Wong Kar Wai’s Cinematic Sensuality

Over the span of his acclaimed directing career Wong Kar Wai has developed a reputation of being one of the world’s most romantic filmmakers, but the interesting thing about Kar Wai is that even though he is considered one of the best storytellers in this genre he almost never uses its common devices like explicit sexuality or overdramatic style which often result in the bland, cliché kind of films that are typical of the romance genre. Instead of the usual fairy-tale, ‘against all odds’ approach, Kar Wai takes a different angle and strips down the idea of romance to its basic forms; need and want. He orchestrates virtually every element of his films to subtly enhance the eroticism, and through these next few pages I will look at two important elements he uses to create his unique depictions of sexuality and desire.

The three films I chose to look at for this topic were Chungking Express, 2046 and the short film The Hand from the three part film called Eros. The first aspect of Kar Wai’s films that I believe is the most responsible for their memorable love stories and portrayals of relationships is his nearly exclusive use of unrequited love in his storytelling. One reason I’m sure he prefers this method of portraying love is that it allows his films to be almost completely about the topic of love while also having a myriad of other complex emotions to explore, all of which make the romance itself more intense. In a traditional love story where two people simply fall in love or are on a path toward romance the romance itself tends to drive every other aspect of the character’s lives and life itself suddenly points towards this filmic relationship. Wong Kar Wai’s love stories are different however, since his films are usually driven by one or more characters who love someone they can’t have, who are kind of on the outside looking in, it provides him as a director to focus on the subtleties of human behavior. For Kar Wai the use of unrequited love gives us a glimpse into the character’s private world, it shows us what they are really like when they’re alone, as opposed to traditional love stories when we only see the important encounters between two would-be lovers. In a 2001 interview with Kar Wai, Interview Magazine’s film writer Graham Fuller asked him why he often shoots lovers in isolation, citing how many of the characters in his films are shown by themselves. Fuller asks, “It’s as if love manifests itself most powerfully in isolation. Why is that such an important idea for you?” Kar Wai responds by saying; “When I was a child, I was the only one who came to Hong Kong; my brother and sister stayed in Shanghai. I didn't have a lot of friends, so I know about loneliness. I always consider my characters to be in orbit. They are in a routine, but then something happens--maybe they fall in or out of love--and they try to break from that routine. So we see them in transit, and at the end they are usually headed in a new direction.”

Kar Wai depicts love as something that’s not only a verbal and physical interaction between two people but also something that is dream-like and only exists in a person’s private world. By showing the restlessness, longing and desire that accompanies loneliness Wong Kar Wai gives his films a kind of sexual anxiety that subtly raises the overall level of sensuality. Two great examples of this are from the second half of Chungking Express when we see Tony Leung’s character (Officer 663) at home, sulking and talking to various inanimate objects in his house, telling them not to be sad and then eventually noticing the subtle changes that Faye has made to his apartment throughout the day. What’s interesting is that there really isn’t much of a traditional love story here, Officer 663 is mainly focused on his girlfriend who’s left him and Faye is kind of ambiguously trying to clean the bad memories out of his apartment. There’s basically a limited amount of interaction between the two characters in terms of actually sparking a romance, but in an indirect manner Kar Wai shows us that perhaps these two people are somehow destined to be together, maybe its not the right time, maybe they’re incapable of telling each other how they may really feel, but there’s something there. Seeing Faye’s silly way of expressing her affection and the subtle changes it causes in the policeman’s life makes us as viewers dream about what might happen to them. There is a quiet, innocent quality about this romance. The two of them don’t share anything physical on screen and they don’t openly discuss the prospect of getting together but through his very insightful, simple look at quirky human behavior Kar Wai still manages to create an incredibly unique portrait of a brief moment in two people’s lives.

Another example of Kar Wai’s use of unrequited love is from the film 2046. This film is pretty much packed with lost souls, nearly every character in it seems to be longing for something they can’t have. But the example I’ve chosen from this movie is similar to the previous one in that the two characters here, played once again by Tony Leung and Faye Wong, don’t seem to recognize the feelings that are between them. In this film Tony Leung’s character, a writer named Chow, begins to write a book based on the memories of women he has or hasn’t met in his life, we don’t really know though because the line between reality and fiction is blurred. But at one point the film, in between his many casual, sparkless encounters, he makes friends with his landlord’s daughter named Wang Jing Wen who we find out is dating a Japanese man against her father’s wishes. Chow decides to help her hide the relationship by having her boyfriend’s letters sent to his address instead. Later on she learns that Chow is a writer and tells him that she too is interested in writing, after showing him some of her work he lets her write parts of his short stories which he gets paid to write in quantity. Through a few brief scenes, as if some memory mixed with wishful thinking, he remembers “the best summer of my life” that they spent together. The final shot of this portion of the film shows the two of them standing on the apartment’s rooftop where Wang Jing Wen stares off into the distance as Chow just watches her. Nothing results from their brief time spent together and it’s only a small part of 2046 but it’s still one of the more touching moments and is a good example of Kar Wai’s talent for using the space that exists between two characters to give his films a special kind of sexual mystery. In an essay about Wong Kar Wai for the website Mediacircus, Anthony Leong describes “doomed” nature of relationships in Kar Wai films when he says “very few of the relationships found in Wong's films are based on emotional connection, and the struggle that his characters face is to cultivate deeper forms of association. Unfortunately, many of his characters do not form these emotional connections, out of fear of rejection, and find it much easier to have transaction-based affinities.” The “transaction” in this particular scene of 2046 being the job of writing that brings the two together for a short time, they seem incapable of relating on a greater level than that.

The final example of unrequited love comes from Kar Wai’s short film The Hand, which is considerably darker than the other two films. In this movie a tailor’s apprentice named Zhang falls in love with a customer who happens to be a prostitute or escort of some kind named Ms. Hua . Throughout the film he faithfully makes her clothes and secretly longs to be with her, all the while she never seems to notice his interest. At the end of the film, a few years have passed and she has grown sick and loses most of her money because she can no longer work. Still though, Zhang stays by her side by paying her rent and continuing to make clothes for her. Here, Kar Wai uses another one of his common variations on the unrequited love formula by making one character the hopeless pursuer of someone they’re in love with. As is true with all three of these movies the person who doesn’t return the love never explains or are asked to explain why they can’t love. Kar Wai presents these characters as almost ghostly figures who exist only in the mind of the person trying to win their heart, people who almost look like they’re under a spell, like they haven’t yet come to the moment of realization that they are actually in love with the person who loves them. In The Hand Zhang keeps his feelings to himself for most of the film, only toward the end truly showing love by taking care of her in her darkest hour. Over the course of most of the movie there is a very slow buildup until the end when twice the woman says “you are so good to me, Zhang”. It seems like so little but by the time we’ve reached that point in the movie you feel happy for Zhang and it’s a sweet moment when she finally realizes how much he loves her. One of the things I love about Wong Kar Wai is that he can take seemingly insignificant declarations of love and turn them into something beautiful and deep. As we can see by these examples unrequited love is probably Kar Wai’s most effective tool in making simple but sexy films. The storytelling device lets him create the needed tension that results from the desire for the forbidden fruit.

The other prominent feature of each of these Kar Wai films is how the worlds depicted in them are almost exclusively private spaces where the main characters have limited interaction with their immediate surroundings. They seem to exist in environments that are visually appealing but cramped and worn. As is true with most movies, everything we see and hear is a conscious choice made by the director and everyone on his artistic team, so the question is what is Wong Kar Wai trying to make the audience feel by placing his main characters in relatively confined, highly stylized and stimulating atmospheres? Like most every detail of his films I believe he’s chosen this specific style of environment in order to make the concept of unrequited love, which he’s famous for, even more tense and heart wrenching for us as viewers. What I mean is that when Kar Wai shows us characters who are separated by some invisible force and incapable of giving or receiving love from another their physical environment (in this case confined and visually busy spaces) has a kind of subtle, psychological affect on the viewer. The close proximity of interior spaces seem to squeeze the two lovers together but the detail and beauty of the space almost sucks the characters in like they could get lost in the background. So there’s this dual effect going on where the two would-be lovers are pulsating to and from each other, creating a more dramatic sense of longing and desire of wanting to know how the two will end up. Chungking Express has two parts that I think are interesting example of this. The first, which I really like, is the scene between woman in the blonde wig (Brigitte Lin) and He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) at the bar. In this shot Kar Wai places the two next to each other at the bar and fixes the camera at a medium close-up encompassing both from about their chest to top of head. The two could basically turn and be right in each other’s faces, so there is that tension, but what Kar Wai to also distance them is how he puts a puts a harsh red glow on the two. In the background of the shot we have dark, blurry images muddied by darkness and neon light, all framed by two thick, red curtains on either side of the frame. The red glow saturates the room and since these two characters have an exaggerated amount of light on their faces they almost begin to fade into the surroundings. Another interesting thing about this shot is that the woman still wears her sunglasses, by never taking them off she remains a mystery, we can’t see into her eyes, can’t see who she “really” is and neither can He Zhiwu. At this point in the movie we want to see him find someone so he can start to get over his old girlfriend May, and in this scene when he meets the woman, as viewers we almost expect that the two will get together but Kar Wai places visual roadblocks that make even small encounters seem like uphill battles.

The other scenes in Chungking that illustrates both togetherness and distance existing simultaneously are the recurring marketplace scenes between Officer 663 and Faye. Once again Kar Wai places the two in extremely close proximity in a crowded market where they are forced to get close, but again he does a few things to visually tear them apart. One quality of these sequences is the shaky camera movement that is fairly uncommon for the rest of the scenes between men and women. The movement is meant to convey a sense of chaos, to exaggerate the crowdedness of the marketplace, like this is worst possible place for these two people to try and get to know each other. It’s frustrating and charming at the same time, every day she comes down the same street carrying her basket just so she can see the officer eat lunch, and it seems as though he might enjoy seeing there but there’s also a little bit of frustration at the time and place of the meeting. It’s loud, it’s tight, it’s probably hot, but ok, he’ll still help her carry the basket, it’s cute. Also in one of the shots when the two are walking down the street through the market you can see the use of a color scheme once again. This time Faye and the officer are wearing almost solid yellow and blue. As she walks on the left side of the shot in her yellow shirt you can see other yellow objects appearing behind her catching the eye. For instance there is a large umbrella, some fruits and vegetables and a couple other people wearing the color. The same goes for the officer on his side of the shot, wearing blue.

In his short film Eros Wong Kar Wai creates this style of “close but separate” through a combination both visuals and storytelling. In this particular film, like I mentioned earlier, the sexual tension is created by showing Zhang as coming from a completely different world than Ms. Hua. He is shown working hard on her new clothes in a dark and dreary shop far away from her well kept, upscale apartment. In the scenes when he arrives at her home to fit her for the new garments he is always silent, like he knows he’s intruding and she is always busy doing something that distracts her from really acknowledging his presence; talking on the phone, arguing with a “client” or simply doesn’t have time to see him at all. But there they are, standing close together in an ambient lit apartment, waiting for a spark between them. Sometimes its hard to even see that there’s supposed to be anything between them at all but what Kar Wai does to hint at Zhang’s feelings are little acts of patience towards her lack of patience. Kind of like in Princess Bride when Wesley always says “as you wish” every time Buttercup bosses him around. In one particular scene Zhang is measuring Ms. Hua’s waistline and she says how she’s gained so much weight recently, Zhang looks at the measuring tape which confirms it but he replies that it’s only a couple of inches.

As we can see through these various visual and storytelling techniques Wong Kar Wai consistently and uniquely plays with the concept of what it means to connect with another person. Whether it be on a romantic level or just chance encounter that has potential, Kar Wai is still able to grab the viewers attention through subtle indicators that point to a possible love between two strangers. He creates these characters that seem so impenetrable and shut off from an uncaring world that we as viewers are compelled to focus harder, look for subtle clues about who these people are, what they’re looking for and we desire for them to find somebody special and break out of the cycle that seems to have them bound.


Citations

Fuller, Graham. “Wong Kar-Wai.” Interview February 2001: 15-17
Leong, Anthony. “Meditations on Loss: A Framework for the Films of Wong Kar Wai.” Mediacircus.net. 1998. Mediacircus.net. 20 April 1998
Wright, Elizabeth. “Wong Kar-wai.” Sensesofcinema.com. 2002. Sensesofcinema.com. 8 May 2002

And it came to pass... that Rock & Roll is dead

If Hendrix were alive to see this commercial he would probably smoke a garage full of weed to ensure no memory of this lingers in his mind. If this doesn't signify the official "death" of rock and roll as we know it, I don't know what does. In this commercial for Rock Band 2 we can see that the poser/hipster/apatheticool scenes have (like the Borg) assimilated all sacred remnants of Rock's discernable legacy. Now we're left with grinning videogamers who stand just long enough to turn on their xboxs which now spin the former soundtracks for social destruction. Video Killed the Radio Star...indeed...and so did irony, the ultimate killer of meaningful movements. Remember the phrase "sex, drugs and rock & roll"? Yes? Well, the first of those isn't likely to happen if you're prancing about your living room like a jackass playing a guitar video game.
Who knew that AC/DC would help usher in the extinction of what they helped create.

"Jesus Is My Friend"...

or at least he was until they wrote this song. Looks like Danny and Armi have serious competition for the worst musical performance ever caught on tape. Sonseed, the Assembly of God's answer to Regatta de Blanc, pushes the boundaries of pentacostal honkyness and paints a disturbing portrait of God as a persistent mountie who will zap you...zap. because he does that. Remember Sodom and Gomorah? They weren't indulging in fleshly carnalities, they were writing late 70's, light-pop hits. I have to admit however the rhythm is fresh and uplifting...like a thousand sunday school lessons crammed into my skull. Like wearing a three piece suit to the beach...or the shower.



and as if that weren't enough for one day, dig this, messa'me...A Bob Jones offertory is temporarily possessed by the spirit of the dragon: Siquo...Maybe it's just my rigid Baptist upbringing but I don't think the Apostle Paul would have approved of cabbage-patching and moonwalking as a means of worship, I'm pretty sure he condemns it in one of his letters to Corinth.

Dark Knight & Boy Wonder

In this chapter of the saga batman learns about important stuff from alfred, like life, and burning down jungles to catch one dude, and stuff. Meanwhile the joker goes to the local applebee's kitchen to talk to the mob about stuff.

In this episode the joker shows up to a party he was not invited to...and pays the price. Can batman fall fast enough to catch rachel? Can he defy gravity? YES, with the help of his boy wonder!

Yes, it's the new Batman mini-series starring myself and Anthony Krizman! In today's episode batman and commisioner Gordon set a sexy trap for the Joker that he'll never expect!

The Dark Knight

Wow. I don't even know what to say...The hype is NOT a lie, folks.
I only have a few things to say since most of the reviews so far have been spot on...
First of all this movie is just spectacularly crafted. From beginning to end every scene falls into place like a puzzle piece and it takes you a hundred miles per hour straight to the finish, gaining more momentum as it goes along. It's dark. I mean dark. This is not an uplifting picture. Gotham is at its worst and Batman has to make some intriguingly difficult decisions, but his choices almost seem moot in the face of the Joker's sinister "plot" which is ahead of Batman at every curve.
It's been said, and I agree wholeheartedly, Heath Ledger is one of the greatest villains of all time. The level of depth he gives the Joker blew away my assumptions of what could be done with the character (and I'm pretty familiar with the comics). Big thumbs up to him and the Nolan brothers for what they did with the character, and the script. You know, I didn't really expect much as far as the Joker/Batman relationship from just one movie, especially since Joker was just introduced, but they still manage to make it as compelling as we have ever seen. I felt that bizarre connection between them that I feel when I read some of the great Batman stories. Loved it. Unfortunately with Ledger gone we'll only get a taste of the psychological game of chess that occurs throughout the two rivals' history. If another film is made the writers are going to have to dig really deep in their study of Batman mythos to come up with the right antagonists who can satisfy third act necessities, which include: a reason for Batman's permanent fixture as Gotham's knight and to raise the stakes in the fight to save (or heal) itself.
I certainly can't think of anyone in the rogue's gallery (even if they let the rest of the well-known baddies loose) who can initiate a final test intense enough to lure Batman out of hiding. Personal reconcile seems to be the only path for the next one especially since Dent is most likely dead. What we'll probably see is Bruce's personal quest to reconstruct his life which could include some incarnation of Dick Grayson, or (more plausibly) Selina Kyle. She can fulfill several needs, the most important being a replacement female lead, and secondly; she presents Batman with a different shade of gray in his pursuit to define morality. Because she is not psychotic and is physically attractive she can tempt Bruce into blurring the line in a way the Joker could not. She can seduce him by depicting vigilantism as a godlike realm where normal rules do not apply. This puts him in genuine danger of "getting lost in this monster of yours", as Alfred put it, letting Batman use him and going beyond his initial promise to his parents.

But I digress...
Speaking of Harvey Dent...ha... played wonderfully by Aaron Eckhardt I thought he did a superb job as the tragic hero, even if he tended to be overshadowed by Ledger in this film I thought his transition was believable in the aloted time (unlike Hayden Christensen who couldn't pull off becoming Vader in three films). As a viewer you (probably) know exactly what's going to happen to Dent but you still feel invested enough in the character that you want to see him succeed. Then around the time of his transformation you snap back to and realize he is inevitably SCREWED. Gotham is screwed. By the end I felt almost in anguish over the events and losses that transpired in this modern day classical tragedy. My main man Gary Oldman...still the greatest actor of all time...he IS Commissioner Gordon, still tearin' up the role. Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman; all spectacular as always.
Anyway, I don't have anything else to say that wouldn't give away plot points, so, just go see it, NOW..Unless you're trying to steer clear of anything too depressing, then I might avoid this until the next one comes out which surely must be more uplifting...surely...with dancing ewoks and such.

Brett's Rating: 95/100 jokers ... three of which are enthusiastically pictured below. That's right, I'm cuckoo for heath ledger-puffs. Besides some minor nitpicking my only real complaints are that; Gotham was too obviously Chicago in this. It seemed like they disposed of a lot of the great set pieces from the first...and I definitely prefer a stylized Gotham. Secondly, it would have been nice to see the narrows and Arkham again. Without Wayne manor there weren't any specific locations from the Batman mythos present. Finally, the cliche spewing SWAT member, played atrociously by Nicky Katt. What Nolan was thinking here, I have no clue. I'm not sure how a director of Nolan's caliber can let crap like this slide. It's mind boggling. The Joker has more than enough humorous moments that we didn't need the grab-bag of one-liners like we had in Batman Begins. Oh well.

Beware of Cuteness

BEHOLD! My first Youtube video EVERRRRr. My new little digital video camera has opened up a whole new world of terrible possibilities. Here's the big debut of my first masterpiece: "Charlotte and the Bubble Gun". It's more adorable than a thousand rainbow filled puppies and kittens running through a field of magical flowers and candy mountains...

Tool Movie Criticism 101

Ever wanted to know the real secret of becoming a rich and famous movie critic? Well it's quite simple my boy...ya gotta sell out!
HA! HA!

And I can show you how to do it in five craptastic steps. It's so easy you can't possibly lose!

1. First of all, watching entire films is a waste of time and money, my professional tip *don't watch any movies. Nobody cares if you've seen the movie, the general public just wants a yay of reassurance...because they're going see it anyway, so all you need to do is give that extra nudge toward the ATM and then toward the movie theater box office. Use the Siskel and Ebert method of ambiguity and keep the rating system at a vague minimum, a "something" out of 3. IE 2 out of 3 stars or 3 out of 3 stars....but NEVER less than two stars...you can't lose!

2. The content of the movie is irrevelent. All YOU need to know is:
A. what's the movie called?
B. who's in it?
C. who directed it?
D. is the poster nice to look at?
Based on these factors you must ask yourself the following questions...Is the title good? Does the film have more than 2 but less than 6 famous actors? Is the director a current hot-commodity? Is the one-sheet asthetically pleasing?

3. Next, take a quick gander at the trailer. Make sure it isn't too good or bad. What I mean is; does it look like they crammed all the good parts into it? This happens a lot and gives the false impression of a good film. Or; here's where it gets tricky; is there very little interesting content in the trailer...sometimes they're saving the good parts for the movie, sometimes there are no good parts. What you have to do in this case is FIND ANOTHER TRAILER. Professional tip* Compare trailers for content*

4. Now, with a basic working knowledge of the film's general content, you take one or more of the options from question 2: option A, B and or C and substitute it into one of the following sentences followed by your two or three star rating...

"Fun!"

"A+!"

"A thrill ride!"

"Outrageous!"

"Best _______ (type of movie) of the last ________ (decade/few years/year)!"

"Not since _______ (similar movie to compare to) have we seen such things in a movie!"

"______(name of director or actor) does it again!"

"One of this ________(time of season ie. summer's, fall's) best _______(genre of film ie. action, romance) films!"

"I just $#!% my pants!"

"Every other movie ever made bows down in holy reverence to __________ (title of film)!"

professional tip* always use an exclaimation point! ALWAYS!!!! It makes everything more exciting!!!!!

NEXT: Choose a rating: 2 or 3 out of three stars

Says __________ (insert name) of the _________ (large publication or website that you may or may not necessarily work for)

Or, if you work for Rolling Stone what you have to say about the film is simply irrelevant, just be sure to mention that it's Rolling Stone, and that it's a positive opinion of some sort. Nothing else matters.
For instance..."A must see says Rolling Stone!", "Rolling Stone says It's a motion picture!"

"You're all set. Make enough of these and studios will begin to take notice! Before you know it your name, along with your glowing review, will be pasted all over video releases. Now get out there and start whoring out this year's blockbusters!"
-Says Brett Warren of Time Magazine (3 out of 3 stars)

Yacht Rock

alright so I'm too lazy to actually write new material, instead I present you with a classic episode of the short lived internet sensation that was Yacht Rock. It chronicles the adventures of Kenny Loggins and Michael MacDonald as they battle such foes as The Eagles and Hall & Oates in their attempt to bring smooth music to the world. In this final episode which I consider the funniest, the dynamic duo of smoothness battle "tropics obsessed lunatic" Jimmy Buffett as he attempts to trick Loggins into writing the theme song for Footloose...nobody puts kenny loggins in a corner!

The Keanu Reeves Acting Method

The legend at work. There's method acting, and then there's whatever this is. Enjoy.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all of you dads who read this insanely popular blog. I hope that you have a wonderful day filled with hot dogs and new ties. In particular, I would like to reflect upon some of my favorite memories of my dad who is the reason that Brett, Alex, and I are such...interesting...people.

Dad, I really enjoyed that motorcycle ride through the mountains of Tennessee without a helmet when I was three. And the picture of Brett and I sitting on top of a very unstable looking rock on a cliff is priceless. Thanks, dad, for helping us build a fort out of jaggedy old pieces of paneling that we found in a shed. Honestly, when I think back, I feel that Brett and I are very lucky not to be in foster care. But really, I do have to give my dad a lot of credit for things like our interest in music. He bought Brett his first guitar and which Brett used to preform under the stagename of "Larry Newton."

Danny and Armi merchandise now available!

Want a unique gift for that special someone? Need something that screams "I wanna love you tender"? Look no more. Be the first on your block to be ironically hip, or if you live in Finland; just plain hip...with the new Danny t-shirt. Also available are mugs, keychains, dayplanners and men's and women's underpants which feature Danny or Armi's face along with the word "Tender" right on the bum. While supplies last!

R.E.M

R.E.M at the United Center! Wonderful show last night from the band who played with a lot of energy and, to my surprise, the new material is actually quite good. One of the things that really stuck out to me was Michael Stipe's stage presence. I've seen some charismatic performers before but none of them really come close to his stage persona. The guy made the United Center feel like a small room, that he was playing for just you and some friends, it was pretty amazing. Yep, well, the highlights of the show for me were probably Orange Crush and (I think) a new song called "I Wanna DJ" (I think).






I'd also like to give a shoutout to my new friend Barry who lives behind the Church's chicken next to Malcolm X College...for a brief moment in my life I truly understood the meaning of Arrested Development's Mr. Wendal...except with an added verse about the government poisoning the Chicago river and tapping our phones. If you ever see him tell him Steven King sent ya.

Retuuuurrrrn of the Mack

Recently while socializing I (for no particular reason) remarked on how I was in the mood to hear Mark Morrison's 1996 smash hit "Return of the Mack", to which Cliff Planter replied; "what is he returning from?"
Me: "I dunno."
Cliff: "I was just wondering if he was in a band before he did that song, was he making a comeback or something? Is there a song called The Mack?"
Me: "I think it's like Sexyback, or something. They're just stating their intention of returning something--that may or may not have existed, or ever been missing--to its supposed former value."

Of course I had no idea what I was talking about, but later found out that Return of the Mack was his first album and so he was not, in fact, returning from anything. Also, there are no references to the 1973 blaxploitation film "The Mack", starring Max Julien, which had been my other suspicion. However, if you look closely at the lyrics you can see that during the chorus he sings
"(Return of the Mack) once again
(Return of the Mack) pump up the world
(Return of the Mack) watch my flow
(You know that I'll be back) here I go"

"You know that I'LL BE BACK". So as you can see Mark Morrison wasn't merely making a mack comeback, he was prophesizing that the mack would be brought back...at a later time. But you're probably asking "why didn't he just bring back the mack before he wrote the song?" Well, because technically he couldn't. If you know your Mark Morrison history you'd know that by "mack" he meant "guy who stabs people at night clubs", and due to his subsequent incarceration he was unable to do any more "macking". His first album Return of the Mack was actually recorded in prison where he decided that being an R&B singer was the best way to get his message out, like Nelson Mandela. It was the first in his "Wrongful Imprisonment" trilogy. Recording took place during sessions disguised as conjugal visits and additional vocals were recorded via "telephone behind glass wall". Seen within its historical context it's obvious that Mark Morrison's music career was the means to reach people with his cry for justice...he wanted to mack some more haters and wasn't going to let the law stand in his way...that is until 1997 when he was falsely accused of hiring a stunt double to do his community service for him while he vacationed in Barbados. To protest his innocence Morrison once again attempted to "return the mack" for his 1997 album Only God Can Judge Me for Deathrow records...however Suge Knight had his own problems with the law and the mack was unsuccessfully brought back. The final chapter of the mack trilogy occurred in 2004 after Morrison signed on to former English soccer player Kevin Campbell's doomed 2Wikid label. Apparently it wasn't wikid enough and Mark ended up in court with the label trying to recover the rights to stolen demos. At long last his mack was finally brought back when the judge awarded him possession of the material he recorded on said label.
Now that his mack has been returned via court order, what's next for R&B superstar Mark Morrison? Who knows. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of Mark Morrison. One day, sometime in the future, when the world (or court system) needs him he'll come back to reclaim the mack...he is not a tame fawn.

Intro to Crap

In other news, I'm currently taking a four week intro to film class that I somehow managed to skip until (this) the summer before my last semester of college as a film minor. Not saying I'm overqualified for it at this point or anything...there's always something new to learn and the film screening selection has been pretty good...but good lord, I have to tell ya, I've been in a lot of classes, a lot of BAD classes, I've been to community college. I've taken summer classes at community college. Community college...during the summer...but never in my life have there been so many morons enrolled in a single class. I don't want to be a total A-hole or anything but I felt compelled to make this little list of the best quotes so far...
Top 5 jackassiest quotes from intro to film...
5. During the middle of a test last week we're waiting for the teacher to show us a scene that we have to write a short essay about and some dude in the back starts whistling the final jeopardy tune for about a minute and half...and thinks it's hilarious...look at him! He's just gonna keep goin' until he gets the laugh he deserves! This is comic GOLD!
4. Numba fooouur...The last three films that we've watched in class have had characters who are chain smokers and every single time the same guy in the class feels it necessary to mention (so that the whole class can hear) "dude! they smoke more than I do!"
3. Some girl talking behind me before class in her obnoxious "i'm a rich daddy's girl from the chicago suburbs" accent: "duuuude, like why do we have to watch movies that are like a hundred years old, there are a lot of good movies that are new, there are sooooo many good movies made in 1995, like, for me 1995 to now are like the best movies! why can't we just do that?"
2. After the final scene of The Graduate and the credits start to roll a guy sitting behind me says very enthusiastically to the teacher: "That ending was really indie!"
1. And number one...The teacher is talking about early film directors who also starred in their own movies, names a few, pauses for a moment to think of some more...the guy sitting to my right says "Braveheart. Mel Gibson directed that and was in it."

AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaagh. I try not to gripe too much about pointless things on here but this class has been just too much. Thank God it's only four weeks. Here's an idea for people who think they wanna study film...save your tuition money and go watch the latest 2fast2furious sequel instead. Afterwords you can get high with all yer bros and talk about how sweet it was while you're playing x-box.

The Epic Batman Trilogy

I've briefly mentioned these epic masterpieces before but decided to post them here in their epic entirety... the epically epic, definitive Batman series by Kourush Rahimpour. These changed my whole perspective on stuff and it's the way Batman was meant to be...

Batman: Defenders of the Night - Bruce recruits the young Dick Grayson to aid him in his crusade against the forces of evil in Gotham City...


Batman and Robin: Dark Betrayals - in this chapter Bruce Wayne tries to unravel the mystery of Robin's sudden disappearance and what he discovers is something he's probably not prepared for...


Batman: Return of the Dark Knight - Believing Gotham to finally to be safe from the forces of evil Bruce and Dick decide to put an end to Batman and Robin...


yes...on a similar note I happened upon this little fan made trailer by Miguel Mesas based on the graphic novel Batman Arkham Asylum. This is VERY impressive...

Forgotten NES Games: Glengarry GlenRoss

Glengarry GlenRoss: The Game/ 2 Players/ 1992
Released in early 1992 as promotion for the film and an effort to get children interested in the dynamics of the realty industry, Glengarry GlenRoss: The Game had little or nothing to do with the actual movie, keeping in tradition with other movie based games for the NES such as Batman and Back to the Future.


The game allowed players to choose one of their four favorite realtors, though in the select menu itself the characters are mislabled as lawyers since the game was created before the script was finalized...at least that is the common notion, however this makes little sense since the film was based on the 1983 David Mamet play of the same name. Each of the playable characters differed slightly in abilities which was supposed to increase replay value...
Ricky bounces gum off of office furniture which entangles pursuing enemies.
Dave pushes papers off desks, except it looks like he's shooting paper out of his hands.
John has grovelling power, he gets on his knees and begs enemies which stops them in their tracks for about three seconds giving him precious time to escape and collect valuable contact cards.
and Shelley runs and jumps slightly better than the other three. except there is an occasional glitch that gives him a chainsaw, for some reason...
The object of the game was fairly simple but featured extremely pointless, overlong, monotonous cutscenes of exposition by Alan Arkin which take away from the already slow game play... all of which takes place in an office (much like the film). Level one starts off with an overhead view of your character walking through the office in Zelda fashion collecting and uncovering contact cards of varying values; 1, 2 or three being the most valuable. At the bottom of the screen is a time limit that counts down to Blake's arrival. If you don't have enough contact card value (or even if you do) level 2 begins and you must start frantically collecting more contacts while simultaneously avoiding the dreaded brass balls which Blake hurls at you much like Bowser at the end of every level in Super Mario Bros. From here it starts to feel a lot like Duck Hunt in that there is no limit to the amount of points you can rack up before you lose. There is however one kid in Japan who claims to have reached level 3, he said that it has ninjas.

Nouveauropa! Be a Winner...Eat to Get Slimmer...

Due to the overwhelming success of a previous post regarding the dreaded Nouveau Tech organization I thought I'd take another crack at uncovering this epic mystery. I might even try and cash in by writing something along the lines of DaVinci Code...or an in-depth, historically based analysis that someone else will wrap in an easily digestible candy coating for the masses.
But now for the big reveal...after literally minutes of research I have unmasked a web of conspiracy whose roots are laden in the deepestmost trenches of the Dutch saran wrap industry.
This particular "industry" who parade themselves as Nouveautech prey on the low self-esteemed by sending letters that promise "ungodly POWERZ of mynd cuntrowl and dominayshun of enemies forever and ever, amen." Like I mentioned in my previous article, or maybe not, I admitted that yes I felt a tinge of excitement and lust for power and riches when I received my letter. And I'm extremely skeptical and unimpressed at everything so of course it's only natural that others would react with childlike giddy at the promises they read. Ergo, what does the common man do when he or she wants to know the solid facts, the whole truf? They go on the internet and search Google to see if others have received said powers. Here's where this gets heavy...besides my own post on the subject there are literally ENDLESS hits of sites based on different variations of Nouveatech, all of which have no content whatsoever. Obviously entrepenuers are sitting on domain names waiting for the time to emerge, waiting for something...
However, there is one site that has interesting content...http://www.nouveautech.nl/index.html
It seems harmless at first, a few paragraphs written in gibberish, some pictures of small kitchen products...but what do these symbols mean?

"Wij zijn een bedrijf dat zich toelegt op het co-produceren van krimpfolies voor de verpakkingsindustrie.
Onze unieke werkwijze omvat het produceren van een eigen kwaliteit polyolefine krimpfolie op zeer moderne voor ons gereserveerde meerlaags extruders.
Door deze reservering van productie capaciteit zijn wij in staat een bijzonder goede kwaliteit - prijsverhouding te hanteren.
Tevens kunnen wij via een uitgebreid netwerk van buitenlandse producenten onze klanten voorzien van vele soorten LDPE, HDPE, PP en complexe materialen zoals schalensluit- en gecoate folies.
Onze missie bestaat uit het begeleiden van klanten in het vinden van de juiste combinatie "product" en "verpakkingsmateriaal"."

Que? Yes, you guessed it correctly, this is actually Dutchese, language of the Netherlands, home of the Frenchy bastard himself; Sir William of Orange. Roughly this translates to...

"We are a business that self add on the assistant-produce of shrinkage foils for the packings industry.
Our unique method encompass the producing of an own quality polyolefine shrinkage foil on very modern for our reserved lake layer extruders. Through this booking of production capacity its we in state a particular good quality - price proportion to handle. Also can we via an extensive network of foreign producers our customers foresee of many kinds of LDPE, HDPE, PP and complex materials as schalensluit- and gecoate foils.
Our mission consists of the accompanying of customers in the finding of the right combination "product" and "packings material"."

Shrinking Foils? Packing industry? Layer Extruders? LDPE, HDPE, PP?! Gecoate foils? Shalensluit?! Awhaaa?!
"product"..."packing material"...It's all coming together.

As I began to dig deeper I found myself at the website of a parent company called "Industrial Techno Service" Parent company of Nouveautech and Nouveauwrap, the main page of which reads:

"Our approach to the industrie is one of "solution engineering" and we always will try to achieve the most optimal result.
To do so we have four devisions each specialised in their own area."

Industrie? Common mistake...but "Four devisions"? Curious, this is a very deliberate attempt to lead us toward something...BUT WHAT? If you separate the word into its two sensical basic forms "de" which is commonly "of" or "the" in many languages and "vision", which is self explanatory, we arrive at the ONLY hit on google...hundreds of pages regarding the famous German synth-pop group known as De/Vision...a band who just-so-happened to release a song right after the turn of the new millennium titled "Reinvent Yourself" from their "Void" album. The song repeats the following phrase...

"So predictable
And conventional
Just re-invent yourself
Nothing fictional
It's only natural
So re-invent yourself
Mental infection
The answer lies in you"

Bingo. More Nouveautech subliminal messaging of which De/Vision is no doubt a part of. But there are still more questions...why would a German pop group be in league with Dutch packaging material manufacturers dispersing letters under the guise of ancient secret hawkers? Why all the empty web domains?

To unravel this web of enigma I went deep undercover sending hundreds of e-mails and doing the unthinkable...actually paying for Nouveautech's "secret book". A man, who we shall call "Kownan Ohbreyin" contacted me via skywriting and told me to meet him at the local Starbucks, but by Starbucks he meant the other Starbucks. nice. I waited there for a good two or so hours until I noticed a vacant laptop computer with Craigslist casual encounters page loaded. Highlighted was a listing for some kind of minagatwa. The contact led me to a place unrelated to this mystery.
The next day I received a package from UPS, inside was a letter that said "Hello, you, this is Kownan, why weren't you at Starbucks? Meet me via telephone in 3...2...1" and then the phone rang and a prerecorded message informed me that two more installment payments were needed before a second meeting could be arranged. I obliged, in fact I mailed them my credit card. That seemed to do the trick, the next day I received an Amazon.com order confirmation for a mysterious purchase that would be sent via carrier pigeon. Two long hours passed and a pigeon did not arrive, but a young boy with red hair and freckles arrived on a tricycle, pulling into my driveway. He stared at me for a moment then pulled a manila envelope from his suit jacket and placed it carefully on the pavement, pedaling away. I carefully opened the envelope with great anticipation, wondering what secrets lay hidden in its insignificant paper exterior. Inside was a coupon for three months of free web hosting (four if I included a banner on my site linking people to de-vision.com) and a letter welcoming me and notifying me that I had been ushered into the secret league of Dutch Packaging Industry shareholders. I could now "repel all enemies such as mold and staleness without them ever knowing it."

And finally, if you receive an offer for this...in the mail, don't pass it up. It's the real deal.

German Expressionism

Re: German Expressionism and Ernst Toller’s Masse-Mensch

German Expressionism was a movement which encompassed literature, theatre, art, dance, music and cinema yet the average student of theatre is most likely familiar with its drama only through the work of primarily Symbolist writers like Ibsen, Strindberg and Wedekind. It’s true that German writer Frank Wedekind’s Spring’s Awakening (1891) paved the way for many of the conventions of German Expressionism however it was only a precursor to the movement’s overt political nature and highly abstract qualities. I believe it’s a fair assumption that the specific movement of German Expressionist theatre has often been ignored or at least not given the appreciation it deserves due to some of its inherently polarizing political and philosophical qualities. I don’t have time to account for each and every play of the period so instead I will use what is probably the prime example of well-written, political, expressionist drama; Ernst Toller’s 1921 play Masse-Mensch or Man and the Masses. It is one of the standards of the movement and captures the essence of what German Expressionism as a whole was trying to achieve. By clarifying Toller’s personal philosophy and intentions and by helping the reader weave through some of the subtleties of Masse-Mensch I hope to help those interested in theatre better understand Expressionist drama as a whole.

For students of recent generations taking a theatre history course Expressionism is most likely a brief footnote comprised of vague imagery; macabre black & white skeletons, intangible dream imagery and intense, seemingly directionless emotion. But to fully understand the depth of its meaning you must first place it within its historical context, which is important in any study and even more so here. Renate Benson, author of German Expressionist Drama dates the birth of Expressionism in 1905 when artists in Paris and Germany began breaking from conventional forms in a radical way. Specifically in Dresden, Germany artists who called themselves Die Brucke or The Bridge hailed themselves, as “enemies of conventional bourgeois art, and as prophets and creators of new values” (Benson, 2) This new philosophical outlook affected all forms of art and was for the most part a reaction or signpost of the ever growing industrial war-machine (capitalism, for the most part) and the alienation of its working class citizens. In his introduction to German Expressionist Plays, editor Ernst Schurer explains that, “The expressionists saw the state (education and religion) as “servants of the dominant ideology, more interested in maintaining the status quo than in helping the downtrodden and disadvantaged, the tragic victims of industrialization and so called progress” (vii) It becomes clear very quickly that Expressionism was a direct product of one of the world’s most rapid periods of change following the industrial revolution and was very much a prophetic warning against man’s “irresponsible” wielding of power. Fueling the movement’s popularity and notoriety was the start of World War I in 1913, and then, as if inevitable, Expressionism came to an abrupt halt with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, a time when many of its finest artists were forced into exile or killed for their anti-state views.

This ideology which was considered so “dangerous” did have a political face, but it was mostly out of personal associations with and sympathy to the socialist and communist causes. George Kaiser, for example, stayed out of the political arena and like him many other expressionists chose instead to seek out and develop their own “personal vision” of life, reality and existence. In general the common sentiment of Expressionists was heavily influenced by the psychological and philosophical work of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche who “extolled instinct above intellect” (Schurer, xii) This brief statement works to reiterate the overall goal of Expressionism. That is, in an effort to break free from and eliminate hollow social constructs, emotional prisons and mechanized existence a person should trust in their own deep rooted inherent goodness (which artists of this movement agreed upon as truth) to “regenerate” society and one day lead it to a utopian (or at least better) era in human history. To accomplish this theatre artists of the period tried through their writing, acting, direction and production to condense the human experience into its most basic form; expression. Almost all traditional theatrical elements are reduced to “visions” based on dreams, feeling and imagination which are to Expressionists “more meaningful than experience and reality” (Schurer, vii) Writers of the period achieved this by breaking language down to abstract short words and sentences which are supposed to enhance intensity and act as a sort of burst of feeling or stream of thought that Pinthus, in his 1919 anthology of Expressionist poems describes as an “ecstatic scream…for kindness, justice, comradeship…and love of man for man” (Pinthus, 25) The content of the play itself is filtered through one main character’s point of view that often represents the ideology of the writer himself. It’s a form of reality distorted by one person’s inward “ethical struggle” against oppressive outside forces. In these plays reality itself is dreamlike and often paralleled by a presentation of one’s deeper subconscious thought. In these productions the outside forces are depicted as larger than life, exaggerated through the use of masks and seen as the main character might subconsciously view them in a “real” world. To convey this surreal version of reality actors would present themselves in a fluid, “expanded”, kabuki-esque manner, which included the representative movements of individuals and groups through gestures, vocal expression and so forth, all of which is meant to convey an “extraordinary state of being” (Benson, 8)

For about the first decade of its existence the Expressionist movement had yet to solidify a real set of goals or to truly define what their “new values” were. There was no particular call to action other than a general association with the left and an acceptance of their means to political revolution, which they assumed inevitably required violence. It was primarily this sort of lackluster acknowledgement of violence, undefined goals and ambiguity that allowed the Expressionist movement to come under blanket accusations of being either propagandists for a certain party, useless idealists or anarchists whose literature was seen as fuel for the leftist cause. However this was not totally the case, in its early years Expressionism was basically an artists melting pot of humanist ideals that questioned the rigid, accepted rules and norms of life, art, reality and the establishment. Their goal was to, through their art, act as a kind of wrench in the gears of established western life which would hopefully shake people out of apathy and acceptance of their fate. And so the movement remained pretty vague and open ended until around 1921 when Ernst Toller released his second play Masse-Mensch and began to question how Expressionists (or revolutionaries in general) could believe in the “inherent goodness of man” while also accepting a violent revolution that results in many deaths. He found this to be unacceptable but difficult to resolve. As we will see, many of Toller’s beliefs about this apparent contradiction developed during the time between 1917-1919 when he was heavily involved with Independent Socialist party leader Kurt Eisner and his attempts to set up a provisional government in Munich after the collapse of the German Empire. During that time he was an influential leader within the network; acted as a field commander in battles against loyalist armies and helped with organizing and inspiring the working class to strike through readings of his first play Die Wandlung. These activities, experiences and plays written prior to Masse-Mensch were overtly political and often rallying cries for a socialist cause but what’s more important is that they would serve as a catalyst and as a framework for his developing humanist ideology which culminated itself in the writing of Masse-Mensch. This work would finally force Expression to face the reality of what it was they were actually trying to get people to do and how this goal should “morally” be achieved.

Next I will discuss three main points of interest that many Toller scholars regard as leading to the shift in his personal ideology and focusing of Expressionist objectives. The first of these is the dual nature of discrimination he was exposed to as a child growing up in Prussia (now Poland). Samotschin, the town Toller grew up in, was run by a small Protestant German minority who held an elitist attitude toward the Catholic Poles. Toller’s family was in fact German, and well-to-do at that, but they were Jews and endured a certain level of second-class citizenry. In a way Toller experienced both worlds as a German bully and then as a persecuted Jew. In his autobiography he talks about this portion of his life and mentions overhearing another child’s nursemaid saying not to play with him because “that’s a Jew”. Michael Ossar, in his book Anarchism in the Dramas of Ernst Toller, talks about how early confrontations with discrimination lead to Toller’s outspoken denunciation of it, he says that “through his friendship with Stanislaus, the nightwatchman’s son, Toller began to observe the subtle and not-so-subtle process of the inculcation of prejudices between religions, between rich and poor, between nationalities.” (2) As we can see, even early in his life Toller recognized the unnecessary walls that divide people and was able to empathize each, as he would later. In his book on Toller, Michael Pittock gives a nice summary of the implications of these early experiences. He says,
Toller experienced, in all its force, the desire of the outsider to be identified with the dominant social group, and yet he was in a position to realize that such solidarity was destructive because it was purchased at the price of antagonism toward other men-a contradiction explored in his first play Die Wandlung (19)

The second moment of “revelation” that shaped Toller’s humanist views is also derived from a story he tells in his autobiography about one of the more horrific experiences in the first world war. While digging in the dirt with a pick axe he says that one of his swings landed straight into a human body buried beneath, tearing out entrails,
"A dead man is buried here…and suddenly…I grasped the simple truth which I had forgotten, which had lain dead and buried; humanity, community, the only things that really matter…at that moment I realize that I was blinded, willfully blinded; at that moment I knew at last that all the dead, French and German alike, were brothers, and that I am their brother too” (71)
Earlier in his autobiography Toller discusses his feelings of alienation from the dead, a psychological defense mechanism against being overwhelmed by the carnage. “I see the dead and yet I don’t see them…the dead [are unreal]…arousing horror but not compassion.”
The final experience that I believe strengthened Toller’s resolve to reevaluate revolutionary goals was in how his own brief experience as a revolutionary participant ended. In 1918 during his leadership of socialist troops Toller was, for the first time, faced with what it meant to be responsible for the fates of others, while also trying to stay true to his conscience. He believed in the cause but started to doubt the violent means by which they were to achieve it, and because of that knew he could be jeopardizing the situation,
"I hated violence and had sworn rather to endure it than engage in it. Should I now break this oath because the revolution was under attack? I had to do so. The workers had given me their confidence…Wouldn’t I be betraying their confidence if I now refused to defend them, or even called on them to renounce the use of force? I should have considered the possibility of bloody consequences before and not taken office." (118)

Partly responsibly for this sentiment was an instance where he refused an order to eliminate captured Loyalist officers, Toller said "no matter how brutal the laws of civil war may be…we are fighting for a more just world; we demand humaneness so we must be humane" (10)
If there was any belief left in whether he could handle the dirty work of political revolution it was washed away with the defeat of the Munich socialist cause in the summer of 1919 when loyalist troops overtook the city leading to the murders of many of his colleagues including Kurt Eisner and his own subsequent five year imprisonment. Renate Benson summarizes Toller’s disillusionment of this time saying, "it was this concern for the individual which prevented Toller from ever embracing completely the collectivism of an system, even that of Marxism to which he was sympathetic...he did not want masse [masses], he wanted mensch [men]" (13) Even until the end of his life in 1939 Toller recognized the inevitability of force to achieve revolution but now quickly parted himself ideologically and started vigorously, through his own means, to try and develop a vision of how to peacefully transform the world.

"Can a man not be an individual and a mass-man at one and the same time?…As an individual a man will strive for his own ideals, even at the expense of the rest of the world. As a mass-man, social impulses sweep him towards his goal, even though his ideals have been abandoned. The problem seemed to me insoluble…I sought to solve it. It was the conflict that inspired my play Masse-Mensch" (78)

His paradox; how does an individual preserve himself and what he believes while trying to do the will of the masses? Through the character of “The Woman” also known as Sonia Irene, Toller takes us along a journey through his political and moral predicament hoping to find a solution in its telling. The five years of political imprisonment following the Munich revolution were probably the most artistically prolific of Toller’s life. During this time he published a number of poem collections and screenplays, the majority of his popular plays; Die Wandlung, Hinkemman Machine-Wreckers and his most important work Masse-Mensch. As I mentioned earlier I believe that Masse-Mensch provides some of the best examples of what both Toller and German Expressionism was trying to achieve at their core. Next I will briefly discuss how, through this play, Toller answered some of the difficult questions that arose from Expressionist philosophy and from what he experienced in his own life. By looking at the play’s structure; how Toller treats opposing viewpoints within the play and the kind of transformations that characters go through, I can hopefully further show that Toller’s work is truly that of an open minded humanitarian with no intention of reaffirming political agendas, but work that is interested in asking the question how we achieve peace peacefully.

The play Masse-Mensch tells the story of a politically charged woman who is often referred to as Sonia Irene L. by sources outside the play itself, though I’ve never seen anyone explain where exactly that comes from. It’s only mentioned that there was at some point a real female revolutionary of the same name. Anyway, in the story she is depicted as someone who’s respected within a group of revolutionaries and acts as a sort of rallying voice, and later, a voice of conscience. At first she has an almost monolithic quality in that she seems very clear and straight forward about the strike against the factory that must happen now. She speaks of the task at hand in a very lofty and epic manner, like a singular voice of reassurance to the people she speaks to. The beginning of this plays seems as if it will head in the same direction as Die Wandlung, as mostly a relatively straightforward pep rally, but as we will see it quickly deviates and Toller presents his main character with a series of obstacles that force her to question her initial enthusiasm that parallel his own struggles. The first of these is the appearance of her husband who works for (and is still loyal to) the state. He shows up at the meeting place and tells The Woman that she is jeopardizing their way of life by associating with the left and tells her to come home now, which she does (for the last time). The purpose of her husband’s interference isn’t merely to cause some drama by making her choose one or the other, what it does is reveal that she actually has a part, and understands both worlds; the privileged and the downtrodden. By going home with her husband she admits in part that she’s an outsider and becomes alienated from the others. In the next part she is back with her comrades and continues to call for a peaceful strike against the factories, but then her next obstacle comes along, a person called “Nameless One” who steps out from the crowd begins to question her. He basically calls her out, saying that she is naïve to think that anything but glorious battle can change their situation. “Masses are fate” the Nameless One tells her, to which she slowly repeats “masses…are…fate“, reluctantly following the mass course of action and betraying her conscience. In the next scene we learn that many revolutionaries have been slaughtered in this battle but still nameless one calls for their persistence as a necessary sacrifice. Later, the meeting place is found by troops and the revolutionaries inside, as well as The Woman, are put in prison.

Through most of the play you can see some of the obvious parallels to Toller’s own experiences that I mentioned earlier, questions of conscience vs. action, but what’s special about this particular play is that he answers his question from a different point of view. Instead of simply asking how a person persuades the masses to resist violence and simply seeing the issue as black and white, us versus them, Toller views all men as one. Opposing groups are actually a mass of men misguided by one purpose or another, in this case hatred, greed and revenge. In one part of the play the revolutionaries capture loyalist soldiers and The Nameless One cries for revenge, saying that they must be killed because they kill us, they taught us to kill. As the prisoners are being lined up to be shot The Woman stands in front of them, protesting. Nameless One calls her treasonous and asks why she does this, to which she replies “I shield mankind!” Here, the Woman makes it very clear that her goals are larger than the immediate change and retribution of the masses, she is trying to achieve a complete peace that the masses just don’t understand and reject. Not only does The Woman confront the anger that defiles the revolution but also confronts the system, the greed and distorted thinking of the elite. In one of the last scenes The Woman’s husband, who represents the opposition, visits her in her prison cell. He is there once again trying to get her see “reason”, to which she harshly rejects and chastises the system to which he is slave, a system that wages meaningless wars based on greed, but interestingly in her final line to him says “give me your hand beloved of my blood, for I have overcome myself, myself and you” as if rejecting his choices but not him as a person. After he leaves a final visitor, The Nameless, comes along and offers her a way about by killing the guard. As her husband was the last attempt at the system to draw her back in, this is the part of the revolution that asks her to compromise, but she refuses and accepts her impending death, saying to him “I shall become cleaner, more guiltless, I shall become mankind.”

Toller’s philosophy comes to a “fruition” of sorts in this last scene as he finally strips The Woman of the harmful aspects her associations; greed and revenge. In this prison condition her comrades are gone, her husband is gone but she is still a part of them, however, she has now somehow transcended them, she is an individual who now declares herself as mankind. In the final part of Masse-Mensch after The Woman has been taken away to be killed two female prisoners enter the cell and begin rummaging through what little has been left behind. Suddenly they hear the gunshots of the firing line outside and fall to their knees sobbing. The final two lines of the play are them, in succession, saying “sister, why do we do such things?” There is a lot of complex philosophy in here that I still haven’t really grasped, but in this final moment of the play I believe Ernst Toller has reconciled that real peace can only be achieved by eliminating the collective “will of the masses” that absorbs and dehumanizes people, regardless of the group’s original intentions. He seems to call for a collective consciousness of humanity made up of individuals who are transformed, rejecting completely the idea that their own life is more or less valuable than other, rejecting violence and greed, and thus are willing to transform the world one person at a time, however long it may take. And Toller illustrates this through the apparent self-reflection that The Woman’s own transformation and sacrifice caused.

Works Cited

Benson, Renate. German Expressionist Drama Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser. London: Macmillan Press, 1984.
Gruber, Helmut. “The Political-Ethical Mission of German Expressionism.” The German Quarterly. 40.2 (1967): 186-203. Jstor. Milner Lib., Illinois State U. 14 April. 2008. .
Lamb, Stephen. “Hero or Villain? Notes on the Reception of Ernst Toller in the GDR.” The German Quarterly. 59.3 (1986): 375-386. Jstor. Milner Lib., Illinois State U. 14 April. 2008. .
Lob, L. “German Expressionist Theatre: The Actor and Stage.” The Modern Language Review. No volume or issue number, 1 January 2004 (date of publication). Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Milner Lib., Illinois State U. 25 Apr. 2008 .
Ossar, Michael. Anarchism in the dramas of Ernst Toller. Albany: State University Press, 1980
Pinthus, K., ed. The Twilight of Humanity. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1959.
Pittock, Malcolm. Ernst Toller. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.
Schurer, Ernst, ed. German Expressionist Plays. New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1997.
Spalek, John, M. “Ernst Toller: The Need for a New Estimate.” The German Quarterly. 39.4 (1966): 581-598. Jstor. Milner Lib., Illinois State U. 14 April. 2008. .
Toller, Ernst., Crankshaw, Edward, Trans. I Was a German. New York: William Marrow, 1934.
Willebrand, W.A. “Ernst Toller’s Ideological Skepticism.” The German Quarterly. 19.3 (1946): 181-186. Jstor. Milner Lib., Illinois State U. 14 April. 2008. .

GENESIS. PHIL COLLINS. THE CONCERT.

Pretty much the pinnacle of my life. That's all I can say. Phil Collins is a tiny little man and he was everything I dreamed he'd be. Seeing his giant face on the jumbo screen yelling "HAHA ha oooohhh!" during Mama was trumtulescent. Every song was like spending an eternity in heaven...and i'm only slightly exaggerating. Here are a couple pics...behold...

"I CAN'T DANCE IS A CROWD PLEASER" ~ CLIFF PLANTER
and here's a video I recently found from the show I was at, this was the point where I officially creamed my pantalones...Duke intro and Turn It On Again


"Afterglow", this was almost exactly the view from where I was sitting. I think I might be somewhere in this...