Examining the Most Notorious Expletive

Steve Anderson’s new documentary Fuck takes a thorough look at the most multi-faceted of expletives—at its murky, myth-laden origins, its many conjugations, its cathartic, emotive power as well as its power to offend. 

While the film contains clips from controversial performances by comedians Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, as well as animations by Bill Plympton and excerpts from dozens of Hollywood films, it is essentially a talking-head documentary, a string of interviews examining the word from all sides. 

But what a collection of talking heads. From sociologists and linguists to comedians and porn stars, Fuck runs the gamut, for who can’t claim some level of expertise with the word and at least one of its myriad meanings? It’s one of the most democratic words in the English language. Television writer/producer Steven Bochco relates tales of clashes with censors over “NYPD Blue”; 1950s wholesome heartthrob Pat Boone shares his G-rated alternative expletive (“Boone!”), while Ice T consequently ridicules it; moralists like Judith “Miss Manners” Martin and radio talk show hosts Alan Keyes and Dennis Prager rail against the prevalence of the word in popular culture, while Bill Maher decries the hypocrisy of the Christian right as he and other comedians and performers defend their right to use it; and Hunter S. Thompson … well, I’m not sure what the hell Thompson was mumbling about between swigs of whiskey and the compulsive adjusting of his transparent blue “Las Vegas” visor, but I’m sure it was fascinating. 

The movie is fun but ultimately it has little insight. Indeed there is more to learn about profanity, self-expression, censorship and the First Amendment by spending more time with the performances the film excerpts, namely those of Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. Bruce of course is the iconic image most associated with the topic, having been arrested onstage nine times for his use of profanity and convicted twice, events which hastened the downward spiral which resulted in his death by drug overdose. If you want a better, more moving and insightful glimpse into the topic, check out Bruce’s recordings, or perhaps Dustin Hoffman’s performance as Bruce in Lenny and you’ll get a more compelling portrait of the power of language. 

Or try one of Carlin’s performances, either on video or on one of his old records. Occupation: Foole, his 1973 album, is excerpted in the documentary and it’s a good place to start, for not only do you get Carlin’s riff on the seven infamous words, you also get his comedic take specifically on the word fuck—its drama, its passion and its hurtfulness. 

Fuck provides an interesting and entertaining overview of the word but ultimately the film is far less insightful than its director probably hoped it to be. 

Fuck (2006). Directed by Steve Anderson. 93 minutes. 

Photo caption: An array of experts weigh in: Musician Evan Seinfeld and adult film star Tera Patrick, singer Pat Boone, rapper Chuck D, newsman Sam Donaldson, radio talk show host Dennis Prager, late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, comedian Bill Maher, comedian Drew Carey and talk show host and political candidate Alan Keyes.

PFA Screens a New Wave Classic

The films of Agnes Varda and her husband Jacques Demy could not be more different.

Demy, best known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, was both part of and apart from the French New Wave. Enamored with Hollywood’s golden age musicals, he is sometimes referred to as France’s answer to Busby Berkeley: sweet but trite stories, artfully decorated but too slight for the tastes of his contemporaries.

Varda, on the other hand, is New Wave through and through. There are no gunfights, no car crashes, no dramatic chages of heart. Varda made small, insightful films about complex young characters. She represents the feminine side of the New Wave, a movement largely dominated by male directors. And while the male directors for the most part did a fair job of portraying women, Varda’s female characters have a depth and profundity unmatched in the work of her male counterparts.

Cleo From 5 to 7 details two hours in the life of its heroine in real time, though the timing is not exact and may not be quite realistic; it’s an action-packed two hours of supposedly everyday life. In that short span, the young pop singer protagonist manages a shopping trip, a rehearsal, a visit with a friend and an encounter with a stranger, not to mention bus and taxi trips all over Paris.

But this is hardly the point. What we’re watching is the psychological processes Cleo undergoes as she awaits the results of a medical test that will tell her just how serious her condition is. She has cancer; we don’t know what kind, we don’t know how serious. We only know that this beautiful, spoiled princess of a woman is suddenly dealing with something she is not accustomed to: hardship and pain.

How she deals with it tells us almost as much about her as the trappings of her privileged life—her furs, her hats, the adulation of her acquaintances. She approaches her illness with as much self-absorbed intensity as she presumably approached her pre-illness life; she draws people to her, collects them as small testaments to her beauty. But this is not portrayed with condescension; we do not feel contempt for her. Rather we are witnessing the sudden, painful expansion of a young woman’s consciousness as she learns that she is not the center of the world, a notion beautifully expressed in a scene where she plays her latest hit on a cafe jukebox and realizes that no one is paying attention. And, in an encounter with a young soldier about to return to battle in Algeria, she finally gives something of herself to another, offering companionship and conversation to a kindred spirit who also carries a burden.

The conclusion is typical of the New Wave; there is no big Hollywood–style conclusion, no tearful dramatic close or happy finale, but rather just a small revelation, the flicker of heightened consciousness across Cleo’s face. It is not a big change, not a life-altering change, and in fact the change may prove to be fleeting. But the drama in Cleo From 5 to 7 is not in the action, it is in the mind of its heroine. Such drama is difficult to express as an actor and difficult to photograph for a director, but Varda and her star make it as evident as any Hollywood car crash.

The film is showing at Pacific Film Archive as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Janus Films and is available on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection’s 50 Years of Essential Arthouse box set.

Cleo From 5 To 7 (France, 1961)

Directed by Agnes Varda. Starring Corinne Marchand and featuring the music of Michel Legrand. 3 p.m. Sunday at Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

www.criterionco.com.

Iraq in Fragments: A Stirring, Poetic Portrait of Life During Wartime

Now that the midterm election is over, with all its slogans and clichés and simplistic solutions for myriad complex problems, along comes a documentary that provides a solid, sobering dose of geopolitical reality. 

Iraq in Fragments, opening today at Shattuck Cinemas, is like a Terrence Malick celluloid tone poem, an epic tale in three chapters examining the hope, despair, fear and tragedy of occupied Iraq. But most of all it is about humanity, about people of all ages and walks of life reflecting on what it means to be an Iraqi under the most difficult and tenuous of circumstances. 

Director James Longley has fashioned a documentary that plays like the most meticulously planned fictional narrative, taking the words of Iraqis and draping them over his lush photography. Lines of great beauty and poignancy adorn a continuous stream of stunning imagery that captures the essence of the land and its people at a time when the nation’s fate is at best uncertain. 

Longley’s compositions are lovely, his images haunting, and his subjects are the most engaging of characters. The film could not be more striking and affecting had it been crafted with great foresight and care in a Hollywood studio. 

Longley himself never intrudes, not upon the images and certainly not upon the words. There is no narration other than the words spoken by the Iraqis onscreen; the photography never draws attention to the photographer, the images never betray his presence. It is easy to forget there is a camera there at all; it’s as though we are simply catching glimpses into everyday lives, the lives of anonymous everyday Iraqis, the poor and the powerless, people whose names will never spread beyond their small villages, but lives which, under the patient gaze of Longley’s lens, take on epic proportions. Iraq in Fragments elevates each life by respecting its inherent dignity and beauty. 

The film recalls Malick’s Thin Red Line, the 1998 movie that tracked soldiers in battle in World War II and made audible their private thoughts, memories and fears. Iraq in Fragments has that quality; the words of the subjects almost seem to be flowing directly from their minds to ours, as though we are not hearing them but receiving them—a sort of stream-of-consciousness documentary. 

There have been many documentaries made by filmmakers who have spent time in Iraq over the past few years, and several of them have been excellent. But none has covered the terrain staked out by James Longley in this film. He has adopted much of the cinema verité style while bringing to it an eye for imagery that calls to mind the dramatic landscapes of Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi trilogy. He has transformed the words and lives and visuals of the Iraqi people into poetic incantations that provide an impressionistic glimpse of the struggle to retain one’s dignity and humanity in the face of global machinations over which they have no control. 

Iraq in Fragments (2006). Written, directed and photographed by James Longley. 94 minutes. 

The Great Chase: Buster Keaton's The General

In 1998, amid an orgy of end-of-the-millenium top 100 lists, the American Film Institute released its list of the 100 best American films, a list that included three Charlie Chaplin movies but inexplicably no Buster Keaton films, despite the fact that several of his works, most notably The General (1926), rank among the silent era’s best and frequently hover near the top of many critics’ lists of the best films ever made.

But this has been Keaton’s lot in life, both during his career and since his death: to toil away in the shadow of the most famous comedian who ever lived. Though a late-career rediscovery of his work saw Keaton hailed as a cinematic genius, even Chaplin’s superior as a director, Keaton still retains his underdog status.

Pacific Film Archive will show The General and One Week (1921), Keaton’s first independent film, as the first installments in a new series: “Movie Matinees For All Ages.” The series debuts at 2 p.m. Saturday with Keaton and will be followed over the next couple of Saturdays with the Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers (1932) and Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939).

The General is essentially one big chase sequence, brilliantly constructed and expanded to feature length. The story, based on a true incident from the Civil War, concerns a Southern train stolen by Northern soldiers, who spirit the engine back into Northern territory, burning bridges and destroying telegraph wires as they go. Buster, as Johnnie Grey, is the General’s engineer, and sets out to recapture his beloved locomotive. Along the way, Keaton stages a series of beautifully choreographed and increasingly dangerous stunts until he arrives in enemy territory, rescues his train—and, almost by accident, his girl—and then heads back to Southern territory while hounded by Northern soldiers. Thus the chase folds back on itself, like an arc that delivers Keaton back where he began—the “Keaton Curve,” as critic Walter Kerr put it—with gags and stunts from the first half now expanded upon in the second.

The General and Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925) are unique among screen comedies in that they combine two seemingly incongruous genres: the comedy and the epic. Such a pairing had never been attempted before, as the grand scale of the epic seemed at odds with the smaller, more personal nature of character-based comedy. But whereas Chaplin’s film only contained a few outdoor shots in the early scenes before retreating to the comfort of studio sets, Keaton preferred to shoot on location; few of his comedies take place in studio sets. And though location shooting and period costumes were nothing new in Keaton’s work, The General dwarfs his previous efforts in scale and detail. Many critics consider it the most convincing celluloid recreation of the Civil War, the imagery recalling Matthew Brady’s photographs from the period.

Keaton instructed his crew to make it “so authentic it hurts” and carefully replicated the trains, uniforms, styles and terrain of the era. There were no special effects; Keaton’s desire for authenticity extended to every shot, culminating in the dramatic scene in which a train crashes through a burning bridge as scores of Northern soldiers pour over the hillside to converge on the Southern army’s front lines.

Critical reception was mixed. Some thought it a solid picture while others considered it Keaton’s weakest effort, taking offense at the notion of making light of the Civil War. Ultimately the considerable expense of the production caused Joseph Schenk, Keaton’s producer, to intervene with the usually autonomous director-star, requiring that his next feature be decidedly less extravagant. Keaton dutifully followed up with College (1927), one of his most restrained efforts, before embarking on the more elaborate Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928). It was while making Steamboat that Keaton learned that Schenk had sold his contract to MGM, bringing an end to Keaton’s independent career.

Under MGM, Keaton struggled to keep control over his work but quickly became subsumed by the studio system after his first feature, The Cameraman (1928). Thus Keaton, like Erich von Stroheim before him and Orson Welles after him, became something of a victim of his own success as the expense of and lack of contemporary public appreciation for his greatest achievement ultimately undermined his career.

PFA’s screening of The General will be preceded by One Week, the first two-reeler Keaton released as an independent artist after his apprenticeship with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. One Week was hailed as the year’s best comedy upon its release, establishing Keaton as one of cinema’s most innovative artists. The film is an excellent introduction to Keaton’s work as it features many of the characteristics that would become his hallmarks: a fascination with machinery, a semi-surrealist perspective, trains, and of course, the Keaton Curve, as the efforts of Buster and his bride to construct a pre-fabricated house eventually leave them homeless once again.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple

Oakland director Stanley Nelson will attend screenings tonight (Friday) at Shattuck Cinemas for his new film, Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple. 

It’s the harrowing tale of the Rev. Jim Jones, an Indiana outcast drawn to the preacher’s life, who founded a temple, moved it to the Bay Area, and then when trouble came in the form of public scrutiny and allegations of financial corruption and physical and sexual abuse, flew his flock to Guyana where he built Jonestown, a supposed utopia where he and his followers could live free of “persecution.” 

It’s a story that, to Northern Californians, may seem at once both familiar and mysterious, a story we may have lived through but one that has been clouded by myths, misconceptions and gallows humor over the ensuing decades. Nelson’s film brings much unseen footage and documentation to the tale, including footage of Jones in the pulpit, audio and film from inside the Jonestown camp in Guyana, and even footage from the fateful day when Jones ordered the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan. 

Rep. Jackie Speier, aid to Ryan at the time, took a bullet that day and tells her story in one of the film’s many compelling and deeply emotional interviews. The footage from the assault was photographed by a cameraman who lost his life during the episode, essentially recording his own death. 

Other victims and followers of Jones tell their tales, candidly, passionately, tearfully and even at times with humor. It is a tribute to Nelson and co-producer Noland Walker that these people, after all they have gone through, are so comfortable before the camera. 

“For many, this was their best chance to talk to someone who would listen,” Nelson told the Berkeley Daily Planet. Jim Jones, Jr. is one of the participants. He discusses the mixed feelings he still harbors for his infamous father. “This is the man who took him out of an orphanage,” Nelson says, “who taught him to shoot a basketball, who taught him how to read.” Yet he was also the manipulative megalomaniac who led 900 people to their deaths, a fate his son only survived by chance, having absented himself to play in a basketball tournament that day. 

It’s a gruesome tale and a difficult one to relive. It is Elmer Gantry come to life, only more violent and pathological, the sunglasses-clad rock star/preacher taking advantage of the vulnerability of people in need, of starry-eyed optimists looking for a home, for community, for friendship and love. “People’s Temple grew and became successful by promising many things and delivering on those promises: an integrated community, care for the elderly and social activism,” says Nelson. 

“If you want to see me as your father, I’ll be your father,” Jones told his flock. “If you want me to be your god, I’ll be your god.” He would be their Charon as well, whether they asked for it or not, shepherding them across international borders to a commune that would serve as their prison and as their graveyard. 

Nelson uses no narration to lead us through his film. Instead he allows his subjects to tell the story in their own words. And he provides never-before-heard audio of People’s Temple, final days, recently declassified by the CIA, in which a woman challenges Jones’ order to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid. Jones can be heard pleading with his followers. “Don’t be like this,” he says and assures them they are just “crossing over.” 

Nelson will attend one of the Friday evening screenings and will take questions and will be joined for the following screening by Jim Jones Jr.