Oh, Mother.

Regardless of its status as one of the best action films of all time, Aliens is essentially an old fashioned story about mothers, a la Mrs. Miniver or Terms of Endearment.

While James Cameron's visual subtleties have never been praised, truth is that the guy should get more credit when it comes to representing ideas through images.

In my favorite sequence in the film, Cameron essentially recreates birth as Lt. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and company, try to take little Newt (Carrie Henn) out of the evil aliens' sight. Ripley has developed a complicated relationship with the child after finding out her own kid had died and in this sequence we see their bond materialize.

The picture above shows us Newt's passage from the mother's womb through the tunnels where she will be expelled.

Later, she lands in a place surrounded by water where she still can't call herself "alive" to her mother. This placenta-ish kind of environment forces Ripley to break through to get her, which leads to my favorite shot in the film.

Here we see Ripley trying to get hold of her new daughter by literally breaking her free from her wet captivity. Notice how Cameron shows us three figures: the mother, an invisible father figure (Michael Biehn's hand) and Newt's tiny hand trying to find her way to mother.

We are reminded that the story is not about the child but about the mother and therefore Weaver's face is the only one we see. It's all about her struggles, her compassion and her determination to, well, keep the alien bitch away from her.

Little does mommy know that she won't be able to protect her child all the time...

Beautiful metaphor for life itself, no?

This post is part of Lt. Nathaniel's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

Framed.

Above everything else, The Woman in the Window is a morality tale about the dangers of looking for adventure outside of home. Edward G. Robinson stars as Professor Richard Wanley, who runs into a painting of a beautiful woman and has his life go down the drain after it (no spoilers ahead so fear not)

The woman in question is Joan Bennett, who plays Alice Reed, the model for the painting.

Directed by Fritz Lang, this movie attempts to create a noir-ish mood achieved through shadows, oblique angles and of course Bennett as the ultimate femme fatale.

However, it's slightly hypocritical to cast The Woman in the Window as noir, when it's so freaking conservative in its values.

Film noir was known for its moral decay, perversity and dead ends. Nobody comes unscathed out of an iconic noir! Yet in this one, what we find is a moralizing tale about a man who can't cope with the guilt brought by his fantasies.

It's no coincidence that Professor Wanley first spots the painting after sending his family away on a trip. It's as if he has not allowed himself to even see other women while his wife is around (out of sight, out of heart), if to this you add the fact that he's a psychology professor, we have ourselves a quite dated, even facile attempt at deconstructing the unfaithful male psyche.

The point however isn't to curse the film for its old fashioned values and its silly finale, but to observe how Lang aptly taps into the misogyny contained in the way that Wanley (as the ultimate viewer) places Alice within his life. She is merely a piece of art to behold.

Lang and his DP, Milton R. Krasner, keep placing Bennett within frames for the entire movie.

Notice in this scene where she confronts Dan Duryea's character, her head fits perfectly within this frame. Sure, he's framed in this one too, but next time they meet...

...she's still perfectly framed. He's not.

The surprising twist in the film is represented in my favorite shot though. It's not one of the two famous turns that the film is famous for, but the eventual realization that it's not only Alice who Prof. Wanley has framed.

As he looks back on what he's done, we see that his entire family is held within frames as well. As he looks at them with sorrow and regret we realize that in his narrow vision of life, he's the only one entitled to a godlike vision. When things get out of control, he still has these people in cages. The Woman in the Window might fail as pure noir, but it's entirely effective as a disturbed vision of male egocentricity.

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

A Star.

Making me choose my favorite anything from Moulin Rouge! is akin to well making Sophie's Choice. Originally I intended to establish this and then get it out of the way by just being gutsy and picking a particular shot and owning up to it.

I couldn't.

You see, this film is still one of the seminal pieces of cinema that quite seriously define my life. What I'm going to do is of course cheat, I'll say what might be my favorite element of the film and then justify it by going with four shots of her...

Yes, what makes Moulin Rouge! absolutely spectacular to me (besides Ewan, Baz, the music, the sets, the clothes...ugh this is tough!) is Nicole Kidman.

Watching her first descend on a sparkly trapeze is witnessing purely magnetic star power!

The film not only showed us she could dance and sing, it also revealed her to be a magnificent entertainer. The camera loves her!

Ever noticed how during the entire film, Satine seems almost magnetic? Like every element in the movie is drawn towards her? This shot is a perfect example (looks almost scientific) of how the men in this case all flock to her.

But being able to have this kind of power is a double edged sword, for a star can easily become a black hole as well. Nicole's performance in Moulin Rouge! is the perfect balancing act of how to own a movie, while not tiring audiences of you.

Her ravishing beauty fills every shot she's in...

The cinematographer often seems to try and make his way around the props and costumes to find Kidman at her purest. This scene in particular is astonishingly well made given that we come to understand that Satine's world has become her cage. She was a fool to believe...

But then she never stops looking so magnificent. Part of the film's great appeal is its artifice, if Satine is dying of an STD, she should look like crap, yet Nicole looks great even when she breaks a tiny sweat. How the hell did Baz and Nicole get away with this Garbo-esque fakery, in this cynical time and age and made it sublime?

OK if I don't stop now, I'll end up making screencaps of every single frame in the movie and then post them in chronological order. Damn you Nathaniel for making me go through this!

This incoherent post was part of Nat's splendiferous Hit Me With Your Best Shot series.

Me Tarzan, You Horny.

One of my favorite things about Pre-code movies is how freaking erotic they are. Tarzan the Ape Man is most definitely no exception. How could it? When it featured the lovely Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane and the amazingly sexy Johnny Weismuller as Tarzan.

During my favorite sequence, Jane has been frolicking with Tarzan over tree tops and vines. However we have had no truly obvious inkling of them having actual sexual intercourse. We know Jane wants it, given that she barely refuses to be kidnapped by the ape man and we know Tarzan must be tired of fooling around with hairier mammals.

As Tarzan takes a dip in a pond, Jane looks from the outside begging him not to drag her in.

Why? She doesn't want to get wet. Yes, wet, literally and take that in any other way you want. Remember the context...Hollywood was naughty back then.

Jane fails.

Tarzan pulls her into the water and her look of delight is simply a joy to watch.

Neither of them can wait to get out of the water and head over to their cave though, which leads to my favorite shot in the entire movie...

We see how Jane has completely surrendered to lust and desire. She relaxes watching her reflection on the pond, completely drenched and hopefully quite satisfied. O'Sullivan's performance in this movie has an amount of horniness that only rivals Kim Hunter in A Streetcar Named Desire and Anne Baxter, well, in anything she starred in.

Gotta love the fact that the art direction in this particular moment is so freaking sexual. We have the leopard skin, the smoothness of the water and Jane is lying on something that might as well be a giant penis.

And when Tarzan finally returns, Jane is surely ready for more.

Would you blame her?

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

"You're supposed to be funny!"

I've often wondered why do Charlie Chaplin's films get ranked so high in all-time-best comedy lists, when they are such inherently sad movies.

The Circus is of course no exception. Even if it features some of the little Tramp's most iconic comedic sequences, at its center it's nothing but a melancholy look at the passing of time and the death of illusion.

After having seen Water for Elephants, which inarguably borrows some of its central topics from the Chaplin classic, it's clear that the circus lends itself for some harrowing drama. But none of it makes any sense if you ignore the Felliniesque (or did he borrow from Chaplin?) idea that this is a land of as much joy as sorrow.

In Chaplin's film, beyond the central doomed love story, we see the relentless way with which time detaches itself from the things it no longer needs. When Chaplin made this movie, sound was being implemented in commercial cinema for the first time.

While Chaplin refused to use for years, the film is filled with nods to how he felt this would kill cinema stars.

One of the first ways in which this is represented is when the vicious circus owner/film producer (Al Ernest Garcia) pushes his leading lady/stepdaughter (Merna Kennedy).

She lands on a prop and destroys it. The prop in question is a huge paper star (read, death of the silent movie star) which then reveals a large ring reminiscent of the irises Chaplin was so fond of.

With the advent of sound films, these irises became less common given that elements could be highlighted through dialog and sound effects.

When the Tramp meets the girl, he falls for her (of course) and throughout the movie he tries hard to help her keep her job.

However notices of doom surround him everywhere. See how, to the right there is an ominous picture of a girl swallowing a sword. To the left we have her as she is and in the center the Tramp wonders where does he stand in this world.

Will he become a victim or will he evolve and adjust to this universe that demands things he can't provide them, will he too become a sword swallower?

The death of stars becomes more obvious as the various shows in the circus begin to fail. This leads us to my favorite shot in the movie:

In it, we see the Tramp leaving the circus behind (after a noble, tearful finale). In this shot, the iris returns once more to represent the antithesis of the first shot with the shattered star.

We see how Chaplin gives his back to the world and goes on his own, keeping his pride and affirming that he would continue to do as he wished in cinema.

Seen in retrospect, this moment would count as one of the most iconic in silent cinema but it also contains something more personal and visceral.

The Tramp has just had his heart broken by the industry, Chaplin was feeling the same and pride or no pride, he still had a lonesome road ahead.

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With your Best Shot" series.

Beauty and the Skeptic.

My favorite thing about Beauty and the Beast has always been how it easily it exchanges the main qualities of its leading characters.

From its opening where we see tinted glass windows as beautiful ways to represent ugliness and emotional chaos (as a child this picture of the fairy queen scared me more than the beast...) to its eventual, if a bit facile, notion that the real beast was Gaston all the time, the film is perhaps a bit too complex for children.

But to be honest, my favorite shot in the film has more beauty than ugliness (I'll get to the point soon I promise) and in fact it's not even a shot per se...

It's this entire crane shot, which always leaves me in awe for its technical mastery and timelessness. Here we see Belle and the Beast dancing the title song by way of a porcelain Angela Lansbury.

As an adult I can't help but be swept away by the sheer romance of this moment, yet usually as the following split second occurs I'm reminded of my childhood fears...

These usually had a lot to do with religious imagery (try growing up in a Catholic household where your father's grandmother had a bizarre aquarium filled with statues of saints and other icons) I'm even more freaked out when the seemingly adorable cherubs, move and point at the innocent dancers below!

Of course I kid a bit, this scene doesn't really scare me anymore but now more than ever it brings up slightly bizarre streams of consciousness moments that make me wonder what would actual angels think of a demon like mammal courting a young woman without a chaperon, or why is Belle's eventual love for Beast enough to justify the evil he committed before he met her?

Perhaps I'm not making much of a point after all but I always find it beautiful to realize how the films you discovered during your childhood manage to grow old with you.

This post has been part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

The Missing Man.

I saw Titanic when I was 11 years old. Like most people in the planet I became truly obsessed with it. Curiously it happened around the same time when I'd become truly interested in films and wanted my life to revolve around them.

Part of my self-education consisted of me going to the video club and renting up to eight tapes to stay in with during the weekend.

One of my first missions was to watch every movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. One weekend I went home with Heavenly Creatures and Total Eclipse.

Watching Kate and Leo take on homosexual affairs after having watched them play the ultimate heterosexual couple was all sorts of shocking. Of course back then, I was aware of my own sexual orientation and like any prepubescent was both terrified and excited about the possibilities it offered me.

I remember watching Heavenly Creatures locked up in a room where to this day my parents probably thought was my porn space. It wasn't.

I remember thinking quite clearly that I assumed that any signs of homosexuality in the media I consumed would immediately point the people around me towards the feelings I had inside.

I vividly remember what then became my favorite shot in Heavenly Creatures,

It was the violent transformation of Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) into Orson Welles from The Third Man. I too understood why Juliet (Kate Winslet) saw this. I too was conflicted inside, I too felt like I needed to replace my own desires and fantasies with socially adequate figures.

The violent way in which Welles attacks her makes clear how Juliet is trying to fight something within her she doesn't understand.

I saw this movie for the first time almost fifteen years ago and this image remained burned in my subconscious ever since.
I never tried to commit a murder or developed violent tendencies, instead I chose to watch this moment as a life affirming instant, where Juliet's love for the movies expresses itself in such potent way that she fears its powers yet finds comfort in their magic, even if, in this case, it wants to kill her.

In the very same way the movies have remained with me and sheltered me from all fears, doubts and even sadness, they are the one thing in life I consider to be truly heavenly.

PS:

This,

reminded me of this...

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

The Pleasure of Watching.

Above all Psycho is a movie about the movies. From its opening shot, in which it establishes that it takes place in a city not so far away, it's telling us "this could happen to you".

Alfred Hitchcock was the ultimate voyeur, but unlike many filmmakers who used this as means to their specifically sexual ends, Hitch turned each of his voyeuristic adventures into explorations of the human subconscious.

Particularly when it comes to the eyes as a camera.

Notice how right after this city setting, he takes us right into the room where Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is spending the afternoon with her lover (John Gavin).

The fact that the blinds are halfway down makes our intrusion even more violent, but Hitchcock calms our nerves because the window and the blinds resemble the eye of a camera, attracting us towards its darkness, always ignoring what we will capture with it.

That we end up capturing one of the most erotic love scenes ever filmed is no coincidence.

After all, one of the reasons why we go to the movies is to fantasize about things we might never have.

The scene is filled with sweeping camera moves that approach the characters without ever feeling intrusive or announcing its presence. The closer the camera gets to them, the less aware they are of it even being there. The more intimate they become.

Hitchcock has established the fact that while this is happening in a world like ours, once we entered the hotel room, we are watching a movie.

When later, we meet Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Hitchcock has no trouble in making him seem like the weirdest guy who lived. His love for taxidermy, only an extension of the themes of preservation Hitchcock had explored in the past.

What's so different between these stuffed, dead animals and the Carlotta painting in Vertigo?

Hitchcock who's often regarded as a misogynist, probably knew that the easiest way for him to look past his personal issues and to represent them on film would be to filter them through lenses, cameras and movies.

Therefore as Norman feels the urge to spy on Marion (and later kill her) it all begins with a simple peek through a peephole.

We are reminded this way of the Lacanian notion that men derive sadistic pleasure out of watching women fragmented by the camera. By spying on shattered women, male audiences (and the director himself) felt a reassurance that their own bodies were complete, whole.

Watching women through cameras, whether on regular films or pornography, realizes males' fantasies because it gives them godlike power.

They are whole, they have control.

This leads to my favorite shot in the movie:

Here, as Norman's curious eye discovers Marion for the first time we too feel his pleasure, we too want to watch what he's watching.

Not all of us want to be murderers, but that was never the point. It's the pleasure of viewing that seduces and eventually releases our innermost desires.

The notions of media and real life violence being related are questionable (at least not provable in scientific terms) but for a moment we understand that the joys of watching are some we share with everyone: from serial killers, to babies, to hypnotized movie audiences.

Have you ever noticed how after that first shot of the city, nothing else in Psycho ever looks "real"?

When the movie ends, it's as if we never left the world we entered through the first hotel window. Norman is inarguably trapped in it, but are we too?

This reminds us of the Lacanian notion that fantasy is not really the object of desire, but its setting. Through fantasy we learn to desire.

Whether you desire to be a killer, a thief, or a taxidermist is strictly up to you. The movies can help us find our heart's desire but their power isn't enough to control it.

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.