Allen shows how communication in the first stage of a relationship tends to be superficial by inserting subtitles during the first significant dialogue between Alvy and Annie. The subtitles show the couple thinking of something completely different while they engage in a vacuous conversation. But as their relationship develops, their communication becomes more meaningful. Alvy insists that Annie enter analysis, and he even pays for her psychiatrist. Analysis is just one way in which Alvy tries to change Annie. He wants her to be more intellectual, forcing her to watch morose documentaries like The Sorrow and the Pity and pressuring her into reading highbrow books and taking college courses. As their relationship develops, Annie demands more intimacy. She moves into Alvy’s apartment. While Annie desires more emotional intimacy, Alvy desires more physical intimacy. He constantly complains about a lack of passion and infrequency of sex. Alvy expresses his inner need for intimacy and affirmation through the physical act of love. Annie desires to share emotional intimacy with Alvy by sharing quality time together and doing fun things as a couple. She desires a “real commitment,” but Alvy cannot make one. His mistrust of Annie, himself, and their relationship becomes a wall that keeps a long-lasting and solid intimacy from forming.
Eventually, Annie decides to escape her “suffocating” relationship with Alvy. She tells him: “You’re like New York City … you’re like this island unto yourself.” Alvy’s inability to sustain an intimate relationship results in his inevitable isolation. While it is sad that they broke up, the film’s final sequence recalls the happy moments that Alvy and Annie shared together. They both grew as individuals while they were in love. Encouraged by Alvy, Annie worked on her singing and became a great performer. At the same time, Alvy developed as a writer, becoming a successful playwright instead of just a stand-up comedian. Alvy’s attempts to change Annie through books, education and analysis helped her to develop a strong sense of identity, which ironically gave her the self-confidence to assert herself and leave Alvy. In the end, though Alvy and Annie could not endure as lovers, they remained friends who developed together as individuals and shared a lot of wonderful memories.
The Graduate (revisited)
Erikson’s seventh stage deals with issues common to midlife. At middle age, people have typically resolved earlier crises of identity and intimacy by settling down in a career and marriage. At this point, Erikson goes beyond the bounds of Freudian theory. The issues of parenting and adulthood are “post-genital.” The challenge at this stage is not just “to love and to work,” but to create new goals and find new ways to explore identity within one’s career and within one’s intimate relationships. Erikson labeled this challenge generativity. The individual must find new and creative ways to generate psychic energy by taking an active role in one’s life and taking interest in future generations. Generativity is the counter-force to stagnation, a state of inert indifference in which the individual simply does not care about creating new goals, facing new challenges or passing on valuable life lessons to younger generations. The crisis at this stage, generativity versus stagnation, is often referred to as the midlife crisis.
Mrs. Robinson
The relationship between Ben and Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967) is a stormy, conflicted pairing of two individuals going through two completely different identity crises. Ben is experiencing an adolescent identity crisis. When his father (William Daniels) asks him what he’s doing floating in the pool all day, Ben replies: “…I’m just drifting … it’s very comfortable just to drift here….” Clearly, Ben is in a state of identity diffusion, listlessly drifting through life without a firm sense of who he is and where he is going. Mrs. Robinson, on the other hand, is in the midst of a midlife crisis. In a key scene with Ben, Mrs. Robinson reveals that she was an aspiring artist in college, but she gave up her calling when she got pregnant. Instead of using her young adulthood as a time to explore herself and her identity, Mrs. Robinson’s stage of identity exploration was foreclosed, and she became a mother and housewife. Now, twenty years later, Mrs. Robinson is stagnating in a life of middle-class boredom and malaise. She has lost her youth, her ambitions, her lust for life and her hopes for a better future. Mrs. Robinson drowns her sorrows in alcohol, and distracts herself in an adulterous affair with a boy half her age. Like Lester Burnham in American Beauty, Mrs. Robinson takes a young lover so she could feel young again. When she’s with Ben, Mrs. Robinson can fool herself into thinking she’s eighteen years old again—a time when she was a wide-eyed young college girl with her whole life ahead of her.
In the same scene, Mrs. Robinson gets extremely upset when Ben mentions her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross). To Mrs. Robinson, Elaine represents her own lost youth and innocence. Mrs. Robinson doesn’t want to soil the only pure and wholesome thing in her life by associating it with her tawdry affair with Ben. Elaine still has the opportunity to define her own identity and choose a career and life, rather than being forced into a premature marriage and parenthood. Mrs. Robinson wants to protect her daughter from making the same mistakes she made. But it is also clear that Mrs. Robinson harbors feelings of jealousy and resentment toward her daughter. Elaine is still young and beautiful and able to lead a free and independent life, while Mrs. Robinson is stuck in a middle-class rut, a victim of her own poor choices. Mrs. Robinson tries desperately to obstruct the budding relationship between Elaine and Ben. She even goes so far as to tell Elaine that Ben raped her. In the famous wedding sequence in the end, when Ben rescues Elaine from the altar, Mrs. Robinson stops the young lovers, telling Elaine: “It’s too late!” Elaine replies: “Not for me!” It’s too late for Mrs. Robinson to have a fulfilling identity and a chance for true love, but it’s not too late for Elaine.
About Schmidt
In Erikson’s final stage of identity development, integrity versus despair, people nearing the end of their life will look back on their life story and make retrospective interpretations. If one finds meaning in one’s life, a sense of existential “integrity” is achieved. If no meaning is found, if the most resounding feeling is a sense of regret for the things one didn’t do, then the result is “despair.” In About Schmidt (2002), Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) doubts that his life was meaningful after he retires from a forty-year career as an insurance actuary and his wife (June Squibb) passes away. Schmidt sets out on a journey to find some kind of meaning in his life. Towards the end, Schmidt seems to be mired in a pit of regret and despair: “What in the world is better because of me? I am a failure…. Relatively soon, I will die … and it will be as though I never even existed.” But at his darkest moment, a seemingly trivial message gives Schmidt a much-needed boost of integrity. Schmidt receives a painting in the mail from Ndugu, the impoverished African foster child that he has been supporting through a Christian relief fund. Schmidt’s realization that somewhere in a distant corner of the world he did something extremely good for someone he never even knew is enough to make him appreciate the beauty and value of his own life.
Conclusion: An Eclectic Approach to Film Analysis
Twenty-first century psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists now have a broad palette of theoretical paradigms to draw upon when working with their patients. But whether mental health practitioners define themselves as Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, existentialist, humanist or whatever, everyone agrees that a good practitioner must have the background and potential of an eclectic. A theory is not a panacea. A theory is only as good as its “fit” with the issues and individual it is applied to. An eclectic approach—an understanding of all the theories and the ability to apply all of them—is not just helpful, it is essential. This philosophy is as true for film analysis at it is for psychoanalysis.
Malcolm X
Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992) is an epic-length “biopic” that focuses on the many facets of one man’s extremely complex life. As such, it provides the perfect case study for an eclectic film analysis utilizing every approach delineated in this book. Malcolm X is a m
ythic figure. A hero to many, a villain to some, he is an archetype of our times, a legend and inspiration to millions. He is a symbol of religion, a symbol of freedom, a symbol of historical identity and a symbol of existential determination. He is a superhero and an underdog, a great American hero whose life became legend, and whose legend became myth through the vision of a great filmmaker.
Identity
The credits roll as Malcolm X (Denzel Washington) accuses the American nation of brutalizing and exploiting the African people. We hear Malcolm’s voice as we watch the disturbing video footage of Rodney King being beaten by a gang of club-wielding Los Angeles police officers. Spike Lee is telling us that this film is about a man who died decades ago, yet it delivers a message that is as relevant today as it was in the 1960s. In the opening sequence, Malcolm is an adolescent in a stage of identity development that Erikson would label identity diffusion. He is “frying” his hair, infusing it with lye to take out the kinks. The process is painful and tortuous—much like the ordeal of a transformative initiation ritual into a society, like a circumcision or tattooing. When it’s over, Malcolm smiles at his altered reflection in the mirror and asks his pal, Shorty (Spike Lee), “Looks white, don’t it?”
Backstory
At this stage of character development, Malcolm has no idea of who he really is. He is a black man who wants to look white. He is ashamed of his African identity, an inferiority complex that he compensates for by trying to look white. By emulating what he perceives as the superior society, he is actually identifying with a negative identity, a society that despises him because of his skin, even as he changes his appearance to try to appear more like them. The sequence is interrupted by autobiographical voice-over narration. Malcolm recalls an event from the distant past. While his mother was pregnant with him, she was threatened and harassed by a group of Klansmen. They were trying to intimidate Malcolm’s father, a strong and proud preacher who espoused a Black migration back to Africa. Malcolm tells us that white men killed four of his uncles, lynching one of them. His mother was a fair-skinned woman because his grandmother was raped by a white man. His mother hated her own complexion because it represented an evil side of her identity that she could not stand.
Sophia
At this point in the film, Malcolm is not dealing with his anger and hatred towards white people. He is not identifying with his own father as an internal mentor, and he does not understand that his fascination and strange desire for white women is a manifestation of his own feelings about himself. When Malcolm ditches his black girlfriend for a white woman, Sophia (Kate Vernon), he is taking the “white man’s prize … the white woman.” It is an act of revenge and spite against the white men who killed his father and his uncles, raped his grandmother and tormented his mother. On another level, Malcolm’s illicit desire is a way of connecting with his mother, a woman who was half white. Malcolm’s complex relationship with Sophia is an expression of his confused feelings towards whites, his love/hate dichotomy. Malcolm hates the whites for what they did to him and his people, but he loves and lusts after the materialistic aspects of white society. His black girlfriend, Laura (Theresa Randle), represents a mature and intimate love that he cannot yet accept or identify with.
The Myth of the Birth of Malcolm Little
Lee returns to Malcolm’s backstory and completes the story of his birth. His father Earl Little (Tommy Hollis) is murdered by Klansmen because he will not alter his message of black pride and African migration. The martyrdom of Malcolm’s father represents the legacy that Malcolm must live up to and the identity he must achieve. Malcolm’s mother is cheated out of her husband’s insurance money by a white insurance agent. This bit of backstory is followed by a scene in which Malcolm forces Sophia to feed him and kiss his foot. His relationship with her is both an expression of love and an act of sadomasochistic power. In dominating the “white man’s prize,” he gains a sense of power, while otherwise he feels essentially powerless in white society. Malcolm cannot come to grips with his anger towards white society, because he cannot fully accept himself as a black man in a white world. Lee returns to the backstory, where we see Malcolm’s mother succumb to the pressures of abject poverty and grief. Her children are taken away from her by a white social worker, and she loses her mind. Malcolm is raised by a surrogate parent, a white matron in a detention home. Instead of a strong black father figure, he now has a patronizing white teacher, who tells him that because he is a “nigger,” he can never become a lawyer.
The Black Champion
We return to Malcolm as an adolescent, working as a porter on a train. He and his friends cheer for Joe Louis on the radio. The boxing champion is a symbol of black power and potential, a hero not only for young Malcolm, but for a nation of oppressed black people. The signi-ficance of the black champion as a unifying symbol of black power and identity would come into play later in Malcolm X’s story, when he enlists Cassius Clay into the Nation of Islam. As Muhammad Ali, the black champion becomes more than a fighter in the ring, he becomes a fighter for black people’s rights all across America. Unfortunately, Spike Lee did not have time to delve into Malcolm’s relationship with Muhammad Ali in his film. But in the scene directly after the train sequence, we see Malcolm becoming a fighter in a bar in Harlem. An argument sparks an emotional explosion in which Malcolm nearly kills a man. Significantly, this emotional explosion is triggered when a man says something derogatory about his mother. The intense anger and rage hiding just beneath Malcolm’s skin is repressed rage at white people, the same whites who boss him around on the train and call him “boy.” Malcolm cannot safely express his anger directly at white people, so he displaces his rage onto a safe substitute outlet, a fellow back man.
West Indian Archie
Malcolm’s display of violence catches the eye of West Indian Archie (Delroy Lindo), a Harlem gangster who takes Malcolm under his wing as a numbers runner. Archie is a mentor figure. He sees Malcolm’s inner power and wants to harness it. He dresses Malcolm in new clothes, offers him a new identity as a criminal and gives him a weapon of power, a gun. Ultimately, Archie shows himself to be a false mentor. His gift of violence and criminality takes Malcolm down the wrong path of larceny and drug abuse. Rather than understanding his rage against white society, Malcolm merely learns to use his violence and anger to get an individual sense of power in his life. For Malcolm, crime is a passive-aggressive attempt to gain vengeance against white people. He describes himself as an “animal”—he will do anything to anyone to get what he wants. A scene in which Malcolm steals a gold ring off the finger of a sleeping rich white man symbolizes his desire for the golden ring of social power, and his inability to strive for power in legitimate ways. Malcolm’s life of crime eventually leads him to prison.
Brother Baines
State prison represents the belly of the whale in Malcolm’s journey, the realm of transformation in which Malcolm will become reborn. In the first of his many ordeals, Malcolm must first hit rock bottom. He must shed all of his arrogance and false pride, and plummet down the pit of his soul to the bedrock of his own identity. On his first day in prison, he refuses to state his number—the dehumanizing symbol of his relegation to being just a six-digit number rather than a human being. The guards throw Malcolm in “the hole.” While suffering in this dark pit, he is visited by a priest who asks him: “Do you know what a friend you have in Jesus, son?” Malcolm rejects Jesus and the religion of white society. After many days in solitary confinement, Malcolm finally relents and states his number. Not a man, not even an animal, Malcolm is just a number, a meaningless being with no true sense of identity.
At his bottom, Malcolm encounters a new mentor figure. Brother Baines (Albert Hall) is a follower of Elijah Muhammed, who delivers Malcolm the message of black pride. Baines teaches Malcolm about the Nation of Islam and the legacy of his African identity. He reveals to Malcolm the fact that he has no idea who he really is. Malcolm’s own last name, Little, is a slave name imposed upon
his family by white masters. Malcolm must discover his true identity and define himself. He denounces his slave name and replaces it with “X”—the symbol of the unknown variable—the identity he must discover for himself. Through Baines’s mentorship, Malcolm finally finds a channel for his anger. He sublimates his rage at white people into mastering his new weapon of power—words—which Malcolm directs against the enemy that he truly hates, white oppression.
God and the Devil
As a first obstacle to his spiritual rebirth, Malcolm must overcome his inability to kneel in prayer to Allah. Kneeling represents the subjugation of the personal ego to the collective ego. Malcolm is unable to take this step at first. However, he experiences a true epiphany in a vision of Elijah Muhammed, who appears in his cell as a “blinding light,” informing Malcolm of his potential for greatness. Malcolm is suddenly able to kneel. As a symbol of his transformation, Malcolm cuts off his fried hair and accepts his African identity both internally and externally. He dedicates himself to the cause of “telling the white devil the truth to his face.”
Movies and the Mind Page 25
