De Palma's Chicago

To borrow a term from Thom Andersen, Brian DePalma (like Alfred Hitchcock) is a ”low tourist”: a filmmaker who, when describing the city where his film is set, chooses obvious landmarks or characteristics already imprinted on the national or cinematic consciousness. The Fury, which is mostly set (as a title card informs us) in “CHICAGO 1978,” shows a city of crowded Tom Palazzolo beaches, industrious elevated trains and a South Loop resembling the cinematic view of New York (and big cities in general): newly free to mention the existence of sleaze, 1970s Americans film reveled in sex shop storefronts, sleazy hustlers and porno theatres. There had always been red light districts, but for a good fifteen years, American filmmakers were giddy to mention this newly accepted facet of urban culture. It’s odd to see the South Loop’s El train support columns, something tourists lean up against when posing for pictures instead propping up movie pimps and drug dealers—it’s hard to believe that something as bland as the columns is our closest architectural connection to that fairly recent (but, thanks to development and urban planning, completely gone) past.

"Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)"

from Stop Making Sense

American sound cinema comes full circle in Stop Making Sense. The Production Code mandated the sanctity of marriage--after 1934, Americans saw a lot of domestic bliss, until the 1960s came around and unhappiness became fashionable (and has remained so ever since). After all, where's the story in a happy marriage? "Struggle" in post-Code American cinema is almost never class or economic struggle--rather, it is always the struggle of individuals against each other, especially individuals in close proximity
But for five-and-a-half minutes of Jonathan Demme's 1984 record of two sold-out Talking Heads concerts, we return, willingly, to the days before the disappearance of the Production Code. The stage is lit by a living room lamp, with photographs dimly rear-projected behind the band. Everyone stands close together--it's a bit like being over for a party in the suburbs. With his goofy charm, all funny facial expressions and gawky physical comedy, David Byrne could be Cary Grant. The song is apocalyptic, and its doom evokes the kind of final, romantic love fetishized by Godard and stripped from American film by the 1960s-1970s generation. There was a time, before we were born, with which we can no longer reconcile, full of idealized embraces and timeless gestures.

The Advent of Sound

from a promotional still for Queen Kelly

With the advent of sound in American cinema came the advent of censorship. The Production Code first reared its head in 1930, the first year dominated by "talkies;" in 1934, it became standard practice.

Perhaps it was because the movies were too real now; they were no longer merely aesthetic objects. Silent films had been distant enough from life to fall under the umbrella of "art" and therefore escape heavy censorship--the people who complained were "moralizers," maybe a tad self-righteous. "Someone might be offended, but it's not like they have to watch," the logic went. A taboo suggested or "portrayed," after all, was merely scandalous (and, after all, scandal sold). But to hear it said (by real people, no less!) was downright subversive (and to see a woman disrobe is not the same when you cannot hear her clothes rustling).

Censorship seemed natural with the introduction of sound cinema: movies ceased to be simply flickers on a screen--they could stand on their own two feet without the help of an organist or a pianist to keep the audience's ears amused. It made movies dangerous. It made them potent. Sound cinema is a medium with extreme immediacy. For all of the power of their images, silent films couldn't compete with even weak talkies. Images are merely pictures, just a step up from photographs, but when those images spoke and sang and made noises as they walked around the set, they became something much more. Sure, they are powerful (even still images, with which we'd done very well until the 20th century rolled around), but can the people in ordinary images compete with the people who seemed to be able to do everything but breathe?