Stranger than Fiction & Postmodernism

Stranger than Fiction

The film Stranger than Fiction is certainly strange... Starring Will Ferrell, Stranger than Fiction tells the story of a man named Harold Crick, who is the unknowing character in a tragedy author's newest novel. The film opens with Harold Crick's morning routine being narrated by an omniscient voice, a voice that the audience is aware of, but one that the character is not supposed to acknowledge. The funny thing about this film, is that our protagonist is completely aware of the unseen narrator. What sounds crazy to the other characters of the film when confronted by Crick about the disembodied voice is actually very pressing and concerning to Harold.

Seeking the help of therapists and friends who all assume that this is a sure sign of schizophrenia, Harold becomes hopeless and utterly frustrated. He realizes that the voice is narrating his every move, leading him to believe that he is indeed part of someone's story. But who's story? And, even if he were a character in a story, why is it that he can hear the narrations while no one else does? Considered a postmodern film, Stranger than Fiction toys with the way that most modern films and stories are constructed. The fact that Harold is fully aware of the narrator breaks the literary fourth wall that never gets broken in any sort of structured story or film. It is safe to say that Stranger than Fiction is not a story about a man who has gone crazy, but it is a story about story telling itself.

After seeking the help of a literary expert, university literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), helps Crick piece the odd narrations together. The biggest mystery is who and how: who is narrating Harold Crick's life, and how is he hearing it? After Crick learns from the narrator that his inevitable death is looming, the situation becomes much more urgent. It is now essential that Crick finds out who this narrator is, so he can speak with her and try to stop her from narrating his death. While consulting with Jules Hilbert one day, he hears a familiar voice on the television while an old recording of a talk show interview with author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is playing. He recognizes Karen's voice as the same voice that has been narrating his every move. Once he realizes that Karen Eiffel is indeed the person he's looking for, he sets out to find her. After the long process of tracing her down, he locates her office where she has been writing her newest tragedy novel, Death and Taxes, A.K.A. Harold's life. Completely shocked to see that the character she created is real and standing right before her, Karen feels a sudden sense of guilt, knowing that she was about to kill a real, live person.

After endless nights of thinking up ways to rewrite the book in order to keep Harold alive, Karen Eiffel manages to end her book without a death. Harold does come out harmed, but alive. This movie is ironic in more ways than one: we would never expect the main character to be aware of the voice narrating their story, let alone actually interact with them and convince them to rewrite the ending. Stranger than Fiction pokes fun at the structure and the cliches of modern films. With most films having a clearly defined genre (comedy, tragedy, horror, romance), Stranger than Fiction does not exactly give one, obvious view on life. It does not make the lives of its characters out to be comedic or tragic, but rather asks the audience whether or not they believe life is a comedy or a tragedy. This film goes against everything we know about traditional films as an audience, and certainly has a mind of its own.

Fight Club & the Fight Within

The film Fight Club starts off "en media res", when we are shown a scene of our main character at gunpoint in a hostile situation. But we are soon rewound back to the beginning where the main character, who remains nameless for now (Edward Norton) walks us through his simple, ritualistic and mundane life. We are introduced to him as he narrates through his everyday life: going to work, and coming home to his small, but heavily furnished condo as he explains that he is an impulsive IKEA shopper, a bizarre but not overly extreme habit. Oh, and let's not forget about the pleasure he gets from attending weekly group meetings for cancer victims, alcoholics, etc. In the beginning, our protagonist seems fairly normal, but as the film continues, we begin to see a drastic change in the mood and behavior of this character who was once so composed, so put together and calm.

This film strictly examines the three parts of the human unconscious that have direct affects on the way in which we act. The id, the personality that is present with us from birth, is impulsive, primitive and will do anything to fulfill the needs and wants of the body and mind. Many criminals or bullies are generally driven by their impulsive ids. The ego, which is the part of our personalities that helps us make sense of and deal with reality, sort of gives us a sense of rationalization; it almost keeps the id in check, seeing that we go about fulfilling the needs of the id in sensible, appropriate ways. The last component of personality, the superego, is what's considered our conscience. It helps us decipher right from wrong, and gives us a sense of judgement. The way in which the id, ego and superego relate to this film is that the film examines the unconscious impulses that govern male behavior: the need to fight, the desire to prove themselves and assert their independence from the rest of mainstream society.

Our unnamed protagonist, we realize, is mostly driven by his ego. As said above, he is composed, remains professional at his job and leads a seemingly normal life, until he meets our outrageous, id-driven character, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). He encounters Tyler Durden one evening while on an airplane. The two converse and we learn a little more about Tyler: he is a maker and seller of bar soap (not super crazy), but is also cryptic, witty and mysterious. Our main character is intrigued by Tyler, he finds him rather fascinating, and they exchange numbers. After his flight home, our character returns to find that his condo has been caught on fire and burnt down. With nowhere to go, he remembers Tyler, gives him a call, and the two meet up outback of a local bar. After Tyler offers our protagonist a place to stay at his home, we are introduced the filthy, dilapidated conditions of his house, which happens to be located in the middle of nowhere. The house is large, dingy and we can obviously tell that little care is taken, which is not surprising due to Tyler's carefree,"I don't give a damn" nature.  It is at this house that Tyler and our main character form the ever-famous Fight Club

With Fight Club comes an important message that Tyler wishes to advocate to the club's members, and especially our main character. The message is to not conform to the mainstream society, break away from normality, be original and independent. The funny thing is, in the attempt to promote originality and independence, the members of this club end up following, depending on Tyler's words and actions. Aside from the fact that the message trying to be portrayed in this film is completely contradicted by the turnout of the club, I must say I agree with Roger Ebert's Fight Club article, and his idea that the gratuitous violence of the film completely overshadows any profound meaning the film might have had. The club offers nothing to its members but a series of senselessly violent, impulsive acts that disrupt society. But of course, what's to expect from a club called "Fight Club"?

It can be said that Fight Club itself represents our main character's own internal fight within his own mind. How? Because we see him change drastically from this clean-cut office worker to this bestial monster who begins to get enjoyment out of beating the crap out of other people. He and Tyler become one in the same, so much so, that it is uncanny just how alike they are... As said above, our main character, who was once ego-driven, turns into this extreme id-driven person. That is exactly the struggle he is facing: the balance between his id and his ego. Throughout the film, we really don't see any presence of the superego, which would explain why Edward Norton's character has such a difficult time drawing the line between right and wrong, rational and irrational. Although difficult to derive from the endless chaos of the film, it is clear that the "fight" in Fight Club is not about fighting others, it's about fighting yourself

Do the Right Thing: Race & Racism in America

Do the Right Thing, Directed by Spike Lee, is a story of an average Brooklyn block composed mainly of minorities. The neighborhood is predominantly African American, but there are mixes of Latinos, Asians and Caucasians as well. The film centers around Mookie (Spike Lee), a young, African American man who works hard as a delivery boy for the neighborhood pizzeria, Sal's Famous Pizzeria. While Mookie's struggle is working hard to try and support his girlfriend, Tina, and their son, Hector, this is not the central story of our film, but just one of the many little side-stories that we witness, among all the other personalities and daily bouts of the other characters. In fact, Spike Lee exposes us to a multitude of different characters throughout the film, characters that each contain significant symbolization and important messages about race and the way it is perceived in American culture.

Do the Right Thing certainly has a lot to say about race, racial stereotypes and interracial relations, and Lee shows us this through the variety of characters he has provided: we have Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a large Black man who we rarely ever see speak, but instead carries around a boombox that constantly replays a song called Fight the Power. Radio Raheem is probably the most perplexing character out of all of them: he is someone who has little to say, but has such a large impact on the people who surround him, especially Sal, who is annoyed by the constant blaring of his music. Another interesting character is Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), another Black male, spastic and always looking to instigate any type of uprising. My personal take on Buggin' Out was that Lee used him to represent the stereotypical, loudmouth Black guy that everybody loves to hate. We see Buggin' Out make attempts throughout the film to start protests and arguments, but no one in the neighborhood really pays him any mind. It can be argued that Lee has taken each of his characters, and used them to symbolize the different "types" of racial stereotypes we see in our society: the fruit-vending Asians, the loudmouth Latinos, the argumentative Blacks and the hotheaded Caucasians.

When Lee takes these characters and mixes them together in a Brooklyn block, we see trouble occur and tensions rise. These tensions are results of racial differences (or in-differences), but there is really no predominating race that is the victim of these tensions, as they are all victims of each other's violence and insults. As Roger Ebert mentions in his article on this film (1989), Lee "made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants. He didn't draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others.". Lee did exactly this, because throughout the film, it is hard to truly pity just one race, because we get a sense of the struggles faced by each group: Sal (Danny Aiello) and his son Vino (Italians) trying to cope with the ignorance of their neighborhood customers, and especially Vino who has no qualms about the fact that he is racist, the Blacks who are continually misunderstood and remain mostly unheard by the people around them, and the Asians and Latinos who are mere bystanders of the neighborhood issues.

After days of intense heat and boiling tensions, Buggin' Out, who has still failed to make himself heard among his community, decides that he is displeased with Sal and his pizza shop for having only pictures of white people on the store's wall of fame. With the help of Radio Raheem, who is also against Sal for telling him to shut his music off, assists him in going to Sal's and starting a riot. Insults are exchanged, and Sal calls the two the unthinkable "N word". Riled up, Radio and Buggin' physically assault Sal, while Mookie attempts to break them up. Soon enough, after a ruckus has been made, the entire neighborhood gets involved in the altercation, and a mob breaks out in the pizza shop. Fists are thrown, cops are called and chaos has broken out everywhere, so much so, that Mookie must throw a trashcan through the window of the pizza shop with the hopes that the crowd might settle down, but this only incites the incident more, until it carries on out into the middle of the street. The tragic ending to this senseless violence is the death of Radio Raheem, after he has been shot by a cop, and the demise of Sal's Famous Pizzeria, after it has been burnt down to the ground.

This film actually has quite an ironic title, because throughout, no one has really "done the right thing", the only exception being Mookie, who did the right thing in his own way by trying to restore some peace and sanity at the scene of the mob when he broke the window. It can be said that Mookie had the right intentions all along, but in a society where everyone is against each other for reasons that are uncontrollable (i.e. race), it is not difficult to get caught up in the turmoil of the world, because it is and always has been all around.

Boyz n the Hood: What it Means to be a Man

Boyz n the Hood is an intense film that sheds light upon the issues of the world, and not the foreign issues, but the issues that are closest to home, right here in America. What is a coming-of-age story for our main character, Trey, is the story of a fatal ending for two other characters, close friends of Trey, endings that were almost inevitable based on the violent circumstances of the neighborhood setting where our story takes place.

The soul-touching story begins with Trey as a young boy. He has spent most of his life up to about age ten living with his mother, but under her decision, is made to go live with his father, Furious, in the "hood". On decent and agreeable terms with one another, Trey's mother and father discuss that this decision is best for Trey. His mother states that Furious, as his father, is the only one who is capable of teaching him how to "be a man". Here, in this line, lies the central question that we as an audience must keep in mind while watching this film: What do the characters and their individual mannerisms and choices tell us about being a man? What, can we infer, is their idea of what a real man is? For years, masculinity has been defined by a man being big, tough, assertive and aggressive. A real man, in the eyes of society, is someone who shows no weakness, no vulnerability.

As the film jumps forward into Trey's young adult life, we see him still associated with the same group of friends that he encountered upon moving in with his father, friends that have been good to him, but not so much good members of society, with the exception of one scholarly young man, Ricky. While Ricky and Trey try their best to avoid getting caught up in the drama of their violent neighborhood, we see the two take a different approach to becoming men; unlike the rest of the boys, Trey and Ricky are respectful, smart, goal-oriented and disinterested in the violence around them. We can certainly agree that Trey is lucky to have Furious as his father, due to the fact that from an early age, Furious has put into perspective for Trey that drinking, drugs, sex and violence will get you nowhere in life. Furious has instilled values and morals in Trey, and because of this, Trey is far better off than group that he hangs around with. But even with these values and his refusal to partake in the same violent lifestyle as his friends, can we agree that Trey is less manly or even manlier than them? That is up to us as an audience to decide, and the fates of these seemingly manly characters almost help make this decision for us.

Towards the end of the film, after Trey is in a good place with his long-time girlfriend, and Ricky is on his way to a university with a football scholarship, things take a turn for the worst and tragedy strikes when Ricky, the unsuspecting victim of the violence in the hood, is gunned down and killed. Filled with hatred and rage, all of the boys, including Trey, set out to find Ricky's killer and deliver the same fate that he has brought upon Ricky. But as Trey is about to leave his house with his father's gun, Furious intervenes and reminds Trey of the consequences of his actions: a lifetime in jail, even death, and of course, the ongoing cycle of violence that he would only be contributing to if he retaliated. After rationalizing Furious' words, Trey takes a step back and decides that he wants no part in continuing the violence, that taking the life of Ricky's killer will only create more animosity within the neighborhood.

Although Trey was able to come to his senses, it is not to say the same for the rest of the group, who continued to hunt down the men responsible for Ricky's murder, and killed them as well. There is a moment, about a day or two after the group seeks revenge when Trey and Dough-boy, the "leader of the pack", discuss that although Ricky's killers were dead, things still are and always will be just as unjust and messed up as they ever were. We learn that no true satisfaction was ever gained by Dough-boy and their group from putting on this "tough guise" and fighting fire with fire. We can then decide not only which character we feel qualifies more as a real man, but which character considers their actions to be truly manly as well: Trey, who will eventually overcome the grief of Ricky's death and move on with his life, or Dough-boy, who is not only filled with sorrow for his murdered brother, but guilt and disappointment as well. In fact, towards the end, captions on the screen reveal that Dough-boy himself ends up dead. Someone who once played the act of a person that was invulnerable and tough has now endured the same fate as his unfortunate brother.