When Hitchcock's Psycho was being advertised in newspapers at it's time of release, a memorable line in the copy was: By the way, after you see the film, please do not give away the ending. It's the only one we have. For your consideration:
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="348" caption="Sleepaway Camp, 1983"]
[/caption]The image above is of a thirteen year old Felissa Rose playing the character of Angela in the 1983 slasher film Sleepaway Camp. At the time of writing this the image above is the first result of a Google Image Search for the terms 'sleepaway+camp'[ref]http://www.google.com.au/search?q=sleepaway%2Bcamp&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1680&bih=949[/ref].
This shot comes at the close of the film, in fact it is the penultimate shot, right before the image turns sickly green. So, then, is this image, especially for someone researching the film for the first time, a kind of spoiler? In it's defense, the image does not give any real indication of what has been considered one of the most surprising endings in the slasher genre, if not film at large. The shy Angela, adopted after a family tragedy by her Aunt Martha, is exposed to torment and attempted molestation by her colleagues and the staff at Camp Arawak. As many a film studies thesis will attest, such ill doings do not go unpunished, and they are punished in this film in great style, in varying and innovative ways[ref]Note that if you have not seen the film, and you intend to see it following this description, then it is probable you are interested in 'classic' slasher gore, rather than plots in general - if so, I suggest not only Sleepaway Camp but it's three sequels (with one rumoured to be released this year).[/ref]. And so as the Sturm und Drang of Sleepaway plays itself out in evermore gory cycles, the ending brings an uncomfortable close to it all: Angela, pronouncing gutteral sounds from her wide open mouth, drops the severed head of Paul[ref]Paul attempted to kiss Angela after wrongly assuming a romance was budding, an action which would trigger dangerous psycho-sexual memories in his partner's mind.[/ref], and stands before two survivors naked. As a final shock - the slow reveal - Angela is biologically male.
[caption id="attachment_44" align="alignnone" width="530" caption="Edited screenshot, Sleepaway Camp, 1983."]
[/caption]Three things make this clear - an overtly exaggerated flashback tells the first part of the tale: Angela, seemingly the survivor of a boating tragedy in which a young brother dies and a sister survives, is actually the surviving boy, raised by the utterly terrifying Aunt Martha as the daughter she strongly wanted. 'Angela'/Peter is suitably disordered. Then, to close the story, the camera zooms out to reveal first broad, masculine shoulders, then male genitalia (both fake[ref]An effect achieved through the employment of a full sized puppet[/ref]). Note that Angela's mouth remains agape throughout.
After a deep breath, let us return to the previously identified question: can Google's first result be considered a spoiler? Of the plot, it must be said the answer is no. The tone, the mood, the 'scare' of the film is in Angela's facial expression: the fact she is biologically male is not scary, merely shocking. The fact that a human animal can lose control of moral reasoning, can lose control of language to the extent of pre-lingual grunting, can even lose control of their own facial muscles, is beyond shocking - not to overstate the case but this writer can find very few comparisons to the power of that image[ref]This writer also knows that easy comparisons are his worst habit and most guilty pleasure[/ref]. It can be argued then that the image ruins the movie but not the plot.
Which brings us to a more contemporary experience: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and the unlucky circumstance of another Google search, that, in the opinion of this writer, constituted a similar 'visual spoiler'.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="728" caption="Laramie Eppler, Jessica Chastain and Tye Sheridan in The Tree of Life, 2011"]
[/caption]Malick's film takes a close look at a boy growing up (the topic that Sleepaway Camp conveniently avoids). The film is very much a modernist exercise, and concerns itself with the process of highly interrogative investigation.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="728" caption="Brad Pitt and Laramie Eppler in The Tree of Life, 2011"]
[/caption]None of this should go to suggest that The Tree of Life has no plot – arguably plot is the very argument of the film. Detailed scientific theories are presented here in the guise of creation and crisis, and it is useful to remember that Oedipus syndrome is named after a myth, not a man. But it stands that the film’s story is hard to 'spoil'. Rumours of walkouts can be confirmed by this writer – a phenomenon that can be contributed to by the fact that this isn't a ‘nail-biter’ (who else sat through a film like Red Eye or 1408 to find out what happens at the end?). So follows, however, the crimes of a certain reviewer and the Google Search that brought victims to the scene of the crime:
[caption id="attachment_26" align="alignnone" width="529" caption="Screen shot of Google's Tree of Life Showtimes for Brisbane, http://www.google.com.au/movies?hl=en&near=Brisbane+QLD&sort=1&mid=7703a5cae50123c accessed 10 August"]
[/caption]An unassuming screenshot, until you enlarge the image and read the snippet of the Nick Pinkerton review. In total the snippet reads, "[spoiler]Including glimpses of Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, the rings of Saturn, and a roadside Texan BBQ, Terrence Malick's Tree of Life bears...[/spoiler]"
Working backwards to the complaint:
Three: It should stand to reason that Malick sets a scene, one of [spoiler]racially charged understandings of difference[/spoiler], at a good ol' Texan barbeque, given that the film is set in Waco, Texas, as is clearly stated in a great deal of the promotional material for the film. For those entirely immune to promotion, it should come as no surprise that Malick chooses the Lone Star State[ref]In this writer's opinion the film's hypothesis can be narrowed down to those three words: Lone, Star and State.[/ref] as his stage, being that his 1978 film Days of Heaven fleshed out the lion's share of it's action there, and that many of his most poetic characters in The Thin Red Line speak in a Texan drawl, as if Malick spares his most dramatic text for the swagg'red drawl of South American English[ref]The word this writer most wants to use is monophthongization: [youtube]4cr1w9liUjE[/youtube][/ref]. Perhaps most obviously, being that Tree of Life has roundly been considered strongly autobiographical, Malick's residency in Austin, Texas should serve as an insistent hint.
Two: The appearance of Mars, or any celestial body, would not constitute a spoiler to any serious Malick follower. The mention of planets, meteors, even dinosaurs is not only forgivable in this instance, but expected over thirty years ago. In 1978 Malick was in the process of writing the notoriously and fatally ambitious Q, the un-filmed and un-filmable script featuring the same.
One: This is where the writer takes issue. The mention of [spoiler]Sleeping Beauty's coffin[/spoiler] sits so outside of Malick's oeuvre that it has to have been engineered as a surprise - a surprise ruined by an unfortunate appearance in a Google search for movie times. What complicates this is the fact that a screening time search on Google should not necessarily need a contextualising set of reviews: (a brief pause to consider Google’s complicity in this crime – I can imagine only one reason to marry reviews to screening times – to show off the volume of the ocean that Google’s tentacles can reach) movie times and movie reviews are two different research locations. I don’t read art reviews to get the opening times for the gallery, and I don’t consult a bus timetable for critique on the relative strengths, weaknesses, techniques and touchstones of the bus driver. That is to say: not cool, Google.
The film itself is on a mission to own the year, if not the decade; despite some mismanaged moping by Sean Penn as Jack, Tree of Life submits itself as a defining document of 2011. Equally challenging and comforting (at times in the worst definition of both) the film stops short of a universal argument, being both very male and very hetero-normative, but takes us places the average film will or can not.
To do this, Malick needs some cards up his sleeve, including, for example, [spoiler]the application of a fairy tale to a young boy's image of his mother[/spoiler]. It's moments like [spoiler]the compellingly slow zoom on the raven-haired Sleeping Beauty proxy[/spoiler] that take cinema to the closest it's been to hypnotherapy or stage magic, invoking similar emotional triggers to similar effect. To take this test to painful lengths, and perhaps promote some discussion in the comments section, consider the following 'visual spoilers':
- My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done: [spoiler]"Razzle Dazzle" Coffee Mug[/spoiler].
- Moon: [spoiler]"Wake Me Up When It's Quitting Time" T-Shirt[/spoiler].
- The Departed: [spoiler]Two bottles of milk in the bag from the grocer's[/spoiler].
To put it in the simplest possible terms, Angela's penis is no more important than Jack's furrowed brow: both films are about impact - the alarming death scenes in Sleepaway and the poetic vignettes in Tree of Life share a strange cadence in the context of a slow, inevitable narrative.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="728" caption="Sean Penn in The Tree of Life, 2011"]
[/caption]This message stands as not a critique of the many talented film writers that make contemporary debate around film the engaging environment that it is, rather it stands as the writer's recursive warning: do the right thing. At primary school this writer came across a method of vandalism most ignorant; in a library devoid of merit there were incidentally a large amount of 'Where's Wally?' books. These book were distinguishable by their size and popularity - they stood out, literally, from the bookshelf, but not for long. They would be the first to be grabbed by a young person keen to make public their disdain for reading.
It was at this time that this writer seemed to identify with being a "reader", whatever that might mean. No book could be this popular forever, and soon public interest at this small school waned. During the long tail of the decline of 'Were's Wally', this writer had opportunity to borrow one of the titles - each and every Wally, Wilma and Wizard Whitebeard had already been circles in pencil or biro, Woof being identified more often than not.
To close, at the end of a long entry,here is one for the "readers": the ending of Sleepaway Camp: [youtube]rIDM6wqUiuM[/youtube]
Hello writer,
ReplyDeleteIt is always nice to see someone pay homage to Sleepaway Camp, even if it is unintentional. I think what you wrote here is so right and wonderful:
"The tone, the mood, the ‘scare’ of the film is in Angela’s facial expression: the fact she is biologically male is not scary, merely shocking. The fact that a human animal can lose control of moral reasoning, can lose control of language to the extent of pre-lingual grunting, can even lose control of their own facial muscles, is beyond shocking"
Just to clarify, the full body shot at the end was in fact a real man. He was a college student from the Albany, NY area who answered an open call and was paid under 30$ to be young Peters body double (so they say). The penis is real. It's all real.
I love your assumption that it was a life sized puppet. That's incredible - because that's exactly what it looks like - which I believe gives it an especially creepy quality. The actor wore a plaster mask of young actress Felissa Roses face, which also adds to the creepiness. I've also heard that he got drunk prior to filming that scene.
Of course, I will be sharing your page. It's always nice to see a new take on an old favorite.
Cheers,
sc
Thank you for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteAs for the college student's thirty dollar cameo, I have to say that is absolutely extraordinary. I'll be spending a lot of time on your site http://sleepawaycamp.wordpress.com/ from now on.