μεταμορφώσεις

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

The cast. Hold up. It’s easy to sound like an as***** here. Will Scrooby?

 

Massive Situation happening now : The actor Cillian Murphy is presently doubling Orson Welles-in-Kane in cinemas around the world. Strange, but true. Unspeakable, but true. What I mean is : it may be the case that storyteller Nolan has written a character that until now only Orson Welles could have played. So what does that make Nolan? The phenomenon is unspeakable.

 

Here’s the thing. The entire cast of Oppenheimer must be perfect—each actor; and also the balance of the cast together—or (1) actor Cillian Murphy would blow them off the screen one by one, (2) an imbalance in the film would thereby exist, and (3) the movie might have vanished from the world by now.

 

It seems like mathematics. If Murphy is colossal, every other actor, in their way, must be, too.

 

Emily Blunt—what a career! For a film actress in Hollywood she’s waxing triumphant. Her longevity hasn’t dimmed her onscreen presence—obviously not, or an imbalance would exist in the movie, and Oppenheimer might possibly be gone from the cinemas by now. As a Hollywood phenomenon she recalls Joan Bennett, who, through the miracle of the gods, became more and more beautiful as time marched on. (Men shot each other over her.) In an alternate world—in Oppenheimer, Irene Dunne might have slotted into Emily Blunt’s role appropriately. Irene Dunne was a sophisticated beauty, highly intelligent but always warm. However, in Oppenheimer, Dunne would have had to play it tougher than she might have been comfortable with. In Hour 3 of Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt plays it as if storyteller Nolan is prepping Seneca's Medea. “Behind every great man is a great woman”—how right that is, right?

 

Robert Downey Jr. has to be magnificent or he would have been quickly wiped out by nuclear-powered Murphy. Robert Downey Jr. has to project just as powerfully in his way, too. So we can conclude (as if we’re doing mathematics here) that this must be one of Robert Downey Jr.’s greatest performances. It has to be—if the math says so.  

 

Matt Damon elsewhere in thread.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

teκῑ́νημᾰγενὴς : “Born from Cinema”

 

(Teh-KIN-eh-MA-genness)

 

To celebrate the coinage of this new ancient Greek word, let’s go Oldest School—the opening of Aeschylus, Persians (472BC) :

 

CHORUS

Here, to this place, we have come,

the Trusted Embassy of the Persians

(such is who we are).

We had journeyed to the land of Greece,

we, the overseers of our royal lands

rich in gold.

In honour of our many years and seniority

we were elected to watch over our kingdom.

Thus ordered the son of Darius,

our lord and master Xerxes.

(1–7)

 

Is Aeschylus referring in all this to the audience?—A “we” who have “come” to “this place” (theater) to “watch” the play? Yes.

 

Does this recall the first minute of Oppenheimer (2023) syncing up with the psychology of the audience?

 

Yes.

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

1. That Back Room Interview Space that threads throughout the movie? The Bergman/Bresson Memory Room?

 

The BMR is in the same sport as the back room of Rainbow Fashions in EWS.

 

2. When the character Oppenheimer is a troubled kid, he’s staring into a window. For the rest of the movie he has windows positioned behind him in at least fifty, sixty (more?) percent of his shots.

 

3. The first shot of Oppenheimer and the “young Oppenheimer-looking-at-the-window” shot (in the first five minutes) were both incorporated into the trailer. The first is presented as horizontal in space, the second as vertical. Storyteller Nolan conveys visually the character Oppenheimer’s internal mind-troubles by “verticalizing” the horizontal concept set-up in shot 1 (all this must work well—the film’s an unspeakable box-office phenomenon). In this manner is the “young Oppenheimer window shot” akin to a Hitchcock dutch-angle transformed via, say, Bergman or Kubrick or whomever—wait, it’s Nolan who’s done this.

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

The following exemplifies the inhumanity of the media world. First, a surprisingly accurate headline :

 

‘Oppenheimer’ shows Christopher Nolan is the prestige box office hero Hollywood needs

Sarah Witten, Published Tue, Aug 29 2023.

 

Now please let the following reflection sink in :

 

“The success of ‘Oppenheimer’ reflects a unique confluence of factors,” said P___ D________, senior media analyst at Comscore. “The draw created by the reputation of one of the most well-respected movie directors, a perfectly executed marketing campaign, an inspired release date and an epic movie theater experience that elevated the film to event status.”

 

What is missing from that "analysis"? The storyteller told a good story.

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

1. A first-rate story works on the Intuition and the Unconscious.

 

2. What makes a first-rate story? A first-rate story is founded in fundamental story principles (i.e., the ancients).

 

3. Oppenheimer is obviously a first-rate story that works on the Intuition and the Unconscious (please just look at the box office figures, born of unspeakably favorable word-of-mouth).

 

So :

 

4. Obviously Christopher Nolan is the top storyteller in the world at this precise moment. And no more worthy hero could there be in this position. For Oppenheimer is not only colossally grounded in fundamental story principles—(p.s. early study of the ancient Greeks turned out to be a “secret weapon” for Fassbinder)—Oppenheimer also actively and tirelessly promotes scholastic study. As theorized above, Christopher Nolan’s and the film crew’s Oppenheimer is the most distinguished blockbuster in cinema history. Oppenheimer (2023) is very evidently not only “our” 1970s movie, but also “our” Citizen Kane (1941).

 

Now is this phenomenon truly Unspeakable, or is it not? We’re living through it as you read this. And Scrooby noticed it here first. All the way back on day 8. Right here on Cinematography.com.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Aeschylus and Oppenheimer (2023) : Now it won’t stop

 

So the first seven lines—structured on the page as lyrics, so the Chorus is hypnotizing the audience to music—of Aeschylus’ Persians (Πέρσαι) sync up the audience’s unconscious with the stage action—just as in the beginning of Sophocles’ Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, in which Oedipus seemingly addresses the entire audience of 15,000 people.

 

What happens next?

 

The same effect, in both Πέρσαι (472BC) and Oppenheimer (2023)!

 

Following line 7, Aeschylus takes the audience on a long Sonic journey of gathering power and strength, recounting in a monologue the gathering of Persian military forces and their warring descent upon Greece. This hypnotic gathering of strength allows time for the narrative’s stream of energy and the audience’s stream of energy to plait together (ἐμπεπλεγμένην, Oedipus, 1264) and grow together ("Commerce" : Blade Runner (1982), 21:58). Aeschylus engineers this “psychological interweaving of energy” using the first 149 lines of Πέρσαι (a long time in any play or poem). What Aeschylus is doing is equivalent in one way to the overture of, say, 2001 : A Space Odyssey—

 

—and what Aeschylus engineers in the first 149 lines of Πέρσαι is precisely what happens in the first minute or so of Oppenheimer.

 

And Aeschylus—absolutely no question—stands with Sophocles as one of the Greatest Storytellers Ever, according to world opinion for the last two thousand years and more.

 

Aeschylus’ genius move, this opening-move gathering-of-energy sync-up effect, that storyteller Nolan executes to unspeakable perfection, also occurs in, for example, Paul Schrader’s Mishima (1985), 3:28–8:38.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Phantom Thread (2017)

 

46:22. Establishing of country house. Is there a visual connection between this shot and Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975), 2:38:22—another shot of an English country house? Regarding these two shots : the angles are similar, but the distances from the lens are markedly different. The two houses, though, each emit a chroma-vibe which looks similar to each other. Apparently PTA captures light perfectly in 46:22. Does 46:22 suggest that PTA has Kubrick-levels-of-knowledge of lensing and the film-negative-in-post and so on? The contrast of 46:22 is wondrous—also in the sense of “enchanting”?—as in fairy tale?—as in Xanadu?—as in “Well then, I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in” . . . ?

 

The fairy tale. Alma in the woods with wicker basket in hand—recalling Little Red Riding Hood? (47:04 /1:52:06) The fairy tale. Part of the perversity of the triple-tone PT.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Phantom Thread (2017) : Chilling Perversity

 

2:03:21. DDL is ailing with his head on Alma’s lap and she looks oh so pleased to be caring for him. He is weakened to the point of stasis, and she’s enjoying this (apparently).

 

And this is the same location :

 

23:26. DDL : “I am strong.”

 

Weird . . . right?

 

Echoes of the past come to haunt a person. Remember those famous last words? “It’s comforting to think the dead [the past] are watching over the living.” (10:36)

 

Every slight Alma has ever received, all the catastrophe she has experienced, all that rage has contracted to this one fixed point : weakening the Artist to the point of stasis, and feeling sweetly good about herself to care, as a mommy would, for the child. Annie Wilkes / Alma : the Terrifying Muse.

 

Is it horrifying to consider the Muse remarking : “In fact, I don't need you . . . or anybody” . . . ?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Mishima (1985) : a shot of the ages

 

5:45–5:50. The films opens on the last day of the life of celebrated author Yukio Mishima (25 November 1970). The film quotes from the beginning of Sun and Steel (1968) : “Recently I’ve sensed an accumulation of many things which cannot be expressed by an objective artistic form like the novel.”

 

The film will add : “Words are insufficient. So I found a new form of expression.” (7:05)

 

Writer/Director Paul Schrader and Cinematographer John Bailey convey Mishima’s outlook visually in a remarkably clever way at 5:45–5:50.

 

1. A open closet door with full-length mirror. The reflection of the mirror is filled entirely with books—visually conveying the path Mishima has followed for most of his life.

 

2. The door then swings shut on its own (and the camera pulls back, adding dynamism), shifting the reflection from books to Mishima standing in a soldier’s uniform.

 

This simple movement conveys the life-defining shift in the mature Mishima’s mindset.

 

From words to action. (As in Oppenheimer : “Theory can only take you so far.”)

 

The door sealing shut on its own : let’s just move on. But one remark :  

 

The door sealing shut is chilling. In Mishima’s mind, the door has now closed on his life. His entire world as he knew it is coming to an end.

 

He has shifted from one path onto another, an interior movement conveyed cinematically by the ghostly movement of the closet door.

 

Conveying interiority in an elegantly efficient and surprising cinematic way is obvious evidence of storytelling Genius.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Jonathan Demme : syncing up

 

And so here we are with another example of how a first-rate storyteller applies technique to sync up with and activate the audience’s Unconscious (intentionally). This technique, innovated (apparently) by Aeschylus way back at the beginning of written storytelling in the West, pays massive dividends with respect to audience response down along a story’s running time (as storyteller Nolan’s Oppenheimer is now demonstrating to us).

 

Silence of the Lambs (1991), 18:04–18:20

 

Shot 1 : Anthony Hopkins speaking in CU directly into the camera lens, his blue eyes large and wide. In other words, Hannibal Lecter is holding the audience’s gaze, possibly hypnotizing them, speaking directly to them.

 

Shot 2 : CU of Jodie Foster staring directly into lens. She is watching Lecter with fear and loathing just as the audience is—this moment fuses film and audience. Here, Jodie Foster is presented as the audience surrogate : her concern and fear and whatever else is an Unconscious Psychological Cue for the audience. The filmmakers are hoping that if Jodie Foster is feeling it, the audience may feel the same emotions, too. It is as if Jodie Foster has stepped out of the audience as their emissary and is now standing in the movie, representing everyone watching the screen. The audience, both women and men, have stepped into the screen (as it were) and have shape-shifted (Unconsciously) into the character of Jodie Foster.

 

This is what Freud called Transference (Übertragung = over-conveying).

 

Very obviously Demme’s application of this technique worked to unspeakable perfection.

 

(And PTA dedicated Phantom Thread to . . . Jonathan Demme.)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Scrooby Speaks

 

Putting the camera in the wrong place turns something unforgettable into the forgotten.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Silence of the Lambs (1991) : no way

 

How the film works so successfully includes the quiet (i.e., Indirect and Unstated) theme of “everyday” gender politics prominent structurally throughout the narrative.

 

Example 1 : Clarice standing in an elevator of overpowering men at Quantico. (4:15)

Example 2 : Clarice and friend Ardelia speaking Heavy Words while sitting on washing machines. (1:26:15)

 

When Clarice meets Hannibal Lecter for the first time, she is initially assailed with some ugly words from another captive on the cellblock.

 

So just how much of a sneaky genius is Hannibal Lecter? And the storytellers?

 

Consider this line :

 

"That is rather slippery of you, Agent Starling.” (13:39)

 

And this moment-phenomenon works Unconsciously on the audience.

 

So Hannibal Lecter is fooling with the audience as much as with Clarice Starling.

 

This line is so utterly miraculous because the filmmakers are not showing off their mere cleverness : This line exhibits and encapsulates Character.

 

This line communicates (in an Indirect and Unstated way) : Don't rest for one moment with this guy, because he is a thousand miles ahead of us at all times.

 

Also, as a by-the-way : this line exhibits what poetry is : ordinary language charged with “extra meaning”.

 

Another Example : PTA in Phantom Thread invests the simplest, most ordinary words with Heavy Meaning in the scene beginning 1:28:06.

 

All this is first-rate storytelling.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

MASSIVE ATTACK

 

At 29:04, Clarice Starling, thinking fast, hits on a clue to the serial killer out on the loose—she raises the concept of “dressing up in”.

 

Hannibal Lecter, at first, relies on the Truth to see him past the initial impression of Clarice’s sudden inspiration.

 

But the performance at 29:12 (recalling Ian Holm’s deceptions in Alien (1979)) conveys that Lecter has indeed been “impressed” (in the etymological sense of “pressed on”) by clever Clarice.

 

This moment—Clarice revealing her intelligence on the fly—contributes to the flowering of the relationship between the two characters.

 

A critical character moment.

 

Recalling :

 

“Lewis Strauss was once a lowly shoe saleman?”

“No, just a shoe salesman.”

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Psychological Cinematography : Silence of the Lambs (1991)

 

32.36–32:54. Why is the camera moving (to the left) here? When the American Girl exits her car, says hello to her cat, retrieves her groceries from the back seat, and proceeds toward the door to her home?

 

Because (obviously?) the audience wants her to be safe.

 

The camera is moving toward the doorway to safety even before the American Girl has started on her way.

 

The camera movement and the audience Unconscious are in sync here : both tend toward the reprieve.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Storytelling fundamentals

 

Silence of the Lambs (1991) : “That’s why you sent me in there, isn’t it?” (37:57)

Oppenheimer (2023) : “That’s why you hired me, to control me.” (Said to Matt Damon) / Also Alden Ehrenreich of Hour 3

 

The revelation of “being caught in . . .” / This syncs up with the essence of Art : “to wake us from . . .”

[Jeff Bernstein]

Silence of the Lambs (1991) : Oh my goodness

 

56:05–56:47. Hannibal Lecter is questioning Clarice Starling shot-reverse-shot, his face in exteme CU, Clarice Starling somewhat wider. HL is questioning CS about her past. She is answering factually.

 

Evidently it doesn’t matter who is doing the questioning, a lunatic or, say, the Essence of Reason.

 

The Truth will out.

 

Here, the extreme CU of HL is the face of Oedipal Truth—and this in more ways than one.

 

This is Sophocles’ Οἰδίπους Τύραννος all over again.

 

Reason = Insanity.

 

(Traumnovelle.)

 

This is Contradiction : such as the cheering after the Trinity test in Oppenheimer (2023).

 

Is Contradiction a powerful fundamental story principle in the storyteller's arsenal?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Reason = Insanity

 

Director Demme builds to this Sophoclean expression.

 

56:52. On CS, but HL’s reflection overlaps her on her right.
1:07:28–1:09:31. Shot-reverse-shot : CS and HL both occupy the center of the screen. A surreal doubling effect occurs due to frame geometry and the hypnotism of the editing. (Remember “persistence of vision”?)

 

Then the effect intensifies to nuclear :

 

1:09:45–1:13:00. The two faces seemingly overlap and fuse together as one symphonic phenomenon in the manner of, well, say, Persona (1966). Or the Sophoclean τάλας / τλήμων (1265 / 1267).

 

This expression
Reason = Insanity
is a longer way to say the concept “Art”.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

 

1:00:00-1:00:25. Hannibal Lecter contemplating the pen.  

 

Dear aspiring youth of the world : the faster you come to understand what this means (i.e., the Indirect and Unstated), the better your chances in whatever.

 

Hint : these twenty-five seconds convey meanings synonymous with the word “Art”.

[Jeff Bernstein]

More Misery (1987)

 

A second clue : Hannibal Lecter and the pen = Paul Sheldon eliminating the Muse with Typewriter and Paper at the climax of Stephen King’s Misery, chapters 42–44.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Psychological Cinematography : Silence of the Lambs (1991)

 

1:41:45. CS is speaking to JG, the person she seeks without yet knowing it. While she speaks, the camera pans to the right, accentuating a wall painting of a butterfly—a clue to the killer. The audience is now screaming out (so to speak) : “Look! Look! You don’t know where you are!”

 

Again, camera and audience are in sync, while the main character is the last to know.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Silence of the Lambs (1991) : Overcoming the Past

 

1:43:48. The two doors. Vertigo (1958), 20:35. EWS, 1:56:09. Sophocles : “τριπλαῖς ἁμαξιτοῖς” (716) : “where three ways meet” : the place of choices : e.g., Fargo (1996), 2:55.

 

(Speaking of EWS—note how for most of 1:06:53–1:13:00 of Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling, emblem of Reason, is herself framed as if behind bars. Except for one beatitudinous set-up (1:10:53). As for EWS, the emblem of Reason stands behind bars at 1:49:17–1:52:52.)

 

1:40:30–1:47:29 Just how many doors does Jodie Foster move through in this sequence?—something like twelve?

 

1:43:43. For a fleeting but severe-clear moment, the eyes and face of CS, by virtue of Jodie Foster’s performance, is ablaze with childish fear. Again at 1:43:23 and 1:43:15—she and the audience are moving back in time—and again at 1:44:47.

 

In the climactic sequence of Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling is at once both vulnerable girl and strong woman—a character to stand beside Oedipus, both abandoned baby and beloved king.

 

Nature : Jodie Foster is wearing a green sweater. Just as Alma, emblem of nature, wears a green top in the omelette scene.

 

1:44:22. In this most horrible of places, bare of most all else, hangs a map of the United States. Grim Joke? (Scrooby was born in the USA so he has a God-given right to voice this remark.) (See also 1:46:52 : “America : open your eyes!”)

 

So Clarice Starling faces the map of the United States and what happens next?

 

Something similar to Mishima (1985), the closet closing at 5:45–5:50!

 

This time : The map of the USA is pasted on a door, and CS walks [into it / through it] to get closer to the maniac.

 

Next shot :

 

1:44:32–1:44:36. Coming through the door, CS is aiming at the lens, as if to say : “Yes, audience, you're responsible, too!” All of a sudden, who is on whose side? The Audience Unconscious is in a muddle for a moment. Is this moment Sophoclean—or what?!

 

1:44:37—mannequins of women in clothing : explicit reminder of the film’s gender politics. In a first-rate story, there is almost never a Colossal moment without a set up (whether the colossal moment be a single consonant, a series of sounds, a character moment, a consequential scene, a climactic Situation). This sequence seems to be plaiting together (ἐμπεπλεγμένην) the film’s themes to trigger a colossal detonation.

 

Interesting detail to contemplate? Clarice Starling is wearing earrings in this sequence. The first sighting reveals her left earring (1:43:38). The second sighting shows both (1:44:25). One is seen at 1:44:45, when Jodie Foster sweeps her hair back; and again at 1:47:00. The earrings recall, for example, Melanie Daniels in The Birds (1963). Women in mortal danger are wearing pleasant embellishments in the first, and couture clothing in the second. Slot this wardrobe technique under the storytelling fundamental : Contrast.

 

1:45:02. The well in the cellar. In the Old Testament wells were fortuitous meeting places; in Renaissance art wells were often places of miracles. Nowadays, wells are creepy (e.g., Well of Souls in Raiders; child trapped in well in Radio Days; travelling through pipe in Barton Fink; a place to dispose of corpses in Hateful Eight). May the well in the cellar—a deep claustrophobic darkness—be absorbed in one way as a cinematic metaphor of—well, if not the Unconscious specifically, but—questioning?

 

1:46:45. Clarice Starling moving through the house brings to mind the weirdness of The Blair Witch Project (1999). The architectural layout seems endless and weird, as if CS is moving through an Escher design. Will she be caught in the maze of the past forever?

 

1:47:09. Classic (Hitchcock) dutch angle. (Other cinematic sightings include a classic 1970s zoom at 3:37.)

 

1:46:26. Psycho. The Shining. Fargo, EWS. These days, bathrooms in dark movies aren’t promising places to venture into. . . .

 

1:47:36. The green of the night vision—recalls Vertigo. Does this tint also recollect silent film?

 

Clarice Starling, hero, moving in complete darkness, looking for salvation. Demme’s done a “Kubrick” here and snuck Hard Truth into a Hollywood movie.

 

1:49:14. An American flag behind, an American flag in front :

 

1:49:15. Is this image a recollection of, say—Vietnam? (Image returns at 1:49:55.)

 

Reason can’t help us with the big picture here.

 

But CS doesn’t give up—though all seems lost—and wins her life back.

 

How does she win? Fundamentals. She knows how to react.

 

Let’s skip over the sound just here—except for one sound—

 

1:48:45. That terrible shriek I heard all those years ago? Everything horrible the audience knows has come to tap them on the shoulder.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Example of the “Audience-Artwork Sync-up Opening” innovated by Aeschyus, Πέρσαι

 

Not Oppenheimer (2023) or Mishima (1985) this time, but Seneca of ancient Rome.

 

Sophocles was equivalent to Gaspar Noe in one play : Οἰδίπους Τύραννος. Seneca, however, is seemingly the originary mould out of which came, via reincarnation, Gaspar Noe and Michael Haneke. Seneca’s favourite movie of all time might have turned out to be the same as Haneke’s—namely, Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), only a version with double the cruelty and zero redeeming qualities to it—the Psychotic’s Cut.

 

Both Euripides (in ancient Greek) and Seneca (in Latin) wrote plays called Trojan Women. Both plays deal with the same general situation : the cataclysmic hours after the initial fall of the city of Troy.

 

Seneca, writing many hundreds of years after Euripides, begins his play in a manner pretty much identical to Euripides. Both plays begin with a sombre song (or songs?) sung by the protagonist and Chorus. (With this structure, and the effect it hopes to achieve, both plays strongly resemble the mystical 149-line opening of Aeschylus’ Πέρσαι.) Act 1 of Seneca is, generally speaking, an intentional rewrite of Act 1 of Euripides, with a Senecan spin to it.

 

But after that, the two plays are completely different. The Senecan play, after fifteen minutes or so of its atmospheric set-piece of the first 163 lines, shifts full-blown into a completely different structure. Seneca severs the cord with Euripides, and puts him aside for the duration. If Act 1 of Seneca were sliced away, the play’s story wouldn’t suffer one iota. The story of Seneca’s Trojan Women begins with the start of Act 2.

 

So why does Seneca structure his play in this way?

 

We know the reason by now—We’ve seen Oppenheimer. Hypnotism. Sync up. ἐμπεπλεγμένην. Power-generation. How does Seneca do it? The opening of his play is akin to a sort-of psychedelic reminiscence of a massive past. It puts the audience into a freaky dream state—then, without any structural warning, Seneca shifts the audience abruptly into another state, a more traditionally-ordered state, for the rest of the play.

 

This structure—at the micro level—returns in the complex first minute of Oppenheimer. At the macro level, this ancient structure recalls the first twenty minutes or so of There Will Be Blood (2007). Or, as mentioned earlier, the overture to 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968). We might add Saving Private Ryan (1998) to this list.

 

Expanding matters : Seneca begins both Medea and Thyestes in a colossally high-octane manner. Both plays begin with seemingly one overwhelming intention : to whip the reader into a frenzy of (psychotic) energy. By the end of line 55, the reader of Medea is ready for anything. By the end of line 121 of Thyestes, readers are ready to lift up the Pentagon with their bare hands.

 

However, the difference in those two plays with respect to the opening of Πέρσαι is that their stories begin with line 1, whereas the “Audience-Artwork Sync-up Opening” in, say, Aeschylus or Oppenheimer, exists as prefatory to the story. A related example : Sophocles’ Oedipus begins with a sync-up with the audience, but it’s neither an hypnotic nor an energy-gathering opening. Instead, dialogue, as in an “ordinary” play (ha!), ensues.

 

Recap

 

1. Aeschylus innovated the concept of the “Audience-Artwork Sync-up Opening” (or the “high-octane hypnotic musical opening”)—new terminology is required—in which the Unconscious of the work (so to speak) plaits with the Unconscious of the audience.

 

2. Then—and leaving out who knows what at this point, but at the very least the following is correct—Seneca applied this technique in his lovingly perverse manner.

 

3. Then came the history of European music.

 

4. Nowadays first-rate storytellers of world cinema apply this technique innovated by the ancient authors, who somehow knew best, even at the start. Please just consider the miraculous word ἐμπεπλεγμένην—

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

There Will Be Blood (2007)

 

Shot 1. The three hills.

 

Sophocles : “τριπλαῖς ἁμαξιτοῖς” (716) : “where three ways meet”.

 

Narrative-character-audience . . . ?

[Jeff Bernstein]

TWBB : what?!

 

Going on the evidence of the opening of TWBB,

Daniel Plainview is (in a way) a little brother.

 

Evidence

he is helped at 7:45;

guided or corrected at 8:23;

and the Unnamed Character, rather than Plainview, is the one to assess the Situation at 10:30.

 

For the entire rest of the movie Plainview occupies the position of Authority of the narrative.

(Which reminds us kinda of the grown-up Matt Damon adroitly assuming the authority of a mature Tom Hanks in Oppenheimer.)

 

Thinking this thought about Plainview is akin to uncurtaining the Wizard of Oz.

 

We, the audience, are following a lamed man from the beginning—Plainview indeed breaks his leg at 4:50—yet we believe him Powerful and Lofty and etc, the man who deserves to be on top. But Plainview is a little brother raised up to the status of Big Brother. The audience doesn’t ever know this, unless it thinks things through. What all this means indeed needs to be thought through.

 

A lamed man? As in Οἰδίπους Τύραννος? The name Οἰδίπους itself means “sickly foot”. What?

[Jeff Bernstein]

TWBB

 

19:34. Paul Sunday appears before Plainview (augmented by a numinous Panavision lens flare) and thereby puts Plainview on a path direct to the narrative’s end. (Speaking of “Fate knocking on the door”!)

 

Complicating matters, of course, is the Sophoclean doubling of Paul and Eli Sunday. (διπλῆν, Oedipus, 1257)

 

What about the Three Witches in Macbeth, who promise Macbeth a future of “noble having” and “royal hope”? (1.3.59)

 

The Three Witches—have something to do with Fate.

 

Does Paul comes in the manner of a prophet or holy man? Does Plainview become a disciple of Paul’s message?

 

20:43–21:37 : cinematography : the concept of the three.

 

The dialogic interplay between Plainview and Sunday—including the pace of, and pauses in, their speech—brings to mind the dynamics of the initial Oppenheimer/Groves meeting.

 

The shadow on the wall at 20:33? Recalls the ingeniously engineered shadows in Blue Velvet (1986) at 1:01:30?

 

22:02–22:09 / 23:04–23:11. Framed prominently with Paul, three telephoto “(window) panes of paperwork” (so to speak).

 

23:07. “I come from a town called Little Boston in Isabella County.”

Sophocles—in Oedipus, this species of remark signals the beginning of the end.

 

Ἄγγελος

ἐκ τῆς Κορίνθου: τὸ δ᾽ ἔπος οὑξερῶ τάχα,

ἥδοιο μέν, πῶς δ᾽ οὐκ ἄν, ἀσχάλλοις δ᾽ ἴσως.

(936–937)

 

MESSENGER

[I come] from Corinth. I’ll now say what I have to say.

It may delight you, but also vex you equally.

 

Hmm.

 

BANQUO (to the three witches)

Live you? Or are you aught that man may question?

 

Does Banquo’s question touch upon the uncanny Situation of Paul/Eli Sunday?

 

Hmm.

 

23:07. The powerful, numinous eyelight. Such as the one in Oppenheimer’s eye when he meets Wolfgang Pauli early in Oppenheimer (2023). Also, say, EWS, 3:47.

 

23:13–24:57. The map : Reason.

 

23:13. Paul : “This is us, here.”

1. Oedipus, line 1 : “O children . . .” (i.e., the members of the audience)

2. Paul gathers those around him into the “us”—ἐμπεπλεγμένην.

3. (Also brings to mind the Heideggerian Sammeln / Sammlung)

 

23:13–24:57. The glowing aura over Paul’s head.

(Brings to mind Mark Rylance in Dunkirk, 1:32:04)

This aura is “touched” by Plainview at 24:39.

 

23:13–24:57. Plainview’s cigarette smoke rising. Remember the early minutes of Oppenheimer?—Emily Blunt’s cigarette smoke?

 

23:45. Behind Plainview, closer to the lens, holding down one edge of the map, is a tool that, in shape, recalls the bone weapon in 2001 : A Space Odyssey. This is an early glimpse of Fate—2:29:55.

 

24:18. Paul as prophet : “The oil is there. I’m telling you.”

 

Contrast? Consonance? Paul wears a dark coat. Brings to mind dark prophet Tiresias in Oedipus (300–462)?

 

19:34. . . . What a year for Hollywood.