They slaughter the buffalo herds for sport, trample the land and waste its resources, and cheat and bully the Native Americans out of their ancestral lands. If not for the bloodthirstiness of the Pawnee tribe, the film would almost present a “noble savage” narrative, one in which the Native Americans can do no wrong, whereas the less intelligent white men commit all the atrocities. Still, Dances with Wolves elevates the way of life of the Sioux tribe in particular. They do kill buffalo, but they use up every part of each dead animal in order to survive. They steal horses, but they treat them well. They don’t shy away from violence, but all of their actions are ultimately to protect their families. Dunbar befriends this tribe, marries into it, and fights with them against the Pawnee and the ex-Union troops who capture him near the end of the film. The movie shows the Sioux in the same light that it presents Two Socks: wild but friendly, innocent, and ultimately destroyed by the invading white people.

For Me Then…

The fact that the film takes its title from the new name given to Dunbar indicates that another purpose of Dances with Wolves is to discuss identity. Dunbar chooses his isolated post in the American West, he painstakingly journals and sketches to document the unfamiliar creatures and people he encounters and the difficulties and adventures he has, but who he becomes–who he is by the film’s close–is determined by his actions. He is different from both the white men who come West after him and the Native Americans who have been there for ages. He is a bridge between cultures, a man trying to rectify the differences between peoples and the divisions within himself. Dunbar comes to know himself in the wild land of the Great Plains. He is not a white man, and neither is he Sioux. He dances with wolves, but he shoots guns. He is a hybrid, a person of a perfect world, a person who doesn’t really exist, and yet someone who will always exist as we Americans will eternally be a mix of our past and our present.

Although Two Socks is killed during his distress over his friend Dunbar’s capture, the image of the howling wolf as the film closes proves the wildness of the West can’t ever really die. It lives on in people like Dunbar, those willing to listen to the different opinions of others, to attempt the unfamiliar, to recognize the value of tradition, to protect what is beautiful, and to fight for what they believe in. Dances with Wolves might go about proving its point in too much of a grotesque way, but we can all heed its urging to listen to our consciences and value our collective yesterdays.

Well, we’ve made it to the 1990s! When I think about the ’90s, the decade in which I spent a large part of my childhood and teenaged years, I just get all nostalgic. Man, it had to be one of the best decades (if not THE best) of the twentieth century. The ’90s were full of color–big, loud color. The pop/rock music was too catchy. The TV shows too irresistible. The clothes too much fun. The technology not yet dominating our lives. And the movies were epic.

Of course, the 1990s were not all sunshine and roses. There was the Gulf War. There were bombings at the World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City. There were race riots and a crazy guy in Waco, Texas. There were Hurricane Andrew and the Storm of the Century. There were JonBenet and O.J. There was that whole debacle with the American President and his intern. There was Columbine.

Still, although it might not have seemed so at the time (or at all for our parents who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s), the ’90s may very well have been the last “age of innocence” in America’s history; for as much as we hoped the good times would continue, 9/11 smashed any illusions we ’90s kids had about our living in a mostly safe world.

This week’s BP Dances with Wolves (1990; Tig Production, Orion) also chronicles a rose-colored time that is fast approaching a change that the film portrays as irreversible and devastating. Set in the 1860s on America’s Western frontier, Dances with Wolves tells the story of a man who falls in love with the past that is disappearing all around him–the simpler ways of life of the Native American tribes, the thunder of buffalo stampedes, the wide open prairies–as the encroaching white settlers and former Civil War soldiers slaughter this past for their amusement and to satisfy their need to dominate. It’s a story of transformation, released during a time that was seeing its own changes (not all of them negative as 1990 witnessed the release of Nelson Mandela, the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the reunification of East Germany and West Germany).

Kevin Costner’s film went on to win 7 Academy Awards out of its 12 nominations: Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) for Michael Blake’s adaptation of his own 1988 novel, Directing for Costner, and Best Picture (it failed to win Art Direction, Costume Design, Actor in a Supporting Role for Graham Greene as Kicking Bird, Actress in a Supporting Role for Mary McDonnell as Stands with a Fist, and Actor in a Leading Role for Costner as Lieutenant John Dunbar). Dances with Wolves was the first Western film to win Best Picture since 1930/31’s Cimarron, another film that chronicles both the wildness of the American West and its subsequent dominance by white settlers from the East. Both movies are breathtaking at some parts and horribly upsetting at others (more in the weekend’s post about why I probably will never watch this film again)–and this is a trend we will see in many (if not most) of the BP winners of this decade. Although the times back then seem simpler to us now, the BP films the ’90s spawned are anything but light and innocent. They are deep and emotional. I’m looking foward to sharing them with you all–but I’ll just keep my Kleenex box close.

For more thoughts on Dances with Wolves, please check out this weekend’s post!

The most obvious aspect to focus on from Driving Miss Daisy would be the racial one: With its portrayal of a congenial African-American man chauffeuring a crotchety, old white woman around town for several decades from 1948-1973, what is the film saying about race relations? In my opinion, though, this movie addresses much more than race. In fact, it contains a plethora of stereotypes and asks its characters–and its viewers–to navigate the murky waters of biases we often don’t even realize we possess.

The film begins with Miss Daisy attempting to back her car out of the garage. She ends up going through a hedge and into a neighbor’s yard, prompting her son Boolie to revoke her driving privileges and eventually hire her a driver, Hoke Colburn, a middle-aged African-American man who “needs a job.” That brief synopsis alone provides plenty of stereotypes to unpack. First, Daisy is supposed to be only 72 years old at the start of the movie. She’s in excellent health, and her mental acuity is higher than that of most of the other characters. Still, the film presents her as incapable of driving safely–whether that is because she lacks depth perception, needs new glasses, could use a crash course on how to drive the bulky car models of the late 1940s, or whatever. Common sense says, though, that with a little help she should be able to fix her hedge-crushing problem of backing down the driveway crookedly. But Boolie won’t hear of Daisy’s driving anymore; and with numerous protestations that he is a caring son, he makes other arrangements for her transportation–effectively limiting her freedom and placing her under his authority due to the stereotype of the aged. Certainly, as an “old” woman, Daisy is incapable of taking herself places and determining that she can safely do so.

Boolie himself, though, cannot escape the stereotypes of his economic/social/familial position. He loves his mother enough to visit her and care for her well-being, but he doesn’t often perform caring acts for her himself. He hires people to do them for him. In short, he uses his wealth as a substitute for his affections. Furthermore, his wife Florine seems to not be the sort of woman who would be attracted to Boolie. She appears much younger than he does, likes social soirees that it seems wouldn’t interest him, and might very well be Italian (more about ethnicity in a moment). Could Boolie perhaps have bought her love just as he buys his way out of actually helping his mother? Plus, Boolie and Florine have no children. When Hoke comes to Boolie’s office to interview for the position of being Daisy’s driver, he asks if Boolie has children. When Boolie answers in the negative, Hoke tries to casually ease any anxieties he may have caused in his potential boss by assuring him he is still young enough to remedy this omission. However, Boolie and Florine never have children, which is especially a bit odd in the 1950s.

Along with Daisy’s housekeeper/cook Idella, the other main character of color in the film, Hoke is clearly the premier object of the film’s preoccupation with racial inequality. Although Daisy is fond of Idella, the African-American woman is not portrayed as much more than the rich lady’s servant; and Idella’s round form, “yessums,” and sometimes sarcastic replies call up images of Gone with the Wind‘s Mammy–a beloved character who is nonetheless a product of racial stereotypes. The previously jobless Hoke also finds himself the victim of bias. Daisy accuses him of stealing from her pantry. Some white cops harass him about driving Daisy’s fancy car. Daisy assumes Hoke knows Martin Luther King, Jr. since they’re both black. Hoke purchases all of Daisy’s cast-off used cars when she buys new ones. And, of course, Hoke is Daisy’s driver, a position which places him at the whims of a white woman.

But here’s the big wrench in Driving Miss Daisy‘s racism dialogue: Daisy is Jewish. Keeping in mind that the movie opens in 1948, not too long after the close of World War II and the end of the Holocaust, the fact that the relationship between Daisy and Hoke doesn’t just revolve around her being white and him being black allows the film to again address a more complex issue than “just” race relations. Hoke has his own stereotypes of Jews: they’re rich and stingy. It’s true that Daisy is rich, and she definitely keeps tabs on her possessions, but both she and Hoke come to realize that her Jewishness and his blackness in the second half of the twentieth century actually bind them together more than pull them apart. On the way to her synagogue one morning, Hoke and Daisy find themselves in an annoying traffic jam. Daisy grows impatient as Hoke investigates the cause of the problem, which turns out to be that the synagogue has been bombed. The incident changes Daisy’s thinking about race and ethnicity a bit. Previously, she has insisted she is not prejudiced, even though she doesn’t seem to consider Hoke, Idella, and other African-Americans to be on the same level of humanity that she is on. But the bombing places her on their level. She now sees herself as a victim of hatred and prejudice and begins to sympathize with others who have experienced similar mistreatment.

The brief episode of the synagogue bombing changes Daisy–she’s still cantankerous, but she is more open to other people’s perspectives, as is evidenced by her attending a banquet at which Martin Luther King, Jr. is the featured speaker. The profundity of his message of unity and hope for a world in which people enjoy maiming and massacring those who are different from themselves strikes Daisy deeply; and while she doesn’t express her feelings openly to anyone for most of the film (spoiler alert!), her confession to Hoke that he is her best friend is pretty powerful. As dementia begins to encroach on Daisy’s mind, she starts becoming the old lady that Boolie has seen her as from the beginning. She can no longer consistently reason, cannot care for herself, and can certainly not drive. She reaches for and holds Hoke’s hand as she realizes two things: that she needs help and that she deeply cares for this man whose background and race are so different from her own.

For Me Then…

In her seemingly stereotypical old age at the end of the film, Daisy still doesn’t fit the mold. Neither do Boolie or Hoke, for that matter. Boolie drives Hoke, who is losing his eyesight, to visit Daisy in her retirement home in the movie’s final scene–a precursor of Green Book in which a white man chauffeurs a black man. At the end of their dinner, Daisy dismisses her son so she and her “best friend” Hoke can talk together. Hoke feeds her pie spoonful by spoonful. It is a sweet, tender image with which to close the film, and one that smashes stereotypes. Here are two people, white and black, Jew and Christian finding common ground in their shared humanity. Very quietly, Driving Miss Daisy tells its viewers that stereotypes–of the elderly, of different races, of social/economic classes–don’t matter. What does matter is how we treat each other and that we realize that each person has a role to play in and a contribution to make to this life. All people are valuable. And as Daisy and Hoke demonstrate, if we look past stereotypes, we can learn something from people who are different from us–and perhaps even form long-lasting friendships.

“Every time somebody’s driving somebody, I lose. But they…changed the seating arrangement,” said Spike Lee after this year’s Academy Awards at which his film BlackkKlansman lost Best Picture to Green Book. Of course, in his clever soundbite, Spike is referencing his 1989 movie Do the Right Thing and the fact that the Academy chose not to nominate it for BP–while the same year saw another racially focused film, Driving Miss Daisy (1989; Zanuck Company Productions, Warner Bros.) take home the industry’s highest honor. Final score at the 1990 Oscars: Driving Miss Daisy 4; Spike 0. Poor, poor Spike. Driving Miss Daisy won Makeup, Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium), Actress in a Leading Role for Jessica Tandy as Miss Daisy Werthan, and Best Picture (it failed to take home Oscars for Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Actor in a Supporting Role for Dan Aykroyd as Boolie Werthan, and Actor in a Leading Role for Morgan Freeman as Hoke Colburn).

In the months leading up to the 2019 Oscar ceremony, a lot of people remarked upon the similarities of Driving Miss Daisy and Green Book and also noted a correlation between Do the Right Thing and BlackkKlansman. Although all four films deal with racial tensions and stereotypes, Driving Miss Daisy and Green Book are both tamer than their respective Spike Lee counterparts; and the most obvious similarity between the two BP winners is that large portions of both Driving Miss Daisy and Green Book take place in cars–except an African-American man drives a white woman in 1989’s BP, and a white man drives a black man in 2018’s winner. Hence, Spike’s comment about the change in seating arrangement.

The commonalities between Do the Right Thing and BlackkKlansman stem more from how they present and address racial tensions and violence, opposed to any similarities in their storylines. Spike’s films generally are pretty raw and in-one’s-face. He likes to shock his audience into thinking about an issue (usually a racial one). Do the Right Thing and BlackkKlansman bring up the question of if/when violence is an appropriate response to racism, and both films end with that question not having been completely (and satisfactorily) resolved.

What I find especially interesting about all four of these films is that the years prior to and of their releases saw significant amounts of racial unrest. Like the 2010s, the 1980s featured several high-profile incidences of police violence against minorities (such as the death of New York graffiti artist Michael Stewart while in police custody and the police shooting of Eleanor Bumpurs, a mentally ill senior citizen facing eviction), which only served to fuel the racial tensions that were already simmering. Spike’s films feed off of the hatred and fear inherent in these real-life events without really offering a hopeful solution to bias and bigotry. Green Book and Driving Miss Daisy, despite what some critics insist about their still having toned-down racist agendas, both attempt to offer meaning and positivity with regard to a hot-button issue that is so enwrapped in emotion and history that it’s often difficult to talk through practical solutions. Personally, I’ll opt for the films that offer some kind of hope that we can one day work through past/present racial issues and learn to love everyone regardless of skin color. Not sorry, Spike.

For more thoughts on Driving Miss Daisy, please check out this weekend’s post!

Happy (very slightly belated) Easter, Everyone! Hope you have all enjoyed wonderful and meaningful celebrations of a holiday that centers around the redeeming sacrifice and love of Jesus Christ. Although Rain Man doesn’t offer us gospel truth about resurrection and salvation, it does present a story about a man who (re-)meets someone who changes his life forever–for the better.

All arrogant and cocky Charlie Babbitt cares about at the beginning of the film is money and sex. When his father (from whom he is estranged due to a disagreement they’d had regarding his dad’s classic car) passes away, Charlie is outraged to learn that the family fortune has been given to a mental institution. Upon visiting the institution, Charlie discovers that he has an older brother, Raymond, who is autistic. Charlie is shocked, to be sure, but he quickly gets over his surprise and formulates a plan to kidnap Raymond and hold him ransom for half of their father’s estate–an arrangement which only seems fair to the entitled Charlie.

Thus, the brothers begin an epic road trip from Ohio to California, during which Charlie begins to see that Raymond possesses amazing skills with memory and numbers and that his long-lost brother is most certainly not just crazy. Charlie starts to value and love his brother–especially when he realizes that Raymond is actually “Rain Man,” the best friend he had thought he had only imagined in his early childhood. Charlie tells his girlfriend Susanna, “When I was a little kid and I got scared, the Rain Man would come and sing to me.” Charlie’s memories of his older brother are full of comfort and closeness. When Susanna asks what happened to this Rain Man friend, Charlie replies “Nothing, I just grew up.” In his mind, Charlie no longer needs Rain Man because he thinks he has it all together. He can talk his way out of anything. He can talk others into anything. He will shortly be set for life once he gets his sketchy car importing business running smoothly. But Charlie is wrong to think he is fine being so “self-sufficient.”

When Charlie is reunited with “Rain Man” and realizes he is real and he is Raymond, his autistic brother, Charlie begins to change for the better. He becomes a listener, instead of always the dominant speaker. He starts anticipating Raymond’s needs and wants, going along with the quirks of Raymond’s disorder and accepting his brother as he is. Charlie learns patience, that the fastest and easiest way to do something isn’t always the right or best way. And he learns to love again. He decides he wants a relationship with his brother because he truly cares about him. Furthermore, through loving Raymond, Charlie starts loving his father again, expressing understanding of how his dad must have felt when Charlie blew him off time and time again. At the close of the film (spoiler alert!), even though Raymond goes back to the mental institution in Ohio, Charlie remains changed. His thoughts at the end of Rain Man don’t revolve around the physical gratifications of wealth or romance. Instead, he focuses on making sure that Raymond understands his desire to continue their relationship, to maintain their renewed family bond, and to feel his brotherly love.

For Me Then…

Earlier this weekend/today, I was feeling a bit bummed that we didn’t have a more “holiday appropriate” film to talk about this week. But in thinking further about Rain Man and the end of the film when we see a changed Charlie standing on the train platform as Raymond rides off to Ohio, I’m thinking that we’re okay here with talking about this film on Easter. Charlie at the movie’s close seems a bit at a loss as to what to do with himself 1.) now that Raymond is leaving, and 2.) now that being with Raymond has changed him. We don’t see Charlie long enough without Raymond to see what he is like without him: Does he continue to deceive his auto customers? Does he still take advantage of and undervalue Susanna? But regardless of how the new Charlie applies the lessons he learned from his drive with Raymond, we can certainly be sure that those lessons will linger with Charlie. In just a few days, he has been “touched” by Raymond in a way that will affect him for his entire life.

Each time I hear the Easter story, this line of thinking pops up in my brain as well. In the Gospels we see countless people–named and unnamed–encountering Jesus during his early years, his ministry, and his death, and after his resurrection. Each of those people experiences the Savior in one way or another, those people usually end up a bit shell-shocked at what has just happened to them, and each person’s life is never the same afterward. Hence, what we see on a much smaller scale in Rain Man is writ large throughout the pages of the biblical text: One person’s life can change that of another. Sure, Raymond makes Charlie a better person from the jerk he is at the film’s beginning. But Jesus can transform your soul, not just your outlook on life or your perception of particular human disorders.

Rain Man (1988; Guber-Peters Company Production, United Artists) helped to launch the career of one of Hollywood’s most prestigious film composers (and, incidentally, my absolute favorite), Hans Zimmer. While Zimmer didn’t win an Oscar for his score for Rain Man, the film’s Best Picture victory put Zimmer on the musical map, so to speak. When he followed Rain Man‘s success with that of next week’s BP Driving Miss Daisy, Zimmer was well on his way and only had to wait a couple more years before he was awarded a shiny golden man for his work on the iconic score of The Lion King (1995). Since then, Zimmer has racked up tons of awards and nominations for his brilliant scores for films such as Gladiator (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), The Last Samurai (2003), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017). And who can’t hum along with his instantly recognizable themes from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise? If you can’t do this yet, you must obtain these soundtracks ASAP. Particularly, “I Don’t Think Now is the Best Time” (slightly cheesy name for one of the best pieces of film music ever written, in my opinion) from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is simply a stunner.

While I could go on all day about Hans Zimmer and his contributions to the film world, I’ll try to rein in my gushing enthusiasm and turn back to Rain Man, which received eight Academy Award nominations. The film won four Oscars: Writing (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen), Directing for Barry Levinson, Actor in a Leading Role for Dustin Hoffman for his unforgettable performance as Raymond Babbitt, and Best Picture. The film failed to score wins for Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, and Music (Original Score)–but no worries there; Zimmer had better material coming later (tried to steer away from him, but there he is again…).

One particularly noteworthy contribution to culture and society that Rain Man made was to raise awareness for autism. As an “autistic savant,” Hoffman’s Raymond Babbitt is both alarmingly brilliant and endlessly frustrating to his brother Charlie. We’ll look at that relationship more this weekend, but for now it’s important to note just how groundbreaking it was for a mainstream, award-winning film to revolve around an autistic character. In 1988, most people didn’t know what it meant to be autistic–and perhaps had not even heard the term before. Children with autism often went misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, experiencing difficulties in school and struggling with peer relationships. In some circles, these children are referred to as “the lost generation,” sufferers from autism prior to it becoming a common diagnosis. For some first-hand experiences of a few of these children, check out this article from the Interactive Autism Network: https://iancommunity.org/lost-generation-growing-up-autism-before-epidemic.

On a positive note, then, the popularity of Rain Man led to increased diagnoses of autism and opened the door for more (and deeper) conversations about this disorder. On the other hand, though, Rain Man also created an autism stereotype. Karl Knights explains, “As a beginning for autism on screen, Rain Man deserves applause. It gave autistic people a visibility that had previously been denied them. In one fell swoop Rain Man achieved almost overnight the kind of representation that parent advocacy groups had been working towards for decades. But as the dominant depiction of autism on screen, it also deserves derision. The autistic community is more than Raymond Babbitt.” If you want to read more of Knights’ thoughts on this film and autism, check out this article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/17/rain-man-myth-autistic-people-dustin-hoffman-savant.

And, if you want to read more of my thoughts on Rain Man and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!

Two aspects of this film really stuck out to me this past week: the repeated images of the women in Pu Yi’s life abandoning him and the emphasis on the value of freedom. Not only are these two motifs interesting in their own rights, it is also worth considering how they work together in The Last Emperor.

Only a few minutes into the movie, viewers are presented with the heartbreaking scene in which Pu Yi is taken from his biological mother and spirited away to the Forbidden City to become the next emperor. While his mother doesn’t remove herself from her royal son by choice, years later when they are reunited, Pu Yi demonstrates an antagonistic attitude toward his mother as if he believes she could have done something to prevent their long separation. Similarly, Pu Yi is barely at the Forbidden City when the Empress, a creepy, grandmotherly figure, dies in front of him. Again, a woman with the potential to care for Pu Yi leaves him in a state where he feels confused, alone, and vulnerable. The young Pu Yi replaces his absent mother with his wet nurse (with whom he has a rather twisted relationship…); but when she is secretly and forcibly banished from the Forbidden City when Pu Yi grows older, the young emperor is devastated and runs after her with all his might, only to find the massive gate to the Forbidden City barring him from his female comforter forever.

As an adult, Pu Yi is still not immune to the women in his life leaving him. Although his relationships with his empress Wan Jung and his secondary consort Wen Hsiu thrive at first, after several years, it becomes clear that Wen Hsiu is the third wheel in the trio. On a rainy day after the emperor and his household have been evicted from the Forbidden City, an enraged and heartbroken Wen Hsiu just walks away from the ex-emperor’s mansion and from Pu Yi. She even refuses an umbrella(!), which maybe shows how desperate she is to become her own person and find someone who values only her in a romantic relationship.

Pu Yi’s relationship with Wan Jung doesn’t end up faring much better (spoiler alert!), though they are together longer. After Pu Yi has become the puppet emperor of Manchukuo, Wan Jung falls under the influence of the mysterious and stereotype-shattering Eastern Jewel, who persuades Wan Jung to try opium (to which she becomes addicted). Furthermore, the empress’s suspicions that the Japanese are merely using her husband lead her to begin an affair with Pu Yi’s driver in order to produce a “royal” heir for Pu Yi (this thought-process is messed up, yes), hence abandoning Pu Yi in a different way. After the birth (and death) of the baby, Wan Jung is also taken away from Pu Yi (supposedly to receive needed treatment, but actually because she has become an embarrassment, in the opinion of the Japanese). When Wan Jung returns to the emperor’s palace in Manchukuo at the end of World War II as Pu Yi is preparing to flee, she presents a terrifying figure: Her opium addiction has rendered her unrecognizable, and she looks like a monster. This time, Pu Yi leaves her (although it can be argued that Wan Jung’s addiction has already made her absent from her husband).

Let’s also consider the presentation of freedom in The Last Emperor, especially in light of all the “leaving” female characters. We’ve seen already how Pu Yi is separated from his mother at the beginning of the film, but this scene also marks the end of Pu Yi’s freedom. He becomes a virtual prisoner in the Forbidden City. When the empress dies and Pu Yi becomes ruler, he also is forced to bind himself by all the rules and customs the emperor must follow. Granted, there are a lot of perks, and he can mostly do whatever he wants to whomever he wants whenever he wants. Yet, he cannot go out and play with children his own age; and (rather hilariously) there are a couple of big to-do’s when Pu Yi is given a bicycle by his Scottish tutor and when Pu Yi discovers he needs glasses (emperors don’t wear glasses, say the former emperor’s concubines). Perhaps these “freedoms” that Pu Yi has to boss everyone around and wallow in his extreme luxury are not true freedoms at all. Two of the most enduring (and disturbing) images in the film are when Pu Yi tries to reach his wet nurse before she is taken from him and when he throws his pet mouse against the gate of the Forbidden City, smashing the poor little guy, when he is barred from exiting into the outer world after he is told the news about his mother’s death. Throughout the rest of his life, Pu Yi is still basically a prisoner of his position.

Even outside the Forbidden City when he experiences his “playboy” years, Pu Yi cannot go wherever he wishes. It is interesting that it is during this phase of his life when Wen Hsiu, the secondary consort, leaves him. Her departure mimics what Pu Yi wishes for: an escape from the dictated and constrained life into which he was born. And while Pu Yi is the one who leaves Wan Jung near the end of the film, his doing so only leads to his capture by Soviet troops and eventual, literal imprisonment in a Chinese work camp. The singular time we really see Pu Yi as a free man (if he is indeed ever truly liberated) is after his release from the camp when he becomes a humble gardener and revisits the Forbidden City as an early morning tourist. Still, it cannot be ignored that this older version of the spoiled brat child from the first half of the film has admitted while in prison that everything that happened was his fault. Pu Yi’s acceptance of responsibility is refreshing, but it is unclear what things he considers to be his fault. Furthermore, his placing blame on himself puts him into another prison of sorts–the prison of guilt. So at the close of The Last Emperor, we viewers find the new Pu Yi more likeable, but there is still a big question about the extent of his true liberation (from his past, from his position, from the control of the Communists, from his own guilt).

For Me Then…

Dialogue about freedom will be a frequent occurrence with many of our upcoming films. Just as The Last Emperor presents different types of freedom and different types of imprisonment, so also will films like Schindler’s List, Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, to name a few. While the freedoms and prisons vary in how each film presents them, one common idea that they share about freedom is how much it costs. If we go back to the incident with Pu Yi and the smashed mouse on the gate of the Forbidden City, we can draw a couple of conclusions about freedom and the price that is often demanded for it. First, it is frequently the case that one must take action to achieve one’s own freedom. Although Pu Yi’s mouse-slaughtering action does not win him freedom, this instance of his rebellion against his helpless state of confinement sets the stage for his later realization while in prison that he had a responsibility to his people and his family to make their lives better (and not just please himself). Second, freedom is often closely linked with death. For Pu Yi, his actually being the one who kills the mouse in his rage over being confined may indicate his feeling that death is preferable to a life without true freedom. Then again, The Last Emperor may be telling us in this scene that Pu Yi, because of his inherited position (and thus his destiny), can only find freedom in death. Morbid.

I find films that attempt to deal with the concept of freedom (how it is attained/retained, what it costs, what it means, etc.) highly compelling. They tap into an issue that all of humanity faces–and wrestles with. Freedom, whether it be political, physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. is so closely tied to identity and life purpose. It plays into the ultimate questions about who I am and why I am here. Plus, if we as humans admit that our greatest issues are our imprisonment to sin and death, freedom–of our souls–becomes the paramount issue of life. Any film, then, that attempts to show us that we are unable to save ourselves and need a higher Power to give us true freedom is well worth the viewing. The Last Emperor isn’t quite there, but it sure makes an effort.

Pu Yi, the last emperor of the Manchu Dynasty (and of China in general) and the man whose autobiography served as the basis for this week’s BP, lived an unbelievably crazy life–one that in reality was even more wild than what is depicted in The Last Emperor (1987, Hemdale Film Production; Columbia). He really did become emperor of all of China when a mere toddler, “ruling” for a couple of years until a revolution turned the country into a republic and forced him to abdicate. He actually was shown photographs of several girls before marrying one and picking another to be his imperial concubine. He truly loved the West and became a sort of Western-inspired playboy after being evicted from the Forbidden City. Eastern Jewel (whose real name was Yoshiko Kawashima–well, that’s just one of her real names…) was also a historical woman of Manchu descent who spied for the Japanese, while Pu Yi’s empress really did become an opium addict. Japan set Pu Yi up as puppet emperor of the shortly lived Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo until the end of World War II, when he was captured by Soviet troops, who later turned him over to the Chinese government. Pu Yi (the real one) was surprised when the Chinese didn’t execute him as a traitor–rather, they went for the “reform through labor” option in his case, considering Pu Yi rehabilitated after nine years. The former emperor spent the last few years of his life as a part-time gardener at the Beijing botanical gardens. He died of kidney cancer in 1967. He was only 61 years old.

While many of the events in the film are basically historically correct, what we get in Bernardo Bertolucci’s movie is a very sanitized portrayal of Chinese history–sanctioned by the Communist Chinese government. Although gaining the government’s approval allowed Bertolucci access to film in the famed and spectacular Forbidden City, it also meant that historical accuracy had to be sacrificed to make the Chinese government look good. Specifically, scenes in which Pu Yi and other “war criminals” are “re-educated” while imprisoned in a Chinese work camp (with a wise, compassionate overseer) drastically downplay the deplorable conditions and hidden horrors the prisoners were forced to endure.

Despite its lukewarm embrace of historicity, The Last Emperor achieved the stunning and rare feat of sweeping all the Oscar categories for which it was nominated (only 1927/28’s Wings, 1931/32’s Grand Hotel, 1934’s It Happened One Night, 1958’s Gigi, and 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King share this accomplishment so far). The Last Emperor took home nine Academy Awards for the following nine categories: Art Direction, Sound, Film Editing, Costume Design, Cinematography, Music (Original Score), Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium), Directing for Bernardo Bertolucci, and Best Picture.

So why this film in 1987? From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi was originally published in 1964, so the story had been out there for a while. I have a couple of thoughts on this. First, Mao Zedong, the “founding father” of the People’s Republic of China had passed away in 1976, and China was in the midst of some changes in the 1980s: economically, socially, internationally (as in China’s increasing openness to the outside world). It is also interesting to note that in the very year The Last Emperor was released, 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan urged Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of Soviet Russia, to tear down the Berlin Wall, perhaps the most famous physical symbol of Communist oppression. Hence, during a pretty high-profile time for Communists, we get a film that prominently features this group of people–yet the movie is much more tame than something we would see today due to: 1.) the fact that the fall of Communism in much of the world was still a couple of years away, and 2.) the Chinese government, while reinventing itself without Mao, was still Communist, after all. Participation in world cinema was becoming more of an option for the Chinese, but the government still wanted to control all the dialogue (especially when what was being said–or shown–had to do with their political party and their rivals, like the former emperor).

For more thoughts on The Last Emperor and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!