The enchanting female regarded as the epitome of allure and beauty portrays an ethereal creature enticing males into a dimly lit chamber with the allure of seductive encounters and thrilling adventures. Can there be a more fitting comparison to the experience of immersing oneself in the realm of cinema?
Allow me to offer some advice: make sure you don’t arrive late for the movie Lost in Translation, or else you’ll miss what most men eagerly paid for. The opening scene presents Scarlett Johansson’s backside, lying on a bed with only the thinnest pink underpants covering it, teasing and provoking the audience. Now, let’s shift our attention to Johansson’s role in the film Under the Skin. There, she struts through a mall in tight jeans, with the camera positioned so low that it leaves no room for interpretation about what we are meant to gawk at. One may wonder, what did Johansson do to deserve being objectified like this?
This question can also be posed to other movie stars. Fame truly is a burden. These professional celebrities, who appear god-like compared to us common folk, constantly have to reinvent themselves for each new role. They expose their bodies and act out their most intimate and vulnerable emotions, all in an attempt to entice us into a dark theater for a couple of hours. And it doesn’t stop there – even outside the movie theater, we continue to obsessively follow their every move, constantly hounding them. It’s no way for anyone to live.
This is why Ty Burr’s book, which delves into the realm of movie stardom and modern fame, was such a refreshing addition to the conversation. Performance is often neglected when discussing cinema, as critics tend to focus more on the plot and neglect the technical aspects of visual storytelling, such as camera angles and mise-en-scène. But even when it comes to analyzing performances, there is very limited in-depth discussion. We tend to describe a performance as either “powerful” or “disappointing” and not much else. It’s a challenging aspect of film criticism to tackle. Instead, most writing on stars revolves around gossip and scandal, sinking into the realm of lifestyle reporting.
Critics might shy away from this challenge, but thankfully, artists have taken up the mantle. This has led us to appreciate the brilliance of films like Leo Carax’s Holy Motors, a film that exuberantly celebrates and reflects on the art of acting. After all, what is filmmaking if not the director’s vision projected onto the actor, who in turn projects it into the viewer’s mind? In a way, a film projector itself can be seen as a “holy motor,” representing the outdated and antiquated nature of cinema. Holy Motors pays tribute to the transformative and soulful performers who make films possible, with Denis Lavant delivering a mesmerizing and intense performance. In the film, Lavant portrays a man who travels in a limousine, representing another “holy motor,” as he takes on various roles, including an old beggar woman, a motion-capture actor, a Chinese gangster, a father, a dying uncle, and more. This exploration of performance is structured like a musical composition, with multiple movements, an interlude, and a coda – a true masterpiece.
In conclusion, it’s crucial for us to appreciate and discuss the art of performance in film. It’s time for critics to rise to the occasion and delve into this aspect, rather than sticking to gossipy and superficial writing. Films like Holy Motors remind us of the sheer brilliance and complexity of the actors’ craft. Let’s celebrate and honor the hard work they put into their performances, instead of reducing them to mere objects of fascination.
There is a lot to discuss about Holy Motors and there could be numerous books written on the topic, but let’s now welcome the latest examination of performance in film. Under the Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer, who is known for the film Sexy Beast, is another carefully chosen title that explores the concept of personas. Although the film is based on a novel with the same name by Michael Faber, its storyline slightly deviates from the source material. The novel revolves around an alien in the form of a woman who drives around Scotland seeking men to seduce before brutally killing them and sending their meat back to her home planet, making it a darkly comedic political satire on the food industry. Publishers Weekly even compared it to something that animal rights extremists would come up with after watching the film Soylent Green.
Thankfully, Glazer and his co-writer Walter Campbell decided to distance themselves from the novel. In fact, Campbell never even read it. Instead, Glazer decided to explore a more visionary territory, a path that few filmmakers, other than Nicolas Roeg or Stanley Kubrick, have dared to tread. This is evident from the film’s opening sequence, where cosmic clouds swirl in a void, forming an iris and pupil. In this single shot, Glazer pays homage to iconic moments from films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Psycho, Un Chien Andalou, Battleship Potemkin, and Persona. These shots are not only famous but also serve as a warning that Under the Skin will be a film that heavily references and reflects upon the medium of cinema. It poses questions like: what do we use to watch movies? Isn’t a camera essentially an eye?
Thus, we come to the central idea of the film, with Scarlett Johansson portraying an extraterrestrial seductress. She assumes a human form, and given that she looks like Johansson, it can be assumed that she arrived on Earth from the stars. She enters a shopping mall in search of a sweater and stops to observe makeup artists applying new faces on their customers. This moment beautifully showcases the two main elements of cinema: the camera capturing and documenting and the actor embodying different personas behind masks. Glazer mentioned that he sees the film as a metaphor for looking, representing an alien’s perspective of observing and learning. It’s an intriguing concept, especially coming from a director, but Glazer fails to delve deeper into exploring how the alien character could truly learn and grow. Instead, he prioritizes visual spectacle over profound exploration. For instance, to symbolize the birth of the alien’s curiosity, we witness her scrutinizing an ant crawling on her hand, depicted in silhouette against a bright background. However, when viewed from the perspective of the performer being observed, Johansson becomes a specimen under the microscope, akin to the ant. It’s obvious which perspective I find more compelling when engaging with the film.