Author Archives: ccrane2@uoregon.edu

Watermelon Relations

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23

The Watermelon Woman directed and staring Cheryl Dunye was particularly interesting because it uses a movie within a movie structure to tell the story. Cheryl is filming herself making a film, a documentary, about a character known as the “Watermelon Woman”. The movie depicts Cheryl’s life as an African American, lesbian film maker and her evolving relationships with both her best friend and her new lover. As the movie progresses so does Cheryl’s relationship with the Watermelon Woman, a deceased African American movie actress of the 30’s/40’s that is the subject of Cheryl’s documentary, which is the movie within the movie. This creates the feeling that the overall film is autobiographical, which is an entertaining platform on which the drama can unfold.

While the entire movie has a raw almost elementary style, which adds to the autobiographical impression the film tries to create, it is easy to ascertain which sequences of Cheryl’s film are for her video documentary because the quality of these sequences differs from the quality of the scenes involving Cheryl’s personal life. For example, in the sequence where Cheryl goes with her co-worker to the Center for Lesbian Info and Technology (C.L.I.T for short) the overall image and sound quality of sequence can be compared to that of a handheld camcorder. This sequence is part of Cheryl’s video documentary project. However, when you look at sequences involving Cheryl’s personal life such as Cheryl working at the video store and interacting with her co-workers, the picture and sound quality of these sequences is more formal.

Cheryl’s video documentary project creates tensions and consequences in her personal life, which form the dramatic arc of the overall film. During the process of making her documentary, Cheryl begins to steadily form an obsession with the Watermelon Woman, which intensifies as the movie progresses and puts Cheryl’s personal life in jeopardy. Throughout the movie we witness the changing relationships between Cheryl and her best friend and between Cheryl and her lover. By the end of the movie Cheryl is no longer on speaking terms with her best friend, nor is she still in a relationship with her lover. The disintegration of both of these relationships is directly related to Cheryl’s obsession with the Watermelon Woman. Though destructive for the purposes of drama in the film, I can relate to the reasons behind Cheryl’s obsession.

During her journey of discovery Cheryl learns that she herself shares many similarities with the Watermelon Woman. Not only are both Cheryl and the Watermelon Woman African American and both have an interest in movies, but they are both homosexuals who are and have dated white woman. While I cannot completely relate to this aspect of the film because I am a heterosexual white male, I relate to Cheryl’s longing to find someone similar to herself with whom she can truly connect – someone who has gone through or is going through what Cheryl is experiencing in the moment. It is human nature that people do not want to be by themselves and yearn to be with others like themselves. It is the universality of Cheryl’s emotional arc that makes The Watermelon Woman as effective film. The deliberate use of an autobiographical, almost “home-movie” style adds to the power and effectiveness of the film. The problem for Cheryl’s is that she was too focused on learning more about someone in the past than focusing on herself in the present.

Winds of Change

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2

I would like to take a look at a particular scene from the movie Perfumed Nightmare, staring and directed by Kidlat Tahimik. This is a more in-depth look to one of my answers for a question on quiz 3.The scene in question is the going away party that Kidlat’s American Benefactor throws in honor of them leaving Paris for the United States.
Kidlat’s American Benefactor waits at the entrance to the party for his guests to arrive. As each guest arrives the director intercuts his shot footage of actors with newsreel footage of an important Western-looking person arriving at a huge event. Each guest arriving at the party also wears a mask hiding the actor’s face – hiding their identity. This technique of intercutting between the masked actor/guest and the newsreel footage suggests to the audience that it is the important person from the newsreel footage who is actually arriving at the party. So each guest arriving at the party represents an important person.
After all the guests have arrived the scene cuts to a shot of Kidlat sitting in a chair. When Kidlat rises from his chair to greet the guests, his narration describes how he feels – that all these important Western guests are staring at him. The director emphasizes Kidlat’s feelings by selecting camera angles that shoot up at the guests and intercutting these with camera angles shooting down onto Kidlat as Kidlat begins to talk about how small he feels compared to these guests. This is further exaggerated by using a bird’s eye view shot taken in such a way that makes Kidlat look tiny, as if the guests were looking down on him.
Throughout the movie Kidlat talks about progress and how he feels that his home needs to embrace progress and modernize. Now he is face to face with these people of progress, of modernization, who represent all the idea that Kidlat had idealized throughout the movie, and Kidlat feels small. The director is using this sequence to show the audience that Kidlat’s idea of progress, the concept he has always dreamed about, is not actually what he envisioned it would be. The audience is left feeling that, in Kidlat’s world, progress is this all powerful thing that no one can hope to stop.
In the next part of the sequence Kidlat begins to think of the wooden horse his mother carved for him on his car. As mentioned in an article that I read online by Antonio Sison the horse was “carved by Kidlat’s mother from the butt of the rifle of Kidlat’s father after he is killed by the American soldiers”. The article further mentions that Kidlat’s mother tells him, “Take this horse on your travels. One day you might need him to help you find the path to freedom”. This is shown when the scene cut from Kidlat to a shot of a wooden horse next to a toy car. Kidlat starts to think about the bridge shown in the beginning of the movie and what he had done. The scene then cuts back to the shot of Kidlat where he resumes his narration. He states his name and says that he is not actually as little as they make him feel. The shot cuts back to the toy car, but now the wooden horse is magnified to 3 to 4 times larger than its original size in the previous shot. The scene then cuts back to Kidlat who starts to blow air out of his mouth. With added sound effects of strong harsh winds, the following shots show the American and his guests being pushed away and rolling on the ground. This creates the illusion that Kidlat is blowing them away.
Kidlat’s character has now developed the strength and courage to stand up against progress. He begins to blow away all his past notions of progress. He rejects this “progress.” Kidlat has discovered that anyone has the power to stand up to things, such as progress, even if you are alone.
This sequence is the turning point for Kidlat’s convictions. He no longer supports progress as he did in the beginning of the film. But what is this progress that Kidlat is now rejecting? Kidlat made Perfumed Nightmare after attending Wharton Business School in the US. He returned to the Phillipines and made a Third Cinema film that has all the appearances of being an unsophisticated piece of film making, but perhaps it is the opposite. Perhaps Kidlat is stating his opposition to the Americanization of the Philippines and perhaps we should consider this film the work of a revolutionary.

All is not what it seems

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14

Singin’ in the Rain directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly delivers all aspects of a successful Hollywood movie musical while poking fun at Hollywood’s difficulties in adapting to the advent of the “talking picture.” I have chosen to do a close reading of the opening “red carpet” scene through which the film makers cleverly tell the audience what they should anticipate is to come; it is a “teaser” in terms of setting up the drama of the story, the relationship of the characters and a movie musical’s essential elements, song and dance – a lot for one scene to achieve.
It begins by having fun with the idea of a movie premiere. The fans screaming for fictional movie stars arriving on the red carpet and the movie stars themselves, all are portrayed as broad stereotypes – almost cartoon. Even our initial protagonists, Don Lockwood (Gene Kelley) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) arrive both dressed all in white symbolizing they are the stars of this premiere, but this color co-ordination also emphasizes they are a couple. However, when interviewed on the red carpet we can immediately see that all is not what it seems and this phrase, “all is not what it seems” echoes throughout the movie right up to the finale when Debbie Reynolds’ character is revealed as the voice of Lina Lamont.
This “teaser” element of the opening sequence is cleverly integrated into Don’s interview on the red carpet. While Don tells us of his classical training and early stage career we see the truth depicted in a series of cameos where Don and Cosmo progress though their early careers playing in bars and obscure Vaudeville joints. The film makers use these cameos to give the audience a preview of the singing, dancing and comedy that is to come with Gene Kelly (Don Lockwood) and Donald O’Connor (Cosmo) demonstrating why they were considered two of the finest song and dance men in Hollywood. The audience is deftly warned that if Don is lying about his past, is he also lying about his relationship with Lina Lamont? The film makers have now introduced the underlying drama of their story.
Much is said about the characters in this opening scene before they even speak, (Lina Lamont says nothing in the opening scene. In a story about movie stars of the silent era making the transition to the “talkies,” the film makers cleverly prevent Lina Lamont from speaking until that critical moment when the maximum impact of her horribly grating voice can be unleashed on the audience). Let’s consider the positioning of Don and Lina when they first step out of their Limo: Lina is on the right of screen and Don is on the left. As they approach the interviewer they nimbly adjust positions so that Lina remains on the far right, Don is located in the middle with the announcer and Cosmo stands on the far left. Their positioning may not seem that important at first, but it is. Most movies tend to follow a convention where the bad guys are introduced on the right of screen while the good guys are introduced from the left. If this convention holds for “Singing in the Rain” then Lina is a bad guy and Cosmo is a good guy. Don is in the middle with the announcer, in neutral territory – the audience will have to make up their own minds about Don’s character, (Were it not for Cosmo’s presence and the obvious respect that Cosmo and Don have for each other – clearly seen in Don’s interview – the audience might find Don too dislikeable from the outset). This foreshadowing of characters may not seem important at first, but if the convention holds true, then by the end of the opening sequence a subconscious opinion of each character has been planted in the audience’s mind.
Opening a movie with a “teaser” has become synonymous today with many blockbuster action movies; the opening sequence of a James Bond movie is almost a short movie in itself as is the opening sequence of “Singing in the Rain.” All is not what it seems in this opening scene, but an awful lot is happening.