Witch Hunts & Sacraments: Delta Rae's Bottom Of the River

I posted Delta Rae's Bottom Of the River as a pop quiz for readers to share their own ideas and interpretations and two readers posted their very insightful impressions which I will be using as we explore this thought-provoking song/video (lyrics are listed at the bottom of this post):

Even though we don't see a drop of it in the video, the song is very much about water and a river. It’s not that the song presents us with two conflicting ideas of what water symbolizes, rather, the way water—like most symbols—can be used in a positive and negative way. For example, in the Old Testament story of Noah and the Flood, water was destructive because it brought about the ruin of the earth by means of the Flood; in the New Testament water takes on a virtuous symbolism by becoming the sacrament which cleanses our souls of the stains of Original Sin through the waters of Baptism. In Bottom Of the River, it seems that both the destructive and virtuous characteristics of water are being invoked but ultimately for destructive ends. (As ALWAYS, there are many ambiguous aspects to the song/video and these are just my ideas that are neither right nor wrong, but here to help you with your own engagement with the art!).

Gustave Dore, The Deluge, Dore's English Bible 1865.

But Bottom Of the River is not invoking Noah's Flood, so what is it doing? The question is, why did God send a flood to destroy the earth? It's not that God is following symbolisms, rather, that symbols develop from our understanding of how God and nature work, symbols contain hidden wisdom. The primary cause of God destroying the world was man's sinfulness, and specifically, sexual sinfulness. Sigmund Freud always associated water with the sexual act, not just because of the bodily fluids released during intercourse, but because of the ecstatic release of the act, akin to washing and bathing the body and a type of psychological cleansing (so he diagnosed) from neurosis from abstaining from sex (sex being the exact opposite, so to speak, of Baptism). 

Like the three men in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? the "witch" in Bottom Of the River is chained, and that not only reveals to us her "criminal tendencies," but reveals a symbolic fact about her: she's chained to her sins. Why is she able to so easily "get out of them" towards the end of the video? It's not that she's "empowered" by being chained to her sins, rather, like Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman, the witch has power over the earthly chains around her wrists because she has chained her soul to damnation. The "mob," on the other hand, is neither as bad as she is, nor strong enough in saintly virtue to overcome her, so being a little worse than mediocre, they fall to her spell.

Can we link up "the witch" with this kind of duality in the symbolism of water? One of the brave souls posting their thoughts on the video mentioned that it reminded them of the Coen Brothers' 2000 comedy Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and it reminded me of that as well. Like Bottom Of the River, Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? employs the same duality of water's symbolism, first in the Baptism scene, then in the scene with the Sirens (the later again when they are going to be hauled off and the flood waters are let loose, both destroying the area, but saving the boys):

What's so well done about this scene is Delmar's (basically) ignorant view of salvation; he does have faith but he does not have the spiritual endurance to "fight the good fight" and will give in at the first presented temptation because he isn't inwardly strong enough in his faith in God (and none of us are, we all fall and require God's Grace, but I am leading up to a similarity with the film). Here, then, is the Sirens in the water and definitely presenting the exact opposite of salvation:

Now we can talk about the “witch.”

Is there a specific reason to call her that, or is it just a leery feeling about the visualization of the video? As the second Anonymous commenter pointed out, the woman in white has blood red lipstick, a detail drawing us to her mouth, symbolic of the appetites, usually those of the flesh, re-enforcing the idea of the life of sin. She’s wearing only undergarments, a kind of old-fashioned slip that is white. White, like water, has a positive and negative symbolism: white usually denotes  “faith,” “purity”/”innocence,” but white can also symbolize death because a corpse turns white as it decays, that is, the life is drained of it. This the genius of the symbol, because faith, purity and innocence symbolizes inner life and being “alive” to God’s Grace, but white can also symbolize the absence of faith, purity and innocence, hence, being “dead” to God’s Grace. The leather belt she wears insures we know which way to interpret the “white” slip she wears.

Symphony In White, No. 1: The White Girl by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, 1861-2. Why bring this in? To illustrate, literally, the difference between Delta Rae's "witch" and how white can symbolize the positive values of purity, innocence and faith. In Whistler's work, we can definitely say this is "white in the positive virtue" example because the picture is practically "flooded" with light, i.e., truth (truth is the light by which virtues grow like plants in the garden). Secondly, she stands upon an animal rug, meaning, symbolically, that she has put her animal passions "beneath her," she has subdued them, they have not subdued her. And lastly, she holds a flower in her hand, symbolic of virtue (there is far, far more to discuss about this painting, but this is for a comparative analysis only). 

The leather belt around the “witch’s” waist is very telling; in the history of wardrobe and fashion, one would expect a possibility of three things: one, nothing, that a corset or other such “body shaping” device would be applied over the woman’s slip so no belt would be required/used or even a “built-in” waist-thinning mechanism; secondly, a chastity belt to protect the woman’s hymen from being ruptured by her initial sexual intercourse or, thirdly, nothing at all because the slip will cover it anyway. The leather belt, then, is unusual and probably is meant as the opposite of the chastity belt: the leather, animal skin, invokes the animal passions just as her shocking red lipstick and that is probably the primary reason she is being taken by the "mob." 

What Bottom Of the River probably refers to (as a phrase of reference) is the Ordeal by Water pictured above: if a person accused of witchcraft was tossed into water, the one who sank (to the bottom of the river) was innocent (like the feet and hands sticking up in the lower right corner of the image above), but the one who floated atop the water was guilty of witchcraft (s/he would be anxious to save their life and so would use their powers to save their self from death and thereby reveal themselves to be in league with the devil, rather like the very end of the video when the wind comes and kills the mob, more on that below). The phrase "bottom of the river" probably refers to the "bound woman/witch" claiming she's innocent of being a witch and that she will sink to the bottom but probably also die in trying to prove her innocence (no, that's not what historically happened; they were always fished out before they would drown if they sank to the bottom, the judges didn't let them drown).

Besides being bound with chains at her wrist and everyone suddenly being dead at the end after she mysteriously unbinds herself, what else tells us of her “super natural” being? Her reflection. “Reflection” is both a symbol of individuation and wisdom. Please expand the video screen below and stop the video at 0:19 and 0:21; please look carefully at the mirror in which she brushes her hair. In the first spot, her reflection in the mirror is not “mirroring” her actions (we still see her face in the mirror instead of the back of her head as she's being taken away) and in the second, she has left the chair yet her reflection calmly “stays” in the mirror just above the lantern being reflected, and she has a bit of a ghoulish face:

Why is this important?

Two reasons, first, it “mirrors” the greater current cultural trend of reflections and mirrors in films such as Julia Roberts’ Mirror, Mirror and Charlize Theron’s Snow White and the Huntsman, both queens having mirrors and “unnatural” reflections in them. In both Snow White adaptations, the evil queens use the mirrors to advance their own worldly positions the exact opposite of the fair Snow White who uses her powers of meditation and self-reflection to advance her virtue and inner spiritual life so she can become a better person capable of overcoming the evil in the queen. In the case of Bottom Of the River, the witch’s divided reflection is just even more sinister because she’s not just bringing herself down into evil, but anyone she can drag down with her. Like the Snow White queens, the "witch" in Bottom Of the River is seeking worldly power and pleasure which begs the question: did the witch "trap" the mob in coming to get her so she could do them all in and be rid of them?

Probably.

Besides the "witch," there are three other groups of people in this video: the two farmers cutting wood, the three primary leaders of the mob (two men and one woman) and the "demon" faced extras. The members of the mob symbolize the professional/business class (the man in the vest and tie), the other man symbolizes the working class because he wears labor clothes and the woman signifies women (and I am glad they did it this way because that's a more traditional view on femininity). In these three we see the entirety of society and yet no one in society is virtuously strong enough to overcome the witch in their midst they have identified, that is, because of their own sins, individually and collectively, they are nearly as bad as she is and so don't have the moral authority and superiority to overcome her (if they had abstained from sin, they would have strength to cast her out, instead, because they are bound by their own sins, they haven't any strength; an example is, in a society where more people cohabitate then are married, how can marriage be defended when heterosexual couples don't even live up to it?).

On the witch's right side is the man with the vest and tie, symbolic of the business/professional class; just behind her is the woman in black and then next to her (on her left) is a man in work clothes, symbolizing the labor class. The obviously "fake" light coming from the lanterns (the artificial light) also indicates the "spiritual state" of the "mob" coming after her. An artificial light reveals an "artificial truth" and the people are seeing the situation the way they want to, maybe that they are bad, but the witch is worst; not having the "true light of faith," they are unable to overcome the darkness and succumb to it, unlike The White Girl above.

For these reasons, the demon faced extras don't seem to be actual demons to me, they would be "on the side of the witch" if they were because the witch engages in evil and they would be with her as the "dead farmers" are with her. The demons, since they die/disappear at the end like the mob, appear to me (and this is ambiguous, so there are lots of possible readings, none of them right or wrong) to be a visualization of the state of the mobs' soul and their intent of what they want to do with the witch. The fist Anonymous who left their comments described the farmers as "dead" and I think that's an excellent insight because farmers are associated with life, not only because of the life they give to seed in raising their crops, but the food they raise sustains us. These farmers, with their black eyes when the witch passes them, are dead and we might say they are an example of those who the lyrics discuss so let's finally turn our attention to that (complete lyrics are at the bottom of this post).

What is the "wind" and strange light at the end which appears to kill everyone? Wind is usually associated with the Breath Of God, the Holy Spirit, and (like the waters of the Flood) a cleansing agent because it sweeps away the foul air but also has destructive powers as during a storm, like a tornado. Looking at it in these terms, we get that which we court: if we court God, and live according to His Commands, we receive the Breath of God; if we court death (like the woman wearing black, she's dead just as the witch is and might be the cause of the sin of the two men she is with) we get Death. Like the "artificial light" in the lanterns of the business man and laborer in the mob, this light, too, is artificial. For more on truth and its relationship with artificial light, please see False Light: Interview With the Vampire. But moonlight is also considered a "false light," because it only reflects from the sun, it doesn't cast its own light, so its deceptive, like the very first image of the moon we see in the video and then again in the lyrics when the "wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight," suggesting that the demons will chase you by the very "watered down truths" you have lived your life by.

As noted above, the lines Hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river, probably denotes the medieval trial by ordeal when witches were subjected to drowning to see if they were guilty or innocence of witchcraft. However, the stanza is repeated three times throughout the song, and in each repeating, the witch is in a different "position" regarding her captors/captives the mob, so it's probably a use of the same line to demonstrate to us how the meaning isn't stable but is changing with the witch's display of power.

Another example of ordeal by water of two suspected witches.

The next set of lyrics read: If you get sleep or if you get none/The cock’s gonna call in the morning, baby/Check the cupboard for your daddy’s gun/Red sun rises like an early warning/The Lord’s gonna come for your first born son/His hair’s on fire and his heart is burning."  "If you get sleep or if you get none," might refer to our state of conscience about the state of our soul (will we be worried about our final judgment or is our conscience at ease and we don't have anything to worry about so we can sleep?). The "cock call," to me, invokes St. Peter thrice denying Christ during the Passion before the cock's crow, and in that way, it summons the idea of judgment and whether we have denied Christ or not. Checking the cupboard for your daddy's gun is what many might do because it's a falling back on worldly protection (the gun, which is kept where worldly food is kept, the cupboard, contrasted to the spiritual food of the Body and Blood of the Lord which is kept in Church) instead of spiritual protection (prayers, alms-giving, penance and fasting).

Christ Enthroned from the Book Of Kells.

The lyrics, Red sun rises like an early warning/The Lord’s gonna come for your first born son/His hair’s on fire and his heart is burning/Go to the river where the water runs/Wash him deep where the tides are turning/And if you fall" are apocalyptic in nature because of the warning of judgment. The "red sun rises like an early warning" actually symbolizes the "Son" (the sun") who is coming for the first born son just as He did during the plague of the death of the firstborns to prophesy how Christ, the First Born, would save all those who called upon His Name. If our first-borns haven't been dedicated to God (the First Born) then they will die because "His hair's on first and his heart is burning" but the irony is, while this is a "scary illustration," this is exactly what we should be!

Lavina from Black Death starring Sean Bean. There are many similarities to this witch and the witch of Bottom Of the River, which you can choose to read about here: Two Spiritual Pathways: Black Death.

Because hair symbolizes thoughts, our own thoughts should have been on fire with love of the Lord (fire being an extreme symbol of love not usually used but in spiritual contexts) and that's why his heart is burning because of the love we should have for the Lord because of the Love He has for us; because we don't look like this (that is, we don't look like our creator, who burns with Love for us) we are supposed to go to the river where the tide is turning, that is, go to the Sacrament of Baptism and change our lives, repent and be what God demanded of us. The problem is, we don't, we don't do that at all, or, like Delmar and Pete in the Oh Brother Where Art Thou videos above, we willingly go, but then also willingly go to our destruction and that's why the next line is "And if you fall," because it's so certain that we will fall, back into sin again. This time, when we go into the refrain, "Hold my hand, etc." it's because, unlike comforting her the first time during her trial by ordeal, now we have to join her because, like her, we are guilty.

Another image from Black Death of a procession through a river.

The next set of lyrics: The wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight/Drunk and driven by a devil’s hunger/Drive your son like a railroad spike/Into the water, let it pull him under/Don’t you lift him, let him drown alive/The good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder/Let that fever make the water rise/And let the river run dry. The "wolves," as predators and wild animals, would symbolize demons here (a similar scene if of Dante in the first Canto of Inferno being chased by dogs and coming to Mount Purgatory where he encounters a wolf) and that they are "drunk and driven by the devil's hunger" validates that (it also validates that the "demon faced" extras we see in the video probably aren't "real demons" like those being discussed in this stanza).

But this is the real heart of the song: "Let that fever make the water rise" and that "fever" is probably sexual "fever." The "advice" the witch is giving--and she can afford to because she knows that we won't heed it--is to "drive your son like a railroad spike" meaning, that we should drive ourselves and our children hard in the spiritual life, but that can often backfire, creating a "craving" for the pleasures of the world and the flesh (which probably identifies the two dead farmers with her, those who were driven to her by being driven too hard towards God) and the water rising symbolizes how that which is supposed to save the soul--the waters of Baptism and Grace--are now "rising" like Noah's Flood to consume the soul in worldly pleasure and that's why the water "runs dry," because Grace then ends when that life is pursued (well, no, not really, but it does in the song) and then you have to "run" from the wolves because the river has "run" dry.

Another film the video reminds me of is the mob scene from To Kill A Mockingbird (not pictured here, but the closest I could find). Atticus is at the jail and a mob comes to "exact justice" and Atticus talks them out of it, a perfect example of a group of vigilantes "breaking the law" to "keep the law." A similar incident is in The Ox-Bow Incident.

And now, the final refrain about holding her hand because it's a long way down to the bottom of the river reveals that she has led us astray to death, and like the foolish mob which came for her, we, too, have been led into a trap of death by her because we were looking at the immorality of others instead of tending our own souls and advancing in holiness. The "death blow" that comes in the wind and the false light at the end demonstrates for us our own fate in hopes that we will save ourselves from our inevitable judgment awaiting us and not make unnecessary judgments upon others. Eat Your Art Out, The Fine Art Diner Bottom of the River Hold my hand Ooh, baby, it’s a long way down to the bottom of the river Hold my hand, Ooh, baby, it’s a long way down, a long way down If you get sleep or if you get none The cock’s gonna call in the morning, baby Check the cupboard for your daddy’s gun Red sun rises like an early warning The Lord’s gonna come for your first born son His hair’s on fire and his heart is burning Go to the river where the water runs Wash him deep where the tides are turning And if you fall Hold my hand Ooh, baby, it’s a long way down to the bottom of the river Hold my hand, Ooh, baby, it’s a long way down, a long way down The wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight Drunk and driven by a devil’s hunger Drive your son like a railroad spike Into the water, let it pull him under Don’t you lift him, let him drown alive The good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder Let that fever make the water rise And let the river run dry And I said Hold my hand Ooh, baby, it’s a long way down to the bottom of the river Hold my hand, Ooh, baby, it’s a long way down, a long way down.

Trailers: Oz the Great & Powerful, V/H/S/, The Helpers, Compliance, The Awakening

If there was ever a pro-Obama film, the producers of the Alice In Wonderland have created it with this pre-quel Oz: The Great and Powerful due out next March and starring James Franco as the charlatan turned Wizard, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz as sister witches and Michelle Williams as Glinda. The purpose of the film is to understand how the carnival man from Kansas came to be the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, or in other words, how Obama came to become President:

Being released next Fourth of July week is The Lone Ranger with Armi Hammer and Johnny Depp. Disney released the first trailer for it at ComiCon today and the preliminary is: it's far more about railroads then you could have imagined. This MIGHT be a very good thing; why? The railroads brought the country together, as opposed to the Civil War which has been constant in films of the last year. The railroad industry was one of the early successful capitalist endeavors in the US... but we never know. As soon as the trailer is released, I will get it up.

In the meantime, let's take a look at the newest Frankenweenie due out October 5. Why is this film, from socialist Tim Burton, important?  This particular trailer released today at ComicCon pays homage to all the great horror classics which Burton grew up with and from which he continuously purges material and ideas. What's so sad is, those films were "lessons" and metaphors for the same kinds of evil which Burton is now using the genre to support and  get into government:

V/H/S/, the story of some misfits hired by an unknown third party to break into a desolate house and steal a VHS tape, is scheduled for a November release in Argentina (so it might be going straight to video here). These are the most recent horror film trailers being released and I would like to consider them as a whole, so just watch them all:

I have posted this trailer before, but it fits in with these other trailers and the aesthetic (I just can't finishing watching it because it's so scary!) so here is Sinister again:

The Possession, being released at the end of August:

To me, The Helpers (September) is what Obamacare is going to be like: 

388 Arletta Avenue:

One person wrote, "Let the "entire movie was filmed with a video camera so it looks like real events" genre die a merciful death." So why doesn't it? The continuing of this "aesthetic" takes us back to the 1980s (when home VHS cameras became readily available) up to today, and if they continue utilizing the method, then that self-awareness and self-reflection with celluloid media has a lot to do with the problems that these films analyze and try to draw our attention to. Compliance, "inspired" by true events, is about a restaurant that gets a prank call and it turns the whole place upside-down; this is definitely another anti-capitalist film:

A long with that is The Awakening, taking place after the great loss of life of World War I in 1921 England. This is one of many films seeking to "debunk" the theories of the afterlife/ghosts (there are three more below) and why would that be important? Because it's an effort to ultimately decide whether or not we have a soul (that immaterial part of us that will continue to live after we die) and if we go through judgment (as in, the Final Judgment and what we do really does or does not matter).

Red Lights has just been released throughout the US, and while it doesn't exactly explore ghosts and the afterlife, the super natural is its aim (that which is above nature):

And The Apparition also due out in August:

Loosely based on that 1980s classic The Breakfast Club, Bad Kids Go To Hell gives us the story of six students in detention on a stormy Saturday that each meet a horrible fate (no release date yet set, I didn't think it a good idea to post the rather graphic trailer). Now, think I have been paranoid? Please watch this trailer for  Supercapitalist about a New York hedge fund analyst who moves to Honk Kong and starts a deal that escalates beyond his control:

That shot of the Hong Kong skyline should look familiar because we saw it in Battleship when the first alien bombs hit one of the financial capitols of the world. Yes, capitalism is under attack, but keeping eyes open for what vocabulary is being used makes all the difference in being able to understand and then defend the capitalist system.

Moonrise Kingdom & Communications Technology

For his fans, film maker Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tennenbaums) has many virtues and each is drawn to his characters and stories for different reasons: for me, the attraction lies in Anderson’s ability to gently lift the veil of vulnerability covering each of us to reveal in his characters our greatest pain and fear, our greatest hopes and desires; in other words, that which makes us most human, also makes us most vulnerable, and once again, in Moonrise Kingdom, he has demonstrated our frail humanity caught in the violence of the storm and why we should cherish our frailty, in ourselves and others.

Why did Wes Anderson make the color choice of the film which he did? On the surface, it's easy to see that the yellowing looks older, as if it's one more home video from the "found footage" genre which has just been un-earthed from some New England attic; on the other hand, like a piece of weathered paper, it communicates to the audience that the "life has gone out of it," the vitality and original vibrancy has been lost and that can only be a reflection of our lives today, because "historical films" are never ever about history, they are always taking place in the here and the now.

Like Melancholia, Moonrise Kingdom provides the audience with a “road map” of where it’s going to take us through the Benjamin Britten Orchestration for Young People that opens the film. The record played tells us what the structure of the film is and how it's going to function: each group of characters gets their own moments to shine and contribute to the whole product Anderson provides but what is the theme each individual brings to the whole? Parenthood and communication are at least two, although there are far more and a myriad possible interpretations to this film. As always, what I am writing is neither right nor wrong, just my observations in hopes it will aid you in your own engagement of the film.

Suzy with her binoculars watching her mother Mrs. Bishop (Frances McDormand) meeting with police officer Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis). They don't do anything but talk, or so it seems; it was during 1964-5 that the harmful effects of smoking were first announced, and Mrs. Bishop is smoking while meeting with Captain Sharp who also smokes (Scout Master Ward, played by Edward Norton, also smokes in the film) and because of what happens to Mrs. Bishop, we can say that the historical awareness of smoking's danger becomes a character critique in the film: the three smokers all have bad things happen to them (Mrs. Bishop is found out by Suzy, Captain Sharp gets dumped by Mrs. Bishop and Scout Master Ward gets demoted for losing his troop). Suzy standing with her binoculars at the light house alerts us to how her binoculars are a symbolic light house for her, because her sight is enhanced (that is, her wisdom and ability to perceive) she has greater "insight" into people; the light house is also a balance against the flash light that her father will be looking for later only to discover that Suzy took the batteries for her record player; in other words, Suzy's wisdom is a light house compared to her father's wisdom that is nothing more but a flashlight with no batteries.

The events being chronicled in Moonrise Kingdom take place between 1964 (when Sam and Suzy first meet) to 1965, September 5 when the big storm takes place. The specificity of the timeline, as in Rock Of Ages when people are cued at exact moments to begin unimportant tasks, reminds us of the specific moments in history when America was becoming America, through great events and small ones. One of those great events would not only change America, but the world as well, and that was the launching of the first tele-communications satellite known as “Early Bird.”

When Scout Master Ward meets with Sam after Sam has been "rescued" he tells Sam that he would have given Sam's campsite a commendable because it was such a good pitched camp site. What does this mean? Houses and homes are symbolic of the soul (like the little cross-stitched image of the Bishops' home we see in the opening frame, suggesting a shallowness or "false picture of perfection" of the life they have in their island home. On the other hand, Sam the orphan has only a pitched camp symbolizing his soul because he has to keep moving from place to place and doesn't have a permanent abode. Sam and Suzy each have something of their parents' with them: Suzy has batteries from her father's flashlight, Sam the pearl and gold pin from his mother. Pearls denote wisdom because it takes as long to form pearls as it does to attain wisdom and the gold of the pin reminds the viewer of the wealth of wisdom, it's more precious than gold.  This is probably the kind of attitude Sam has which makes him unpopular, but once the Scout troop finally decides to back him up, it's because they realize their own masculinity is at stake if they don't do the right thing.

It’s not sufficient to say that, just because the film takes place in 1965 and the satellite was launched that Moonrise Kingdom invokes that event, however, when Sam first sees Suzy he asks her, “What kind of bird are you?” and Sam wears the designation for his Khaki Scouts as being a “Pidgeon” scout, (not to mention that head scout master Ward, upon seeing that Sam has escaped from his tent uses the expression, “He flew the coop”). 

The hole which Sam cuts out of his tent lining then covers with a picture references that great film, The Shawshank Redemption, and by doing so, communicates not only the "jailed" feelings that Sam has felt being in Camp Ivanhoe, but also his innocence being falsely prosecuted. Sam initiates an interesting "reversal" of marginalization in the film: Sam is the least liked scout in the group, but through his resignation from the group and running off to meet Suzy, he turns the tables and marginalizes the other scouts, excluding them from his group. The tree house which the scouts are building way up high in the sky on that skinny little tree symbolizes their attitude because they are "above" Sam  but the shaky  tree alerts the viewer to know how dangerous their presumptive airs are.

So why is the bird references to this satellite important?

Anderson aptly demonstrates how America (and the world) was reaching out into space to better communicate with those across the ocean, but we still couldn’t communicate with those living in the same house. For example, Mrs. Bishop uses a bull horn to communicate with everyone in her home, which is unnecessary because, as Mr. Bishop says, “Right here.” Why does she do this? She obviously doesn’t believe that her husband is “right there” with her, because she’s not right there with him, rather, she’s carrying on an affair with Captain Sharp and just as she has run away mentally and emotionally just as Suzy as run away from home with Sam, and Mrs. Bishop believes that Mr. Bishop has run away from home as well.

Bill Murray as Mr. Bishop and Frances McDormand as Mrs. Bishop, parents of Suzy Bishop (and both are lawyers); Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) and Island Police Chief Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis). In the opening frames, as the camera weaves through the Bishop household, we see Mrs. Bishop naked washing her hair because that's exactly what will happen to her in the film: she will be "exposed" (her affair with Captain Sharp) and she will have a change of attitude (hair symbolizes thoughts, so washing her hair means cleaning her thoughts of bad things). When we see Mr. Bishop, he sits down in a chair that is on top of an animal rug, meaning, he has overcome his animal appetites and desires, whereas those same appetites are just now waking up in his oldest child, Suzy (the kitten).

We see the use of technology for communication consistently through out the film, such as Captain Sharp using the walkie talkie when they are up on the church steeple, the “person-to-person” calls put into Social Services, the recording of the Camp Ivanhoe log on the tape recorder, the bull horn Mrs. Bishop uses; the disparity between our high-tech today and the quaint record players of then begs the question: is technology really a means of aiding communication, or impeding communication? The film’s own perfect example would be Scout Master Ward telling Sam that his status as an orphan “Wasn’t on the register,” because he didn’t think to ask Sam personally about his parents, because he depended on the register, and because there is a register, he didn't need actual and personal communication; because Ward has made a habit of recording his thoughts and emotions on the recorder, he doesn't seek out the personal relationships he should have that would have better aided him to help Sam. It’s on the walkie-talkie, however, that Sam is able to accept Captain Sharp’s “invitation” to come stay with him so Sam isn’t taken to “juvenile refuge” and that appears to be Anderson’s wise commentary on technology.

It's always interesting to discover those little similarities contemporary films have with each other. For example, Brave's Merida has red hair, three younger brothers and she goes on a journey just like Suzy; the difference is, Merida runs away from being married and Suzy runs to being married, Merida is reconciled with her mother and Suzy is (maybe only)to some degree. Merida is good with archery and Suzy is good with leftie scissors. What are some of the other similarities? Let's consider.  In the picture above, we can ask, reasonably, "Why does Suzy bring all that stuff with her?" Because Suzy has a lot of "baggage," and whenever someone with lots of mental troubles does something, they bring "their baggage" with them.  Why does Suzy bring a kitten? Cats have traditionally been a symbol for female sexuality, and the kitten is Suzy's sexuality at a very, very young and innocent stage (remember, please, she's the one who asks Sam if he knows how to French kiss).  This is probably the reason why the "clue" the scouts find is a trashed tin of kitten food and why her father, Mr. Bishop, recognizes it: the "romance" of escaping with Sam and running away from home is "food" for Suzy's undeveloped sense of romance and love (which is really what sexuality means at this youthful age) and that same reason which "feeds" Suzy despairs her father, because he knows the danger they face in being out on their own and that's the cause of the suffering symbolized by the purple rings around Mr. Bishop's eyes.

Technology ‘s status as “good” or “bad,” as we all know, is determined by how we use it, for what end, and why; Anderson’s purpose in the film, however, seems to be to remind us that we form habits with technology which are not easily overcome or broken (consider Suzy lugging that record player around both times she runs away, she’s addicted to it but it’s also a part of her “baggage” of self-identity because the records express for her what she cannot express about herself; that’s what art does for us all and that’s why it’s so important).  Anderson seems to be putting the question to us though: what is the point of communicating with people across the ocean when we can't even communicate with the people in our own home?

Moonrise Kingdom is now my favorite Bruce Willis film. Like Jason Statham in Safe, Bruce Willis' character protects the child and thereby protects himself. The role of parent and father is what has been missing from Captain Sharp's law-enforcing life and Captain Sharp being a police officer is probably a scathing commentary on Jacques Lacan's theory of "the law of the father," which juxtaposes the lawyer Mr. Bishop against Captain Sharp and compares the two in the role of fatherhood. For me, this is one of those emotional scenes that shows our vulnerability. Just as Mrs. Bishop has "broken off" relations with Captain Sharp, so Sam has had relations with his foster family broken off and in defending the defenseless from "juvenile refuge," Captain Sharp offers Sam a genuine refuge of love and protection that Sam needs and Captain Sharp needs to give.

Suzy’s use of binoculars is opposite of her mother’s use of the bull horn: whereas her mother wants to be heard far away, Suzy wants to see what is far away, and even what is close up, hence the reason for her blue eye shadow (which we saw Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) wearing in his not-so-best-disguise in Sherlock Holmes A Game Of Shadows) which symbolizes wisdom (blue is the color of both wisdom and depression because the road of wisdom is often paved with sorrow; at the end of the Book of Job in the Old Testament, one of the “new daughters” which God blesses Job with is called in Hebrew “Horn of eye Make-up” because eye make up highlights the wisdom Job has gained because of his trials).

Social Services played by Tilda Swinton. Her "blue costume" goes against Suzy's blue eye shadow, because Suzy's eyes of love which she has for Sam is a genuine refuge for the loveless boy whereas the blue suit of Social Services taking the boy "into her care" demonstrates that it's far better for Sam to be with Suzy than in the grip of the government because of the depression he will suffer from being in that government institution.

Like his daughter, Mr. Bishop’s eyes are “highlighted." We see him with large purple bruises around his eyes and someone says that he fell into a ditch; he then chimes in that Suzy had stolen the batteries to his flashlight (for the record player) so he couldn’t see. Purple is the color of suffering but also of royalty: because he is the head of the household (royalty) he is suffering the most at the foolishness of his daughter (please compare this to Brave when it's the mother who suffers because the daughter has run off). “Seeing in the dark” is a spiritual condition, the “dark night of the soul,” such as what Job endured and what Mr. Bishop goes through when his daughter runs away from home (this can be re-affirmed in the scene when Mr. Bishop comes down the stairs and goes to a closet, takes out an axe and tells his sons, “I’m going to go out back and chop down a tree,” then we later see him sitting on the ground, all the tree chopped into but a small piece allowing the tree to continue standing up, which also symbolizes the Tree Of the Cross, or his faith; cutting down the tree means that he has nearly divorced himself from God, but not quite).

So who is this guy? It's not that he's a narrator, rather, he's the historical conscience, the voice of reason and destiny. The barely visible white scarf tied about his neck symbolizes what guides him: faith. Because the head is the "governing function" of the body, and because green symbolizes hope, he is able to think hopefully of all the possibilities facing them and red is the color of love because we are willing to shed our blood for those whom we love so he is, basically, a holy saint of history. 

What is up with the opening "documentary" about New Penance? If you watch the background carefully, there is far more interesting things taking place than the rather boring statistics and facts the narrator supplies; why? Because that's how the film is and that's how we are! Just as the characters can't be summed up in a few facts and figures, but have emotions and psychologies, so too do we; while the facts are fine, the chaos that makes us humans is far more important to us as people.

There are a million intricacies to the film, but the one I would like to close with is the "nude" of Suzy which Sam does. Of course Sam hasn't seen Suzy nude, but she thinks it's of her because she believes that Sam sees her "as she is" without her social mask and the defense of her coverings. When it's shown to her father, Mr. Bishop has no idea what he's looking at. To some degree, that's fine because parents should love their children with a kind of paradise in their eyes, but it also "reveals" how Mr. Bishop doesn't know who Suzy really is. Where is Moonrise Kingdom? America. A moon only rises at night and, like Mr. Bishop going through the dark night of the soul, Moonrise Kingdom seems to suggest that we as a country are entering into the dark night of our soul when we will be a kingdom with only the light of the moon and we must use all the wisdom we have from the sources we have in order to survive "the big storm" that's coming. 

Eat Your Art Out,

The Fine Art Diner

P.S.--If you are a Bill Murray fan, here's a funny little intro he gives to the film and the stage.

Decay Rate Algorithms & Cross Species Genetics: The Amazing Spider Man

There is a post-credits scene, be sure to catch it!

The first images of a film are usually the most important: in director Marc Webb's (no pun intended) The Amazing Spider Man, the first images are of a child playing hide and go seek; why? That's the viewer. In a film which does two things particularly well--citing other films and exhibiting self-awareness--it's appropriate the film makers should let us know who we the viewers are in the scenario it weaves (okay, that pun was intended). Just as the child plays hide-and-go-seek, so we should too, looking here and there; for what? A break-in.

Even though we don't find out exactly what happened to Peter Parker's parents in this episode--clearly laying the path for sequels that I personally would welcome--we do know that Peter's parents are symbolic of the "founding fathers" and the "motherland," America, itself. Why? Well, that's what it usually means, and granted, there are other interpretations possible, but given what other films being released are talking about, for example, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, the very reason of why this country was founded, and who founded it, is suddenly in vogue, and Peter Parker's search for his parents is also the search for himself and the film doesn't let you ignore his identity crisis of superhero proportions. As the socialist Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter claims that the sixteenth president was a socialist (which he wasn't), The Amazing Spider Man confidently questions who we are and who are parents were so it can arrive at the traditional, all-American story that has guided this country. But an important event takes place on a bridge, again, in both Spider Man and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter:  a collapsing bridge. In Spider Man, the Lizard first "breaks out" on a bridge and Spider Man has to hold up a burning, exploding car that has a small child in it and Spider Man even takes off his mask to help the child; why? Because this scene shouldn't be "masked" for us, we should clearly see that Spider Man holding up that burning car is the auto industry which the Obama administration bailed out with public funds and the child symbolizes the future. The child, by putting on Spider Man's mask, "gains strength" to climb out of the burning car, and that is clearly us, our future, trying to "put on" the virtues and lessons The Amazing Spider Man wants to teach us so we, too, can climb out of the burning disaster we are in. In Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, one of the rich vampires (symbolic of a socialist who has a lot of money, like the makers of the film) are good vampires who will sacrifice themselves to "bridge" the transition from a capitalist to socialist economy and hence, should be allowed to keep their wealth even though they are going to strip everyone else of theirs.  

So what is it we are supposed to be seeking for that’s hiding within the film?  Two important film references nail it for us: Midnight Cowboy and Godzilla. When Peter Parker as Spider Man goes swinging through his urban jungle like Tarzan, he says, “Hey, I’m swinging here, I’m swinging here!” parodying the famous line from Ratso (Dustin Hoffman) in Midnight Cowboy with John Voight who plays a male prostitute; just a fun reference for those of us nerds who have seen the film?  No, rather, it’s a condemnation of Peter’s “spiritual state” that Peter is prostituting his skills and talents.

Captain Stacey says that the NYPD wanted the car thief on the street because he was going to lead them to the larger ring that was organizing the stealing… this is probably a reference to the auto bail outs when billions of dollars were “stolen” from the American people to bail out companies who should have filed for bankruptcy (the way it has always been handled in the past) and handled the problems privately instead of with public money. This is an important point to make because this car thief is also who Peter thinks killed Uncle Ben (i.e., the middle class). Earlier, Peter thought a guy beating up a woman was the killer of Uncle Ben (the ones waging “war on women” killed the middle class) but just as Peter doesn’t find the killer, so we don’t find it either, in this version. Please note that Peter swings on chains in this scene (before he learns how to use spider threads to create "swings" for him) and as usual, the chains symbolize slavery and what we are chained/enslaved to; what about Peter? Well, he's a young kid, so it's his first love (Gwen) and what has hurt him most in life, his parents not being there with him while he was growing up. These are things which will "chain" Peter and the chains he will have to break in order to free himself so he can do the job he must.

Just before he says this, Peter caught a car thief he thought might have been the man who killed Uncle Ben (more on this later) and when the NYPD arrives, they want to take Spider Man in and aren’t interested in the car thief, to which Spider Man responds, “I just did 80% of your job and this is how you repay me?” and it’s the cop who is right in this case because Peter wants everyone to believe that he’s doing “good” but he’s really on a personal vendetta. A prostitute has sexual relations with someone they don’t love and get paid for it, and Peter Parker catching a thief and wanting to be “repaid” for the capture is Peter pimping himself like a midnight cowboy.

Peter (Andrew Garfield) first exhibiting new strength from the spider bite on a bus. Why does he go upside-down? Well, like Carolyn Stoddard turning into a werewolf and being upside-down in Dark Shadows, it means that something is perverse with the character (perverse literally means upside-down). Peter being upside-down is probably the position many Americans are in because we're not used to having to think about our government "leaders" as much as we have been, and that's an upside-down situation for us, but it also resembles the upside-down state of the economy (how much we are borrowing to how much we are spending) as well as the percentage of Americans who are working and supporting the rest of Americans who aren't or receiving government assistance. Realizing the grave state of affairs (how upside down the country really is right now) gives a graphic depiction to Americans of how we are just now realizing the power which we have to change the country and the responsibility we have to make sure we do what we can.

“If you can do good things for others you have to. It’s not a choice but a responsibility,” Uncle Ben relates to Peter about his father's philosophy of life just before Uncle Ben ends up dying. Peter gets upset with Uncle Ben and wants to know why his father isn’t there to tell him that; because the “father,” as usual, is the “founding fathers" of this country, and that golden nugget of wisdom is what they knew that we have forgotten: namely, all of our futures are tied together in this country, and doing bad to someone is going to come back, in other words, the writings of capitalist Adam Smith in his work The Theory Of Moral Sentiments.  Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter cites Adam Smith's capitalist textbook The Wealth Of Nations; the problem is, as Americans, we have failed to remember Smith's other, important work which posits that we must be interested in the welfare and happiness of others in order to assure our own happiness and well-being. Why is this important? Does the name Bernie Madoff or Lehman Brothers mean anything to you? If ALL CAPITALISTS (regardless of wealth but also those whose wealth has the potential to do the most good/destruction) look after each other as they look after themselves, maybe the 2008 global financial crisis wouldn't have happened or at least been as bad as what it has proven to be. The philosophy of Peter Parker's father is the mirror of Adam Smith's thesis in The Theory Of Moral Sentiments.

Because of his constant experimentation, Peter is a good capitalist. While he starts out making lots of mistakes, when it's easiest for him to turn away and let someone else handle the problems, he has the strength to take responsibility for what he unwittingly has done. Peter steps up and says that he created this mess (with Lizard Man by giving Connors the formula) and he's got to stop it and Peter doesn't shrink away from the job. Wall Street and other greedy investors who triggered the financial crisis should do as much instead of protecting only themselves, and in this way, Spider Man certainly puts those "weavers of webs" to shame.

One of the scientific phrases constantly in use is "decay rate algorithm" which is meant to be applied to living beings having foreign DNA introduced into their system so they can regenerate or heal. Why is this phrase important? It also accurately describes capitalism and what has happened to the Obama economic recovery $5 trillion dollars later. Dr. Connors symbolizes bad capitalists and that's why he can't get his equations to work but Peter and his father ("the founding fathers") understood that there is a decay rate algorithm to capitalism and that capitalism goes through natural cycles just like the seasons of the year. Just as Peter's father isn't there to tell him his life's philosophy and lesson, the "founding fathers" aren't here because this is our time, this is our future, and we have the right to fight for it just as they did. Connors, not understanding the equation of patterns and decay, isn’t able to keep himself going and this is a well-crafted difference between Spider Man and Lizard…Man.

Fabulous metaphor for resilient capitalism and ignorant capitalism: Peter's body. Whereas Lizard Man immediately regrows a limb or skin any time he's injured, Peter has to take his hits and scrapes and pains but he's learning more from getting hurt than Connors is from not suffering consequences of getting hurt. Let's translate this into economic terms: let's say there is a baseball team that is really poor and they need to find a way to win games. Every time they lose a game (the way Peter gets hurt) they learn something and adapt their strategy so they don't lose the next time; okay, maybe they do lose the next time, they make more adaptations until they start winning more games than losing... hey, wait a minute... that was Moneyball! Well, great films gather around the same thesis and problems, but utilize different languages to express the same concepts, that's why seeing lots of films and keeping up on them aides us in tracking cultural issues (if we see it in one film, we'll see it in another; for more on Moneyball, please see Moneyball & the Great American Economy).

Peter takes a lot of beatings in the film, but he learns from each of those beatings so he’s stronger the next time, he’s becoming wiser. Connors as the lizard, on the other hand, rejuvenates (re-grows) any limb that gets lost or any wound inflicted upon him is healed almost immediately, so he doesn’t learn from his wounds and that’s why he’s so reckless, he doesn’t have to learn how to be careful and that’s why he’s a good representative of bad capitalism because a lot of us don’t feel that bail outs were “the American Way” because what was learned from the failed experiments and what was learned from the bail outs? Nothing except the government will come bail you out (remember the burning vehicle Spider Man saves the little boy from? Spider Man lets it fall it explode and fall into the water... and we should, too).

The "missing forearm" of Dr. Curtis Connors as it regrows from the injection of cross-genetic material which then mutates. This is a clear and apparent example of Obama's economic strategy to "inject" funds for growth into the economy. That practice is just as foreign to capitalism as the lizard genes are to Dr. Connors' system, and the resulting mutation of the lizard which destroys New York (and the "evacuation scene" is just like 9/11, intentionally invoking the most devastating event in recent American history) which is the financial capital of the world is like socialism destroying America (and being compared to the 9/11 bombings).

What about the reference to Godzilla?

When Peter realizes Dr. Connors (who has a good heart but is easily turned to greed and aggression) has mutated himself into a giant lizard, Captain Stacey (Dennis Leary) asks Peter if he “looks like the mayor of Tokyo?” because Godzilla was a giant lizard which terrorized Japan as the lizard (Connors) now terrorizes America (when we see Connors climbing a towering building, however, we are also reminded of King Kong). The reference to Godzilla is a reference to World War II: Godzilla was the embodiment of what the United States had done to Japan in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (for more, please see Jaws & the Cleansing Of America) just as Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was the embodiment for the US for what Japan did to us in Pearl Harbor and War in the Pacific in World War II. So what is Godzilla (that ultimate destructive force of cities) for us today?

Bad capitalism.

Lizard Man. Where have we seen the black lines going over a character's face? The Bourne Legacy starring Jeremy Renner; why? We're not seeing everything, something is being "blacked out" and "cut up." It's a simple yet effective tool for invoking what is "missing" from a character and why. After the "lizard" effect wears off from Dr. Connors, he retains a bit of the lizard skin going up the side of his neck; why? To specifically demonstrate to audiences what he's "yoked to." The neck in art permits us to know what guides a character (the way an ox is yoked to pull a plough, or a dog is hooked on a leash, what is the "leash" of the character that guides them and holds them back?) and Cr. Connors is more yoked to his lizard identity than his human one. Dr. Connors spouting off  "Everyone is equal, a world without weakness," sadly demonstrates for Americans how practicing bad capitalism has now effortlessly set us up for socialism where everyone is equal and there is no weakness (remember the Hitler Youth and the Nazi SS Party?). What's most important about what Lizard Man/Dr. Connors does involves the Ganelli Machine, a machine which will allow Connors to spread the lizard serum over all New York in a cloud and turn everyone into a lizard with "no chance to opt out," and that, without a doubt, references the Obamacare umbrella of health insurance "covering everyone" with no chance of opting out (unless you are Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius or Harry Reid, they don't have to go through the program).

Dr. Connors regularly spews “Darwinistic” language throughout the film about no more weakness and striving for perfection which (regrettably) is usually associated with social Darwinism/capitalism and the popular culture theory of the survival of the fittest. Connors’ research is being funded by an an effort to cure Norman Osborn, the head of Oscorp, and Osborn hopes Connors can find a cure for him via cross-species genetics; when Connors has difficulty delivering results, funding is withdrawn from Connors and he’s fired; in a desperate attempt to keep his job, Connors tries the formula on himself and mutates into the lizard. Why, symbolically, is the serum going to be tried out on patients at the Veterans' Hospital? Because turning them into lizards is like undoing everything they did in winning World War II and the wars against socialism/communism the US engaged in during the Cold War and the "cold blooded" Lizard Man Dr. Connors turns into is a cold-blooded man who doesn't remember what the Cold War was all about. This is the tie-in with Godzilla and how World War II was won and why.

There is something really important we see in Peter's room, on several occasions; a poster for Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. Why? Of ALL the films which could have been chosen to be in Peter's most intimate bedroom space, why was it that one? We haven't done any of Hitchcock's films (I have seen all 50+ films by the master director and would like to do them in order, every single one of them, so that's why I have "avoided" doing Hitchcock so far thus) but what's apparent about Rear Window is that Jimmy Stewart's character (Jeff) sees himself and sees Grace Kelly's (Lisa) character in the tenants across the way from his apartment. For example, the murder Jeff witnesses is really symbolic of how Jeff's character has killed Lisa's character and "packed her away" because he doesn't want to marry her. We'll go into the amazing details at a later date, but for Peter, he, too is seeing and finding himself in the events unfolding. In the scene pictured just above, Peter has found his father's old briefcase, left when his father and mother had to go away. How did Peter find it? The basement flooded. This is the second "flood" we have seen (Moonrise Kingdom also deals with "flooding" and Darren Aronosfky is making a Noah film about a flood and, granted, it's only water on the basement floor, but Uncle Ben calls it a "flood") but important documents are discovered like a "secret history" as in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (it comes out more in the book than in the film).  These documents are the only real link Peter has with his father anymore just as documents are the only real link which Americans today still have with the founding fathers, the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution. Just as the makers of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter are claiming that Lincoln's socialism is the "untold story" about the president, so The Amazing Spider Man is saying that the "untold story" is just beginning; but for Spider Man, it's the story we all ready know, but have to be told again because we forget whereas for Abraham Lincoln as a socialist who hated the upper-classes, that story never existed.

Why does Dr. Connors have a missing arm? The right arm is the symbol of strength, so for Connors to be missing his right arm, means that he doesn’t have strength (that's the primary reason, artistically, that Peter is enhanced by the spider bite, whereas Connors degenerates because of the lizard genetics: the foreign material has to interact with what is all ready there, and while young and foolish, Peter has a good heart so the spider "powers" can be built up from that; Connors, older and petty--remember what he says about ignoring Peter's family?--doesn't have goodness within so there's nothing positive for the DNA to grow with). Dr. Connors, like Dallas and Adam from Magic Mike, and Adam from Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter symbolizes bad capitalism in the missing right arm (the economic global crisis of 2008 which made capitalism look so unappealing). On the other hand, the "arms of the cranes" lined up along the streets of New York help Spider Man to "do his job" because the crane operators are doing theirs and they know that their fate is tied to Spider Man's.

Flash is the school bully and Peter's rival. After being shown up by Peter, Flash becomes a better person and, in this scene, came to Peter to express his condolences after the death of Uncle Ben; feeling guilty, however, because of his role in Uncle Ben's death, Peter lashes out against Flash. The point is, however, that Flash is becoming a better person, and sees that his welfare is ultimately tied up in the welfare of others (not bullying Peter Parker anymore will prevent Flash from being bullied by him).

Like Madagascar 3 and an unwitting reference to Adam Smith’s Moral Sentiment from Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, The Amazing Spider Man is calling us to be better capitalists, that our job, just like Peter Parker’s is to stop the bad capitalists, not to prostitute ourselves to false programs and vendettas, but to ban together in the true spirit of America, help each other and even when we want/need and feel we deserve that government hand-out to help us get what we want (the two cents from the penny tray) we have to resist because of the thieves that will come along and pretend to give us what we want. 

Peter with his camera, adding another "thread" linking him to Jeff Jeffries of Rear Window, both are photographers. Why is this significant? Perhaps the most important "photographer" film (besides Rear Window) is Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow Up about a photographer who may have photographed a murder. The film set the pace for the inner-conflict of photography which started from the first of the documentary aspect and the artistic. This kind of conflict infiltrates Peter as well, for example, the picture of the Debate Team with Gwen in it; while it was taken for the school, he has a copy of it on his computer screen.  Another example is Flash wanting Peter to take a picture of Flash forcing a kid to eat something and Peter refuses. The blurry lines magnifies the inner-conflict of Peter's later struggle with finding Uncle Ben's killer, helping the police and stopping the Lizard (Dr. Connors), demonstrating the sophisticated inner-structure the film wants mirrored throughout itself.   

Perhaps the two most important characters in the film are the two least glamorous: Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Fields). Why would they be important? In The Amazing Spider Man, Ben and May are middle-class compared to the upper-middle class of the Staceys (Emma Stone as Gwen and Dennis Leary as Captain Stacey) and Dr. Curtis Connors. Uncle Ben's death isn't the only crime in the film; there is also the break in at the very beginning. When little Peter is playing hide-and-go-seek, and he walks into his father's study and sees the rain outside, the glass door pane busted and the door swinging open, with papers scattered everywhere, what are we supposed to be "seeking" in this game of "hiding?" Well, who has "broken into" America? Obama.

The panes on the door, being made of glass, symbolize "reflection"; the storm outside (there have been a lot of storms creeping into films lately; the storm in Moonrise Kingdom, the hurricane in Magic Mike and the "upcoming storm" Cat Woman warns Bruce Wayne about in The Dark Knight Rises) was the political upheaval of 2008 and how that caused Americans to "reflect" on the status and situation of the country which allowed the "break in" of someone who has made a "mess of things" (all the papers over the floor). What's important is the sought after document with the algorithm was locked away in a secret compartment and that document holds the key: American history. As stated earlier, when Peter finds those documents years later, the decay rate algorithm is a reflection of the natural corrective cycles of capitalism which have been apparent all through out history. The socialists failure to get the documents reflects their failure to get capitalism and what it's all about.

Women in a laboratory; where else will we see this? The Bourne Legacy, Rachel Weisz's character is a women "giving artificial  birth" to something in science but she hasn't given birth naturally. We also saw an "artificial mother" in Underworld: Awakening (the hybrid child of Selene and Michael had a "foster mother" who took care of her). It's too early for me to make an assessment, but this is one of those things to keep track of!

What The Amazing Spider Man, like so many other films, does so well is link the bad capitalist practices to the socialism of the current administration. In the beginning of the film shows us little Peter pulling back a curtain to reveal a broom with a hat and shoes: is that Obama? I won't answer that one, only suggest the "emptiness" discovered when little Peter sees that he has been trapped by someone appearing to be real who isn't really there at all might refer to the President (like Norman Osborne who is sick and "needs results" now in order to save him).

This is a great place to talk about the two cents and the milk Peter tries to buy. Peter gets angry with Uncle Ben and goes out to buy some milk; he's two cents short and the cashier in the store won't let Peter use the "penny dish" to make up for his lack of two cents so he can get the milk although Peter, according to store policy, can put in two cents, again, he can't take two cents out, meaning he can't get the milk. Just behind Peter is a man robbing the store and the man tosses the unpurchased milk to Peter before running out, then killing Uncle Ben who tries to stop the thief that Peter refused to help capture. What does all this mean? The penny dish, in its little way, symbolizes taxes that everyone pays into but it's the store's policy (read: the American government's policy) to not let you take it. Someone has robbed the till (read Obama) and is going to give everyone what they want regardless of whether they have paid for it or not; THIS IS WHAT KILLS UNCLE BEN (read: the middle class) because of their willingness to work for everything all their lives, they will literally "bleed to death" from not being able to support themselves any longer.

There's one additional facet of the Godzilla reference I would like to explore. Like Steve in Captain America, Peter Parker’s weak and fragile condition reminds us how America was before World War II (the Great Depression) but the “build up” of arms lead to the “building up of the country” physically demonstrated in the musculature of Captain America and Spider Man. It's not just the building up of the two super heroes, but of all Americans which happened as a result (we became, in other words, a super power) and The Amazing Spider Man wants to remind Americans of The Amazing America post World War II (for more on the symbols of Captain America, please see Captain America: A Movie Of Movies).

Does the death of Captain Stacey mean that the "law of the fathers (the founding fathers, capitalism) is dead?" No, it means the choice of what we fight for has been passed onto the next generation. As Gwen says when she sees Peter's chest all torn up, "I know what that is, it's a badge," just like the one her father wears, and that badge is the promise to help others, in America and the world, as America has always done; but it's time that the next generation (Peter and Gwen) take up the fight for themselves just as we saw in Brave.

In conclusion, the "search for Peter's parents" is the ongoing cinematic battle about the search for America's parents: was the "founding fathers" socialists or capitalists and what was their vision for America? Was the motherland originally intended to be socialist by settlers or did they always have the capitalist spirit? The Amazing Spider Man is not only a great counter-point to the socialist issues of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, but a foreshadowing of the topics we shall see in The Bourne Legacy due out in one month (specifically the manipulation of DNA). Eat Your Art Out,

The Fine Art Diner

Trailers: Rise Of the Guardians #2, ParaNorman, Silver Linings Playbook, Epic,

IMAX midnight showing poster for The Dark Knight Rises featuring Bane (Tom Hardy). This was just released and wanted to post it for your viewing enjoyment!

Um, there are so many reader comments I can't get to them all! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave your very kind words, observations and criticisms, I am trying to get to them all as well as get Moonrise Kingdom and The Amazing Spider Man posted but those two films were so good that I just can't get the posts finished, sorry! Here are the latest batch of trailers: Rise Of the Guardians is being released on Thanksgiving:

Just what happened Easter, 1968? The Easter Bunny mentions to Jack Frost something about that being "between them" so Easter Sunday was April 14 that year, and while I can't find an exact "blizzard" which happened anywhere, just a few days earlier on April 4, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated causing riots throughout American cities and there was a shoot-out between the Black Panthers and Oakland Police; then, on April 11, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (the Fair Housing Act). In election year 2012 with a black president seeking re-election, it makes sense that Martin Luther King Jr. would be cited as a kind of political prophet foreshadowing what the Democrats hope Americans will see in Obama this election year; we will have to see how Rise Of the Guardians handles the issue, especially since the introduction we get to Jack Frost makes him sound a lot like independent voters who will be courted by both political parties in a matter of weeks for votes.

I'm guessing this will probably be a liberal film supporting Obama because two of the figures who have religious origins--Santa and the Easter bunny--seem totally secularized (reflecting more the Democrats' social values more so than Republicans') and the others are wholly cultural icons/fairy tales. The "Nightmare King," which threatens the children, probably symbolizes the "youth" of Obama's administration and the "nightmares" and fear the Republicans are spreading about the disasters his policies are causing and bringing to the country and the world. As always, I could be wrong and I certainly hope that I am (I was really looking forward to this) but that's how it looks to me so far thus...  Due out in October, from the "radical socialist" Tim Burton is his newest monster creation Frankenweenie. Given Burton's last two films, Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (producer) have been so far left leaning (as in, socialist) I don't think we can expect anything else from this:

Originally, I thought this might be a Republican film about the Democrats trying to "resurrect" Obama (rather like The Vow) and the warnings of destruction that a second Obama term could bring; having seen what Burton has done, however, I have significantly re-assessed what I was thinking. As usual, we can never be sure about a film just from the trailer; while I am confident it will be socialist, I will probably have to adjust more or less the symbols I am predicting, but I would like to suggest that Victor (named of course after Victor Frankenstein who stitched together a monster and raised him from the dead to his deep regret) are voters trying to bring back the Republican party and capitalism to life (please note how the Sparky's tail falls off, which is probably a reference to the Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro film of 1997 Wag the Dog). From this angle, the film would warn of the destruction the Republicans would bring back to life (for example, un-environmental friendly electricity used to "generate" life in the economy as opposed to the failed eco-energy companies Obama supports).

PERHAPS, Epic, due out in 2013, reflects the other end of the political spectrum, that is, the Republican; how can I say that? Two reasons. First, I believe the music in this is the same as for the film Act Of Valor, a decidedly Republican film (so Epic wants to link itself up with that). Secondly, the synopsis, like other conservative films being released, presents to us "the end of the world" scenario that films undermining the current political administration see as being the case of reality: "A teenager finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group characters in order to save their world -- and ours."

 Now, I am probably going to be wrong about this one, however, it's fun to think that the "Class President" is Obama, and the "monsters" are the Democrats and the "party" is what they have been doing this last 4 years of their terms... oh, what a coincidence, a term of college is 4 years, too, isn't it?

Due out August 13, Paranorman is probably going to be an anti-Catholic film. Why? Watch the trailer, then stop the film at 1:11 and read what is written on the tombstone:

Who is the witch? Who are the seven victims of the witch? To discern that, we need to know what was going on in 1712 which was predominantly revolts and rebellions against the Catholic Church, otherwise known as the Reformation (add in that the number "7" refers to the Sacraments of the Church). IF this angle is correct, that makes us Catholics the zombies that the kids (the future) has to rid the world of because the Catholic Church is a curse to society and advancement... well, now we understand why it's so important to keep track on what films are saying! Due out in November is Silver Linings Playbook with Bradley Cooper, Julia Stiles, Robert DeNiro and Jennifer Lawrence:

AND, because of her huge break out role in The Hunger Games, this is a good spot to mention that Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman has signed to join the sequel as Plutarch Heavensbee, the games master of the 75th Hunter Games. AND Darren Aronsfsky (Pi, Requiem For A Dream) has signed veteran actor Sir Anthony Hopkins to his Noah epic, due out in 2014, also starring Russell Crowe, Emma Watson and Jennifer Connolly. 

The Dark Knight Rises: Elementary Battle Between Good & Evil

I can't believe Christopher Nolan consented to this!
Nearly 14 minutes of footage and interviews about The Dark Knight Rises, being released  July 20! Enjoy! (I am nearly done with the post for Moonrise Kingdom, a few more things I wanted to "milk" from the Spider Man film before posting on it).

We will surely be going through this and more before the epic is released, after all, Nolan who just got his feet and hands done at the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, is probably the most important director in Hollywood now and regardless of whether The Dark Knight Rises is liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, left or right, it will be incredibly well done and it will ripple throughout the film making world!