Impulse Behavior – Psychological Traits

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The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), directed by Woody Allen, with Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello

I think of Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve as I consider this film.  The Purple Rose of Cairo, like those two films, deals with films; what they do to us, their potential for fantasies and use by us in displacing our troubles, how we can confuse film stories that we are watching with reality, and the characters portrayed by actors with real, living lives, and life as we want it to be. 

Mia Farrow shows here an extreme example of fantasizing through films, much greater than most of us would be capable of.

Happiness (1998), directed by Todd Solndz, with Jane Adams

I have a real problem with placing this film.  It’s classified as a comedy at the local video store, and on the video box jacket comedy was mentioned.  But it’s dark, black – what is dark, black comedy?  I think dark, black comedy exists and at times, believe I may have laughed to just such comedy, but I’m really pressed to pin down, define what black, dark comedy is.   I think this film is a good example of it.

Here’s a film that deals with events that happen in real life - events depicted with entertainment and interest in the film – events that definitely happen in real life, and events that do relate to the pursuit of happiness in one form or another, but we have events here that we would not want to be associated with.  Also, the events all have at the center, the pursuit of sexual happiness.  We have a father whose is a pedophile and seduces the 11-year old neighbor; a tender-sweet 30 year-old female who seems so well put together, but, as we go along, we realize she’s not quite got it together in a way that she can avoid being routinely trampled on by the opposite sex; a lonely fat guy only obsessed with wild sex, who can only seem to find such by masturbating as he talks dirty to females on the phone; and a 40-year marriage, dead as a door knob sexually, and in other ways, at least for one partner.

Yes, this is the stuff this film is made of – and at times it creates some strong urges to laugh, but essentially all the situations are very dark, black situations, such that now I guess I know what dark comedy might look like on film.  The director has somehow managed to accomplish what is a rare event in film, to film tragic events; events that are definitely real, in that they happen in life, and to which there is comic reaction, but in truth are not very funny at all.

Belle Époque (1992), directed by Fernando Trueba, with Penelope Cruz

Impulses, spare of the moment feelings and reactions, seem to lead so many around, from one encounter, sometimes deadly, to another encounter.

On the surface, this film seems rather non-consequential, but, in fact, now I realize how the film is demonstrating the above - that impulses are reacted to, at a moment’s notice, sometimes with deadly results, sometimes with worthy results.

I don’t think we can get away, or necessarily should try, from our impulses.  Some we should follow and some we should reject.  The closer we get to control of the acceptance and the rejection, the better off we will be.

My Own Private Idaho (1991), directed by Gus Van Sint, with River Phoenix, Keanu Reeve,

“God” the old street baron yells just as he dies amongst his mostly younger streeters, who he hangs out with – and I would add to characterize this film “God, why has this happened to me?”

This film shows that for some there really is not much of a choice in their psychological direction, between the ugly that has happened to them and the fate that has brought them to the ugliness.  

Also, this film contrasts these luckless souls, with little to fall back on, with those with resources to pull out of such luckless, ugly surroundings when they so choose.

This film brings home strongly that the availability of resources, for those who are in need, is critical.  The film is a strong argument that humanity has a responsibility to insure that folks have choices.

The Piano (1993), directed by Jane Compion, with Holly Hunter, Harvey Koitel, Sam O’Neill. 

Repression in several forms such as psychological, sexual, gender, racial, and climatic – is the subject of his film.

We have the sexual repression of Ada’s (Holly Hunter’s character) newly acquired husband, demonstrated so well in his inability to perform with Ada; the repression placed on Ada’s gender in her century – the 19th; the climatic repression of the constant raining, mud, and stormy ocean of the setting of the film; the racial repression of the native peoples of the film, repressed by the colonizers; and the psychological repression of Ada’s muteness.  As this film unfolds, we discover the effects of these forms of repression on the characters before us.

We never really are certain what causes Ada’s muteness; it started, apparently at six, so we are told, perhaps sexual abuse or some traumatic experience.  This is definitely a psychological film – a film for psychology class discussion groups – there is a lot going on here related to repression and liberation.

Also going on in this film is a truly profound placement of an icon right in the middle of everything – a piano.  This icon draws us right into a mystical attraction to the notion of   the transforming power that music holds for us, provides for us - just as the piano does   for Ada.

And finally, in the end, a truly remarkable end to the film is the great escape from the piano as it sinks, sinks fast to the ocean’s bottom pulling with it Ada who just in time escapes, surfaces, and is released – released from physical possession that the piano has on her, release from the obsessions with the piano, and released from her psychological repression of muteness – as she moves on with her life

To Die For (1995), directed by Gus Van Sant, with Nicole Kidman, Matt Daman

In the 1990’s we see, I believe, a new source of subjects for film making – the film based on real, and strange, unique bazaar, excessive type of behaviors, stories that are true, that happened, and stories that require the culture of it times to happen.   Without the culture, we would not have the story that’s being told, the real, true story.  Excellent filmmakers sought out, found, and discovered these stories – stories that could not have existed before in earlier periods of history in quite the same way.  Perhaps we are seeing the literature of filmmaking unfolding here for the 1990s – films that are relating stories of the time.  The 30s, 40s and all previous periods all had their stories – which when seen now, today standout in a certain way as being unique to their period.  In the 90s, we are seeing some unique 90’s stories, done very well.   I am thinking of such films such as Reversal of Fortune, Dead Man Walking, The People versus Larry Flynt, and The Opposite of Sex.  And now add to this list To Die For.

After all, as the sad, psychopathic, but lovely, and endearing tragic figure of this film says:  “What’s the use of doing anything worthwhile if you can’t do it while being on TV and being seen by lots of people?”   So, is this why she did what she did, to finally get TV notice?  Besides an obsessive TV mentality made only possible by excessive television, a fairly recent cultural phenomena, other cultural characteristics of the time that go through this film include a certain sexual behavior and violence.  Does Kidman’s character somehow represent a new form of compulsive, destructive behavior brought on by excessive television viewing?   Lets hope not.

The Griffers (1990), directed by Stephen Frears, with John Cossack, Angelica Houston, Annette Benning

When you play with fire, you risk, sooner or later, finding the fire is no longer a game.    This is what this film is about. 

Apparently, there is something about traditional work that a small few just can’t seem to come around to doing.  As one of our grifter’s comments: “I wouldn’t know how to get a normal job, I’ve never done a days’ worth of normal work in my life”.  So how do they survive?  As they become grifters, they use unique, not ordinary skills to fleece others out of money.  This film shows three characters, in just such an estrangement from normal work, and in a life style of fleecing.  People of similar persuasions tend to congregate together, it seems to me, and we see this happening in this film.

Playing with fire, can sooner or later, be really bad for your health and freedom, as demonstrated in this film, with all three of our grifters.

Usual Suspects (1995), directed by Adam Singer, with Kevin Spicy

Is there such a thing as a born criminal, a born scientist?  Do the bad tend to be always bad; is it difficult for such a person to reform, for a person to change, who likes crime?    Will we always have a group that will constitute the usual suspects?

The Unforgiven (1992), directed by Clint Eastwood, with Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris

Let’s look through a lens to find the reality of being a “gun” on the American western frontier of the1800s.  I sense this was on the minds of those responsible for this film.    This film shows us the ignorance, drunkenness, whoring, psychopaths, fears, reasons, and delusions of those who were or wanted to be “guns”.

This film has a “real” sense about it that this might really have been the way it was:  crazy sheriffs, who are as bad as the “bad” guys, but at least serving the purpose of keeping the other bad guys out of town; over-the-hill, terrified, former “guns”, with a reputation, coming back one last time for the need of money; ambitious punks looking for a reputation based on a lot less than merit; the remoteness of people on the American frontier from other people – this is the sense of this film, and one might believe from this film that this was how it was.

Reservoir Days  (1992), directed by Quentin Terratino, with Harvey Koitel

A day in the life of a gang of diamond robbers who plays for keeps – meaning they aren’t going to be taken alive.   But this day is one of examining the psychology and mind of these gangsters by the director.  Starting with sitting around a restaurant table, finishing breakfast, and using “guy” talk, using earthly language, one would never know what is planned later.  These could be a bunch of sales reps about to embark upon the day’s sales conquests.

But, we are quickly taken to the post-robbery period, realizing that something didn’t go according to plan as one of those breakfast guys is in a get-away car back seat, bleeding profusely, and in a great deal of pain.

So what happens within such a group when things don’t go right and according to plans?  This is the tale of the film.  We see within a few hours’ time span that one of the group is a police undercover agent – the backseat bleeder; one is a psychopath; at least two are very nervous types, not very trusting of anyone; two are shot almost immediately after the robbery; five are killed by other gang members, and one is able to walk away, but is soon captured.

These guys are not normal; they are demonstrating extreme behavior - more specifically, criminal behavior.

The Butcher Boy (1998), directed by Neil Jordan, with Emanon Overy, Fiona Shaw

This film explores the dysfunctional life of a boy who has a criminal, destructive personality, and who lets loose with it on his community.  The film explores the community and it responses to this person as the person’s actions unfold. 

The film add another component - that yes, the person is crazy, but isn’t society also somewhat crazy at times, as evidenced by nuclear weapons and their potential.   In other words, extreme, crazy behavior can be at various levels – individual, as well as national.

In the Company of Men (1997), directed by Neil LaBute, with Aaron Elkhart, Stacy Edwards, Matt Mallory

I think of Forrest Gump, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Midnight Cowboy as good films with major characters that are, with handicaps, central to the story.  Add to this list: In the Company of Men.

The tone of this film suggests a light comedy, but it’s a dark study of cruelty (not on a physical level), and how Chad’s attitude of intolerance (Chad doesn’t like anyone) bleeds Chad of any genuine feelings for anyone.   This lack to feel translates into cruelty as Chad leads on a deaf Stacy Edwards to where she has really fallen for Chad only to be dropped from a dangerous height, landing in a pretty tough zone of rejection.

M (1933), directed by Frantz Lang, with Peter Lorrie

An interesting and good 1933 film dealing with a serial killer and how certain crimes, e.g., a child serial killer, takes on an especially mean reaction from the community.

The film is made more interesting with some especially good moments, e.g. the association of certain music and a whistling from the killer himself with solving the identity of the serial killer; the “less serious” criminals judging the “more serious” serial killer at the end of the film; Lorie’s performance on “how I just can’t help myself”; and a film making technique of storytelling, by a fast flipping sequence of flip cards, a gap in the story that needs to be told quickly.

Boogie Nights (1997), directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, with Jack Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg

A good, interesting examination of an extreme community that exists – one that makes and is in pornographic movies.  The film shows well the problems of these folks, how one can get drawn in, and tends to strongly suggest that the problems of these folks don’t get solved real well as they continue in the community.

The People vs. Larry Flynt reinforces what is seen in Boogie Nights.

The film delves well into the characteristics of several of the characters and gives a good feel of a community associated with pornographic production.   One of the best accomplishments of the film is in not making the screen a totally black picture – in other words overdoing the negative – but giving a balance, such that the viewer is not totally drowned out with depression.  After all, the sexuality characteristics and pursuits and traits of man too often can be reflected and involved around pornography, for pornography to be totally blacklisted. 

Taxi Driver (1976), directed by Martin Scorsese, with Robert DiNiro, Harvey Koitel, Cybil Shepherd

This film is a portrayal of a psychopath reacting to, what the psychopath considers are corrupt and unfaithful politicians and people in society, politicians and people who exploit and ruin other folk’s lives.   The film strikes me as using the Robert DeNiro character as a metaphor for the feeling of many, as these many are reacting to the Vietnam and Nixon periods. 

The Robert DeNiro reaction is extreme of course, but, often, I suspect, extremes in films, and other arts, are effective ways of sending a message to the audience.   There is a side to all of us that wants to lash out, to say, enough is enough.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), directed by Elia Kazan, with Marlon Brando, Vivian Leigh, Kurt Malden

A look at madness, related to loneliness, female passion, sexuality, and a possible inherit predisposition, and, perhaps, also a look at the struggles of creating defenses within the mind that come across as madness to others.   To me, this is what the story centers on, as it runs it course through the interactions of Vivian Leigh with her sisters, brothers-in-laws, and others.   Such behavior is probably very much more common than understood, at least to the varying degrees of magnitude that the behavior exists.   That this film (based on a play) deals in such miss-understood territory likely leads to the play’s success. 

All About Eve (1950), directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, with Betty Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sands, Celeste Holm

A study of a psychologically threatening and disturbing person (Eve played by Anne Baxter), who shows several personalities, some very level-headed, some simply superhuman, some evil, as she makes her way to stardom, on the inspiration of a

single-mindedness obsessive ambition.

Was this film met to portray a composite of characters, none as bad as our Eve, but often found in lesser degrees amongst those seeking stardom and success in Hollywood?

Raging Bull (1980), directed by Martin Scorsese, with Robert DeNiro, Joe Pecci

As it turned out, Jake La Mata did have a head of cement, just as some about him commented early in the film.  Here we have a picture of a man who enjoyed being hit and showing he could take a punch, no one could knock him down, even as he was losing the fight, his loved ones; even as he was losing everything, even his boxing.

Scorsese develops and shows not just a man who prided himself on taking a punch, but also, somehow, was not able to keep from translating this strange “masochistic” characteristic into loosing and missing out on close relationships, and, therefore, in the end, standing where he probably always wanted to be – alone, in the ring, taking a punch.

Tootsie (1982), directed by Sydney Pollack, with Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Terri Jar, Bill Murray, Dabney Coleman

A very unique film that draws you into the mystique of acting, playing roles, giving a performance, the pulling of an audience strongly from a reality to a role-playing world, from role-playing to having the audience believe that reality is taking place.  This film draws you into Dorothy – to me her appeal is her ability to respond to the situation, as an actor (as a representation of a real person), so perfectly.  

This was the provoking element of this film to me – the way in which the play, the act, the film can transform us, our impulses, into other worlds.  Like The Purple Rose of Cairo, this film is very much about the extreme of fantasy.   In a sense, all films are that – an extreme of fantasy.

Bonnie and Clyde (16967), directed by Arthur Penn, with Cybil Shepherd, Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman, Esther Parsons

Bonnie (wonderfully played by Shepherd) is an oversexed, craving sexually aroused female, who replaces the lack of natural sexual satisfaction by Clyde (who is unable to give it) with bank robbing, guns, and power.

Clyde is an impotent young man combined with a natural criminal bent.  This natural criminal orientation is well and funny demonstrated toward the end of the film when Bonnie asks Clyde, after Clyde performs sexually for the first time, announces his intention to marry Bonnie, and is reflecting on their future together:  “What would you do differently, Clyde, if you could do it all over again?”  Clyde 's answer:  “I would not live in the same state that I rob banks in.”  Clyde is a born bank robber – there are certain changes that men cannot make from their inherent, generic bent.

This is a film that is strong on characterization.  The film that brings out and demonstrates that crime can develop before the participants in the crime know what has happened.  It’s a serious film dealing with the poor, the uneducated, the sexually frustrated, the mentally challenged, and crime. 

Carnal Knowledge (1971), directed by Mike Nichols, with Jack Nicholson, Art Garfinkle, Candice Bergen, Ann Margaret

Imagine a male lion that basically has no other interest in life than hunching every healthy female that walks by, and spending the intervening hours sleeping in the sun and eating the food brought to it by those females.  And watch this film.

I have seen some films recently that have, what I consider to be a focus on the female condition – Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is one that comes to mind.  Here’s a film about males, more specifically about extremes in male behavior.

The film makes me think about where is sex in terms of useful, happy lives – my own, and men, generally.  For Nicholson, it seems to be the accomplishment, the achievement, the life event upon which his ego, image, confidence, and certainty resides.

The problem with this, as so well demonstrated in the film, is one will end up, when this is the case, not too much different from that male lion with not much in the intervening periods.

Patty Hearst (1988), directed by Paul Schrader, with Natasha Richardson, William Forsythe

The human mind is a very complex and not very well understood system.  Actually, there may be very real limits to just how well a system that is trying to understand itself can succeed at understanding itself.

This film, for me, is all about the complexity of the human mind, namely a nineteen, and there about, -year old mind - a teen mind, a mind that is a lot different from a “ 30-something” mind, that is a lot different from a “fifties” mind, and so on.  This is, I think, fairly obvious – that is, the differences in minds from age to age.

This film’s central theme, and interest for me, centers around the question of how did a kidnapped, well-off, 19-year old college-student woman become an accepting, accepted, participating member of a small band that kidnapped, tortured, harmed, abused her, and also, which was bent on perpetrating terror, harm, and destruction on the community.

This is a psychological study.  Although perhaps our understanding of the human mind is limited with respect to a full understanding, we still surely know quite a bit.  The area of understanding that this film discusses is this influence - the young mind captured by its environmental influences.  This film, for me, seeks understanding on the proneness of the young mind to changeability, the young mind’s vulnerability and susceptibility to the “pull and push” of external and internal stimuli.  The film suggests the complexity of a young mind in its coming to its understanding of its sexuality, what its sexuality is, and needs to fulfill sexual desires and respond to sexual probes.

What effect does trauma, trauma of various kinds – separation, loneliness, fear, physical, and spiritual, emotional, sexual - and trauma that is severe - have on the individual during the mind’s “teen” period?  This is the question that is before us in this film?

This real story, this rare story, perhaps unique, should be of interest to psychological study groups.   As one individual amongst many, I can now understand better Patsy Hearst’s story.

The Thin Red Line (1998), directed by Terrence Maleck, with Sean Penn, John Cusack, Nick Notle, James Cavecal

This film’s purpose is to tell it like it is when it comes to war.  I suspect it is no easy trick to do such, and probably few films try, much less succeed, as well as this one.

We are looking at a variety of reactions of many men while engaged in the most dangerous of combat – infantry – during attack against well-fortified forces.  Is what we see legitimate, real, true?  This I do not know.  The portrayal may be overdone, exaggerated, or perhaps, right on the mark.  Someone who has been there, and can be objective, will have to inform me.

We also see, if true, and I suspect it is, that combat brings many surprises amongst individuals.  Can we predict what someone will do in a life-threatening moment with so many inputs and outputs at consideration?  I doubt it, not with much probability of being right.  There is probably no common denominator in the backgrounds or foregrounds of Medal of Honor winners.  But they all have one thing is common; and that being what they did in a life-threatening moment, during combat, that lead to a Medal of Honor.

This film is about how men react and behave, their extremes of reactions, in a very unique environment, with extreme conditions about them.  Very few of us ever will, or have, experience such an environment.

Dressed To Kill (1980), directed by Brian De Palma, with Michael Caine, Angie Dickerson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon

Human sexuality obviously is a big subject and here, in this film, we encounter a lot of different manifestations of the sexual being – usually as a dysfunctional characteristic.

Unfortunately, human sexuality can lead to more than simple dysfunctional sexual behavior – it can on occasion lead to razor slashing, brutal murder, as seen in the film, carried out by a mentally ill transsexual.   The film makes for a good, entertaining thriller of a story.  It gets inside several characters’ sexual impulses.  Such a trip seems always to trigger questions about one’s own sexual being.

We don’t find out what happens between the young, poorly educated, in need of love Nancy Allen character and the young, narrowly educated, in need of love Keith Gordon scientific character.  Both, in a sense, are extremes, and have, as their extreme, what the other needs.   You might say both are out of balance - in opposite ways - and perhaps together, can fulfill the other’s needs.