Essay Hollywood Sex and Violence Link (2006)

In 2006, in the wake of the release of A History of Violence and Sin City, I wrote about how Hollywood movies linked sex and violence. This is that essay recovered from an old MySpace blog... 

FYI This post contains what you might call spoilers for the plot of the film A History of Violence. If you wish to watch that film with the mystery in place do not read until after you watch the film. Happy reading and please post your responses.

One unique trend in modern film is the link between sex and violence. In horror films and thrillers these two disparate acts are now often found at a crossroad. In horror films sex is often punished with a bloody violent death, see Friday the 13th as an example. Sexuality or sensuality is similarly punished, consider films like Slumber Party Massacre (not exactly a brilliant subject of serious discourse but follow me here) where beautiful woman are brutally and viciously murdered for the simple fact that they are beautiful. The camera spends ample time exploiting the beauty of the women in the film with copious nude scenes and scenes of woman in various states of undress. And then the film sets about destroying that beauty with hardcore violence.

In the thriller genre take an example like Steven Speilberg's Munich which transposes a scene of a husband making love to his wife, a reunion after a long absence by the husband who has been compromising his morals out of duty to his country. The conflicted husband cannot escape thoughts of horrific violence as he is going about the loving act of intercourse with his wife. The sex scene is edited to a chorus violent images of Israeli athletes being brutally killed.What is the purpose of the sex and violence link in Munich? I believe it was the demonstration of the husband's conflicted conscience. On the one hand he is engaged in a pure act of love. On the other he cannot escape the horror of the violence he has been set to avenge. He cannot escape the horror of violence even as he is experiencing the ultimate in pure human goodness and joy.

In Sin City sex and violence are uniquely linked by the prostitutes of Sin City. Led by Rosario Dawson's character the prostitutes are unlikely representations of justice and righteousness. They mete out the punishment of corruption with violence and reward perceived goodness with sexual favors. Thus, Michael Clark Duncan's corrupt detective is punished with violence while Mickey Rourke's Marv is rewarded for his good intentions with the sexual favors of Goldie.

The innocent but oh so provocative sexuality of Jessica Alba's character is protected by the righteous violence of Bruce Willis' cop character. He would be rewarded with sexual favor if he were so inclined. Sex and violence are linked in Sin City in a cause and effect fashion. The good receive sexual favors the evil are punished with violence. All is right with the world.

In A History of Violence the sex violence link is a narrative function. The film features the extremes of both sex and violence. The films central action involves a pair of psychotically violent killers who are first glimpsed having murdered the staff of an anonymous roadside motel and a small child of one of the staffers. They come to the small town Indiana diner of Viggo Mortenson's Tom Stahl with the intent of more violence and are met with a viciously violent reaction from the seemingly mild mannered Mr. Stahl. The violence of this scene is extreme. Tom shoots one killer in the head sending him flailing through a plate glass window. Tom is graphically stabbed in the foot by the other killer who is then shot in the head by Tom. Director David Cronenberg gives us a closeup look at the damage of the bullet through the killer's skull in all of it's gory glory.

Meanwhile at home, prior to the violence at the center of the plot Tom makes love to his wife played by Mario Bello. The first sex scene is tender and loving but with more than a little hint of kink. Tom's wife has chosen to dress as a cheerleader and the two role play as a high school couple entering their first sexual experiment. The sex then becomes more graphic as oral copulation becomes central to the scene before we fade to the next morning and the establishing of the films central plot. Oddly the first sex scene features no nudity. The only link between the sex and violence at this point is Tom. He is an attentive and gentle lover who later shows himself capable of terrific physical violence. This is central to the dichotomy that is Tom who is revealed to have a violent secret past.

The second sex scene takes place after further violence has established Tom as a dangerous figure. An argument between Tom and his wife becomes physical as Tom attempts to stop his wife from walking away from their argument. Tom grabs her forces her to the ground, they are fighting on the stares leading to their bedroom, she slaps and kicks to break away from him. He forces her beneath him. After seeming to subdue her the violent confrontation suddenly begins to become sexual. The wife becomes turned on as does Tom and the two engage in angry, violent sex right there on the staircase. The scene, I believe, demonstrates the wife's tacit acceptance of her husbands true nature. She is telling him at once that she is unhappy with his lie but accepts it and will eventually be able to put it behind her. It's a brilliant form of shorthand that eliminates the need for a merely melodramatic scene of a couple arguing.

None of what I've written however truly gets at the heart of the sex/violence link in modern film. I have demonstrated the link but not the reason. This is where you come in dear reader. What is your theory of why Hollywood has so directly linked sex and violence. Post your responses please.

Movie Review: The Wrestler

The Wrestler (2008) 

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Written by Darren Aronofsky 

Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood

Release Date December 17th, 2008

Published January 12th, 2008 

As a fan of professional wrestling and someone who owns the DVD of the dark and compelling documentary Beyond The Mat, I thought I was prepared for anything when I sat to watch Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler. Oh, how wrong I was.

Mickey Rourke's seering, visceral, forthright performance is devastating in such a human manner that really nothing can prepare you for the assault on your sympathies. It is arguably, the best acting job I've seen by anyone in my time as a critic, more than 9 years.

In The Wrestler Mickey Rourke plays Randy The Ram Robinson a pro wrestler clinging to the last vestiges of a long faded glory. An opening credit montage tells us that more than 20 years ago Randy the Ram was a big deal in the wrestling world. It doesn't take long however to tell us where that got him.

We meet Randy backstage in the locker room of a non-descript High School where he is taping his broken down body together for a main event match in the school gymnasium. It's a brutal thing what wrestlers do to themselves and one of the first things we see Randy do is use a razor blade to cut his own forehead.

It's a shockingly typical way for wrestlers to build drama and create tension in a match but when you watch wrestling they hide this from the audience, The Wrestler makes you watch Randy do this and it's a jarring incite into his character.

His pay for mauling himself? 50, 60 bucks maybe. He returns home to find his trailer locked because he hasn't paid his rent, he sleeps in his van. Randy's free time is spent training, obtaining and using steroids to keep his busted up physique in shape and attending a local strip club where he harbors a fantasy of a relationship with Pam (Marisa Tomei), a stripper whose been on the pole for far too long.

Pam has a rule about not dating customers but there is something so heartbreaking and charming about him that she might let him get close. It is with Pam's urging that Randy attempts to reconnect with the only family he has, a daughter named Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood).

It's a small role but Evan Rachel Wood brings extraordinary life to it. She has lived with the disappointment of Randy as her father and when she allows herself to believe in him again you can feel the seismic shift in her life even as convention tells you what has to happen next.

There is a twist in Randy's career path that I won't mention other than to say that  it sets up for an ending that will leave many unsatisfied. I myself was quite satisfied with the ending. Even though I was left with a sense of dread and sadness, it wasn't a disappointing feeling, it was a draining and cathartic feeling.

This is a draining and cathartic movie that is filled with sadness and heartbreak and not much light. And yet, there is Mickey Rourke whose Randy 'The Ram' who has found sad resignation to his place in life and lives for the small pleasures and finds them in the ring.

For all the pain, the ring is the one place where things make sense. The roar of even the smallest crowd is like a hit of the most potent drug imaginable and with no other aspect of his life that makes sense, the ring is the one source of happiness and stability he has.

That is what makes the ending of The Wrestler so potent and appropriate. It is the only way the movie could end. Anymore and the drift toward melodrama might become overwhelming. Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert D. Siegel no when to, in wrestling parlance, 'go home'. They end the movie just as the crowd is peaked, just as our emotions are heightened and we long for more.

The Wrestler is a powerfully sad movie but with a performance by Mickey Rourke that finds an oddly uplifting note. It's odd but recalling Randy The Ram I don't feel as much sorrow or pity as I do empathy and understanding. Sorrow and pity seem more appropriate in many ways but The Ram isn't looking for that.

In every way he wants understanding and while most will never fully understand how people can destroy there bodies as he does, we come to an understanding of why Randy does it and that is a powerful connection for him and us to make.

Movie Review Man on Fire

Man on Fire (2004) 

Directed by Tony Scott 

Written by Brian Helgeland 

Starring Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Radha Mitchell, Marc Anthony, Mickey Rourke 

Release Date April 23rd, 2004 

Published April 23rd, 2004

Denzel Washington has become such a consistently brilliant actor that we have begun to take him for granted. Seeing Denzel's name on the poster, you know that he will deliver a great performance regardless of whether the film is any good. Case in point, his latest film, Man On Fire, in which Denzel is terrific but the film is an utter mess. Full of child-in-danger cliches and muddled visuals, it comes from Tony Scott, a once great director who has become a parody of his own best work.

In Man On Fire, Denzel is John Creasy, a former special forces soldier who regrets the number of people he has killed over the years. Living in a perpetual alcoholic haze, Creasy finds himself in Mexico City visiting an ex-army buddy named Rayburn (Christopher Walken). Rayburn has successfully given up the guilt of being a killer and is now a happily married family man. Rayburn feels he can help Creasy by getting him a job and finds him work as a bodyguard.

As the films jangled, sunburnt, out of focus prologue explains, there is a kidnapping every 90 seconds in Mexico City and one of the most requested services is that of a bodyguard. With Rayburn's help, Creasy gets a gig guarding Pita (Dakota Fanning), the daughter of an auto manufacturer, Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony). Though he can barely afford to pay Creasy, Samuel hires him at the insistence of his wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell).

At first, Creasy does all he can to keep emotional distance from Pita but eventually her sweetness and smarts win him over. The scenes of Creasy and Pita bonding over swimming, homework and music are given great weight because of these two amazing actors but do little to mask the tragedy that is so obviously on the horizon. The film’s ads and trailer betray the tragedy of the film even before you enter the theater. You already know that Creasy is going on a killing spree, this is a revenge film so you can infer why revenge is necessary.

The revenge scenes are as brutal as anything in last week’s dark revenge fantasy The Punisher and much like that film, the scenes of brutality overstay their welcome. Director Tony Scott achieves a languorous pace that dwells on each bit of vengeance and regardless of how justified it may seem, it begins to wear on anyone with a conscience. The real betrayal however, comes at the end of the film which entirely betrays all that came before in one twist that makes you feel dirty for having been so involved in the film’s drama.

As always, Denzel is fantastic. I can't say enough good things about Denzel, he is consistently better in each and every role. It's unlikely that any other actor could have made this role tolerable. Because Denzel is so skilled and so trustworthy, we follow this character further than we would a lesser actor. It is truly sad how Director Tony Scott betrays Denzel's performance with cheap cliche and overheated visuals that border on the absurd.

I also can't say enough nice things about young Dakota Fanning who is so much better than the roles she plays. This preternaturally smart pre-teen is going to be one terrific actress once she learns to choose better material. Like her roles in I Am Sam and last year’s Uptown Girls, Fanning is far better than the characters written for her.

The rest of the supporting cast are merely cardboard cutouts, placeholders for plot points. Especially underutilized is Christopher Walken, who gets one good Walken-esque speech, the “masterpiece of death” speech seen in the commercial. Other than that, Walken is on the sidelines for most of the film.

Director Tony Scott has sadly lapsed into a parody of his better films. The man who directed True Romance, Crimson Tide and Spy Game has fallen in love with his camera and overuses it at every opportunity. Just because you can create unusual visuals doesn't make it necessary to use them. Scott can't help washing out colors, superimposing dialogue, out of focus shots and tricks with sound and editing. Maybe he felt the visual histrionics were necessary because the script is such an awful cliche.

Nothing is more cheap and manipulative than placing a child in a dangerous situation. Man On Fire is predicated entirely on a child being placed in the midst of gunfire and being the target of unnecessary violence. A screenwriter who can't achieve real drama falls back on this type of cheap ploy, this film is built around it.

The most ludicrous part of Man On Fire is not its cheap manipulative plot or awful twist ending, it's a little coda that appears prior to the final credits. On a black background, there is a message from the filmmakers thanking the wonderful people of Mexico City for providing such a great place to make a movie. The film portrays the city as a cesspool of corruption, a place where police officers conspire with criminals to snatch children, a place where a kidnapping happens every ninety seconds. Therefore, the thank you at the end is a rather backhanded slap as opposed to a real thank you. I doubt Mexico City is going to brag about having hosted the filmmakers behind Man On Fire.

Movie Review Buffalo 66

Buffalo 66 

Directed by Vincent Gallo 

Written by Vincent Gallo, Allison Bagnall 

Starring Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci, Ben Gazzara, Mickey Rourke, Anjelica Huston 

Release Date June 26th, 1998 

Published August 11th, 2003 

Actor Vincent Gallo courted controversy at the 2003 Cannes Film festival with his latest film, The Brown Bunny. It was called the worst film in the festival’s history and was roundly trashed by Roger Ebert amongst others. Gallo didn't take the rebukes lightly, lashing out at journalists at the film’s press conference and later chastising Ebert and calling him a fat pig. This is not the intelligent discourse one attributes to a great artist. Despite Gallo's horrible attitude and childish behavior at Cannes, he is undeniably an artist, as he showed with his most famous directorial outing, 1997's fresh oddball love story Buffalo 66.

The Buffalo of the title is Buffalo New York where our pseudo hero Billy Brown (Gallo) was born and raised until he went to prison. As we meet him Billy is leaving prison and headed home to Buffalo. Poor Billy desperately needs to use the restroom after his long bus ride, but finds every bathroom either out of service or locked until finally he wanders into a dance studio. Even then, an odd encounter with a male student causes Billy the inability to go. Instead, he uses a payphone to call his mother to tell her he's coming home.

Billy never told his parents he went to jail, his Byzantine excuse for his disappearance includes working for the government and a fictional wife. Desperate to appease his mother Billy decides to kidnap Layla (Christina Ricci), a dance student who just happened to overhear Billy's conversation with his mother. The abduction isn't very violent or frightening for Layla who seems to take this odd occurrence and even Billy's raging hostility in stride.

Once arriving at Billy's home, Layla is told that her new name is Wendy and that her only job is to make him look good to his parents, a task she takes to with relish.

Billy's parents Jan (Angelica Huston) and Jimmy (Ben Gazzara) are quite the odd couple. Mom is an obsessive Bills football fan whose photo albums contain only photos of Bills players and the one picture of her son is difficult to find. Billy's Dad is a former lounge singer who even serenades Layla in a strange almost dreamlike sequence. Angelica Huston has the film’s most telling and dramatic moment when she off handedly explains the film’s title.

Layla/Wendy does everything she can to make Billy look good to Mom and Dad, telling them about Billy's job with the CIA and his covert activities in the spy world. It isn't until she tells them that she’s pregnant that she gets their attention away from the Bills game.

While at the parent’s house, Billy calls his best friend Goon (Kevin Corrigan) and we learn the details of how Billy went to jail and his plans now that he is out. Billy it seems lost a great deal of money on the Bills Super Bowl loss to the Giants. He paid his debt to his bookie (played in a small cameo by Mickey Rourke) by confessing to a crime committed by one of the bookie's associates. Now that he's out Billy is going to get revenge, not on the bookie but on the Bills kicker who missed the game winning field goal.

That may seem like an actual plot but Buffalo 66 never settles into a conventional narrative. Instead, Gallo, who also wrote and directed the film, prefers to simply observe his characters and their reactions to the strange circumstances surrounding them. He employs a unique visual style, very gritty at times then straying into dream sequences that include musical interludes and a tap dance by Ricci. These flights of visual and narrative fancy are a welcome change from the downer story. Not that it's a bad story, it's very unique.

It is Ricci who carries much of the film with her sympathetic eyes and endearing sweetness, not to mention a weird quality that makes her character’s willingness to stick with Billy and even fall in love with seem perfectly natural. Characters thrust into the situation her character is in are supposed to be frightened and attempting to escape and other very correct and conventional reactions. Then again, there is nothing conventional about Buffalo 66

Movie Review Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Directed by Jon Favreau 

Written by Justin Theroux 

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson

Release Date May 7th, 2010

Published May 6th, 2010 

Star power is that intangible quality that can turn even a bad movie into a brilliant one. Imagine Pirates of the Caribbean without Johnny Depp, Independence Day without Will Smith or any of the Ocean's 11 sequels. Star power can drive any movie to brilliance without the audience ever realizing that what surrounds the star is mostly a giant mess.

Iron Man 2 is not exactly a giant mess, but imagining it working without the incalculable star power of Robert Downey Jr is impossible.

When last we saw Tony Stark he was revealing himself to be the superhero Iron Man in his usual ostentatious fashion. Since then, Tony has run about the world privatizing world peace in our time. And boy is he ever aware of his power. Called to testify before Congress, Stark has no trouble humiliating Senators with his ever present wit and tech.

Even as his pal Major Rhodes (Don Cheadle in the military garb once worn by Terrence Howard) is called to testify against him, Stark flips, dodges and eventually walks out to cheers and applause.

Watching on TV in Russia is Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a man that Tony Stark is not aware has a connection to his father. Vanko's own father was in business with Tony's late father, together they invented the very arc reactor that Tony now uses on a smaller scale to keep him alive. Vanko's father was banished before he could reap any rewards and Ivan wants payback.

As for Tony, while he seems to be having a great time, he is growing ever weaker. The arc reactor is slowly killing him and if he cannot find a new power source he and Iron Man are finished. Keeping this fact from his longtime assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and his new assistant Natalie (Scarlett Johannson) is only a minor subplot meant to keep the ladies busy.

Plot aside, Iron Man 2 is about attitude, it's about cool and it's about big time action. Taken on these terms it is impossible not to enjoy. Robert Downey Jr has perfected the swagger of Tony Stark and found the sweet spot between ego and hero. Arrogance is his stock and trade but Downey's ability to make us part of the joke and not the subject of his arrogance is the paper thin difference between charisma and just being a jerk.

Jon Favreau's direction is mechanical and somewhat perfunctory but he knows how to keep his massive special effects under control while allowing RDJ to carry the weight of the movie with his persona. It may not be anything remotely related to artfulness but Favreau knows how to make Iron Man 2 what it is supposed to be, Robert Downey Jr’s magnum ego opus.

Iron Man 2 is not a work of art, it's not major cinema, its hardcore popcorn entertainment in the most joyous sense. Downey and Favreau and their cohorts deliver what fans want of Iron Man's big swinging ego, massive explosions, and inside baseball allusions to the planned Avengers movie, by the way, stay through the credits.

Movie Review Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) 

Directed by Robert Rodriguez 

Written by Robert Rodriguez 

Starring Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Salma Hayek, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes, Willem Dafoe

Release Date September 12th, 2003

Published September 11th, 2003 

The Auteur Theory states that the director is the author of a film. The auteur is a director whose sole artistic vision is fully realized with little compromise. Many of our most prominent directors can fit the definition of an auteur, but few can live up to the definition as much as Robert Rodriguez can. In his latest film, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Rodriguez is credited as writer, director, producer, cinematographer, editor, production designer, and composer of the film's score. He did everything but key lights and hold the boom mic. If that is not realizing a singular vision, I don't know what is. And that singular vision is a spectacular shoot'em up that may be light on story but makes up for it with style.

Antonio Banderas returns to the role of the nameless mariachi player from El Mariachi and Desperado who dispenses justice and tunes from a killer guitar case. Having gone into hiding after the death of his wife (Salma Hayek in flashback) and child, the mariachi is brought out of retirement to kill the man who killed his family, General Marquez (Gerardo Vigil).

The mysterious man who brought the mariachi out of retirement is a shady American CIA agent named Sands (Johnny Depp). Agent Sands is carrying out a thin-ice tap dance that is playing a number of Mexican factions against each other, with Sands ending up 10 million dollars richer. He has hired the Mariachi to kill General Marquez and the General to kill the unpopular Mexican President. Sands has a major drug dealer named Barillo (Willem Dafoe) to finance the General and an ex-FBI agent (Ruben Blades) to kill the drug dealer.

Confusing? Maybe, but it doesn't matter because Johnny Depp is so damn cool. Whether the plot makes any sense or if the scheme works or doesn't work, makes little difference to Robert Rodriguez or the audience because it's all about Depp. Like a plot magician Depp does parlor tricks that make your plot reservations disappear. Whether it's Rodriguez's quick witted script or Depp's stylish delivery it all works and it's all so cool.

For his part as the lead, Banderas slips comfortably back into his Mariachi costume. It's one of the rare roles in which Banderas seems comfortable. Maybe it's because it's his third go around in the role or maybe it's his friendly director, but Banderas realizes the potential stardom that so many have expected of him, but only in this role. Any other role and Banderas appears lost.

This film's place in the El Mariachi/Desperado, line is unclear to me; it's been too long since I've seen those two films. Luckily, there is no need to remember the first two films beyond the vaguest details. Flashbacks with Salma Hayek as the Mariachi's wife are effective in providing backstory and are as stylish and cool as the scenes that surround them.

One of the things that makes Rodriguez's multi-hyphenate performance possible is the way in which he takes advantage of the most modern film technology. Using a top-of-the-line Sony digital camera, Rodriguez becomes the first filmmaker that I have seen use digital in a way that transfers to regular film stock without looking awful. His shooting style is just as impressive, entirely handheld without looking handheld. This makes Once Upon A Time In Mexico, an important moment in digital and independent filmmaking. See it for Johnny Depp. Respect it for the true independent spirit at work in its creation.