DeTOUR

Detour: Edgar Ulmer (1945)

In this film there is a idea or suggestion revolving around women, and womens behavior.  From the very beginning of the film we see the main character all upset because Sue, wont marry him, she breaks his heart.  Then we get to meet Verna and she just is set in her own ways, its her way or the highway.  She pretty much grabs him by the balls by hanging this threat over his head.  Then she gets made out to be a gold digger pretty much and only focused on money.  As the film progresses she just wants more and more and starts to get greedy.  At one point when they are in the car she states, "I'm always right", very firmly and once again just bringing her back to this idea that she has to have this superior feeling of empowerment over him and the situation.  There are several times throughout the film were we see Verna acting very seductive and trying to be a temptress to him, by grabbing his hand, or laying around in her robe, ect.  This movie just makes women look very conniving and up to no good.  This film almost gives women a bad name for the most part, makes us seem like trouble and that we just play games, which may be true but we aren't all bad.

Freaks FREAKS freaks

Freaks : Tod Browning

   In regards to the statement of this being categorized as a horror film, I would say I agree and disagree, and let me tell you why.  I think this because of the time when this film came out  they couldn't have imagined the types of fucked up things that people now think about and make movies about.  Rape, brutal killings, really scary looking monsters/zombies, ect.  The things we are exposed to now isn't comparable to anything that the 30's produced cinema wise, or even had thoughts in their head about.  So i can understand how then it would be classified as such, on the contrary I think its a bit upsetting regardless of the time period to call this a horror.  What are you scared of the way people were born?  Thats real life, the way God made them, they are real people.  Not some make up artist creating someone into a scary monster.  Its sick people look at people that weren't born with as much fortune as they were with lower respect, it could have been any of us.  The film is logical when I think about it, of course the freaks have a code of freaks, after having to live like that their whole life being picked on.  How can they not stand up for themselves, and plus Hercules, and Cleopatra deserved what they got for the sick way they acted to people who are just the same as all of us.  That was made pretty clear from the beginning of the film, and as  Joan Hawkins said in her article, "freakish is only skin deep."  They have emotions and feelings too.  They never tried to kill anyone that was respecting them, they showed kindness and a good connection with people giving them respect even though they were different.  So I think that the only part that would make this a horror was the scene with the revenge of the freaks.  It is dark out and rainy out and sets up an inevitably scary setting, but we have already watched this whole movie and had a built up preconception of these freaks being just like us, so it makes its not as scary but almost rather justified.  Now a days we attribute horror movies to having suspense in them, however I don't think there was much of that in Freaks.

It was all a DREAM

                                                             Sherlock Jr.  Buster Keaton

                                                        
In the scene where Keaton has stepped into the film while he was dreaming at work, all that kept seeing was him fail over and over again.  And he wasn't even ever seeking failure, he wasn't intentionally walking into situations that would lead to failure.  Although the most absurd inconvenient things kept happening while the screen kept changing scenery, he would go to sit down and fall into or off of something.  Keaton did a great job in this particular scene using self reflexive technique, it takes us to the core of his intentions in even creating this character.  From the start of the film he is working on building this series of unfortunate events of failure.  He is just a good nice man trying to do something good from the very beginning always being honest and yet no matter how hard he keeps trying he keeps getting screwed over, by the modern mechanical world.  As Gunning said in his article"Buster Keaton or the work of comedy in the age of Mechanical reproduction", "trying to make sense of a rationalized system based on irrational principles."  We watch this character have the world crash down on him time after time when he didn't deserve any of these mishaps.  Sometimes objects or people will just completely stand in our way and lead us to failure and sometimes (most all the time in this film) its not even in our control, and thats just what he was trying to get through in this film.  Its a great film on perseverance and just doing the right thing, and in time karma will come back to you in a positive way.

My Introduction!

I love the movies and am so excited to be taking two movie classes this semester! I love to Hula hoop and i love to dance with fire.. *Wild Child Gypsy Forever*

Wanderlust~

LOVE & LIGHT
dear counterparts

xoxo