The House Next Door

As one whose formative years spread across the sixties, I am almost innately predisposed to bristle at authority figures, so yeah, great topic. Or, as Dylan once suggested, "Don't follow leaders."

I find comedy is generally the most effective means of putting authority in its rightful place. It is why I prefer Dr. Strangelove to, say, Paths of Glory. Both are brilliant films, but when Kubrick satirizes, he's more memorable than when he's earnest. And going way back, Chaplin and Keaton (among many others) always did a great job of skewering the Authority of Self-Importance.

Reading this post, it occurred to me that some of the signature scenes in great movies -- the scenes which in some fundamental way define the character of those movies -- are scenes where the hero meets the true face of power or its representative. These sorts of scenes define the movie because the authority figure sets the terms by which this world operates, and influences the behavior of every character in that world. There are so many examples that it's hard to settle on just five, but here goes:

1. "Glengarry Glen Ross." Alec Baldwin's scene. Arguably the greatest single performance in Baldwin's movie career, it's the scene that kick-starts the salesmen's animalistic survival instinct and turns them into a bunch of rats fighting over a hunk of cheese that's probably beyond the reach of every character except Al Pacino's Ricky Roma (who's so confident in his first-place status that he doesn't even bother showing up for the hazing). It also defines the dehumanizing ruthlessness of the real estate business generally, and this one company (run by the unseen Mitch and Murray) specifically. "Put the coffee down! Coffee is for closers..." "Second prize is a set of steak knives...First prize is, your fired." "Have you made your decision for Christ?" "ABC, always be closing." After this scene, every major character reveals his true self.

2. "The Empire Strikes Back." I was just a kid when I first saw this movie, but I still remember the good chill I felt when Darth Vader maunevered his imperial star destroyer out of hyperspace so that he could give a progress report to the emperor, a previously unseen and vague presence in the background of the story. It was at this point that we realized Vader was not the ultimate evil in the universe, that in fact he took his orders from someone more powerful, more evil and presumably a lot smarter (which is why he's Vader's boss). The sight of Vader kneeling before the looming, grainy hologram image of his master automatically complicated Vader and introduced a "sympathy for the devil" element that would drive the remainder of the "Star Wars" series, which, viewed in order of its release dates, seems not merely a gee whiz swashbuckler, but an account of a man's seduction and corruption by evil -- an epic tragedy for children.

3. "The Wizard of Oz." Smoke and mirrors, baby.

4. "Duck Amuck." Daffy has his Matrix moment and realizes he's in a cartoon and is at the mercy of the animator, who is eventually revealed to be none other than...Bugs Bunny. "Who's responsible for this?" Daffy shrieks at the unseen heavens somewhere beyond the drafting board. Whereupon Bugs grins right at us, and says, "Ain't I a stinker?"

5. "Blue Velvet." The art house equivalent of the Emperor's first appearance in the "Star Wars" series is the scene where Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth visits Dean Stockwell's Ben and watches, entranced and moved, as Ben lip synch's Roy Orbison's "In Dreams." Stockwell's one of the few actors alive who could out-weird Hopper playing Frank Booth; his sad clown face and uncorked romanticism are oddly moving; he seems to possess depths of feeling, and a clearer understanding of his own personality, than Booth could ever imagine. The scene humanizes Frank just as the emperor scene humanized Vader -- by revealing him not as an implacable demon, but a pathetically limited man, a shell purged of everything but hostility and need.

I think relations to authority—in America and Japan—are slipperier and shiftier than you acknowledge, Jeffrey. Dirty Harry was a vibrant, deliberately provocative assertion of Silent Majority frustration; but by his first sequel the message was made clear we wanted our cops right-thinking, not rogue. And for every Chushingura there’s an Ikiru or Eijanaika thrusting rudely at the conventions and proscriptions of Japanese society.

Cops

By replacing the frenzy of Keystone Cops pile-ups with his trademark lucidity and rigor, Keaton comes up with not only the funniest run-from-the-police film ever made, but also the most terrifying. His dizzying means of evasion thrill as always, but do not exhilarate, because in this picture Keaton is far too busy trying to escape authority to bother flouting it. And that ending! Freedom assured, followed in quick order by heartbreak, surrender, grave. You can’t run from authority forever.

The Thin Red Line.

It’s a small moment near the start of the film, but one of my favorites. Nick Nolte, reining in his natural dominance like a five-years-past-pathetic suitor sucking in his gut, hovers around superior officer John Travolta as the latter lays down his lofty plans. When the bonding ritual of two equals sharing cigarettes arrives, Travolta doesn’t demand Nolte light his, doesn’t suggest or indicate or even hint this should be done. He knows it, and Nolte, remembering he’s not and never was sharing deck space with an equal, knows it too.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

The dire situation he’s found himself in finally penetrating McCabe’s poetic soul, he seeks help in the next town from a lawyer. Needing a gun by his side, he gets only platitudes about free enterprise, smoke blown up his skirt about heroism, and the lawyer’s own delusions of being raised to the same lofty plane as William Jennings Bryan. The voice of authority, capable of such lofty and fine sentiments; yet strikingly indifferent to actually changing anything for the better.

The Age of Innocence

Often, as Matt notes in his Empire Strikes Back anecdote, the real punch of these confrontation scenes is learning where true authority lies. One of the most flattening I’ve ever weathered came when Day-Lewis finally toughens up and lays out the situation to willowy, trembling Ryder. Who then freezes to marble and, in three devastating cuts out of an expressionistic horror film, rises to assert that such nonsense will neither be permitted nor heard of again. Poor, dim Newland, thinking he was the authority all along.

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

My opening notwithstanding, Jeffrey isn't wrong to identify a vigorous rejection of authority as a dominant strain in American art. In perhaps the ultimate expression of such healthy rebellion, a pair of good-hearted dimwitted teens give Death a wedgie, mock the devil as a fag and the “ugly, red, source of all evil”, and cheat their way in to see god to thank him for a “most excellent planet” while still making a sniggering Uranus joke. Authority, you have met your match in the American Stoner.


Dan Jardine: “I find comedy is generally the most effective means of putting authority in its rightful place.”

“Hail, Hail Free-DON-ia!”

Re your comments on “Duck Amuck”, Matt, I think even Chuck Jones admitted putting Bugs through similar torment in “Rabbit Rampage” (with Elmer now wielding the paintbrush) was a mistake. Some characters just aren’t believable being crushed by authority—imagine Cary Grant or Mae West ever succumbing to or even getting flustered by the demands of blowhard officialdom. Well, Bugs is as close to the love child of those two as I can imagine, so seeing him driven mad by insurmountable forces feels off and unsatisfying.

Dan Jardine: “I find comedy is generally the most effective means of putting authority in its rightful place.”

True enough, and you’re right about Dr. Strangelove being a better and more memorable movie – but it didn’t make me angry, which is something Paths of Glory did. Still your comment, and Bruce’s reference to Duck Soup makes me wish I’d exchanged “authority can be surmounted” with a more comedy friendly “authority can be mocked.” Captain Morton doesn’t really go to the absurd extremes as Rufus T. Firefly or Professor Wagstaff.

Flickhead – I got your comment, but I’m not seeing it on the post. I’m not sure what’s up with that. Anyway, your point about showing the killer in action so that the audience empathizes with Dirty Harry is well taken, though he still comes across as somewhat of a trigger happy lunatic. Which brings me to Bruce…

Bruce – Are you putting forth the silent majority (which would be the audience, in this case) as an authority? I wasn’t sure. You’re right, though, that Harry isn’t just a rogue. By assuming that he went to the academy and got a license for his sidearm cannon, it’s evident that he can play by the rules.

As for Ikiru – there is a thrusting at conventions – but is Shimura’s character really being defiant to authority or is he trying to make a difference through bureaucracy? Along the way, he has to deal persistently with authority, so I don't know...a lot of gray area there. There will always be exceptions, but surely you would acknowledge the cultural differences that would cause Japan to produce a story like the 47 Ronin? The U.S. isn’t averse to making stories celebrating personal sacrifice, but we tend to stop short of mass suicide. Also, it’s notable that 47 Ronin is a traditional story and Ikiru is a modern germ (I never saw Eijanaika), for whatever that is worth.

Matt – you are definitely focused on unseen authority – which, as you mention, is often the real authority. It makes me think of The Wild Bunch– when William Holden shoots the generalissimo and nobody does a thing...that is, until he realizes the real power is incarnate in the German delegate in the white suit.

Jeffrey: "Are you putting forth the silent majority (which would be the audience, in this case) as an authority?"

No, though thinking about it I wish I had. I just meant reference to the movie's targeted audience being those tired of hearing about criminals' civil rights--many of which we consider sacrosanct today were less than a decade old at the time of the movie's release. (My favorite exchange from the cartoon King of the Hill, which has the TV field practically to itself in skewering middle American values from the affectionate inside: "Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?" "Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.")

Also, I agree that Shimura's rebellion in Ikiru is uniquely Japanese in its stoicism and use of public shame, but the cultural distinction there seems to me to be the form rebellion takes, not the attitude towards authority. I think every national identity, heck, every person, is grand and multitudinous enough to encompass contradictory impulses to authority, however clearly an attitude of respect or distrust is traditionally preferred. Think of Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, with its last-act demolition of the anti-authoritarianism laid out previously; then remember that no less an anti-authoritarian than Robert Altman helmed an adaptation. Gray areas, as you say.

I hadn't really been able to come up with 5 for this topic, but with the news today of Paul Gleason's passing, I felt I had to include Principal Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club who, as I grow older and crankier, I find myself siding with more often over the students.

Edward Copeland: Regarding "The Breakfast Club," yeah, I'm on the same page. I had a similar reaction re-watching THE GRADUATE a couple of years ago.

The first time I saw that movie, I identified with Benjamin, and Mrs. Robinson seemed ancient, scary and pathetic. Now I find myself impatient with Ben's blankness and passivity and rooting for Mrs. Robinson, who may be a boozy sad sack of a woman, but at least understands her own predicament; she's expressing her contempt for herself and for the social conditions that guaranteed her unhappiness. When the movie demonizes her, I check out.

Bruce Reid: Altman's "The Caine Mutiny Court-Marshal" is one of my favorite Altman films. In some ways it feels like a more somber and theoretical sequel to "M*A*S*H," another movie about what war does to people. The play and both films share a belief that rebellion should be as idealistic as possible and should not become a vehicle for settling personal scores. Plus, it's got a remarkable lead performance by the late, great Brad Davis in his final role. His Queeg is just as charismatically petty as Humphrey Bogart's, but far more sympathetic.

Matt: "Altman's "The Caine Mutiny Court-Marshal"...feels like a more somber and theoretical sequel to "M*A*S*H," another movie about what war does to people."

Yes, much more than Streamers which, if I remember correctly, was marketed as being in "M*A*S*H's" vein. I love an offhand comment by John Leonard, in an article defending television as a worthy medium, where in the midst of rattling off the amount of fine, thought-provoking works he'd seen on TV the past few years, he mentions ""The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial", which Robert Altman set on a basketball court." All the echoes of competition, macho escalation, and fair play that the setting summons.

Matt: "Plus, it's got a remarkable lead performance by the late, great Brad Davis in his final role."

No question, and a fine turn by Daniels--bravely portraying a bland mediocrity not even bright or sinister enough to realize how thoroughly he's been played. I'd say it's his career highlight were it not for his self-delusioned monster in The Squid and the Whale.

I wouldn't presume friendship with you, Matt; I'm too old-fashioned to take the internet that personally. But it is a delight to chat with you again, and I'm glad you're back.

I'm no film scholar (or shall I say, no authority on the subject) but considering authority and film, I think a seminal book on the topic is probably Richard Porton's Film and the Anarchist Imagination.

The book does a great job of analyzing authority from many different directions, in the way that makes an anarchist analysis most effective, and I think achieves what Bruce reminds us, that relations to authority are "slipperier and shiftier" than we often think.

For instance, I think Callahan in the Dirty Harry series is seeking to reassert authority, which the bureaucracy is supposed to be preventing him from doing effectively. In my opinion, this is what America's much touted hate of authority often boils down to. There is a long history of State/society authorities overlapping in the US, the most recent example being the border-patrol wannabes the Minute Men (its often called vigilantism, but I think it extends beyond that concept). This also informs Bush's go-it-alone cowboy mystique... but anyway...

As for films, some great examples already. Cops is a wonderful example here. So are the Marx bros., and Dr. Strangelove.

Here are some films I can think of that haven't been mentioned....

Zero de conduite. French school children run amuck, defying authority at all turns (except perhaps when they chase after a woman walking on the street).

Born in Flames. In this obscure, low budget, meandering and challenging but all sorts of wonderful film by Lizzie Borden, the US government goes socialist. Yet the authority of the State only recuperates the old oppressions, and women and people of color are still treated like shit - 'til they rise up, arm themselves, and fight back.

Vera Drake. The State descends like a monster on Vera. Authority was never more devestating - and the film subtley implicates others in that authority (Vera's son, for instance, could very well be involved in the pregnancy of some of the young women that Vera visits).

Memories of Murder. The film went from good to great for me once I picked up on its satire of Korean politics in the 1980s. The cops are nearly all dumb, sadistic or oblivious buffoons - even the most likable one falls victim to his own belief in the authority of "documents" in the final scene.

Chungking Express. This is sort of a stretch, but I think it makes the film especially interesting to think of it in terms of authority. Two cops fall in love and absentmindedly abdicate their authority in the process, falling in love with criminals.

Oh, I could think of so many other good pictures, but its just 5 for the day. This is a great topic for a post!