Music Review - MC5 - "Break Out The Jams"

MC5. Break out the Jams. Elektra Records. 1968. 44:01


The debut album of the Motor City Five (MC5), Break out the Jams, is a powerful album which reflects the times in which it was made. Performed with a raw ferocity that served as a clear contrast to the “flower power” atmosphere of the era, Break of the Jams serves as an influential example that later musical acts, in the United Kingdom and in the United States, would emulate. Taking on a political and cultural stand firmly rooted in the 60’s Counterculture, the MC5 combined a daring musical style with a defiant attitude, paving the way for future musical genres such as punk and metal.

The members of the MC5 were made up of working class youth, living in the shadow of the industrial city of Detroit, home of the automotive industry and the influence of Motown. Living in a decidedly conservative city, the MC5 were marked as subversive with their long hair (or giant afro in the case of vocalist Rob Tyner), outlandish dress, and loud and profane music. The energy of the MC5’s shows, confined early to the Detroit/Michigan area, gained a reputation as some of the best live performances in the decade. In 1967, the MC5 picked up John Sinclair, founder of the White Panther Party, as their manager and entered into rock n’ roll climate devoid of critical political debate. Seeing themselves as fighting against the Establishment, the songs of the MC5 stood in clear contrast to popular musical ballads such as the “Green Berets” or Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muscogee”.

Cementing the image of political rockers and Counterculture icons was the MC5’s performance at the “Festival of Life” concert held during the August 1968 protests of the Chicago Democratic Convention. Performing under lawless conditions, the peals of MC5’s amplifier distortions reverberated through the air as tear gas, protesters, riot police, and helicopters mingled in the summer heat. The MC5 would be the sole band to perform, with other scheduled bands such as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead fleeing the scene. The raw stand against authority set apart the MC5 from the other “hippie” bands, indicating the MC5 were the band concerned with social revolution, and was willing to do something about. The Chicago performance, as well as sold-out shows in Detroit, earned the MC5 (and their opening act and future punk legends, Iggy Pop and the Stooges) a recording contract with Elektra Records.

Break out the Jams, the MC5’s debut album, sought to capture the power of their live show. Thus, it was decided that the album was to be recorded live at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit on the nights of October 30-31, 1968. Break Out the Jams begins with an introduction from the MC5’s “religious leader and spiritual advisor”, J.C. Crawford. This political revolutionary, who influenced and drove much of the political message behind the MC5, issued a command to the audience tinged with the influence of salvation gospel music. Crawford proclaimed: “I wanna hear some revolution out there, brothers, I wanna hear a little revolution…”, exhorting the audience that “…each and every one of you to decide whether you are gonna be the problem, or whether you are gonna be the solution!” Crawford closed his statement, all the while with energy building, “Brothers, it's time to testify and I want to know, are you ready to testify? Are you ready? I give you a testimonial, THE MC5!!!”

What followed this invocation was a sonic blast featuring surging guitars, high-pitched vocals, and frenetic pace. Opening with “Ramblin’ Rose”, Rob Tyner’s strained vocals barely keeps up with the surging guitars of Wayne Krammer and Fred “Sonic Smith”, the pounding drums of Dennis Thompson, and the bass of Michael Davis. The energy of “Ramblin’ Rose” was shared by the title track, “Kick out the Jams”, the intro of which would stir later controversy and censure. The phrase “Kick out the Jams” symbolized the energy and radical abandon of the band: Tyner’s introductory scream to “Kick out the jams motherfuckers!!!”, while energizing the crowd, doomed the track to edits so it could receive radio play.

Wayne Krammer expressed later that the MC5 had a simple goal; “…our political program became dope, rock & roll, and fucking in the streets.”[1] These simple points would greatly influence the dogmatic foundation of punk and metal, as metalheads and punk rockers would establish similar standards in their own music. The lyrics of “Kick out the Jams” succinctly express the above ideas. The MC5’s pre-show marijuana binges helped them “…all [get] in tune/ And when the dressing room got hazy now baby”, while the sexual energy of “I know how you want it child/ Hot, quick and tight/ The girls can't stand it” fueled the frenetic pace of the music. Lyrics from “Rocket Reducer No. 62 (RAMA LAMA FA FA FA)” echo the proclivity for chemical assistance: “…some good tokes and a six pack/We can sock 'em out for you, baby”.

Songs like “Rambin’ Rose”, “Kick out the Jams”, and “Rocket Reducer No. 62”, and the last, sprawling track “Starship” express the influence of psychedelic rock and LSD inspired imagery which had gripped the late 60’s music scene. Other songs revealed a deep blues influence, such as “Motor City Is Burning”, a musical depiction of the riots which had gripped Detroit in 1967. The rage and violence of those times is expressed with melancholy wails from Tyner:

Ya know, the Motor City is burning people,/ there ain't a thing that white
society can do/ My home town burning down to the ground/ worser than Vietnam.

Noting their identification with the White Panthers, and perhaps yearning for the idea African-American authenticity, the vocals scream;

I'd just like to strike a match for freedom myself/ I may be a white boy,
but I can be bad, too.

What stood at the finish of the album with a mix of psychedelic rock forays, blues, and high speed power chords, an album which still reflects the energy of their live performances three decades later. Reception of Break Out the Jams by critics, however, was mixed. Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone called them “…ridiculous, overbearing, pretentious…”, stating the MC5 ripped off songs from the likes of The Who, Barret Strong, and the Troggs.[2] Richard Goldstein of Village Voice, however, favorably compared Wayne Krammer with The Who’s Pete Townshend, noting that “both perform with the reverence which is the most authentic kind of commitment a musician can display.”[3] If the MC5 were derivative or indeed pretentious, an explanation to the lasting power of Break Out the Jams is in order.

What these and other critics failed to observe is the powerful effect Break Out the Jams would have on later artists, especially in the cross pollination of musical styles from Britain to America. A decade after its release, the MC5 debut album’s influence was keenly felt as the early American punks like the Ramones and the New York Dolls emulated the energy and attitude of the MC5, and their fellow Detroit rockers Iggy Pop and the Stooges. This early punk sound and the culture of the New York scene then diffused across the Atlantic, to be picked up by British punk progenitors like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Buzzcocks. These trans-Atlantic punk bands would emulate the speed, heavy riffs, and potent energy that characterized the MC5. Former guitarist of punk band Bad Religion, Brett Gurewitz, says of MC5 guitarist “Brother” Wayne Krammer and his fellow musicians, “He’s the seminal protpunk guitar god.”[4] Ironically, Wayne Krammer noted decades later his initial aversion to being linked with the punk scence. Following incarceration in the1970’s for drugs, Krammer initially thought, “I’m not involved in this punk thing at all, because punk in jail is a different thing.”[5]

Heavy metal’s emergent bands are also heavily indebted to the MC5, with Alice Cooper, and fellow Detroit musicians Ted Nugent and Grand Funk Railroad paying homage in their work. Another British connection emerged as Led Zeppelin’s pioneering metal sound dominated American pop charts, a sound indebted to the MC5. Even in the 1990’s, bands like metal-punk-rap hybrid Rage Against the Machine have commented on the explicit influence of the MC5, producing covers of “Kick out the Jams” and forging songs like “Testify”. Influencing the 70’s sound of punk and heavy metal, the music of the MC5 today provides “…revelations to Clash partisans and Metallica fans alike.”[6]

Despite the powerful political messages, the lasting legacy of Break Out the Jams was the musical style. Raw, fast, and loud, the music of the MC5 often conflicted with the sensibilities of the age. With fellow Counterculture enthusiasts would want them to conform to the hippie lifestyle and energy rooted in “flower power”, the MC5 were harbingers of a future punk chic fueled by an industrial dynamo. MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson summed it up well: “I mean, we all grew up on drag races. But fast cars and drinking beers doesn’t quite go with brown rice and Zen. There’s a clash right there. It’s not even a political clash, it’s a cultural clash.”[7] Bob Dylan and Joe Baez weren’t their models – “As far as I was concerned, none of them could play,” were the feelings of Wayne Kramer. “They were all folk-guitar players who had all just bought electric guitars. They didn’t know how to get that sound, that rock distortion. They didn’t know about energy and feedback.”[8] The rock of the MC5 had more in common with the mind-altering psychedelia of Jimmy Hendrix than the political outrage of Bob Dylan.

The MC5 served as a musical bridge from the psychedelic rock of the 1960’s to the harder, faster sound to characterize metal and punk in the 70’s and 80’s. Performing in a special place and time, Break Out the Jams is a unique album because it captures the musical power of the late, revolutionary 1960’s and serves as a harbinger for the music that would capture the imagination of the youth of Britain and America in the following decades. Break Out the Jams will remain a powerful historic recording, painting a sonic portrait of the turbulent Vietnam era and building a foundation for future music to come.

Mr. Misanthrope


[1] McCain, Gillian, and McNeil, Legs. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. (Penguin Books, NY, 1996). 46.
[2] Bangs, Lester. “Kick out the Jams”. Rolling Stone. April 5, 1969.
[3] Goldstein, Richard. “Kick out the Jams” Village Voice. Dec. 1968
[4] Appleford, Steve. “Wayne’s World”. Rolling Stone. May 18, 1995. Issue 708. 30.
[5] ibid.
[6] McLeese, D. “Replays” Rolling Stone. February 20, 1992. Issue 624. 42
[7] McCain, Gillian, and McNeil, Legs. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. 72.
[8] Appleford, Steve. “Wayne’s World”. Rolling Stone.

Movie Review - Blade Runner

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Blade Runner. Directed by Ridley Scott. 117 minutes. 1982.

Blade Runner is one of the signature science-fiction films of the 1980’s. Exploring a futuristic world where both the landscape and the people are corrupted, Blade Runner offers a chilling commentary of contemporary American life and a possible glimpse into the future. Blade Runner is one of a few films that gain additional significance as time passes. While the film reveals an impressive body of topics capable of analysis, this review will address several aspects contained within it: the impact of the film noir influence, the humanity of the replicants, and contemporary response to the film.

The plot of Blade Runner chronicles the search of individuals seeking to prolong and understand existence. In 2019, mankind has seeded the cosmos with human colonies, while Earth has become a polluted backwater. The dangerous labor of colonizing space is performed by replicants, genetically engineered humans with superior strength and endurance. In possessing these gifts, the replicants suffer a intentionally reduced lifespan of four years. Four replicants, led by combat replicant Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer), escape their bondage and return to Earth to confront their creator to discover how they might extend their life. Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) is a blade runner, a specially designated policeman whose duty is to track and kill rogue replicants. Deckard stalks the replicants through a ultramodern yet decayed Los Angeles, finally confronting the last of the replicants who have failed in their quest to prolong their lives. During his search, Deckard encounters and falls in love with Rachael, a replicant who believes she is human. By the film’s end Deckard and Rachael escape Los Angeles to an idyllic wilderness unspoiled by modern life (a scene taken from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining).[1]

The source material for Blade Runner is Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? A continual theme running throughout all of Dick’s fiction is the problem distinguishing reality and illusion. Later films adapted from Dick’s novels and short stories share this theme. Total Recall, Minority Report, Imposter, and Paycheck all offer protagonists engaging their identify in the face of confusing circumstances. Blade Runner and these films liberally adapt Dick’s fiction to conform to the necessary stylistic needs of the film medium. What marks Blade Runner as unique from other Dick films is that Blade Runner directly engages provocative social issues. Blade Runner is, as Robin Wood might say, a progressive rather than a reactionary film[2]. Other Dick films, while confronting fears of treacherous corporations and oppressive governments, often serve as simple star vehicles for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, and Ben Affleck.[3]

One element of Blade Runner that deserves comment is the fusion of science fiction and film noir. The setting of a futuristic Los Angeles somehow beckons viewers to recall the darkness of New York City as portrayed in 1940’s detective films. With teeming alleys set in a claustrophobic city with perpetual rain, sunny California transforms into a murky Gotham. Deckard, a specialized hunter-assassin, behaves and appears like a private detective. And Rachael is both replicant and dame in distress. The ultimate nod to the film noir style of the 1940’s is Deckard’s voice over dialogue. Forced upon Ridley Scott by film executives, Deckard’s voice over provides context and guidance for the audience while adding an additional stylistic flair (which is thankfully absent from the director’s cut). The merging of film noir and science fiction, of hard-boiled detectives with outer space, allows audiences to engage unfamiliar territory in a recognizable and comfortable way.[4]

The replicants and their humanity is another point of importance. Too often film reviews incorrectly describe the replicants as androids, machines, as inhuman constructs. Blade Runner unambiguously identifies the replicants as possessing humanity, only in a distilled form. As the replicants confront their genetic engineers responsible for their genesis, again and again the link between creator and created is examined. When Roy and Lloyd confront Chew, the Asian geneticist who develops eyes, Chen revels that he engineered their visual ability. “If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes.” When J.F. Sebastian recognizes the Pris and Roy as replicants, with pride he reveals that he is responsible for their bio-mechanics and relates: “There is some of me in you.” Finally, this theme climaxes as the replicate couple confront Eldin Tyrell, the true father of the replicants and responsible for the development of their minds. As Roy looks on Tyrell he confesses: “It’s not an easy thing to meet your maker.” Tyrell replies, “What can he do for you?” As the two argue over the doomed enterprise of extending life, Tyrell attempts to console his creation.

Tyrell – “You were made as well as we could make
you.”
Roy – “But not to last.”
Tyrell – “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly Roy. Look at you. You’re the Prodigal Son! You’re quite a prize!”

In these exchanges, it is clear that the replicants are not merely the automated creations of man’s invention. They are the children of man himself, sharing the genetics, the emotions, and ultimately the same mortality. But in each of the encounters the replicants kill their makers, Chew, Sebastian, and finally Tyrell. As Roy crushes the skull of his father, he rejects his programmed existence, his slavery, and his ultimate death.[5] Unfortunately, with Tyrell’s demise there is no hope for the replicants – they can only wait for death, either by Deckard’s hand or by the dwindling of their shortened life span.
As Roy saves Deckard he shares his own life experience, not that of a machine, but a man possessed of both emotion and reason: “Now you know what it is to live in fear. Now you know what it is to be a slave.” When Roy finally does save Deckard (and releases a solitary dove, with clear Christian symbolism)[6] finally succumbing as his lifespan expires, Deckard’s voiceover relates who these replicants are: “They just wanted what everyone else wanted. Answers to the basic questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?"[7]

Numerous other comments and insights deserve attention, but the financial and critical failure of Blade Runner in 1982 and its success today should be addressed. Released the same week as Stephen Spielburg’s E.T., Blade Runner was completely enveloped in the media blitz over the cute alien. While Blade Runner is a film that can be appreciated in any time or place, society’s desire to return to “normalcy” in the Reagan era doomed a challenging film like Blade Runner. The plot of the film challenged viewers on every level, not allowing spectators to comfort of easy definitions of real and fiction, good and evil. Audiences in 1981 demanded a happy ending, one imposed on Blade Runner by film executives. Star Wars, Rambo, and Indiana Jones would be the dominant films of the decade, not productions like Blade Runner. It is one of the last movies to embrace the social criticism of the 1970’s, compared by one critic as belonging with Nashville, Chinatown, And One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.[8]. As Robin Wood asserts, Blade Runner stands: “Either ten years behind its time or hopefully a few years ahead of it.”[9]

The atmosphere and existential questions raised by Blade Runner has provided inspiration for numerous creative endeavors. As the Internet became the new mode of future human development, writers such as William Gibson in Neuromancer and Bruce Sterling in Mirrorshades greedily saturated themselves in the style and philosophy imagined by Blade Runner. By extension, the cyberpunk movement helped spawn one of the most successful movie franchises of the late 1990’s, The Matrix. While some might argue that some of the philosophical depth has been lost from Blade Runner to The Matrix, people are nonetheless still asking what is real and what isn’t. Blade Runner has helped make that dialogue, now almost mainstream, possible.

Mr. Misanthrope

[1] The Director’s Cut of the film provides a radically different ending. As Deckard and Rachael begin their flight from Los Angeles, Deckard discovers evidence he might in fact be a replicant as well. Deckard’s consciousness recalls a haunted phrase from a fellow policeman: “It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” It’s quite plausible the two will be hunted down by other Blade Runners and killed.
[2] Wood, Robin. Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. (Columbia University Press, 2003). 161
[3] Maio, Kathi. “They Know Action, But They Don’t Know Dick”. Fantasy & Science Fiction. Vol. 106, Issue 5 (May 2004). 112.
[4] Wood, Robin. Hollywood From Vietnam To Reagan. 163.
[5] Wood, Robin. Hollywood From Vietnam To Reagan. 164.
[6] Roy’s deliverance of Deckard hand has repeatedly been seen as a Christ-like sacrifice. Other critics have seen other biblical motifs in Roy, relating him not only to Christ, but also Adam, Jacob, Esau, and even Satan. See: Gravett, Sharon. “The Sacred and the Profane: Examining the Religious Subtext of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner”. Literature Film Quarterly. Vol. 26, Issue 1. (January 1998) 42.
[7] Lev, Peter. “Whose Future? Star Wars, Alien, and Blade Runner” Literature Film Quarterly. Vol. 26, Issue 1. (January 1998) 31.
[8] Lev, Peter. “Whose Future? Star Wars, Alien, and Blade Runner” Literature Film Quarterly. Vol. 26, Issue 1. (January 1998) 31.
[9] Wood, Robin. Hollywood From Vietnam To Reagan. 167.

Moview Review - Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Directed by Jay Roach. 90:00. 1997

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery focuses on the adventures of two individuals, British secret agent and bungling lothario Austin Powers and diabolical yet equally inept Dr. Evil, whose cryogenic return from the Swinging 1960’s into the more conservative 1990’s marks a hilarious parody of the James Bond films and Swinging London scene. This comedy reveals contemporary perceptions on the fashion, style, and sexual mores of Swinging London, perceptions less grounded in historical fact than popular memory. Nonetheless, Austin Powers provides a base of understanding for contemporary views of an important element of the British Invasions.

The plot of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is filled with skits and gags, ranging from the mildly scatological to skillful gag humor. Austin Powers is a British secret agent attempting to thwart plans of global domination by the insidious Dr. Evil. Their conflict originates in the 1960’s, but skips decades ahead as Dr. Evil cryogenically suspends himself in order to take over the world in the future, with Powers forced to do the same. Returning to the 1990’s, Dr. Evil plans to hold the world hostage with captured nuclear weapons and extort a fortune of $100 billion (up from an original figure of $1 million). Austin Powers confronts the schemes of Dr. Evil, defeating less than menacing henchman, infiltrating secret headquarters, and engaging in enlightening sexual encounters while falling in love. Austin Powers saves the planet, gets the girl, and prepares to fight Dr. Evil another day.

Many features of Austin Powers place the Swinging London scene on clear display, at least in portions depicting the 1960’s. The fashions are striking evidence, with outlandish outfits of every stripe influenced by psychedelic culture. The musical score also pays homage to 60’s music, with songs like “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock or ballads by Burt Bacharach “What the World Needs Now is Love” setting the cultural stage for action. The dance club scene is reverently displayed as a place of much excitement, with plenty of pole dancers and go-go boots to go around. The emergence of experimental pop art, with a painted woman almost zebra-like blending with a black and white club floor, even gets attention.

The most relevant aspects of the film relating to Swinging London and the British Invasion, however, reside in the title character of the movie, Austin Powers. Powers possesses to a greatly exaggerated extent the fashion, attitude, and sexual morality of the 1960’s. Armed with pistol and judo chops, Austin stylishly manages to defeat opponents gangly as he is. Uniformed in brightly colored crushed velvet suits, glasses, cravats, Italian boots, male symbol medallion, and goofy grin, Austin Powers dandily prances with beautiful women who cannot resist his magnetic charm. The sexuality of Austin contrasts with the predatory seductiveness of The Knack’s Tolden, with the secret agent possessing an impish impulsiveness and enthusiasm thoroughly disarming and non-threatening: “Let’s shag baby, yeah!”

Austin Powers is created as a parody of British Invasion pop icons such as Sean Connery and David Niven. Roles these film stars played are characterized as men of “indomitable will, men of action who demolished foes with a knuckle sandwich or a withering put-down”.[1]. Somehow, the cryogenically frozen agent somehow just can’t match up - while James Bond could always come up with instant snappy repartee when confronting deadly foes, Powers bungles in similar dialogue. While confronting Dr. Evil’s day-to-day manager of his evil empire, Number 2, in disguise Powers struggles: “Let myself introduce….myself. My name is Ritchie Cunningham and this is my wife Oprah.” This contrast of styles is what creates the hilarity – an audience educated in the typical ideal of the British secret agent easily appreciates the divergent humor of Austin’s dissimilarity.

While Austin himself serves as humorous contrast to the icons of Brit pop culture, his cultural misunderstandings in the 1990’s reveal much about contemporary perceptions of Swinging London. In considering the changes that might have occurred during his cryogenic sleep, Austin muses: “…as long as people are still having promiscuous sex with many anonymous partners without protection…I'll be sound as a pound.” The sexual freedom of the Swinging 60’s, however, has significantly changed in three decades. Vanessa, Austin’s love interest, instructs the secret agent not to refer to her as “baby”, a feminist sensibility absent from Power’s sexual understanding. As Vanessa more strongly chides Austin for engaging in unprotected sex (especially with a woman named Alotta Fagina), the unmentioned possibility of HIV/AIDS haunts a precarious sexual landscape. Vanessa further insists that any proper romantic relationship must be monogamous, a change in attitude Austin will finally adopt out by the end of the film (but not in the sequels).

Austin’s sexual attitude at the beginning of the film, and by association that of Swinging London, is one of the “…extravagant, exuberant, enthusiastic heterosexual who wants to have sex because he thinks it's fun”, a sexual ideal that is, “Not dark, not dangerous, not perverse, not exploitive, not compulsive, not something that's going to give you a disease, not something that's going to admit a killer into your home.”[2] In adjusting to the 1990’s, sexuality has become more conservative and psychedelic culture has fled the mainstream back to the underground. In Austin’s mind, and in the era of Swinging London, “sex and drugs were fun”; to the jaded 90’s mentality “now they are hard work.”[3] In this Brave New World, one can imagine Austin glumly adjusting to the new, less jubilant reality. Happily (and necessarily for comedy) the International Man of Mystery cheerfully comes to grips with the many changes, and finds a way to make a reconciliation between the values of the two decades.

This reconciliation of values can best be seen in Austin Power’s confrontation with Dr. Evil. Reflecting on the changes time has wrought, Dr. Evil comments: “Isn’t it ironic that the things that you stand for, free love, swinging, parties, are now in the 90’s to be considered….evil?” Powers confidently responds,

No man, what we Swingers were rebelling against were uptight squares like you,
whose bag was money and world domination. We were innocent man! If we’d known
the consequences of our sexual liberation, we would have done things differently
but the spirit would remain the same. It’s freedom baby, yeah!

Dismissively, Dr. Evil rejects the optimism and independence of the Swinging London ideal in the face of 90’s realities – “Face it, freedom failed.” Again vigorously defending the compatibility of the eras, Austin proclaims: “No man, freedom didn’t fail! Now we have freedom and responsibility. It’s a very groovy time.” That Austin can maintain his exuberance and find a middle path is admirable, and necessary for successful comedy.

In examining the film in terms of trans-Atlantic cultural diffusion, Austin Powers is an American commentary on an important element of the British Invasions. Mike Myers, scriptwriter and star of the film who portrays both Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, is Canadian, while director Jay Roach is American. The image of the United Kingdom presented in the film is shaped not by a native British perception, but by a North American view of English life colored by the influence of decades of British pop culture. Austin Powers is important as a historical source because it describes exaggerated impressions of the past from a foreign perspective, not the realities of Swinging London. The exaggerations of the film, taken from the models presented in Richard Lester movies like The Knack and Hard Day’s Night, are what give the humor such force, and help explain the wide commercial success and sequels the Austin Powers franchise has enjoyed. Films like Austin Powers help explain the important place British pop culture has earned within American life, and the continued significance of the numerous British Invasions of the United States.

Mr. Misanthrope

[1] Odone, Cristina. “The British Should be proud to have a Sissy and a Nerd as their male icons”. New Statesman. Vol. 128, Issue 4444. 12 July, 1999.
[2] Malanowski, Jamie. “The Desexing of Austin Powers”. New York Times. 1 September, 2002.
[3] Bowman, James. “The Powers That Be”. American Spectator. Vol. 30, Issue 7. July 1997.

Movie Review - Medium Cool

Medium Cool (1969). Directed by Haskell Wexler. 111 minutes.


Medium Cool is an attempt to place the turmoil of 1968 America onto celluloid. Examining the turbulence of the civil rights and anti-war movements, the conservative reactionary response, and the influence of 1960’s Counterculture, Medium Cool employs a cinema verite/documentary style to place events in a realistic context. Far from an escapist film, Medium Cool deviates from many of the established norms in a Hollywood production.

The plot of Medium Cool is less important than the images Wexler captures. Indeed, the plot is very loosely defined around events and themes. Television cameraman John Cassellis travels from scene to scene, capturing with his camera the various strains fracturing American society. Initially, Cassellis captures the tumult of American life without any personal connection; in the opening scene, he coldly films a deadly highway accident without offering assistance to a critically injured passenger. Along the way, Cassellis loses this journalistic detachment after learning his films of antiwar protests have been passed along to the FBI, leaving the television station. Cassellis then enters into a romance with an Appalachian widow Eileen, acting as a father-figure to her young son Harold. The film culminates in the fateful Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. As violence engulfs the city, Cassellis and Eileen perish in a violent car crash, which is casually filmed by a passing tourist, bringing the film full circle.

One of the key themes of Medium Cool is the problem of differentiating between fiction and reality. Wexler throughout Medium Cool employs live footage of events intertwined with staged scenes. Cassellis tours Washington D.C.’s “Resurrection City”, a modern “Hooverville” camp for the urban poor of the nation’s capital, reminiscent of an African refuge camp. Most notorious and noteworthy, however, is, Wexler’s shots of Eileen searching for her son during the violence of the Democratic Convention. Filmed during the demonstration and police riot, as tear gas swirls around protesters and advancing police a voice calls out to the director, “Look out, Haskell, it’s real!” (Wexler would suffer temporary blindness from his exposure to tear gas).[1] In employing this documentary style, Wexler not only depicts reality but also places the audience within the center of the action.

Medium Cool depicts the social declensions of the 1960’s in central focus. Prominent amongst these declensions is the Civil Rights Movement. Cassellis is investigating a “human interest” story on an African-American who returned $10,000 lost in a taxi cab. Viewed with suspicion by white police and derided as a fool by cynical members of the black community, this honest man (and perhaps honest men in general during the 60’s) cannot catch a break. Other African-Americans ask him if he is a “black man” or a “Negro”: a free, independent man or an Uncle Tom. Black anger at the media results as Cassellis attempts to film this man,. Confronted by African Americans possessed of the same militant worldview as Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, they explain to the cameraman the power of television ss a tool of the Establishment. One individual declaims that: “The Tube is life, man!” Wexler continues explorations of this theme in similar scenes centered around the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The anti-war movement and Counterculture also receive attention. Flashbacks by Eileen and Harold reveal the death of the Appalachian preacher and head of the family. Patriarch of their small family and responsible for a small, rural religious community, he is drawn away to Vietnam and subsequently loses his life. With his death, the family must move to the city to maintain themselves. The family history of Eileen and Harold gives moral credence to opposition to the Vietnam conflict. Wexler is less deft in presenting 60’s Counterculture. The scene in which Cassellis and Eileen attend a psychedelic rock show, described as “almost risibly phony” by a critic, fails to present the true character of the Counterculture. [2] While featuring music by Frank Zappa, this scene nevertheless presenting an inauthentic caricature of 60’s popular culture instead.

Wexler does present a skillful portrayal of the reactionary conceptions of conservative America. Socially, the row of white housewives practicing at the shooting range in fear of a crime spree, a Communist revolution, or race riot is right on the money. Politically, the clash between the government authority of Johnson and Daley and anti-war forces are clearly presented. In an early scene, National Guard troops practice their riot control skills against other troops posing as hippies and protestors. Donning long-haired wigs and drinking beer, their faux-protestors are a caricature of what the “Establishment” believes about the anti-war movement and Counterculture in general. Authority figures also deride the Civil Rights movement in this anti-riot exercise, as a role-playing mayor announces to the protesters that they have little to complain about. Doesn’t the state run enough liquor stores for them? Didn’t they let them enjoy the swimming pools on July 4? These race-baiting jibes are revelatory of the conservative backlash.

Violence is perhaps the central key to Medium Cool. Violence and the fear of violence permeates every scene. In a bizarre Rollerball sequence, Cassellis and his girlfriend revel the violence of a game reminiscent of a tawdry version of Roman gladiatorial events. As the brutality climaxes, the sequence shifts to a sex scene featuring Cassellis. Sex and violence tie together again in Cassellis’s apartment, as the couple makes love before a famous execution photograph shot during the Tet Offensive. A inspired sequence regarding Robert Kennedy’s assassination is revelatory. As perhaps the last hope for a peaceful settlement to Vietnam and a return to Camelot, the death of a second Kennedy crushes many Americans dreams. As critic Paul Authur describes:

In a striking scene. Wexler scans mundane activities in a restaurant kitchen as
the soundtrack replays the finale of RFK’s ill-fated speech at L.A. Ambassador
Hotel, as if to reconfigure his assassination from the point-of-view of
subminimum wage workers, a key group of Kennedy’s mythologized constituency.[3]

The ultimate culmination is the violence of the Democratic Convention. As Daley police club protestors, the activists scream: “The whole world is watching!” Unfortunately, in Medium Cool violence is the ultimate spectator sport, something to observe but not to interrupt. While Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was able to restore the decay of the Republic through the good-natured wisdom of the common people, the society of Medium Cool is paralyzed, unable to provoke meaningful change and doomed only to consume reality, not alter it.

Thus, Medium Cool is viewed by some critics as the birth of the “guerilla documentary”, a film which not only depicts real events but places the viewer into the center of the action. Describing the re-release of Medium Cool at the 2001 Edinburgh International Film Festival, critic Richard Kelly described Wexler’s work as one of: “…only a precious few films [that] are strong enough to stand up and speak for their times, articulating something vital about a historical moment.”[4] By filming the Democratic Convention and becoming part of the action, Wexler helped develop a new style. Film and television efforts employing similar techniques, such as Cops and Michael Moore’s films Rodger & Me and Fahrenheit 911 owe a debt to Haskell Wexler.

Mr. Misanthrope

[1] Hoberman, J. The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties. (New York: New Press, 2003) 219.
[2] Arthur, Paul. “Medium Cool”. Cineaste. Summer 2002, Vol 27, Issue 3. 45.
[3]. Arthur, Paul. “Medium Cool”. Cineaste. Summer 2002, Vol 27, Issue 3. 45
[4] Kelly, Richard. “Film: Bravely in Harm’s Way: A report from the 55th Edinburgh International Film Festival”. Critical Quarterly. December 2001. Vol. 43, Issue 4. 95

Movie Review - Shock Corridor

Shock Corridor. Directed by Samuel Fuller. 1963. 101 minutes

Abbie Hoffman, Counterculture icon and anti-Establishment provocateur, once formulated his model of the ideal Hollywood movie. “The best American flicks are a couple years ahead of the American revolution’s reality.”[1] Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor fully embodies Hoffman’s sentiment. Released in 1963, the violence and insanity depicted in Fuller’s film was eerily predictive. The tensions and declensions portrayed in Shock Corridor became the very features that defined the decade. For its ability to define and address the underlining neuroses of American society in a way far ahead of its time, Shock Corridor is an essential text of 1960’s cinema.

In Shock Corridor, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett seeks to investigate an unsolved murder within an insane asylum. The three witnesses to the crime are inmates possessing powerful psychoses. In order to reach these three men, Barrett enters the asylum undercover, assuming a manufactured mental illness. With the help of his editor and a psychologist, Barrett is trained to simulate an incestual lust for his sister. This sister who is forced to become the object of Barrett’s affected dysfunction is in fact his lover, Cathy, a stripper. After staging an attack, Barrett is subsequently arrested and sentenced to the asylum. Barrett encounters the three witnesses within the walls of asylum, and after great difficulty solves the murder case. In the process of the investigation, however, Barrett is buffeted by the irrational behavior of his fellow inmates and subjected to shock therapy. By the end of the film, Barrett has succumbed to real madness, and is reduced to a catatonic state.

Shock Corridor offers numerous levels of commentary on American society. The “Street” is the central setting of the film, the long hallway where prisoners can mingle and act out their madness. The inhabitants of “Street”, like the denizens of Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, offer revelatory characterizations of modern American life. While Lewis ridiculed the hypocrisy of Main Street and of rural America, Fuller indicts modern America as a place incapable of distinguishing truth from fiction. The power of collective fantasy allows the nation to disengage from its worst fears. The three witnesses to the unsolved murder symbolize this best; Stuart, Boden, and Trent. Each represents a potent phobia in the American psyche - communism, nuclear war, and the question of race. An analysis of these three reveal, as J. Hoberman explains; “Social pathology merge[d] with individual delusion.”[2]

Stuart is a defector indoctrinated by Communist ideology during the Korean War (reminiscent of a less sinister and bumbling Manchurian Candidate), later returning to the Free World only to be reviled for his perfidy by his peers. His only mental defense is to degenerate into the persona of Civil War general Jeb Stuart. Boden is a former physicist, one of the nation’s brightest minds. Involved with the creation of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, Boden cracks as he is tasked to develop even more powerful means of destruction. Incapable of confronting the horrific enormity of his work, Boden mentally regresses to the age of six.

The third witness, Trent, is the most electrifying figure in the film. The first African-American to break the color barrier at a southern university, the stress of continual hate cracks the talented youth. He transforms into a white supremacist, a self-convinced founder of the Klu Klux Klan. Trent marches along the “Street” screaming racial epithets, hoisting signs bearing “Black Bombs For Black Foreigners! America for Americans!” Trent’s repeated wail, “Catch that nigger before he marries my daughter!” is the perfect distillation of the fears of anti-segregationists. Going on to incite a race riot within the asylum, Trent’s mental fragmentation provides the most pointed social criticism of the film, revealing the true insanity of the rants of George Wallace by placing them in an African-American’s mouth. Trent’s racial invective is disturbing even forty years beyond Shock Corridor’s release, not because of what is said, but because of who is saying it. Graphic artist Art Spiegelman (creator of Maus and New Yorker contributor), commenting on Hollywood films dealing with race, unequivocally states: “If the film didn't deal with race, it wouldn't get to the heart of America. And what it says is: Race drives Americans mad.”[3]

While the three murder witnesses provide an overt dialogue relating to American social dilemmas, the central conflict regarding the inner conflict within journalist Johnny Barrett is subtler. In an essay examining Sam Fuller’s full film corpus, Thomas Elsaesser notes that all of Fuller’s protagonists exhibit a signal characteristic. “In this sense, all of Fuller’s heroes are – to a lesser or greater extent – neurotics. Beneath their single-mindedness, their cynicism, their obstinacy, their megalomania there is often a latent, but powerful schizophrenia.”[4] In other Fuller films, this insanity is represented in external action, of acting upon the exterior world. In Shock Corridor Barrett achieves this mental fragmentation by delving into the interior of his psyche. Self-reflection amongst the damned equals madness. Elsaesser elaborates:
The general thematic implications of Johnny’s case becomes apparent: the obsession with a certain type of factual truth, the attainment of an absolute emerges as a perversion, as the expression of a deeply apocalyptic and suicidal drive. In Johnny’s case, the energies of reason no longer serve the discovery of a meaningful truth, but become themselves the drives of a frenzied progression towards a void, culminating in the destruction of reason itself.[5]

The possibilities for complex analysis did not lend Shock Corridor for immediate
positive reviews or box office success. Tackling controversial subjects and providing a grim ending for the audience to digest (the asylum psychiatrist sadly proclaims: “What a tragedy. A deaf mute will win the Pulitzer Prize.”), reviewers dealt harshly with the film. “Shock Corridor should never have been made,” one reviewer blasted. Another attacked the movie as “outright trash”, “one of the most vicious and irresponsible pieces of film making that the screen has given us in many years.”[6] A week later after Shock Corridor’s opening, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed, killing four black girls. Two months later, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Texas. As the great turbulence of the unfolding decade beckoned, contemporary America closely resembled the inmates of Shock Corridor. Incapable of dealing with the reality of events, America would delve deeper into fantasy, seeking salvation in the latest fashion craze, the Beatles, the newest escapist Hollywood fare, anything that might promise distraction.

While contemporaries lambasted the film, director Sam Fuller and Shock Corridor have enjoyed a critical renaissance. A documentary on Fuller, The Typewriter, the Rifle, and the Movie Camera (1996), narrated by Tom Robbins and containing praise by Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Jim Jarmusch, is a testament to the influence this supposed “B” movie man on the independents of today. A eulogy for Fuller, dying in 1997 in Paris as a Hollywood exile, gave a unique homage.

Haute Hollywood patronized him--low budgets, no Oscars--and the dominant
middlebrow critics of his high time, the 1950s and early '60s, dismissed him. It
was O.K. to see the world as a dung heap if you eventually deplored it, but you
weren't supposed to be as exuberantly unjudgmental about the vulgarly obsessed
creatures scuttling across it as Sam was.[7]

Shock Corridor confronted the difficulties of the 1960’s before most could do so.
Fuller’s unsparing treatment of American life paved the way for future films to do the same. As a trailblazer, Shock Corridor enabled future films like Medium Cool, Easy Rider, Mean Streets, even Pulp Fiction. For this legacy, Shock Corridor is one of the signature films of the 1960’s.

Mr. Misanthrope

[1] Hoberman, J. The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties (New York: New Press, 2003). 251.
[2] Hoberman, J. The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties. 85.
[3] Linifield, Susie. “American Grafitti: Reflections of Race, Memory, and Dreams”. The Nation. Vol. 268, Issue 13. April 5-12, 1999.
[4] Elsaesser, Thomas. “Shock Corridor by Sam Fuller”. Nichols, Bill, ed. Movies and Method: An Anthology. (Berkley: University of Califonia Press, 1976) Vol. 1. 292.
[5] Elsaesser, Thomas. “Shock Corridor by Sam Fuller”. Nichols, Bill, ed. Movies and Method: An Anthology. (Berkley: University of Califonia Press, 1976) Vol. 1. 294.
[6] Hoberman, J. The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties. 85.
[7] Schickel, Richard and Eisenberg, Daniel. “Eulogy” Time. Vol. 150, Issue 20. January 10, 1997.