Film Archive

Orson Welles on Privacy, the Passport and Personal Rights

By Amy Thibodeau, December 27, 2009, 7:58 pm in Culture, Film, Past

orson-welles

Orson Welles was best known for his work as an American film director and actor – Citizen Kane being his pivotal career piece, which he co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in.

In 1955 Welles did a series for the BBC called Sketchbook where in six, 15 minute shows he drew in a sketchbook “to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera … [he] served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations.” Perhaps most interesting to the contemporary viewer, weren’t his memories of movie stars and film making, but rather his very modern and apt observations about privacy, the passport and personal rights.

I wonder why it is that so many of us look like criminals in a police lineup when we have our pictures taken for a passport. I suppose it’s the unconscious foreknowledge of the scrutiny to which our likeness will be subjected that gives us that hangdog, guilty look. Really, theoretically, a passport is supposed to be issued for our protection. But on how many frontiers in how many countries I’ve handed over my passport with all the emotions of an apprentice forger trying to fob off a five pound note on the Bank of England. Guilty conscience, I suppose … Think of all of those forms we have to fill out, for example, you know what I mean, by police forms, we get them in hotels, on frontiers, in every country all over the world we’re asked, state your sex, male or female, for example. Well obviously, I’m a male, I’m a man, why should I have to answer that? State your race and religion in block letters; well, now why should I have to confide my religion to the police? Frankly, I don’t think anybody’s race is anybody’s business. I’m willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job, but it’s the essence of our society that the policeman’s job should be hard. He’s there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that’s an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal …

I’d like it very much if somebody would make a great big international organization for the protection of the individual. That way, there could be offices at every frontier. And whenever we’re presented with something unpleasant, that we don’t want to fill one of these idiotic questionnaires, we could say “Oh no, I’m sorry, it’s against the rules of our organization to fill out that questionnaire.” And they’d say “Ah, but it’s the regulations,” and we’d say, “Very well, see our lawyer,” because if there were enough of us, our dues would pay for the best lawyers in all the countries of the world. And we could bring to court these invasions of our privacy, and test them under law. It would nice to have that sort of organization, be nice to have that sort of card. I see the card as fitting into the passport, a little larger than the passport, with a border around it, in bright colors, so that it would catch the eye of the police. And they’d know who they were dealing with … The card itself should look rather like a union card, I should think, a card of an automobile club. And since its purpose is to impress and control officialdom, well, obviously, it should be as official looking as possible. With a lot of seals and things like that on it. And it might read something as follows:

This is to certify that the bearer is a member of the human race. All relevant information is to be found in his passport. And except when there is good reason for suspecting him of some crime, he will refuse to submit to police interrogation, on the grounds that any such interrogation is an intolerable nuisance. And life being as short as it is, a waste of time. Any infringement on his privacy, or interference with his liberty, any assault, however petty, against his dignity as a human being, will be rigorously prosecuted by the undersigned …

Read the entire transcript here or, better yet, if you are in the UK, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer.

Orson Welles Image by Patrick Charles.

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The Slow Creep of Monsters

By Amy Thibodeau, December 4, 2009, 9:36 am in Culture, Film, Present

Monsters are a part of our psychological life. In childhood we are afraid of them and as adults we turn our enemies into them (axis of evil, anyone?). Recently, Spike Jonze took on the monsters of childhood in his film Where the Wild Thing Are, based on the North American classic by Maurice Sendack. Although the monsters in the book are initially fearsome, Sendack empowers his little readers when the protagonist Max stares bravely into their yellow eyes, conquers them and becomes the king of the Wild Things.

During the last decade or so, our perception of monsters has gradually shifted. Instead of being something to fear or kill, they are also, in some cases, something we covet, that we want to become. The Twilight Series is a good example of this (though it’s preceded by the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles, Angel from Buffy and others). Vampires, which are traditionally regarded as disgusting, rotting, flesh-eating villains, are now the dream date of young girls world wide. Instead of seeing them as monsters, cloaked in the bodies of beautiful boys and girls, we see them as not so bad; just a little bit misunderstood.

In a recent book published by Oxford University Press, Stephen Asma examines our history with monsters, chronicling the encounters that have happened across recorded history and delving into their psychology – why we create them and what purpose they serve:

Monsters embody our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities, Asma argues, but they also symbolize the mysterious and incoherent territory just beyond the safe enclosures of rational thought. Exploring philosophical treatises, theological tracts, newspapers, pamphlets, films, scientific notebooks, and novels, Asma unpacks traditional monster stories for the clues they offer about the inner logic of an era’s fears and fascinations. In doing so, he illuminates the many ways monsters have become repositories for those human qualities that must be repudiated, externalized, and defeated. (source)

I would love to know how the world’s love affair with Twilight fits into this psychology.

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Re-Creating Famous Movie Scenes in Powerpoint or Keynote

By Dan Zambonini, November 21, 2009, 4:20 pm in Film, Present

Microsoft Powerpoint and Apple Keynote have come a long way. Now, rather than boring people with presentations that are full of bullet points, you can bore people with presentations full of pointless transitions and effects (as I often do).

The side-effect of these features is that you can easily create some relatively sophisticated animation. So I thought it might be interesting to re-create famous movies scenes using nothing but Keynote or Powerpoint. Above you’ll find my first attempt at the Stay Puft scene from Ghostbusters: you can download the Keynote file I used to create it (Creative Commons licensed – do whatever you want with it).

I’ve thrown down the gauntlet; will you pick it up? Let’s see what you’ve got.

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The Decline of The Sexy Spy Camera

By Dan Zambonini, October 8, 2009, 3:30 pm in Design, Film, Past, Photography

Minox Model B

The Minox camera was first manufactured in 1937. Designed as an ultra-portable camera, it first found favour at the luxury end of the market.

Due to it’s sub-minitaure size and ability to focus on nearby objects (around 18-20cm+), it soon became popular as a tool of espionage. Intelligence agencies from America to Germany were ‘snapping it up’ for use in-the-field.

With stylish gadget looks and well-earned notoriety, film studios were bound to adopt the Minox; most famously James Bond films, but also modern titles such as Grosse Point Blank and Charlie’s Angels.

In recent times, improved miniaturisation and optical technologies have produced smaller and better devices; today most of us carry around the equivalent of a high-quality spy camera on our mobile phones. In keeping with modern technologies, a digital Minox was recently released – the DSC (‘Digital Spy Camera’) – but it lacks the beautiful aluminium styling of the earlier models, or the pleasing mechanical sounds of exposure.

Minox Digital Spy Camera (DSC)

In some ways the camera represents the transformation of the spy industry; from the analog days of relying on charisma and stealth, to the modern digital age where spying is often nothing more than a $5 USB stick and open source key-logging software. Sure, it’s better, safer and easier, but it doesn’t look as good in the movies.

Minox Model B photograph by david4bruce, Minox DSC photograph copyright Amazon

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Hold the Phone

By Jackie Mehlmann-Wicks, October 5, 2009, 3:10 pm in Design, Film, Past

rotary phone

I was pushing my infant through our neighbourhood the other day and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a red phone box. I scoffed inwardly, wondering (rhetorically, you understand) whether anyone actually used phone boxes anymore.

I mean, I’m sure people still use them as a private place to relieve their post-pub bladders, or to publish indecent images of girls and their very expensive telephone numbers. Though in a day and age where we no longer wonder whether Tibetan monks on a remote Nepalese hillside have mobile phones, but rather if His Holiness the Dali Lama uses a Skype app for staying in touch with the CTA, there’s little reason to believe anyone would ever need a public phone to make a call.

Then I saw some movement behind the smeared, dirty glass of the phone box and realised that someone was actually in there, using the phone.

This got me thinking about those old rotary phones of decades past – the no-nonsense tools of early communication that have so quickly become an ironic symbol of a slower, more manual age, and so have enjoyed a tongue-in-cheek resurgence in the homes of nostalgia-tripping hipsters and dour, hip-replaced pensioners.

It saddens me to think that my son will grow up never knowing the rewards that come from diligently drawing one’s finger around the spring-loaded faceplate, ensuring that every numbered hole meets the finger stop in order to create the correct configuration of pulse signals that will culminate in an electrical connection with an actual person. And not just any person: I’m talking about the right person.

With the advent of speed dial in the newer cordless phones and, finally, the mobile phones we use today, we are deprived – nay, robbed! – of the suspense that maybe, just maybe, we are erroneously dialing up a complete stranger instead of our own mothers. My son Hartley will likely never know the mild panic of such a scenario, and subsequent awkward mumbling of the phrase: “Sorry, wrong number.”

Nor will he ever know the distinct drama of hanging up on another individual – not just cutting them off, but the satisfying clatter of the handset as it is slammed down into the cradle at the precise moment of rising tempers, and even that unintentional ‘ding’ of the phone’s inner ring mechanism that this tempestuous impact sometimes engenders.

In ever ‘evolving’ communication-based technology, we gain the illusion of omnipotence: of being everywhere at once and in touch with the world wheresoever we may be at any moment. But in that freedom lies the growing inability to properly appreciate distance, timing, and the potential beauty that exists in that very moment between one number and another, when we could steal another opportunity to think about what we actually want to say.

We think that mobile technology saves us precious seconds of our lives, and this is true, but it also slightly impedes our ability to be present in ourselves, and in the foundations of communication itself.

Just think of those iconic films that made integral use of the phone as not only a prop but a symbol of societal alienation. Many of these nominal classics could not have even been made were it not for the rotary phone. If the realtors of Glengarry Glen Ross had worked from home rather than been ensnared in a claustrophobic maze of public and desktop rotary phones, for instance, the intense interplay of dialogue, major plot points and indeed very essence of the film would have been lost.

And you must admit: Tap ‘M’ For Murder just doesn’t have the same ring.

rotary phone photograph by macinate

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