Four films linked by a really depressing theme!<\/p>\n
Scum<\/strong><\/em>: Our institution: a 1970s Borstal (juvenile prison). Does exactly what it says on the tin, not quite two hours of violence and contempt. The use of rules as abuse, creating impossible demands (guard throws a prisoner back into his cell, spilling the guy\u2019s mug of soup, then snaps: \u201cDirty cell, you\u2019re on report\u201d); use of prisoners\u2019 self-created hierarchies to divide and conquer. The scenes where suicidal prisoners are mocked and beaten are\u2026 not exactly unrealistic<\/a>. As a movie I don\u2019t know what this does, or that you need to watch it. Its outrage is palpable, I\u2019ll say that.<\/p>\n Urban Ghost Story<\/strong><\/em>: Our institution: a Scottish high-rise housing project. Fourteen= (maybe fifteen-?) year-old Lizzie (fierce-faced Heather Ann Foster) has survived an alcohol- and Ecstasy-fueled car crash that killed her best friend. Now strange noises are heard in the walls of her family\u2019s apartment, and the furniture moves by itself\u2026.<\/p>\n This movie is a great illustration of my upcoming Doxacon talk (it\u2019s a Christian sf\/fantasy convention here in DC in August, YOU SHOULD COME)<\/a> about how often horror movies explore the failure of authority. Lizzie\u2019s mom can\u2019t find anyone to believe her except a local tabloid reporter\u2013and he\u2019s only pretending. Here, the quest for a valid epistemological authority also becomes the quest for dignity, as Lizzie\u2019s mom battles her way through a friendless world that views her as a shiftless liar who probably abuses her kids. Science and seances are both deployed to try to understand what\u2019s going on, but Lizzie turns to religion, poring over illustrations of the Devil being cast out of Heaven.<\/p>\n Ghost stories are often stories about justice, & often about mercy\u2013our two longings, neither of which usually gets fulfilled in this life. Urban Ghost Story<\/em> has some truly powerful images here, and its climax is genuinely moving.<\/p>\n Some problems: The OD plotline is a bit standard-issue, though I realize not unrealistic. (In general the pileup of misery is really recognizable\u2013I was reminded of one of my clients at the pregnancy center, who also found herself in a situation where a landlord\u2019s neglect cascaded into threats to take away her children. You might pray for her btw.) The bigger problem is the denouement, which is ridiculously<\/em> rushed. That\u2019s the only real flaw in an otherwise very fine film.<\/p>\n The Hospital<\/strong><\/em>: Our institution: a New York hospital, but actually the 1970s white male psyche, yikes<\/em>. Man, this movie is a mess. George C. Scott as a suicidal doctor, Diana Rigg (sporting a mottled, uneven transatlantic accent\u2013in the \u201970s! This is the film\u2019s only charming element) as the dewy maiden who seeks to save him. He rapes her\u2013the dialogue calls it that, and the dialogue is right\u2013but it\u2019s the 1970s so of course she\u2019s totally into it.<\/p>\n The other plot is that someone in the hospital is killing doctors and nurses. This is presented as if it\u2019s a satirical critique of the institution\u2013they kill instead of heal, despair is the iatrogenic<\/a> illness, etc\u2013and I\u2019d be down for that, but the thing is, spoilers I guess, the identity of the murderer means this isn\u2019t what\u2019s actually happening. The hospital is actually full of noble, dutiful white men! Sure they make mistakes sometimes, as do we all, but the real<\/em> problem comes from outside.<\/p>\n Really mannered dialogue by Paddy Chayefsky. Tense<\/em> camerawork, that\u2019s the other good thing besides La Rigg\u2019s accent.<\/p>\n Why did we ever do the \u201970s, you guys? Why didn\u2019t we just skip it?<\/p>\n Madchen in Uniform<\/strong><\/em>: Our institution: a 1910s Prussian convent school, although what order of 1910 nuns is this that don\u2019t wear habits? Anyway, this is a classic of lesbian cinema and deservedly so. Romy Schneider is just wonderful as Manuela von Meinhardis, the orphan who discovers in her teacher a haven from the convent school\u2019s ferocious discipline. The scenes where she plays Romeo in the school play are just a joy: She\u2019s full of springtime. Lilli Palmer is great in early scenes but gets a bit too tragique as the teacher, Fraulein von Bernburg, a lady with odd motives\u2013there are a few scenes where you\u2019ll wonder, What exactly are you playing at? Fraulein Robinson, are you trying\u2026.?<\/em><\/p>\n This is a captivating film. The trees look glorious, stark and twisting against a wintry sky. The costumes are really beautiful, several steps beyond reality. The storyline is much less Celluloid Closet<\/em> than its 1958 release date might lead you to assume.<\/p>\n I have a lot of thoughts on the \u201cschoolgirl\/schoolboy crush\u201d narrative in general. It\u2019s a genre of emotion that, like all forms of same-sex desire, came under increasing suspicion in the late 19th century. The central question, I think, is: What do these crushes prepare young people\u2019s hearts for?<\/p>\n If you turned Madchen<\/em>\u2018s clock back a few decades (uh, and moved it to the USA because that\u2019s what I know better), the answer might be, \u201cOh Lord, Manuela\u2019s one of those girls who gets \u2018pashes.\u2019 She\u2019ll set up house with her best friend and run some kind of world-improving institution, a women\u2019s college or a settlement house or something. Send her to Boston<\/a>, we don\u2019t want any world-improvement here.\u201d If you turned the clock back a few centuries it might be, \u201cWell, her cousin\u2019s a beguine<\/a> and it looks like Manuela is going the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n The classic adolescent same-sex crush can prepare a girl\u2019s or boy\u2019s heart for marriage\u2013you don\u2019t have to belittle that as saying, \u201cIt\u2019s just a phase,\u201d as if it\u2019s a detour off the straight path to your life\u2019s real purpose. It can prepare one for parenthood: A woman can shower her child with the tenderness and affection she longed for in boarding school. (More on this in a moment.) It can prepare one for love of God; I think that\u2019s part of my story. It can prepare one for an adult life lived in devoted same-sex friendship, or in a women\u2019s or men\u2019s religious community. Sexual desire may ebb and flow in all of these paths. I know I\u2019m making all of this sound much too sunny and simple\u2013there is no vocational path on which most people escape serious suffering, confusion, feelings of failure and abandonment, and heartbreak. I just want to suggest that the adolescent same-sex crush doesn\u2019t need to \u201cresolve\u201d into heterosexuality in order to prepare someone for her path in life. It doesn\u2019t need to be the emotional equivalent of practicing kissing on a pillow.<\/p>\n In Madchen<\/em> specifically there are some interesting, subtle hints that the film\u2019s underlying subject is forms of authority: the woman-Hitler who runs the school vs. the maternal tenderness sought by the newly-motherless Manuela. Both the emphasis on Manuela\u2019s mother\u2019s death and a lot of Manuela\u2019s body language with Fraulein von Bernburg suggest to me that she is seeking a mother as much as a lover, someone to exercise loving authority over her, someone she can trust and obey and on whose shoulder she can cry. But her school seeks to make her a \u201cmother of soldiers\u201d: \u201cThere\u2019s a reason the doors here are made of iron!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Four films linked by a really depressing theme! Scum: Our institution: a 1970s Borstal (juvenile prison). Does exactly what it says on the tin, not quite two hours of violence and contempt. The use of rules as abuse, creating impossible demands (guard throws a prisoner back into his cell, spilling the guy\u2019s mug of soup, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[171,33,1264,32,119,106],"class_list":["post-10804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-gay-catholic-whatnot","tag-abuse-of-power-comes-as-no-surprise","tag-education-in-reverse","tag-gay-catholic-whatnot","tag-gayer-than-a-picnic-basket","tag-horror","tag-no-more-cotton-pickin-prisons"],"yoast_head":"\n