Soviet Montage Cinema

Analyse and discuss Dovzhenko’s Earth in terms of its similarities and differences with other soviet films of the period.

The Soviet Montage film movement began in the 1920’s 1 and carried on towards the beginning of the 1930’s. In this essay I will be looking at the films of Soviet Directors from the 1925 – 1930 period, I will be studying Dovzheko’s Earth (1930), and looking at the similarities and differences in the following films Eisenstein’s Strike (1925) and The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Pudovkin’s Storm Over Asia (1929).
Strike was released in early 1925 and was one of the first major films of the “Soviet Montage” movement 2. It concerns the strike of factory workers and its conclusion. Like many of Eisenstein’s films it has heavily politicised ideologies and themes. Much like Battleship Potemkin, which focuses on the struggle of a Russian Battleship crew as they mutiny after against their Tsarist rulers. Both Strike and Battleship Potemkin are based on true events; in 1905 a Russian crew did mutiny, and Strike “is a discourse on all the Russian strikes that occurred before 1917” 3. Both films start with a political quote from Lenin. Strike Over Asia is the story of a fictional ancestor of Genghis Kahn, discovered and put into power by the British to control Mongolia with a puppet regime, the film deals with exploitation and the revolution of Mongolia and the partisans.
Earth is the story of how collectivisation affects the people living in a village. It deals with the subjects of collectivisation, communism, family, community, faith and life and death.
Although collectivisation did happen, the family and village portrayed in the film are entirely fictional. Unlike Strike, Storm Over Asia and Battleship Potemkin, Earth uses more characterisation to portray the collectivisation of the wheat fields. In Earth we are introduced to Opana’s family in the opening sequence and each of the main characters are identified as the film progresses, in other montage films, like Strike and Battleship Potemkin, the social forces drive the story forward, not the characters; the main character in Battleship Potemkin, Vakulynchuk, is killed off, and we only identify with the characters through social movements. Indeed in Strike, the only people we know the names of end up working for the oppressors or committing suicide. This motif throughout Eisenstein’s films has been referred to as “heroic realism” 4. Identifying with the social forces rather than the individuals who take part in any action.
In Storm Over Asia, we identify with the social movements, rather than the people progressing the narrative. The main character is known as “Mongol Hunter”, and no one else is identified personally.
In Earth, the Trubenko family take part in the social upheaval of collectivisation; Vasyl takes charge of the Komsomols when they organize the tractor collection, and they hold a meeting in his father’s house. When Vasyl is murdered, his father, Opanas, forces the collectivisation.

“…it’s three main characters – Vasyl Trubenko, Opanas Trubenko and Khoma Bilokin – who represent, respectively, the Komosomol activists in the village, the confused middle peasants and the evil Kulaks…”
(Liber, (2002), p107)

Of course the characterisation in Earth does not take away from the political message about collectivisation; neither does the lack of characterisation in Strike or Battleship Potemkin detract from the political message behind the film, starting and ending the film with a quote from Lenin. The quotes at the beginning and end of Strike bookend the film, reminding the audience that the film is based on true events, and further politicizing the film.
Storm Over Asia is not as obviously politicised as Strike and Battleship Potemkin, much like Earth, this could be because of the fictional story that unfolds before us. The lack of characterisation in a mostly character led story makes it hard to distinguish the director’s motive for setting a tale of revolution in Mongolia. Although, the shots of the military commanders do add to the argument of typage in ‘soviet montage’ films; the generals are all very well looked after and shot in intimidating ways, whereas their underlings live in poor conditions when compared to their commanders, eating, sleeping, working and playing in the same room.

Earth opens with shots of fields of wheat blowing in the wind; it then cuts to a shot of a girl standing next to a sunflower. The next sequence of shots deal with the death of Semen; the grandfather of the main protagonist’s family. Whereas in Strike, the film opens onto a shot of the factory owner, a large bureaucratic man in a top hat and suit. Eisenstein used ‘typage’ to convey social structures and classes in his films. In Strike the rich, upper classes are seen in grand surroundings, drinking and smoking cigars, or ordering about the factory workers:

”The workers, by contrast, are idealized in a manner typical of “heroic realism”, with none of the bourgeois forces exaggeration of costume or demeanour. Moreover, they are far less individualized. The film’s opening depersonalizes the agitators…”
(Bordwell, (2004), p379).

The workers are rarely seen in grand surroundings, living in relative squalor with their families, struggling for food and tobacco as “The Strike Drags On”. The realism of their struggle is at odds with the oppressors almost comical appearance; when pushed into a pool of dirty water the first reaction of one of the factory owners is to comb his hair and straighten his suit.
The oppressors in Potemkin are far more severe and serious, the first time we see the ships admiral he orders the shooting of strikers, covering them in a tarpaulin, the police guard in the Odessa Staircase sequence are also shot in a very intimidating manner, at the end of the Odessa Staircase scene a woman approaches the guard, whose shadows engulf her and her injured infant. The main agitators in Storm Over Asia are the British army, its leaders are shown as being very officious and menacing, especially the General, who at one point in the film appears surrounded by smoke, further emphasising his evil intentions. The idea of ‘typage’ was a “gesture towards realism”; many of the characters were cast because of the way they looked, rather than any acting skill 5.
The opening of Earth could not be more different than Strike or Battleship Potemkin, we see Opana’s and Vasyl’s family in an apple orchard; Semen, the grandfather, is surrounded by the over-ripe apples that have fallen from the trees surrounding his family, the over ripe apples symbolise the notion of death along with Semen, who is surrounded by them 6. In Earth, Dovzhenko frequently uses people, food (in this case, apples), animals and nature to symbolise death and rebirth, the opening shot of the girl next standing next to a sunflower symbolises the idea that the villagers are one with the nature surrounding them; they work with the soil and gain from the harvest 7, even in death the villagers are in harmony with nature, the over-ripe apples will decay and become fertilizer for new plants and life, and will be renewed, much like Semen and his family.
The whole of Semen’s family surrounds him in his final moments; he will leave behind children and grand children to carry on with the work, the young children by Semen’s side could also be considered as his replacement, another notion of rebirth or renewal.
The apples and fruit in general are used as a signs of fertility, when Semen receives an apple from his grand daughter, she clutches the bowl in a similar fashion to the way Opana’s wife holds her pregnant stomach 8, and throughout the film we also see young children eating fruit, further establishing the idea of rebirth and renewal.
The motif of rebirth and renewal carries on throughout the film, when Vasyl’s funeral is taking place; Opana’s wife goes into labour. The idea of renewal can also be seen in the arrival of the tractor and the harvest, with Semen gone, the tractor replaces him and speeds up the harvest process, although the actual growing of the harvest seems to be omitted from the film, which according to Kepley 9; takes away nature’s role in the harvest, only to be supplanted by new technology and labour until the moment Vasyl dies, where the plants brush against his face and we see shots of sunflowers and apples again.
When Semen dies, there is a shot of his son; Opanas, and grandson; Vasyl looking down at him, as well as a sunflower which appears to “look down” on Semen, further establishing the harmony between the villagers and nature, and the renewal each family member brings. There are elements of renewal in Strike and Battleship Potemkin, when Vakulynchuk is killed and Yakov Strongen kills himself in Strike, their deaths give birth to the revolution, in death they become the figureheads and inspiration against their Tsarist oppressors.
The are no elements of renewal as such in Storm Over Asia, but a natural element does appear at the very end of the film, when the main character charges the British army. The wind appears to join in the attack, literally blowing the British out of Asia.

In Earth, machines are given human or natural characteristics, when the tractor arrives at the village; it breaks down because its radiator is empty. The tractor is made part of the village when the Komsomols urinate into its radiator, giving in a natural element, even though it is made from metal. The first long shot of the tractor hides its progress along the road, when we finally see the tractor it seems to spurt from the ground like a plant, further emphasising the role nature plays in these villagers’ lives.
In Strike the main force behind the workers lives is not nature, but the factory their lives revolve around. The factory binds the workers together in their struggle against the corrupt factory owners. In Battleship Potemkin, the actual ship seems to be the main force of the sailors lives; it is where they live, eat and sleep, and it is the force that carries them forward and unites them, this is shown when the smaller ships join Potemkin in the harbour, the people from Odessa have joined the revolution against their oppressors.
The oppressing force in Earth are the Kulaks, they are against the collectivization of the fields because it means they will have to share their wealth with the rest of the village, they cannot join in the new social arrangements made by the collectivization 10, the Kulaks do not want to share anything with the rest of the town, the Khoma’s father going so far as to try and kill the families horse instead of share with the rest of the village 11. After Khoma has killed Vasyl and realises that the Kulaks are becoming extinct, he tries to be “reborn” by dancing; placing his head on the ground, and trying to screw himself back into the earth.
The Kulaks inability to unite with the rest of the village is shown throughout the film, in the scene where the tractor arrives in the village, there are shots of three cattle, standing watching the tractor up the path, cut into the same shot, but with three Kulaks instead of the cattle, a direct reference to the place the Kulak are headed. With the aid of the tractor, the cattle will no longer be needed to pull the plough, much like the use of the Kulaks once collectivisation has taken place 12. This technique is quite similar to the end of Strike, when the massacre of the strikers is taking place. Instead of showing the actual massacre of the strikers in person, Eisenstein chooses to show us a bull being slaughtered as a metaphor.

“The last reel (of Strike) is virtually a detachable short film, a showcase of Eisenstein’s “free montage of attractions” that, operating independently of narrative, stimulate strong emotions and wide ranging concepts.”
(Bordwell, (2004), p378)

Religion is also prominent in Earth, the arrival of the tractor is much like the biblical descriptions of Palm Sunday, the eventual martyr riding the village’s saviour 13. The large groups gathered at the end of the film are also reminiscent of gatherings depicted in the bible, when Jesus was lecturing his followers. A more graphic example are the crosses in the background as Khoma confesses to killing Vasyl.
Strike Over Asia compares the preparations of the religions of Asia for meeting with the British army. Conducts of dress and appearance are concentrated on for both parties. The monks preparing their ceremonial dress, and the general’s wife preparing her make up.

Strike, Battleship Potemkin, Storm Over Asia and Earth all contain different and similar elements, each of the films is politically motivated. Strike, Storm Over Asia and Battleship Potemkin all deal with the idea of revolution, so some of the same techniques are used to portray the struggling revolutionaries and the oppressors is different ideological ways, using camera angles and ‘typage’ to make the oppressors more intimidating and the revolutionaries more heroic. Earth does not employ these techniques as much as the other films I have looked at, preferring to tell the story through the characters, rather than the social situation.


References

1. Bordwell, 2003, p119
2. Bordwell, 2003, p127
3. Bordwell 1985, p235
4. Bordwell, 2004, p368
5. Bordwell, 2003, p138
6. Kepley, 1986, p 79
7. Liber, 2002, p108
8. Kepley, 1986, p79
9. Kepley, 1986, p83
10. Liber, 2002, p110
11. Kepley, 1986, p82
12. Kepley, 1986, p82
13. Liber, 2002, p110


Bibliography

Bordwell, D (1985) Narration in the Fiction Film, Wisconsin; University Of Wisconsin Press.

Bordwell, D and Carroll N (1986) Post Theory, University of Wisconsin Press.

Bordwell, D and Thompson, K (2003) Film History: An Introduction (Second Edition), University of Wisconsin, McGrawHill

Bordwell, D and Thompson, K (2004) Film Art: An Introduction (Seventh Edition); University of Wisconsin, McGrawHill

Christie, I (1993) Eisenstein rediscovered/edited by Ian Christie and Richard Taylor. p. cm.—(Soviet cinema) Papers from a conference held at Keble College, Oxford, July 1988. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Eisenstein, Sergei, 1898–1948–Criticism and interpretation Congresses. I. Christie, Ian. II. Taylor, Richard. Accessed on 9th November: http://www.shu.eblib.com/EBLWeb/patron/

Kepley, V (1986) In the Service of the State: the Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko, Wisconsin University Press. (Chapter 6 Earth)

Liber, G. O (2002) Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film, BFI Publishing; London

Taylor, R (2006) The Eisenstein Collection: SERGEI EISENSTEIN, London; Seagull Books

Zombie Zombie Zombie

This is a piece of work I did for a 'journal paper' at Uni, it's meant to be about genre changing over time, and how it affects the zombie film genre, I might put up some more work later, I did a really pretentious essay on Soviet Montage films, but it has a few more references.

Genre Changes and the Zombie Film

Genre changes over time, it shifts the elements that construct its narrative to make something original or it adds elements from other genres to mix the conventions the audience are used to and create new meaning, surprises and ideas.

I looked into the changes and shifts in genre that affect the zombie film genre, and how it affected the meaning of the films and where the genres took the narratives.
I tried to define the main characteristics of zombie movies that appear throughout the genre in each film. Tudor makes the point (using westerns) that: “…we must first isolate the body of films that are ‘westerns’. But they can only be isolated on the basis of the ‘principal characteristics’…”

I tried the find and define the principal characteristics of the zombie film, so mapping the genre changes and shifts would be more precise. The first and most obvious characteristic of the zombie film genre is Zombies. The Zombie is the main aspect of the genre, there are several types of zombie which I have identified from the films that I have seen and I will explain them in more detail later, I have identified several, the voodoo zombie, the undead zombie and the science zombie.

The fear of the undead is present in many different forms of fiction; stories, novels and poems all reference the dead or undead coming back from the grave to haunt the living.

”The original zombies came from witchcraft and magic, voodoo and rituals” (London, (1976) p.76) Films like Plague of the Zombies (Gilling 1966), White Zombie (Halperin, 1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (Torneur, 1943) used voodoo as the creation behind the zombie force. The Zombies were usually controlled by a voodoo priest and performed manual tasks for him, for instance in Plague of the Zombies, the zombies are used to mine tin for the “tyrannical Victorian mine owner” (London (1976) p.88).

The next incarnation of the zombie was the undead zombie. Made popular by George A. Romero’s ‘Dead’ Series, the undead zombie set the standard for the future zombies seen in television and cinema. Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) was in the first in a series of five films, with more being made to this very day. These zombies were not controlled by anyone, and their only desire was to feed on living humans, adding to their own number.

After the undead zombie, the need for a more explained creation story was needed; the science zombie used scientific accidents and mistakes to explain the concept of the undead rising. This idea could be attributed to the progression of medical and experimental science in our modern age; transplant procedures and the freezing of dead bodies to be resuscitated when death and disease are not a problem seem common place today. Films like Resident Evil (Anderson, 2002), 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002) and 28 Weeks Later (Fresendillo, 2007) all use a science aspect to explain the origin of the zombies, for instance in Resident Evil the zombies are the mistake resulting from a chemical weapons leak in an underground bunker.

The post apocalyptic society features heavily in the zombie genre; the science and undead zombie appear almost exclusively in the destroyed world as the dominant species, while human survivors struggle by. The idea of life being wiped out by an infectious outbreak was taken from Richard Matheson’s Book I am Legend (1954), which was originally a story of a vampire outbreak infecting the inhabitants of a city. More modern zombie films like 28 Days Later cite Day of the Triffids (1951) as an influence on the post apocalyptic vision of the future. Another common characteristic in zombie films is the group of survivors; each Romero film has a group of survivors struggling by against the zombie hordes, until they become complacent and kill each other off or let in the zombies, usually because of their own inadequacies and differences, rather than the zombies out witting them.

”…the zombie walks amongst us in many disguises, and he represents many of our fears.” (London (1976) p98).

Since the earliest incarnations of the Zombie film, the abilities and the causes of the undead rising from the grave have been different.
The voodoo zombies of the early films were not seen cannibalising other humans until the Romero dead series of the early 1960’s. Zombies then changed from being under the control of a voodoo priest and having an origin to being under no control and having no explanation of their origin at all. One could say that with the lack of an origin to the zombie, the films just became about gore; many of the substandard zombie b-movies that came following Night of the Living Dead’s success blatantly played on the ‘gore’ factor to attract an audience.
The gore factor has been carried through many of the incarnations of the zombie genre, many of the audience just came to see gore; the recent Grindhouse: Planet Terror (Rodriguez, 2007) used gore excessively to make up for an extremely poor story line, and the remakes of Dawn Of The Dead (Snyder) in 2004 and Day Of The Dead (Miner) in 2008 used gore a lot more than their predecessor, possibly for a modern desensitised audience, who care less about the narrative of the point it tries to make and more about the way to dispatch the monster, and the effect it has on the decorating.

One aspect between the science and undead zombie films that remains different are the zombies origins; were as the science zombie’s origins are usually explained at the beginning or in the climax of the film, the undead (particularly Romero) zombie’s origins are unexplained or just hinted at, leaving it up to the audience to decide where the monsters come from.
The science zombie is usually the result of a mistake that contaminates the whole world due to science failing, or a military weapon backfiring against its creators, where as the undead zombie contaminates the whole world, leaving figures of authority like scientists, police and army offices and elected leaders redundant and confused. Both types of zombie film comment on authority figures and their ability to deal with mass hysteria, whether it is from zombie hordes or rampaging citizens.

The zombie has been through some changes since its first incarnation in horror novels and stories. For example, Frankenstein’s monster was one of the first zombies, on screen and in literature, although he didn’t eat any living people.
The first film zombies were originally workers for a voodoo priest. A recently deceased person could be brought back from the dead by voodoo to do the priest’s bidding, usually some form of manual labour.
From Voodoo, the zombie adapted into the most recognizable form of the zombie we know today, the undead zombie. The change from Voodoo zombie to undead zombie could be attributed to the lack of religion in our modern society, or the way we view other culture’s religions. The tag line for Dawn of the Dead was “When there is no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the earth”, implying a Christian or Catholic view on the origin of the zombies without any proof. The voodoo origins of the original zombie would have been too far fetched for a modern audience.

The first undead zombie movie was Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which was followed by the rest of the series as well as many other films which used the undead zombie as the main antagonist. There have been many variations on the undead zombie; some adaptations of the zombie have been comical, such as the films Return of the Living Dead (O’Bannon, 1985) and Peter Jackson’s Braindead (1992). Films like Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004) have taken a comical look at the zombie genre, but kept the zombies true to the Romero standards, poking fun at the concepts used in zombie films, rather than the zombies themselves. This could be to either revive the conventions of the zombie genre or to highlight the inadequacies of the zombie as a menace to the world; by the end of the film we are watching the zombies entertain us in stupid game shows.

Most recently zombies have adapted again into the fast moving modern zombies, probably because of the worn out conventions of the Romero-style zombie film. The modern versions share little in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are zombies.
In some instances, the zombies are faster and stronger than they’re counterparts, in the remake of Dawn of the Dead and the E4 series Dead Set (Demange, 2008), the zombies can sprint and appear more agile and stronger than their previous counterparts, again highlighting the differences and weaknesses of the Romero-style zombie and the difference of the faster modern zombies.
The adaptation of the Romero-style zombie started with 28 Days Later, although the infected are not strictly zombies, they follow the same design as some of the zombies that came before the film. In the film they are infected with ‘rage’ and they can infect others by spitting blood and by scratching or biting. They are also large in number, and choose not to attack the infected. One of the main differences to the previous zombies is the speed at which the infected from 28 Days Later move, they sprint and jump to try and attack the uninfected. The infected in 28 Days Later don’t eat the living either, the infection being carried through bodily fluids, as Christopher Ecclestone’s character Major West keeps an infected soldier tied up to see how long it will take for the infected to die from starvation.
Other modern zombie films and series include the remakes of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The zombies in Dawn of the Dead are much like the infected of 28 Days Later, although they eat people and are physically rotting. In Day of the Dead the zombies have gained abilities that they did not have in life let alone death, they can climb walls and jump great distances.
The E4 series Dead Set takes a zombie outbreak and sets it in the big brother household, with the housemates unaware of the zombie nation surrounding them. In this adaptation the zombies have the same abilities as the zombies in the remake of Dawn of the Dead.
The conventions of the undead/Romero-style zombie have grown old, and warrant a change to shock and scare the audience. In the fast pace modern society we live in, it makes sense that as the undead we would move just as fast as we did in life to get what we want.

The zombies in the remakes of Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Dead Set offer no explanation to why or how they have been created much like Romero’s Living Dead series. 28 Days Later offers an explanation at the beginning of the film to explain the origins of the infected, much like the ‘science’ zombie films.
The remakes of Romero’s films and Dead Set offer no explanation possibly because of the ideology present in the films subtext, Dawn of the Dead addresses issues about consumerism, Day of the Dead comments on the use of science and man playing god and Dead Set comments on the culture we have before us; reality TV and ‘celebrity culture’. The origin of our societies downfall is entirely of our own doing, rather than blaming a scientist or a voodoo priest the film states that we must point the finger inwards and blame ourselves about what we have created.

Films that use science to explain the origin of zombies became popular from the films 28 Days Later, and the computer game Resident Evil. But the first science zombie film was made in 1936; The Walking Dead (Curtiz), it was the story of a man wrongly executed for murder, who is resuscitated using electricity to claim vengeance on the real killers, only to be killed again after making the scientists responsible for his rebirth promise to never do it again. (London, (1976),p 58). The film of Resident Evil explains the origin of the zombie as a mistake from a chemical weapons factory; the zombies used to be the staff of the evil umbrella corporation of the film and games. The zombies display the same abilities and characteristics of a Romero zombie, except we know how they were created. The film also uses a large monster, called a Licker, which is a prominent ‘baddie’ in the video game. It has nothing to do with the zombie genre, and is the film only to remind the audience of the films adaptation from a computer game.
The Grindhouse production of Planet Terror also uses science zombies, but to a more comedic effect. The soldiers were infected by a gas and must constantly inhale the antidote or they become zombies.
The science zombie could be a comment on the lack of an origin story for the Romero/Undead zombie, the science zombie has a back story and origin, so it is probable that the antagonists of the film can be killed in a scientific way, giving the audience closure on the horrific nature of the film, where as the lack of origin for the undead/Romero zombie takes away the closure aspect that the audience wants by the end of the film, most of the endings of Romero films are left ambiguously, letting the audience decide the survivor’s fate.


To further explore the idea of genre changing I would investigate the other adaptations of ‘the monster’. For instance, Vampires and the changes from the first vampire films like Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922) and Dracula (Browning, 1932), to the modern versions like Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008) and Interview with a Vampire (Jordan, 1994). This could also lead into mummies and serial killers like in the Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) series or the Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) series. Eventually an overview of the horror genre could be seen, the progression of the main monsters, from classical films like The Wolf Man (Waggner, 1941), and The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935) to more modern adaptations like An American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981) and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (Branagh, 1994).

The limitations of this study could be the genre, although the horror genre is massive and full of many monsters, and sub genres. There is always a common denominator of a monster or bad guy, in sequels and adaptations, in other genres such as action or comedy, there wouldn’t be such a common denominator.

It would also take a lot of viewings to identify the aspects of the monster that appeared in each adaptation or sub genre, which would link them all together.

To start I would map the different types of genres from each ‘monster’, e.g. Vampire, Zombie, Werewolf etc, to get a better idea of the spread of films.

During my investigation I found that the Zombie genre has been constantly changing, much like the idea of genre itself. The zombie genre has borrowed ideas from previous films, series and video games to keep itself original and refreshing. From the original Voodoo Zombies of the 1930’s to the Science zombie of 2000, the zombie genre has been constantly changing, using different origin stories and abilities of zombies to change the genre into different sub genres.


Bibliography
Annan, D (1974) Cinefantastic: Beyond the Dream Machine: London, Lorrimer Publishing
Cook, P and Bernink, M (eds) (1999) The Cinema Book (2^nd Edition), London; BFI
Gange P, (1987) The Zombies that Ate Pittsburgh: The Films of George A. Romero; New York, Dodd, Mead & Company
Jones, A (2005) The Rough Guide to Horror Movies, London; Penguin Books Ltd.
London, R ( 1976) Zombie: The Living Dead; London, Lorrimer Publishing
Lothe J, (2000) Narrative In Fiction and Film, Oxford; Oxford University Press
Marriot, J (2004) Horror Films, London; Virgin Books
Sage, V and Smith, A L (eds.) (1996) Modern Gothic: A Reader; Manchester, Manchester University Press
Tudor, A (1989) Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie; Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd.

I BELIEVE IN MICKEY ROURKE

Just got back from seeing The Wrestler (Aronofsky, 2008).

I'm a big fan of Aronofsky's films anyway, films like Pi, Requiem for a Dream and the criminally underrated The Fountain really are quite beautiful, depressing and touching.
The Wrestler carries on the tradition of Aronofsky working with Clint Mansell, former guitarist of Pop Will Eat Itself, who conducts the soundtrack of the piece, minus the title song 'The Wrestler' by Bruce 'the boss' Springsteen.


The Wrestler focuses its story on the former great wrestler Randy 'The Ram' Robinson, and how he deals with his fall from grace from the heights of professional wrestling.
The opening credits sequence shows photos, flyer's and reviews of Randy's former glory, fighting against opponents in front of crowds of 20,000 people, which brings us up to present day, with a broken down Randy fighting in public halls and school auditoriums.
Lines are drawn between the 'real world' and the world of wrestling, and also between the world of stripping and the 'real world'. Randy's on/off girlfriend Cassidy/Pam, is torn between the rules of the establishment where she works and her feelings for Randy back in the real world.
The supporting cast is also fantastic, Evan Rachel Wood is the Ram's estranged daughter, Stephanie. The love interest of Cassidy/Pam is played by Marisa Tomei.


Mickey Rourke has been nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Randy 'The Ram', and is totally deserving. People might think he has been cast because of his ability to look like a wrestler, applying the muscle and training regime to make the scenes in the ring look realistic, but the limited amount of time spent in the ring only serves to amplify Rourke's performance of a once great wrestler trying to get by in the world, doing the thing that he loves most, no matter what it does to his body. The grunts and moans of pain all seem to come from the experiences of Rourke, though it's doubtful that he has ever been stapled in the chest. The moments of tenderness and love he shares with his daughter and his stripper girlfriend look lived out by Rourke. The moment at the beach with his daughter his totally moving and sums up the whole movie, again the moments between Rourke and Tomei are too few, and I for one would have loved to see more of them together discussing the err of Nirvana.

I really enjoyed The Wrestler, Rourke's performance is staggering and I might put £20 on him to win the Oscar.