Bernardo Villela is like a mallrat except at the movies. He is a writer, director, editor and film enthusiast who seeks to continue to explore and learn about cinema, chronicle the journey and share his findings.
And it’s a great thing whether you consider yourself a Swiftie or not. An that’s because it’s both a telling and extraordinarily refreshing thing that the #1 movie at the domestic box office last weekend has a “-” in its distributor column. It’s an appropriate slap in the face to the studios in the AMPTP that Taylor Swift put her concert movie out there without even dealing with them for two reasons: first, because the AMPTP just walked away from the bargaining table with SAG-AFTRA, and were later called out by the entertainment unions as a whole for not negotiating in good faith. Second, because as many major releases have shifted on the calendar movie theaters need the boost of revenue that comes from any project–especially one without a distributor–with over $125M in presales. This means additional incremental revenue in fees for movie ticket apps like AMC Stubs, Regal or Fandango. After Barbenheimer was perhaps even more crucial to the box office than Top Gun was post-COVID because many movies this summer either bombed or underperformed. Following a summer where studios and many theaters were buoyed essentially by two films having two dueling strikes severely hurt the Fall and Holiday seasons would be two steps back, so something like this concert film that came seemingly out of blue is a great thing.
Thankfully I went to see this wondrous relic of the ’80s before the attraction disappeared from the Walt Disney World landscape for all of eternity. In my opinion, it’s Michael Jackson’s best and most cinematic video/short film. Aside from being highly ‘80s and a rare treat to see it was also a rare collaboration between Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
That issue aside, I wonder if Coppola and Lucas would have any involvement in fleshing it out. Whether they do or don’t, how do tie-in an attraction that no longer exists (having closed for the final time in 2015) to a film? Moreover, how do you replace Michael Jackson’s singular talents?
Categorizing this post as a Film Thought means I’ll be examining Close in some detail. There will be spoilers within. As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I am gay. In this piece I will discuss what I feel is the universality of this film, that is not to detract from the significance a film like this can have on the community but it is intended to talk up the broad impact it can have if people are willing to watch it withou pigeonholing it.
Labels
To discuss Close is to have to discuss how to label it. Labeling films invariably causes issues. In an ideal world it shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s human nature to do so. This film itself deals with the issues of labeling and definitions on a subtextual level. The innate human need to define things that don’t conform is the inflection point of the story.
Another way Close might be labeled is as a coming-of-age film. Coming of age films— particularly dramas, perhaps more than any other subgenre of film—are easy prey for the proclivities of a given viewer. To put it more simply, because it’s about a coming-of-age and every person has had a unique experience with life’s rites of passage, there exist biases in each viewer about what kind of film it should or should not be. These biases could be implicit or explicit but they exist; and their presence affect the individual’s perception of a film.
The more I think about labels one might apply to this film the more problematic it becomes. Because all labels will serve to do is limit the opinion —or potential opinion—people have of this film because while all labels define, many are also limiting.
To tag this film with an “LGBT interest” label (or something similar) comes close to belittling it because that’s an identifier, which more often than not that limits the audience it denotes to many “this film might be excellent but it’s for you, not for all.” The LGBT tag is limiting because Close addresses themes within aren’t only about sexuality; they’re broader and more fundamental than that. Any and all labels are limiting to this film and all should see it.
The Narrative
As the title implies, Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) are close. When this closeness is on display around their classmates it gets them talking, making jokes, and asking bluntly if they’re together. Everyone labels Léo and Rémi. Léo’s response to direct examination about the nature of their friendship underscores the double-standard that exists regarding how boys can and should relate each other and how girls can and should relate to each other.
These are the assumed gender roles that pervade society incite the questions come from a classmate who doesn’t ask these things to be cruel, but Léo pushing back on these questions, against these labels doesn’t force any of their peers to reconsider what they say, or change how they act around Léo and Rémi, if anything it reinforces it and forces both Léo and Rémi to re-examine their relationship instead. It puts their new reality in sharp focus. As opposed to their unobserved summertime idyll, they are now under the harsh spotlight of their peers. They can either cling more tightly to one another, damn the consequences, or adapt and hope to survive. Miscommunication, distancing, deceit, and self-doubt that all play into the eventual ends the characters meet are a direct result of the fact that they feel they have to cope with these confusing emotions alone and can’t find someone to talk to about it.
We learn in retrospect that Rémi didn’t give his mother (Émile Duquenne) any indication he was having troubles. We are witness to Léo’s struggle with how to deal with this new reality. On a few occasions, when Léo does seek a word of advice he asks his brother but he gets responses that encourage him to not think about the problem at hand. His reaching out to male role models inidcates his need, the need many male characters in this story have to talk to each other about certain things, but they find they’re unwilling or unable to do so. Eventually, Léo does reach out to women in his life, his mother and Rémi’s mother, but that’s only with great difficulty and added complications. The women in his life might be more receptive to listen or engage, especially those at school, but he doesn’t want to answer when prompted because many times confession or sharing confidence isn’t just about the act of sharing but whom the information is being shared with.
If you watch the trailer of Close there’s a lot of imagery of the idyll and pull-quotes and not as much of the struggle. However, you know a portrait of beautiful and close-knit friendship without conflict isn’t a movie. The conflict occurs for the most part beneath the surface and manifests itself in two physical confrontations: one that starts as roughhousing and escalates between the two boys (and is expertly staged and breaks apart almost like a dance but it’s very naturalistic), the second is more fraught and occurs at school.
And after this is where some people lose the film and don’t realize that nothing about the story fundamentally changes. There is a school field trip. Although, Léo and Rémi aren’t on speaking terms after the fight, Léo is surprised that Rémi doesn’t respond when his name is called on the roll. Léo looks around for him. When the trip is over and the bus is pulling into school again the children are told their parents are at the school and will meet with them. As soon as I heard this first bit of information my first thought was “Rémi’s dead.” While I wasn’t wrong, the revelation is still exceedingly powerful and doesn’t detract from the overall effect of the film. In fact, it might only redouble it. For even in those beautiful pure early moments, I wondered if Lukas Dhont was making a visual allusion to Bergman’s hauntingly evocative red walls in Cries and Whispers (pictured below) but picking up on a potential allusion is not needed to anticipate this turn in the story. Anticipation of that plot-point is not a detriment because the fact that the death occurs is not the point of the film, rather what occurs afterwards is.
It can be easy to view any off-screen suicide or not as a twist, or as manipulative, however that opinion to me is one more commonly shared by someone who’s life hasn’t been shaped or affected in any way by suicides or the threat of them. Unfortunately, this is a very real threat that rears its head far too often. (Pre)teen suicide is not the narrative crutch 9/11 can be, nor is it something almost without impact due to overexposure on the news like school shootings seem to be. These tragedies aren’t nameless or faceless. Aside from that this film is not about vilification, shock value or introspection. It’s a tale of imperfect self-discovery that has as its midpoint and all-too-common occurrence. By looking that harsh reality in the face, this film becomes something more than a lyrical narrative with hypnotic visuals and instead becomes a tour-de-force by visually examining everything that’s hard for these boys to say to each other and to the families and what the consequences of those silences are. Specifically, speaking about the pressures and issues at school, not that they need to be “picking labels” or understanding what their truth is yet. In point of fact, the “certainty” Rémi and Léo’s classmates—who don’t think their thoughts and don’t inhabit their bodies—seem to have about confused kids are undoubtedly stressors.
Léo’s struggles before and after Remi’s death make this a film as much about toxic masculinity as sexuality. Léo takes up hockey during the film not only as a hobby, but to have something to do separate from Rémi, to have a something to do with the guys, a “typically” masculine activity. After he’s tried an failed to express his guilt, or any of his emotions—to his brother, to his mother, to Rémi’s mother—he tries to injure himself during a drill. Later on, when he’s trying to partake in another drill but his emotions get the better of him and he can’t do the drill physically he ends up hurting himself. With that escape gone, he’s left with nought but his thoughts and emotions he cannot go on without sharing them eventuall, but it’s not done easily.
While many will have spent much of the second half of the film crying, the restraint of the narrative remains, though it might not feel that way because the audience’s emotional tenor for us has been ratcheted up, as we can sense what Léo needs to get off his chest but can’t say. In lieu of his speaking his truth we watch him twist in the wind. The emotional volatility Léo carries within can be summed up in one sentence. When he does confess it doesn’t come forth in bombast when confessed. Maybe if Léo felt he could behave otherwise it would’ve been full-throated. Maybe if he didn’t have to sit through group counseling sessions at school where he repeatedly heard the wistful confessionals of classmates who didn’t know Rémi, speaking of his passing as if it was nothing that could’ve predicted, then when he finally spoke it wouldn’t have been in anger before he stormed out but instead have been able to express his true feelings as he would’ve liked. However, therein lies the rub: When Léo and Rémi behaved naturally around each other that led to too much gossip.
Conclusion
To put a capstone on the topic of labels: they’re tricky because some labels carry connotations that aren’t universal. Those who refer to this as a “buddy movie” up to a point at least acknowledge how the boys classified their relationship. However, the conversation the girls have with Léo underscores the converse problem to intolerance; which is a sort of performative acceptance which first insists on the other party labeling themselves and then the mainstream force makes a show of “accepting” them.
Many reactions to Close from viewers seem to state things like “it’s so close to being perfect.” However, that goes back to personal biases. It’s more apropos to say that many viewers are so close to truly getting it. This film is not a fairytale. The beginning of the film is close, but what it really is is just the end of their childhood where they could behave as they pleased, no one cared, and they didn’t have to justify why they were so close.
Close is the best way to label Léo and Rémi’s relationship. However, even that is seen as an abnormality in a world where there exceeding examples to be found on social media of normal human behavior some boys and men think of as gay, examples that are superficially funny until you examine the real insecurities and concerns that lead to such statements. What’s most important to note in a work like this is that whether Léo and Rémi shared something beyond a deep fraternity is not something they were allowed to discover on their own. They were asked questions, those who posed questions demanded answers, the answers were deemed insufficient, and their subsequent behavior was more scrutinized than the behavior that led to those questions. Léo and Rémi losing the natural state of their relationships is a sin and it’s one that repeats itself in varying degrees daily the world over. Being a boy (or labeled as one) means certain modes of comportment are expected unless you want to be labeled gay. Working to avoid labels robs us all of so many fundamental, universal aspects of our humanity. It is this exploration that makes Close such a vital and important work of cinema.
Close is available to purchase on digital now and will be available to rent 3/28/23.
A while back I wrote I wanted to post more Film Thought pieces and things like digging into ideas rather than outright reviews, writings focused on aspects of films, nuances of narrative, or overviews of the industry. Of yet that’s not happened, but something struck me today as I thought of the mindnumbing outrageaholics review-bombingLightyear simply for featuring a same-sex couple kissing. What struck me was a brief poem, as only so much needs to be said about people who can’t deal with the cinematic mirror reflecting all of life. Without further preamble, my poem “Immersion Therapy for Homophobes.”
Immersion Therapy for Homophobes
by Bernardo Villela
Pry open each eyelid
as A Clockwork Orange instructed.
Turn out the lights,
project the sights,
of kisses censored from their lives,
like in Cinema Paradiso, proving love thrives.
Rather than taking up room in a post I decided to write about this matter here.
Whenever I sit down and dissect a film down to all its component parts and how well I feel each facet affected the whole, of course, I can give it a score from one to 10. When I figured out how to write my rating scale, I worded it such that there can be varying degrees of film within each ordinal number but a definite stratification from one number to the next.
However, the nature of the internet is such that sometimes you will just want to scroll an article, or stop reading it after a certain point. That is fine. That is certainly the reader’s prerogative.
However, I saw a comment on Twitter that crystallized what I didn’t realize consciously:
If you’re not being forced to assign that grade, why do it? Why incentivize someone to skip your explanation? Why force a reader to fight against human nature to skip to the grade.
Most of the reviews I read that affect my viewing options do not have a number or stars but they stick in my mind based on how the reviewer discussed it.
Memorably unfavorable reviews have made it clear to my mind why I would like something. I’d rather be intrigued by what is said about the film rather than a fairly arbitrary number that means different things to different people.
For example, many people would classify a film rated 5/10 as a middle of the road, mediocre film. However, when I rate something as a five I could tend to be quite angry at it because it’s usually a minor slip up that cost it being what I consider to be a good film (6-10).
Furthermore, there are many examples of times wherein I’ve dedicated many words or whole paragraphs of a review to explain “This movie does not work for me because but here are some reasons why you may enjoy it…”
This is the only image I could think of that matched the keyword “Enjoy.”
Having a hyperlinked number down there tempting eyes to skip explanations that may underscore why they’ll like or dislike a film.
So if I feel a film should have that number at the bottom of the review, I’ll surely add it. However, sometimes it’s caused significant consternation on my part and delayed getting reviews up. No more.
A while back I had an enlightening Twitter conversation wherein I realized that filmic terminology typically conflates the word classic with classical.
The first definition of classic as an adjective is what many of us think when we hear the term with regard to film:
of the first or highest quality, class, or rank:
When trying to classify something as a classic, inasmuch as it attains that highest I tend to want to give it some time. I use the automobile aficionado’s rule of thumb wherein a film needs to be 25 years old to be considered a classic in that regard.
By the 25-year standard The Silence of the Lambs can now be considered a classic.
Thus it also adheres to definition seven of classic as an adjective:
of enduring interest, quality, or style:
Whereas classical film can and should—as opposed to pertaining to Greek and Roman origins of Western Civilization— pertain to filmmaking techniques of a bygone era. Thus, one does not assume all films of a certain vintage are outstanding but recognize they all were created with different societal mores, aesthetic and industrial realities than today.
Classical filmmaking can be defined broadly as starting with the dawn of film and ending in 1960 with the end of the studio system. Other subdivisions can be found therein. The business as well as the art changed from thereon as Hollywood sought a new way in which to function and the world, caused aesthetic revolutions, spearheaded by France, that would change the game anew.
From 1960 on can be considered in cinematic terms as the Modern Era. Clearly the advances in this age are coming fast and furious in technological terms: widescreen became the norm, computer effects were created, home video was born, non-linear editing systems developed, the advent of digital photography, and so on, but for now that’s a good catch-all with inherent advances and stylistic markers attributed to each decade
So for my own personal edification, and also to inform readers of my site, I will try and refrain from calling anything made after 1991 as classic, and when talking about how things were done in 1960 and before I will try and always use to term classical to avoid confusion.
In responding to this advertisement and discussing its relevance 81 years later, I will not even go into lengthy asides about issues with brightness of digital and/or 3D projection, or masking issues, or sound issues that modern audiences face.
Let’s return to patrons and avoiding noise. Granted there are technological advancements and connectivity that was never before imagined. However, it should all still apply.
Movies cost more now so:
Why would you want to divide your attention with a device you have access to at all other hours in the day?
Why would you want to interrupt the experience, and lessen it, for yourself alone and not to mention others.
Why would you be inclined to see something you didn’t want to see or wanted to see ironically?
There are fewer reasons to talk now so:
Many theaters are going the way of assigned seating, therefore, much less conversation about where your party is sitting is required. So that’s one of the catalysts right there.
It’s an unwritten rule that you kind of have a free pass during the interminable trailers. However, it would be best if you kept it down and better yet wait until in-between trailers to make comments.
Usually, the only reason one leaves in the middle of a movie is to go to the bathroom. Your party can usually figure that is your destination. No need to tell the world.
Yes, there’s more food now so:
come early if you have to and
open whatever needs opening before the feature begins.
I’m young, I can’t disconnect:
Yes, you can. Technically speaking I am a Millennial also. Granted the definitions of birth years vary but it’s the only generational label that ever seemed like it fit me, so I’m taking it. I can and so can you.
It is possible. All this constant information has a drawback to it and taking a break from it is healthy.
When lost in a movie or a book and being lost, I sometime refer to getting back to mundane mandatory activities as resurfacing or coming out from under a movie into reality.
What of emergencies:
At the very least you can turn off all audio if you need to be able to respond to something. And believe me I do not speak of this in a hypothetical context. I’ve been coming back from dinners or movies wherein I did not touch my phone and learned of a loss in the family. I learned of one on social media, the most 21st century way possible.
A movie should be taken in as time off. Treat it as such.
Movie-watching is my job:
If you’re one of the few where watching film is work; even more reason. I’ve had phases of assiduous note-taking in my reviewing and have always done so the old fashioned way.
Let the film speak:
Granted too many modern films inundate you with dialogue, explosions, bass, score, images, and fast cuts but even the most pedestrian efforts are trying to speak to you. Listen!
Please avoid noise at all costs. Movie lovers can long for a utopian society wherein more theaters implement zero-tolerance policies towards talking and cell phone usage. That will likely never happen but it needn’t be threatened with decency.
Device-friendly screenings or sections of auditoriums are not the answer! The world may be more understanding and sensitive and eager-to-please than ever before but life still has its demands and some situations demand you to modify behaviors to fit it rather than the environment change to suit you.
Yes, standard TVs are now like what home theaters used to be like. So if you insist on offering color commentary, flopping about, checking Facebook or whatever the hell else you feel like doing watch something at home. The movies are a ritual, a communal experience and as such certain luxuries or trespasses ought not be allowed for the good of the community.
Sit back, relax, shut your mouth, and enjoy the show.
As time moves on we must learn that things need to be contextualized. It takes no insight to show kids Jaws and sit there bemused as they’re unimpressed. The first thing that must be noted is that, in my case for example, Jaws wasn’t that old a movie when I saw it as a kid. Now things from five years ago may have the faint whiff of being dated already. I’ve caught myself thinking “Wow, that came out a while ago” about a fairly recent film.
The art, all arts, are evolving at ever-dizzying speeds because they have to to survive. That’s just the way things are. It’s not better, not worse, no judgment; just a fact. Therefore, Jaws is now an old film. Even I, who was a self-motivated film watcher needed, and relished hearing, the framework my favorite college professors would create to establish what our mindset should optimally be going in. I was motivated to watch Citizen Kane on my own and Hitchcock and a few others and I got an innate sense for them. As I learned more film history and discovered more varieties and approaches. I benefitted from the brief intro.
Tendaciousness still will apply. You will like what you’ll like. I don’t care for The Social Network. I am able to appreciate all the technical refinement and skill in the making of it. My background makes it such that I can ignore its departmental prowess. It cannot move me in any way as much as it tried, but I had the framework.
Bringing it full circle to Jaws you can’t just put it on and say “watch this, it’s great.” You can’t really do that for any old movie, which it now is. Context before, and not during or after, is the only real way to ensure it may be appreciated. And, as is true with any kind of film, like what you like and let the kids respond to what they will.
One of the biggest fallacies around is the whole “you have to like this or you don’t like film” school of thought. Venture forth wisely, bringing some of your knowledge with you but your baggage with a film (good or bad) is yours, so don’t pass it on just try to help them see it the way you did once upon a time, even if it can no longer be looked at the same way.
On the Internet, I do not believe timing is everything. Quite frankly I found it emotionally exhausting to keep my ear pinned to the proverbial ground waiting to hear the next thing I “had” to have an opinion about when my postings needed to be more current event based on the Site That Shall Not Be Named.
Due to this, when I first heard of Jake Lloyd’s arrest following a high-speed chase in South Carolina I didn’t comment on it in any way, shape, or form.
That brings me around to the most recent time he made the news. Nearly a month ago (4/10), after almost 10 months in prison, he was transferred to a psychiatric ward to better treat his schizophrenia.
The reason I’ve taken my time both in winding my way to the meat of this story, and also in terms of time elapsed since having heard it are as follows:
This is by no means intended to be yet another morbid “Where are they now?” piece.
Nor is this attempting to pin the ills of society or individuals on what some refer to as the necessary evil of child actors in film and television
Instead the three points I want to make citing this and a more recent story are:
The need to make correctional institutes as rehabilitative as they were once intended to be rather than merely punitive money pits that either re-release criminals or breed career criminals.
What should occur instead is: if there is a clear diagnosis that needs medicating, and in some extreme cases relocation, that must occur. It’s bad enough that stigma contributes to too many people with mental illnesses being unaware, undiagnosed or unmedicated in society.
For prison officials to be dubious of, or callous to, inmates’ needs while they’re incarcerated can only result in their continued mental degradation and possibly those around them, both on the inside and on the outside.
As for the ills of society or individuals:
There are a vast array of mental illnesses. Even with schizophrenia being one of the most difficult to diagnose, and even though some attribute environmental and substance abuse factors into its development or accelerated onset, there is still a genetic component in it as well, just as there is with things as common as depression or more severe like bipolar disorder.
It is far to simplistic to state things like: “This never would have happened if he wasn’t Anakin.” Episode I was released 17 years by now. If you were making a biopic it’d be jarring to cut from behind the scenes on a film set to that individual’s low-point in life. A narrative feature would also then work to fill in those gaps and then “explain” everything.
Sometimes there is no explaining something because as Forrest Gump famously insinuated “Shit happens.”
That’s where cognitive dissonance comes in, and the recent news that Joey Cramer, of Flight of the Navigator fame, was arrested after a series of bank robberies. Basically, you can’t have seen this story reported without his mugshot being spliced next to a still from the 1986 film.
It’s understandable since that film has more of a cult following, and a few passionate fans who have been vocally anti-remake (at the moment that project remains in development), as opposed to Lloyd whose breakout role was in a film that was the first virtually guaranteed to gross one billion dollars. However, the cognitive dissonance that’s being implied is the same: that can’t be him. He’s still 12 years old not in in his forties, and much less in his forties with a rap sheet. That dissonance is further exacerbated by the fact that relative time travel plays a factor in the plot of that film.
However, that shock one can feel is because their limited frame of reference in that story is an A to Z view and not the A to B straight line many people see. Which is how media reports many stories. Consider for example how simultaneous the media made Diablo Cody’s work as an exotic dancer and as a screenwriter.
Crime stories are bound to make the news anyway whether the perpetrator is mentally ill or not, had a three-year-acting-career or not. But the amount of attention it gets makes me wonder the following:
Is the schadenfreude that rewarding?
and
Is the aching nostalgia of childhood “dying” among the hottest commodities on the Internet?
In the end, in either scenario, all I end up feeling is empathy and sadness, and a wish not to see the stories going viral lest they can do some good. Reporting Lloyd’s transfer may give a slight push to criminal justice reform, may highlight mental illness just a little more during Mental Health Month. On the other hand photos of Macaulay Culkin while he’s just wandering down the streets of New York designed only to create “is he or isn’t he on drugs?” speculation is the kind of frivolous invasion of privacy that anti-paparazzi laws are for.
The lines between celebrity and anonymity, reality and fiction, are constantly being blurred now, when they ought not be. These people are not their characters or personae, they’re only human. One should not take into consideration a person’s life in evaluating their art, and one’s art should never be an indicator that their life will or will not go according to plan. Fame or failure as a young person onscreen is not an oracle of future good fortune, unfortunate circumstances, mental illness or poor decision-making.
My advice on these child actor crime stories can be summed up in a callously succinct New York compound phrase: It is what it is, so fughettaboutit. By which I mean, just because you spent umpteen hours watching someone on the silver screen or TV when you were a kid doesn’t mean you are entitled to:
Excruciating minutia in regards to their low point.
An explanation of how they got there.
To incessantly assault them with your miniscule-in-the-grander-scheme vile opinion of what they “did” to a property you profess to love.
Just as mental illness is not something catching or to be scoffed at nor is excessive information on one’s downfall owed to anyone because they had the gall to audition for, and land, a role when they were merely a child, as you once were.
Granted train wrecks of nostalgia are jarring because images on film are eternal and crystallized whereas time goes on and we all age and things change. Sometimes in the glacial moments of life it can seem like things don’t change but then stories like this remind us time does move along, at times cruelly.
However, the sense of ownership we seem to feel over such stories is a fallacy. Jake Lloyd is hopefully getting his help now. Hopefully, Joey Cramer can too, whatever help that may be. Internet trolling doesn’t breed mental illness, but one has to wonder what it says about humanity that even in light of that news some still feel the need to pile on.
The Internet and social media can make things that once would have been mere footnotes bigger than they once would have been. One person thinking “This story matters,” sharing it, without comment, is, in terms of pixels and space on a feed, much larger than a small column in a traditional newspaper. If we feel the need to feel an excess of emotion for people we never met because they’ve died because they marked a significant moment in our childhood or life, then perhaps it’s time to show a bit of empathy for those who may have made a mark on us whom are still here but have fallen on hard times.
Having been in some films a decade or more ago and then going on to try to live a normal existence after you move on for whatever reason does not mean you’re in the public eye anymore. Those in entertainment at current know that’s part of the deal. Those who have tried to move on to a new phase who may have not been entirely successful deserve a bit more consideration and a chance to rehabilitate without public scrutiny.
This is a film blog, it still is, and always will be. However, wherever there have been opportunities to discuss other topics where they intersect with film I have taken them, be it books, television, any of the other arts, and occasionally even other things.
I will try to avoid an all out rant. Instead consider this a slow burn.
Preamble: Politics Aside, When Persona Usurps Platform
In the interest of full disclosure, when I’m honed in on politics I’m there a lot and fervently, 2016 more so than ever before, fear and hope (fope?) have me atwitter. Part of why I’ve turned off politically at times in off-years is how consumed I get around Presidential elections and midterms. This piece has been simmering for a while. I’ve had it, and films, as well as some other of his business dealings I know of, provide great parallels and insights I find.
And to be further straight forward, this isn’t fueled so much by Trump’s current politics, but rather Trump himself. For as the below video shows even his politics will change depending on which way the wind is blowing, and who he thinks can secure him favors.
If all these current views of his are his views he’s had quite a metamorphosis from these kinds of statements – it’s terrifying either way.
Being a native of New York I couldn’t help but always have been familiar with Donald Trump whether I wanted to be or not. Either through fodder for the tabloids, papers, or SNL I’ve always known more about him than I ever cared to. I, who swore off giving a damn about celebrity marriages after Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas split, can still name most of his spouses, still recall how incongruous a persona Ivana seemed to be paired with him, at least in how she portrayed herself in the media. Maybe she just played it better than even he does.
My six degrees of separation story with him is that I couldn’t convincingly feign enthusiasm about working as an intern on The Apprentice. Therefore, I didn’t get an internship at NBC. So as self-deprecating as that is, it does go to show I’m not new on the anti-Trump bandwagon. This is well before he had any political aspirations real or otherwise. The political game is one where you need support, since he’s getting it he’s gonna run with it.
Nine years before he earned a swastika on his star on the Walk of Fame, Trump earned the star itself (though there is ample proof that money is involved), and he said this:
[when asked if he would run for President of the United States] People wanted me to very strongly and I decided I didn’t want to do it. I sort of enjoy what I’m doing and I continue to enjoy what I’m doing. I have never had more fun. And then to cap it off with a star on the walk of fame today was just a lot of fun. And, you know, it’s just — it’s just very sad to me what’s happening with this country in terms of world and in terms of world perception.
Even liberal Manhattanites, as most are, will tolerate and admire a Republican leader (e.g. Giuliani and Bloomberg whom were both re-elected), but Trump? No. Not him. He doesn’t even really understand pizza.
At the risk on a personal/political rant and not even getting to movies, however, my history and his factor in because here’s the truth about Donald Trump on film and television: he always plays himself, or better the version of himself he wants us to believe is true. Although, based on his first appearance in the New York Times in 1973 (life inspires fiction).
New York Times, 1973
So, how has this image been cultivated through his cameos? He plays himself, or a version of himself he likes to project, an egocentric jerk who doesn’t care what people think about him.
This supercut has some insights:
What sort of acting can one expect from a man who cannot even play himself, and can’t see the artfulness in humanity but sees it in real estate:
The ones that hurt most are: Little Rascals and Home Alone 2, and Woody Allen’s Celebrity. Eight years after he made the front page of the Times he was in My Hero and The Jeffersons (one of two appearances), The Jeffersons in an of itself is key because sociopolitically it was a significant show as it spun-off characters from All in the Family and “moved them on up.” Ghosts Can’t Do It, Across the Sea of Time, Eddie, The Paul Lassiter Story, 54, Good Will Hunting, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (both times playing an alter ego Daniel Ray McLeech); Marmalade, and Horrorween.
He’s clearly typecast himself as himself or people like him. Slight evidence:
Even the outtakes of The Little Rascals show the kind of immature, annoying personality he can have. Not to mention I can just imagine the crew not even wanting to respond to those questions, just thinking: No, Donald we go through a procedure before every take for everyone else except you. You will not hear ‘action’ or any other cues. You just have to guess.
Regardless of how much he plays himself up, he does think a lot of himself. Just read him analyze the simplistic phrase that’s part of American English vernacular that he claims as his catch phrase:
Hershel Walker, New Jersey Generals (USFL), team owned by Donald Trump.
“It’s no trick to make a lot of money if all you’re trying to do is make a lot of money.” is one of my favorite lines in Citizen Kane. Furthermore, Kane’s impression that it would be “fun to run a newspaper” seems kind of like the whim Trump is trying to enter public office on. Except now he’s nearly 70 not a young man like Charles Foster Kane.
As someone who is a self-professed business genius, a man whose name name appears on seven books with seven different co-authors, and thus assumes himself to have the economic acumen to run the country simply because he came from money (and would’ve had even more by investing it conservatively), and despite his bankruptcy history. Donald Trump is largely cited as one of the main reasons the USFL (the last serious challenger to the NFL’s dominance) went under as cited here, mainly because he foolishly insisted the league should go head-to-head with the league and play in the fall.
This was also touched upon in ESPN’s 30 for 30 Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?, which chronicled that it had a powerful short stint that could’ve lasted.
Trumping Up Marriage
“I wish I’d had a great marriage. See, my father was always very proud of me, but the one thing he got right was that he had a great marriage. He was married for 64 years. One of my ex-wives once said to me, ‘You have to work at a marriage’. And I said, ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing’, because my parents, they didn’t work at the marriage. If you have to work at a marriage, it’s not going to work. It has to be sort of a natural thing. But my ex-wife would say, ‘You have to work at this, you have to do this, you have to do that’. And I’m saying to myself, ‘Man, I work all day long, well into the evening. I don’t want to come home and work at a marriage. A marriage has to be very easy’. My father would come home, have dinner, and take it easy. It was the most natural marriage I’ve ever seen. And Melania (Melania Trump) makes my life easy; one of the things I so love about her is that she makes my life easier. I’ve never had anybody that made my life so easy. Now I hope that continues. Perhaps that will change. I intend to find out!
Ivana Trump’s big screen debut was deliciously in The First Wives Club. Marla Maples landed roles without Trump being an actress in her own right. Melania has has thus far only had an appearance as his arm candy in Zoolander.
However, this is unsurprising coming from the man who once said this:
Even the Zoolander gang have bagged on Trump lately.
Trump: The Human Soundbite
Admittedly it’s easy to cherry pick quotes but if you believe that he throws the word “loser” around for lack of thought, think again. One of his credos is:
So here he freely admits not checking his ego, and yes, every one has an ego in the sense he’s referring to, but here he admits his axiom is if you’re not this you’re that, it’s binary. If you don’t have an ego (like me) you’re a loser (like you are).
He may have the papers that say he went and graduated from prestigious places, and speak about it “not hurting to get more education,” but he sure doesn’t act like it, despite his claims “to have the best words.”
Donald Trump is A WWE Hall of Famer. Yes, World Wrestling Entertainment, that WWE. That is the intangible accomplishment he’s most deserving of. He’s about self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, and appearances over substance. When he randomly shows up and body slams Vince McMahon that works for wrestling.
Mind you this video is dated after he announced his candidacy and is in New Hampshire. If you need more of that insanity go here.
A man running for president you might not ever expect to be in a film, has been and its similarity and difference to Trump’s myriad appearances are telling.
In 1999, Bernie Sanders was in a film called My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception. Bernie Sanders plays and actual character in the film and speaks for a while. It’s Bernie Sanders, sure but as a Rabbi complaining about free agency in baseball. A character suited to his diction, persona, and stump-speech approach to public speaking.
Trump’s best performance is one he didn’t fashion. It’s this. All hail editing, it can literally create a perfromance.
Trump is no showman in the controlled environment of a film set. He is one on reality TV and in his carnival barking rallies and in his debating technique which is tantamount to the middle school one-upmanship of trying to come up with the most debilitating dis.
However, this is more real than a lame, lifeless cameo; a mostly-staged reality competition or some other form or attention-getting, this is the presidency. The real one, the one venerated in fact, fiction, reality or hagiography; serious inquiries only, please. To underscore the ludicrousness, the incredulity of Trump’s foray I leave you with Scott Thompson’s version of the Queen of England. Imagine this lunacy happened, for real, and here in Murica of all places! It sounds outlandish but so did the idea of Trump 2016 in June.
Postamble: “I Like the Mexican People They Are My Amigos,” or Dubya’s America over Trump’s
“I wanted to close with the above but realize some people will claim we’re not the UK, we’re not Canada or Guatemala. Fine. I give in. In closing, I will state that I actually wish the following was real and not just Will Ferrell being hilarious.
The Movie Rat 