Wendy and Lucy: Not Your Average Chick Flick

Wendy and Lucy (2008) is obviously a huge turn away from a typical Hollywood chick flick.  When I say "Hollywood chick flick", I am talking about the kind of film that is supposed to be all about how great it is to be a woman, but 90% of the time, that greatness only applies if you are white, rich and in high school or college, and your only goal in life is to feel pretty and get a hot boyfriend.  Clearly, this is not what Wendy and Lucy focuses on.

While Wendy's plot is very different from a typical Hollywood chick flick, I would like to focus on the technical, or cinematographic differences here, since that is a huge factor in why Wendy actually feels different from a traditional chick flick.

For starters, Wendy is very minimalistic.  Looking at a typical chick flick, say, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, where noise is constantly playing in the background.  Usually, it's a combination of pop music and really loud background noises of cars or busy students walking through high school halls.  Wendy is a relatively quiet movie, and there is (nearly) no musical accompaniment.  Traditional chick flicks are also full of stark colors and have a crisp quality to them, whereas Wendy's images are muted, slightly grainy, and the camera is allowed to go in and out of focus at times.

Camera movement itself is also very restricted in Wendy and Lucy; there are several scenes, especially when Wendy is the only character on screen, where the camera is fixated, and the scenario is left free to move along.  Characters and props move in and out of frame and focus.  Contrast that to the traditional chick flicks, in which the camera is always focused on a character, or the characters are almost always right smack in the middle of the frame.  The camera will also follow characters in order to keep everything related to the context in the frame.

With these qualities, traditional Hollywood chick flicks have a romanticized and "plastic" feel to them.  Wendy and Lucy, on the other hand, is a much calmer, quieter film, which helps it mirror real life.  This isn't to say that romanticized chick flicks are "bad", but it is nice to have a reminder of what life really can be like, especially for young women.

They See Me Yodelin', They Hatin'... All Just Because I'm White and Wealthy

I was sad to see John as a bad guy...he's such a good man...

O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000) is an interesting and witty blend of Ancient Greek literary myth and traditional American folk culture.  The visual symbolism is especially strong; for example, there is a strong relationship between the color white and wealth, with wealth cleverly not being limited to monetary value.

Let's start with the main boys running away from prison.  While resting in the woods, Pete finds that Everett (George Clooney) stole from his cousin.  Even though Pete's cousin betrayed the boys, he gets very upset with Everett anyway.  The camera zooms in and focuses on these two as they start a yelling match while Delmar continuously offers some cooked gopher to them until gospel-like singing slowly creeps into the audio.  Everett hushes Pete as the camera circles around the three convicts and backs away, revealing a flood of church singers dressed in all white, heading towards a river for baptism.  The singing grows louder and clearer.  The camera moves upwards and behind the boys as they merge with the choir until they reach the river.  Here, Delmar and Pete allow themselves to be baptized; both are relieved to have their sins forgiven and are grateful for a "clean slate".  Pete and Delmar have gained hope and spiritual relief, which can be interpreted as a form of wealth.

Later on, the boys meet a wandering guitarist named Tommy, and decide to put together a musical "gig" to round up a few bucks from a radio host.  The camera makes a sort of long crane-shot and slowly pans downward to Everett and friends drivng up a dusty road and parking in front of a powdered-white shed.  The entire exterior of the shed is white, including the roof and door, and the interior is almost equally as pale.  This is the very building that the boys record the one song that ends up a huge hit and gets them pardoned from jail time at the end of the film, as well as making them a lot of money (well, that part is implied, anyway).  They have gained, at this point, a guarantee of monetary wealth (even though this is unknown to them).

Jumping ahead in O Brother, Everett, Delmar and Pete are traveling down a gravel road when they spot women bathing in a nearby stream.  This is where the film has an interesting take on wealth, since the boys begin to lose different forms of wealth.  Anyway, the women themselves are wearing mostly white.  The boys creep up to them into the stream, and Everett and Pete try to introduce themselves.  The women appear to not care as they just keep singing.  The camera makes various cuts to each of the boys as a woman seduces each of them; these cuts, added with the women's lulling song, keep up the hypnotizing mood of this scene, and the audience can see the boys falling completely under their spell.  Cut to Delmar lying down on a huge, flat rock with his limbs spread out, he wakes up confused and afraid.  He sees Everett lying across from him, but there is no Pete; only his clothes remain spread out.  Delmar frantically wakes Everett up, and while the two try to figure out what happened to Pete, they find a toad in his shirt.  Delmar automatically believes that Pete was turned into a toad and brings the amphibian with him while Everett tries to tell him otherwise as they escape the stream.  The boys have lost a friend (presumably) and a sense of hope, while gaining sadness, which can be seen as a negative form of wealth as well.

Everett and Delmar eventually meet Big Dan Teague (John Goodman), who is dressed in mostly white.  The two friends chat with him about Bible sales in a mostly white fine restaurant until Big Dan invites them to eat outside with him in order to discuss business venues some more.  Cut to the boys picnicking out next to a huge tree while Big Dan stands up, takes off his white jacket--a slight premonition that wealth is about to be lost--and breaks a large branch off the tree.  The boys expect that he's going to use this branch for a demonstration, but instead, Big Dan uses it to beat them into the ground and take all their money, killing "Pete" the Toad in the process.  It's pretty obvious what Delmar and Everett have lost here: actual money and a friend.

In a few scenes later, Everett runs into his ex-wife and children in a small shop.  This is where he

Yeah, I made a bad pun! So what? You wanna fight?!

confronts his ex-wife's fiance, Vernon Waldrip, who is conveniently dressed in all white.  He is a symbol of all the wealth that Everett has lost or has lacked: money, family and a loving partnership.  This walking reminder of his failure proceeds to get in a fight with Everett after Everett calls his ex-wife/Waldrip's fiancee a succubus, and Waldrip wins the match with Everett getting thrown out the shop and banned by the owner.

Later on, Delmar and Everett are reunited with Pete, and the three boys stumble upon a KKK gathering, with white robes everywhere.  They are performing some ritual for a lynching, and the boys notice that they have their lost friend Tommy in their clutches.  The camera cuts from a frightened Tommy that gave up on struggling away from the members who have him to a Color Guard member being dragged into some bushes.  The boys emerge from the same bushes dressed as the KKK Color Guard, and proceed to follow the members who are dragging Tommy toward the hanging rope.  They catch up to Tommy, and while they are letting him know that they will rescue him, one of the other KKK members stops walking.  The camera zooms in on him as he turns around, and he lifts his hood to reveal that he is, in fact, Big Dan.  Big Dan calls the boys out and rips their hoods off; the boys are so dirty that in the dim firelight, they look African American.  Everyone freaks out as the head of the mob lifts his hood to reveal himself as a politician who appeared toward the middle of the film.  This scene creates a very powerful criticism about monetary wealth and the kind of people that the majority of it goes to: scam artists and politicians who end up as horrible people. (Don't worry; the four comrades make it out O.K.)

Jump to the very end of the movie, where Everett is seen wearing a stark white shirt; this is the first time he wears a shirt so bright.  He is reunited with his family, is a member of a very successful musical band, and has been given political power.  He has gained all kinds of wealth, and the movie seems to end on a more or less happy note.

If Shakespeare Directed Brokeback Mountain...

My Own Private Idaho (1991) is a New Queer Cinema film that takes a stylized, almost fantastical response to the gay community's persecution and exile from society during the AIDS epidemic.  It has a lot of common tropes with other queer films, such as the abstractly, sensually-shot sex scenes and a hateful or misunderstanding old father.  However, the film introduces these tropes in a somewhat new fashion, a fashion that works...and doesn't work.

One particular scene is when the character Bob "Pigeon" comes back to town and goes back to a house that an elderly woman owns to sleep and do drugs.  Scotty (Keanu Reeves) wakes Bob up, only to have Bob find that he was robbed of his cocaine.  Bob angrily storms out through the halls of the house, yelling at the top of his lungs in a very grandiose and humorous fashion.  The camera takes a few moments here and there to cut to the protagonist, Mikey (River Phoenix), snorting Bob's cocaine.  Bob does not even question Mikey; he instantly blames his assistant and the elderly woman, who hilariously replies off-screen, "Don't worry, Bob, we'll get your coke!"  He then gets caught up in long-winded, Shakespearean couplet exposition about how he used to be a good guy, but after he met Scotty, he became a dirty, old, fat thief who stalks coke lines and gay bars.  During this part, Scotty is responding to his accusations with rhyming couplets as both men are strolling through an unfinished part of the house.  The uncovered wooden beams and floor and bland glass windows help mimic the look of a stage play, complete with incredibly hammy acting.

This scene was interesting for two notable reasons.  The first one is the (likely intentional) comparison between New Queer Cinema and Shakespearean plays.  Both are about grandiose, fantastical analyses of society and often include shots at politics.  They also both explore the idea of "forbidden love" and how the lovers get around those borders.  The other reason this scene peaks the audience's interest is because of the way the Bob "Pigeon" character is portrayed.  Most other queer films, such as The Trip, Maurice, Bad Education and Torch Song Trilogy often want the audience to feel sympathy with the good-looking, usually young men.  But here, the movie tries to play on pathos with the older, fat, sweaty and obnoxious character; this is a character type that is usually the villain and sometimes goes hand-in-hand with the misunderstanding father character.  Bob is here to remind the audience that not all gay men look like Abercrombie and Fitch models.

The only thing that sort of killed this otherwise amusing scene was all the exposition.  It only half-way works because this is a call-back to Shakespearean plays, but it is really annoying since many other scenes beforehand included dialogue and monologues that were nothing but exposition.  Generally, it is better to show the audience what happened rather than have a character just spell it out in paragraphs.