In Bruno’s recitation on Wednesday, February 23rd, we discussed the themes of cynicism and paranoia in context of the era of the 1970s in America as well as in the context of the films The Parallax View, Chinatown, Projection Instructions, and The Conversation.
First off, we discussed what it means to be cynical. A couple of students brought up words like “pessimistic”, “fatalistic”, “full of doubt”. One thing that was not brought up was that cynicism, or “to be cynical”, is, to some extent, decided by the viewer. Depending on who the audience is, a movie can be very cynical OR very optimistic.
We also discussed the theme of nostalgia, a common topic of conversation in our recitation. We discovered that nostalgia and cynicism can go hand-in-hand, as nostalgia must come with a dissatisfaction in the present (a cynical sentiment). Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris came up a couple of times, as the films’ protagonist, played by Owen Wilson, realizes that his “golden age” is the roaring ’20s, and he manages to find flaw in almost every facet of present day. But, as we all know, Woody Allen’s protagonists, for the most part, epitomize cynicism.
Finally, we discussed what it meant to be paranoid. In the 1960s, MKUltra, a testing program on human subjects experimented with mind control. The ethics of surveillance was becoming more and more of a prominent subject of discourse. The CIA was involved in illegal activities upon its own citizens, which prompted confessional interrogations and all sorts of complications. Basically, the ’70s was an incredibly paranoid time.
A paranoid person is consumed by his or her anticipation that something is going to happen. To me, for some reason, the anticipation of something that is going to happen — a murder, a kiss, a reveal — is more provocative than the actual event. For instance, in David Ives’ play Venus in Fur (adapted from Leopold von Sascher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs), the only two characters in the piece never kiss, but come extremely close. This anticipation pushes the audience to the edges of their seats: they want it to happen SO badly, but Ives cleverly never gives them what they want, leaving them wanting more. This “edge of your seat” feeling is a crucial aspect of being paranoid, an aspect that is quite difficult for a director to evoke out of an audience. But, as we saw in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, certain directors make this difficult task look easy.
However, as we learned from Peter Biskind’s article, “The Man Who Would Be King”, Coppola’s commercial directing experiences have been unbearably challenging. As a kid, Coppola was painfully awkward, and suffered from Polio for a year and a half. He claims he became interested in film because he suffered from a penetrating feeling of isolation as a kid, so he started getting into theatre and film because the characters helped him feel understood. Once he finally agreed to alter his idea about what kind of filmmaker he wanted to be (he was interested in the French New Wave movement and filmmakers like Fellini). The process of getting Coppola attached was definitely a struggle in and of itself.
Then, the real trouble began in casting. The studio head of Paramount wanted big names and leading men like Nicholson, Beatty, and/or Redford, while Coppola insisted on Brando and Pacino, as they could be “believable Italian-Americans with New York Accents”. Finally, Coppola got his way and they began shooting. Within the first week, Coppola broke his ankle, which started a spree of nervously rewriting scenes while they were being shot, cutting actors out of scenes without telling them, and the crew getting FURIOUS with both Coppola and Brando (the sound people claimed they could not understand Brando). However, as we all know, through all of the antics, the film turned out to be hugely successful and one of the greatest American films of all time, if not the greatest.
The Conversation (1974), was a film that Coppola wanted to make (he claims he “sold out” by making The Godfather). A perfectly suited feature to watch this week, the protagonist of the film is defined by his paranoia. He has barely any possessions in his house, nobody knows any personal information about him, and he is entirely about his job and his religion. My favorite part of the way the film was stylized is that the film was always from his perspective, so you were truly going on his experience. The audience knew just as much as him, which is why the reveal towards the end that the couple murdered the director was so shocking. Personally, I enjoyed the ending of the movie way more than the middle and the beginning, as Coppola’s films tend to be very slow initially. When he starts tearing apart his house in search of a bug or a recording device, his devouring sense of paranoia is highlighted. In this way, Coppola cleverly and clearly depicts the overly suspicious, doubtful attitude Americans embodied in the 1970s.
American Cinema: 1960-Present 