It Came from The 80’s: What We Can Learn from Maybe The Most Interesting Decade of Film.

Being born in 1979, having my most formative years shaped by countless hours spent in worlds other than my own, worlds that appeared on my TV screen during the formative years of the 80's aesthetic. I cannot claim this piece to be impartial,  or unbiased.  I am an ardent cinephile, I've seen many of the seminal film school standards. I love Marnau,  Kurosawa, Hawks,  Wilder, DeSica, Scorsese, and Wong Kar-wai as much as the next person,  and yet I can and do claim that the 80s was one of the best decades for film.  It was an era that was far more inventive,  at least as influential, and inclusive than it’s given credit for, and far less top heavy than any era of cinema before it.  Much like the fashion and music, the 80's in film was a bit of an anomaly.   It was in many ways a bastard child of its predecessors,  and a reluctant parent to its successors. Conceived in American  imagination, ingenuity, and post modernism as a reaction to the counter culture of the 60’s and 70’s. Both a reduction and an inflation of imagination born of (at least one) of the heights of American hubris,  exceptionalism,  and hypocrisy. In this vacuum, 80's cinema became a free-for-all, indicative of a lopsided economic windfall, avarice, and repetition, that ultimately does a lot to dispel our ideas about creativity.  While the socio economic world of those of us who lived outside the margins were beleaguered by many of these qualities,  the world of make-believe seems to have been bolstered by them.  With the advent of the high concept film, ( the brain child of mega producer Don Simpson meaning a film that could easily be explained in a couple of sentences)  itself the the outgrowth of the major success of Jaws and Star Wars,  the wallets of major studios expecting similar results opened up the door for an anything goes attitude amongst those that might otherwise have been shaky about green-lighting some of the wildest and most imaginative ideas put on celluloid.

Joe Dante's "Inner space" was one of many zany imaginative, ideas to make it to the silver screen in the 80s

Out of the ether.

Think about some of the films that came out in the 80s considering nothing like them had ever been made before.. Conan the Barbarian,  An American Werewolf in London,  Escape from New York,  Blade Runner,  Die Hard,  The Terminator,  Beverly Hills Cop,  Gremlins,  Ghostbusters,  A Nightmare on Elm Street,  Predator,  Big Trouble in Little China. Science Fiction,  Fantasy,  and the action pic were definitely not invented in this era,  but they most certainly endured a prominence,  effect,  and popularity never seen before or after for that matter.  Many of them defining not only their genre,  but the decade.

The Princess Bride, Die Hard, The Breakfast Club and and The Terminator became synonymous with the 80s.

Both Science fiction and fantasy had been explored infrequently and incompletely in previous decades I would gather mostly due to the fact that the technology to properly explore these worlds wasn't yet available.  Following the lasting creature effects of Jaws,  and the special effects in Star Wars the floodgates of money opened, and interestingly enough it seemed when wallets open so to did minds, especially as it concerns the imagination.  Later some of the decades most harrowing misses would become the tipping point that would bend the scale towards the risk averse marketing heavy principality of the current state. The effect of the outlandish approach of the Eighties in my world,  was that film (and to some extent television) began to rival my precious books in ability to take me to other worlds to imagine possibilities other than my own.  I, a black kid from the inner city of San Bernardino, California began to imagine worlds of my own, and from that formed a desire and a passion to become a storyteller myself,  and from that - a belief I could.  ESPECIALLY when in the 80s black men (Black women,  unfortunately were largely left out of this upward mobility until the 90s - ) started being peppered into major roles in major Sci-fi,  action, comedy,  and to a much much smaller extent fantasy films.  After all It can be argued that besides comedy it's been the realm of fantasy,  horror, or action/adventure  where marginalized people have thrived on film. From 1932's Freaks(Horror), to Coffy/Cleopatra Jones (action), Enter the Dragon (Action), Star Wars, Set it off, The Matrix, Blade, and of course Black Panther.   If there are first to be accomplished on film it is usually in these genres. As a black male child in the 80s I watched the ascension of black men in these genres. Billy Dee Williams  (Return of the Jedi) James Earl Jones (Conan the Barbarian) Eddie Murphy (48 hrs,  Beverly Hills Cop)  Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters)  Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon) Bill Duke (Commando,  Predator) Reginald Val Johnson (Die Hard)  Moses Gunn (The Never ending Story) - began to aid in (even the slightest of ways) my ability to envision my place in these worlds.  Thusly to me the decade in film represents two important themes ;  1. The importance of imagination. 2. Representation. These outlier performances and roles allowed me to form my own ideas about representation so that the stale statuesque visual identification of diversity presented in the 80s, led to my full bodied understanding of true representation as one of autonomous character motivation that interacts with, but possesses agency free of the other characters in the film.  In other words I got to think about what it might,and should look like, by seeing what did and didn't work.

The steady but still top heavy appearance of African American males in prominent roles in Fantasy, Comedy, Science fiction, and Action films was vital to my youth.

Take for example “John Milius's Conan the Barbarian”. It was the first and maybe only fantasy film produced even well after it premiered that allowed for women, black people and people of color in the world of Fantasy. Conan's open,  ambiguously-aged magical world was big enough and imaginative enough to include women and people of color in roles that didn't subject them to tropes or limitations common to storytelling before and for some time after 1982. In the lesser sequel both Grace Jones, and Wilt Chamberlain would join the cast, and it only made sense. In this world where Giant pythons the size of some dinosaurs exist,  along with witches,  and sorcerers who can transform themselves into snakes, and horned monsters, why not black men, and women, latino’s and asian men? These people were not just props, but skilled combatants, and powerful magicians, in places I had not and could not see myself. At the forefront of the film is James Earl Jones performance as Thulsa Doom. Large, regal, captivating, camp, Shakespearean. It was the earliest I can remember feeling the acting bug. His performance, and the richness of it, in combination with the way the film paid no mind to it, called no attention to it as if it had accomplished some great deed…Well that’s what made it feel great. This helped me : A.  Imagine that there could be a world in which people of color existed in realms in/and outside of known reality as powerful or more powerful than any reality I seen to date.  B.  Imagine people of color in realms that even in the great literature of giants like Tolkien,  Herbert,  and Lewis,  seemed populated only by white people.  C.  Imagine myself one day playing a role as any number of characters I found myself enamored with without restrictions.  Those who decry,  and  dismiss fantasy as escapism, insisting on some inherent superiority of realism dismiss not only the importance of escapism as an art form itself, but the importance of imagination and curiosity not only as a coping mechanisms, but as teachers.

“Taking one step away from reality to that “safe “ place of pretend, prepares us to look at the world’s harsh realities in the face. From there we can name the horrors and celebrate the joys before going back, with a clearer perspective on situations that bother us. ”

— Beth Webb writes in "The real purpose of fantasy" For The Guardian.

“We know encouraging an active imagination and curiosity in children benefits them immensely, including:

the development of problem-solving skills
fostering creativity
formulation of healthy coping skills for intense emotions”

— Rod T. Faulkner on why children should be encouraged to read Fantasy and Science fiction for Medium magazine very much so mirrors my actual story.

F*** it.. Do it

Conan was the start of a 10 year run of fantasy films seeking a major audience.  In the same year as Conan was released,  Jim Henson released a film made entirely of muppets set in a mythological world of made up creatures called The Dark Crystal.  And the most interesting factor here is that neither of these films were hugely successful. In fact a great deal of high concept fantasy or science fiction films did not even recoup their budget, yet it didn't stop the constant influx. The constant support these films received despite being mostly disastrous is a phenomenon in Hollywood I cannot explain, but it’s one I wish would return.  The Dark Crystal,  Legend,  Willow,  Blade Runner,  Tron,  Dune,  Labyrinth,  all now considered cult films were moderate to disappointing critically and profit wise and yet it didn't stop Hollywood from producing Ghostbusters,  Buckaroo Bonzai, The Princess Bride, Red Sonja,  “The Golden Child”, or “The Highlander”.  If there is anything to be mined from that decade it's not the half resurrected pet semetary that is nostalgia, or reboots of the mega franchises steeped in Reagan era exceptionalism.  It’s definitely not the era's white saviorism tropes or its tokenism as one stop progress while ignoring a more wholistic expression of identity (Stranger Things I'm looking at you) or post racial messaging and white saviorism tropes. It's that very particular hubris,  or can do spirit of persistence above and beyond the limited ambition of profit,  or whatever it was that allowed or emboldened the industry to continue to give these films a chance to find an audience.  The films were largely misunderstood, marketed incorrectly, or placed against stiff competition, and yet despite so many middling receipts in both the Sci-fi and fantasy realm Hollywood was admirably persistent in releasing at least two or three a year.   Considering the output of films on the whole was considerably less than in our current era and thusly how many of those were genres outside of fantasy, science-fiction, and action it makes no sense that we see even less fantasy these days,  and far less imagination. When a film like the criminally underseen "Hanna" which shares DNA with 80’s films like “D.A.R.Y.L.” , “Firestarter,” and “Cloak and Dagger” is made on a modest budget of 30 million,  doubles its budget,  and disappears into the ether with nothing learned,  gained,  or extracted from it,  it is woeful to me.

Action makes it mark.

 Action films in the way that we know them now, were most certainly defined by the 80s.  They found their surest footing in the years ranging from 84 to 87 with a prolific release of several major franchises,  and the creation of sub genres within the burgeoning genre like the buddy cop film (which had its origins in films like the “Defiant Ones”) and incentivized by the success of Walter Hill's “48 hrs” which begot films like Beverly Hills Cop, Running Scared,  Lethal Weapon,  and lesser copies like Tango and Cash,  Red Heat,  and a Dragnet remake to follow in successive years.   Snobbery about what makes a film that extends from the rigid confines of auteurism, relegated these films to some sub category of good, for reasons I can’t get anyone to properly define. What exactly makes Lethal Weapon or Jumping Jack Flash, lesser films? Jumping era’s if I may to make a point, I love Le Circle Rouge, I just love Point Break more. Bigelow’s commitment to bringing the wild premise down to earth and grounding it in subtextual sensuality, and air tight precision is nothing short of amazing. The chase sequence is arguably one of the 10 or so best action sequences in film history. Heading back to the 80’s what about the emotional heft of the opening Martin Riggs scene in Lethal Weapon, and the detailed slow burn of Riggs and Murtaugh’s growing love of each other both in Lethal Weapon and along the franchise as a whole. Along with Die Hard, Lethal Weapon is a masterclass in structure, pacing, and delivery that any filmmaker worth their salt should study. Furthermore I would put John Carpenter’s work in “Big Trouble”, George Miller’s in “The Road Warrior”, or Paul Veerhoeven in “Robocop” up against any of the best of filmmaking over the years. These movies exist in a bat shit crazy narrative limbo so well defined, and yet so nebulous that their replication appears impossible, and that alone is worth some acknowledgement as to their singular greatness. The most beautiful part of all this, is while the action picture was successful to a level almost beyond reproach (similar to the comic book film today)  this did not stop other genres from being equally as popular in the same decade.

The Johns

While the 80s churned out an increasing number of the genres I most loved,  it's didn't leave other already established ones wanting.  It’s something you definitely don’t see in our current era of film or any other. In the 80’s there really wasn’t a genre that didn’t seem to be in its full on heyday, and a great deal of them were established in that very era. The three Johns (Carpenter, Hughes, and Landis) almost certainly helped define the look and feel of an eighties film, and became the authors of the decade to the point their films and names are almost synonymous with it. The fact that all of them accomplished it with the versatility of a Michael Curtiz furthers my point. Horror, Teen dramedies, buddy comedies, science fiction and fantasy the John’s (especially Carpenter dabbled in it all, providing the 80’s with the eclectic spirit that I feel distinguished it from other eras of film. Looking out on the landscape how many teen dramas have you seen? Though recently they seem to be making a comeback with Edge of Seventeen, Eighth Grade, Love Simon, and Lady bird, notice how many of them are set in that very era. Horror of course never left, but what about what your horror consist of? In the 80’s it was unstoppable slashers, gremlins, critters, poltergeists, a possessed doll, werewolves, vampires, bad seeds, a guy with pins in his head, and whatever the hell Pumpkinhead was? It’s not purely the diversity of these horror projects, (horror has always been pretty diverse) but rather the gonzoness of these concepts, and that wild fact that they were actually greenlit in the first place. For his part Carpenter remade a classic with another classic, adapted one of Stephen King’s wilder short stories about a killer car, and brought us a Science Fiction/horror classic about consumerism (amongst other things) in “They Live”. Landis would delve into horror with “An American Werewolf in London” , and “Twilight Zone: The Movie” while also helming some of the definitive adult comedies of any time in “Animal House”, “The Blues Brothers”, “Trading Places”, and “Coming to America”. And Hughes, well Hughes all but created and then defined the teenage comedy , while still churning out comedies like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and Uncle Buck. These are incredible bodies of work indicative of an incredibly flexible and agile approach to movies.

Hughes , Carpenter, and Landis we're most certainly autuers, and provided much of the landscape for the 80s filmmaking.

Don Simpson's " High Concept " film ideology though maybe slightly contemptible at first glance,  was really quite genius in its simplicity.  By splicing together two genres of film that might not otherwise be put together you might be courting disaster, but also form the ingredients for something unique and unforgettable.  Like combinations of primary colors you can blend primary genres and concoct something not altogether original and yet it's own.   So when you splice a John Hughes film with vampire lore in horror you might get "The Lost Boys".  The buddy cop genre with science fiction,  and occult horror and arrive at the Ghostbusters. The hard boiled noir film with horror and conceive the underrated "Angel Heart". Never mind the political body horror brought on by the heyday of Cronenberg, or lynchian existential dread x pot boiler thriller in Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark”.  For all the lip smacking,  and kissing of teeth about that era by prominent film historians ( Wikipedia suggests Kent Jones believes it the worst decade for filmmaking, though I can't find, nor have I read, or heard it from his mouth) and even one of my favorite directors (Quentin Tarantino) the 80s was far more substantive than its given credit for, and of course it bears saying that much of the criticism around its supposed lack of quality boils down to cinematic snobbery for some, and a more specifically an elitist attitude and language that still permeates cinephilic circles today represented by terms like “Elevated Horror”.

““I’ve been reading comic books since I was a kid, and I’ve had my own Marvel Universe obsessions for years,” Tarantino responded. “So I don’t really have a problem with the whole superhero thing right now, except I wish I didn’t have to wait until my 50s for this to be the dominant genre. Back in the ’80s, when movies sucked — I saw more movies then than I’d ever seen in my life, and the Hollywood bottom-line product was the worst it had been since the ’50s — that would have been a great time.””

— Quentin Tarantino

 The 80’s was in fact not run by franchises and blockbusters. We saw a great deal of the rises of,  and some of the greatest works from our greatest directors in the 80's. Never mind the great films that came from directors we might not have seen be as successful afterwards.  Stephen Frears ( Dangerous Liasons)  saw his rise in the 80's,  Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark)  David Lynch (The Elephant Man,  Blue Velvet)  Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle) David Cronenberg,  (Videodrome, Scanners,  The Fly)  Terry Gilliam ( Time Bandits,  Brazil) Michael Mann ( Thief,  Manhunter) Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) , The Coen Brothers ( Blood Simple, Raising Arizona),   and of course Spike Lee ( Shes Got to have it, Do the Right Thing) all saw their rise in the 80s. Meanwhile without missing a beat already proven master craftsman or imagination stations like Scorcese, Kubrick,  and Spielberg were still churning out some of their best work (Raging Bull,  After Hours, The Shining,  Full Metal Jacket,  Indiana Jones,  The Color Purple) .  Even outside the realm of American cinema Kurosawa (Ran)  Shohei Imamura ( The Ballad of Narayama)  Ingmar Bergman ( Fanny and Alexander) Louis Malle (My Dinner with Andre, Au Revoir les enfants)   and Truffaut (The Last Metro) delivered outstanding material.  The 80s seemed like a decade hell bent on recognizing the profitability,  and merits of a great variety of stories. In mid-stride 1985 saw Peter Weir's "Witness" with Harrison Ford,  Terry Gilliam's “Brazil”,  “Back to the Future”,  “The Breakfast Club”,  “The Color Purple”, “Fright Night”,  “The Goonies”,  “The Last  Dragon”,  “Krush Groove”,  “Pee Wee's Big Adventure”,  “Prizzi's Honor”,  “Ran”,  “To Live and Die in LA”,  “Teen Wolf”,  and  “A Room with a view”.  1985 is a great prism with which to grade this decade by. It is a testament to what I think makes the 80s one of the absolute best decades in cinema; genre parity, novelty, and quality.

Art by any other name.

As I’ve alluded to before, at the center of the argument that the 80’s is the worst decade in film is in my mind a long held snobbish cinematic prejudice against genre films.  It limits the realm of prestige to those films that blare out their importance from the top of  a mountain carved in realism and the most traditional elements of storytelling.  The aesthetics must be muted -almost drab,  the pacing so gradual it can on many occasions feel like a chore.  This framing is not inclusive, it doesn't allow for the fact that while storytelling is in essence the same no matter what story is being told, the components, elements, and structure of different genres require and ask of us different things. This mimics the limitations of its ownership and creates hierarchies where none need be. Art by any other name/genre is still art. This stale,  reduction of quality of story and importance can be dated back thousands of years, so obviously it is not new, though still on its face rather silly and egotistical...

““Then it seems that our first business is to supervise the production of stories, and choose only those we think suitable, and reject the rest.  “”

— Plato

Remarking on storytelling and its role in shaping and reinforcing narratives in society - plato argued for a (rather misogynistic if you read the rest in its entirety) kind of censorship continued from the prejudices of literature that treated newer genres of storytelling like Sir Larry Wildman treated Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street”.  This bias of prestige in art found its way into the early stages of Hollywood some thousands of years after Plato.   A tradition that created genre ghettos only just now being addressed.  Meanwhile in the here and now the 80’s  engenders a strange dichotomy of thought and emotion.  On the tail end of a re-emergence into the American Storytelling consciousness (because most of us who grew up in it are of age to become its champion) there have been plenty of trips down memory lane in current cinema and television.  But I would argue that the Abrams,  Duffer Brothers, Gunn's  and to some extent Letich's of the world have only put forth an effort to haphazardly reanimate a childhood remembered for all the wrong reasons.  What's missing is the true magic of delving into the void of the impossible, absurd, ludicrous, or wild in today's cinema.  We have been hijacked by realism, and the most banal conceptions of creativity and fabrication.  In this world of safe bets, risk-aversion,  and demure pragmatism,  creating entirely new worlds rarely goes beyond the conceits and restraints of this one. So you may imagine the far reaches of the universe in something like Besson's "Valerian", or even in Villanueve's upcoming “Dune" adaptation, but still confine it within the realm of a benign white supremacy.  When you do imagine something as wonderful as a “Wrinkle in Time” with people of color, and black folk, the bland tableau of digital VFX built on the ruins of the human imagination tames the gesture. Here the crossing into the veil of what we don't see is never really explored,  or mined to find its borders. Nothing remotely resembling the absurdity of Labyrinth,  the weird and strange beauty of Fantasia, or the fanciful, and repugnant inhabitants of Jim Henson's worlds based off of the work of a Brian Froud, the scale and grandiose camp of Harryhausen (Clash of the Titans) or the iconic weirdness and texture of HR Giger (Alien), never gets into the cinematic pipeline.  I  wonder the effect of this on new children.  My childhood  was a constant state of living in between two worlds... the one I actually inhabited, and the ones I frequently visited in my head. These world's were largely inspired by the books and films of my childhood.  A decade of film that allowed me to imagine broader possibilities in my own life.   The elasticity of my world came by way of celluloid dreams,   and my inner thoughts became expanded and emboldened by the likes of “Star Wars”,  “DragonSlayer”, “LadyHawke”, “Star Trek”,  “Rankin and Bass”, “Clash of the Titans”,  “Heavy Metal”, and “The Neverending Story”. These movies were of course themselves limited by aspects of racism, sexism  and other such worldly hindrances, but nonetheless much more fantastic and uninhibited than most of the supposedly daring films that came before or after. I miss having a sense of wonder about my world. I miss reading about the eight wonders of the world, the lochness monster, and the awe of invention. More importantly I miss having it backed up by the moving image in “Indiana Jones”, “Real Science”, and “The Abyss”. I don’t want reboots, the prostitution of nostalgia, and second class citizenship amongst film lovers. I want new explorations into new realms, with newer faces, and ideas. Made and greenlit with the same wild eyed devil- may-care attitude that regardless of why, seemed the convention in the 80’s.

1981's Possession remains one of the most daring, insane, and harrowing experiences cinema has had to offer.

What I think we can learn.

Hollywood's  answer I'm sure would be to issue out a legion of remakes of these very films, missing the point entirely. I’ll watch it, but I don't think we need a Dune remake we need the next version. The Dark Crystal (prequel/sequel?) was amazing,  I still want the one that does not yet exist.   I would like to see writers, and filmmakers  construct from the deeper recesses of their minds, and from the less cynical spaces where anything is possible, and executives to empower them to do so.  Reach out to that childlike abyss, and bring back the impossible into the film ribbons of our increasingly narrow reality. Allow a new generation of malleable minds to dream bigger,  and imagine the canvases of their lives beyond the very unspectacular now we may live in.  In a cinematic world where most creators and execs can't even imagine women and people of color in roles not specifically defined by their nationality or ethnicity, we should do this not just for the sake of entertainment or profit,  (though I do believe people like Christopher Nolan and Wes Anderson have proven a highly active imagination represented on screen to still be profitable though also very white) but for the sake of future generations not made up of cynical worts who have long since forgotten the best of what those films like Star Wars conveyed in favor of nostalgic xenophobia and a "know it all" insistence on realism in very unrealistic worlds.  In their stead I want ones like Jordan Peele, or Taika Wataititi, or Kasi Lemmons, folk that can imagine female,  disabled, and ethnic heroes, as well as the world's they inhabit to be uninhibited by our own fragility.   World's like Wakanda in the upcoming Black Panther,  where very few if any white people exist, but for Asian peoples. And spectacular battles can be waged by all women,  like in Wonder Woman,  but with a woman of color at the head of it all.  All of that and more which can only exist when one doesn't feel confined by the fixed and corporeal limitations and imbalances of our own world.  Hopefully inspiring new minds to reach out with their own fantastic ideas and remind us all that a great story lies in any time,  any place, any person,  any genre,  and any decade. This is at the heart of my rebuttal against Netflix haters who dismiss the method off hand (as if they’re the only company or studio using an algorithm be it human or computer generated) and deride the content as if its subpar or forgettable. It’s the repackaged argument against the eighties, that suggest that the High concept film (a sort of human algorithm itself) in and of itself is, or was bad for film, and dismisses the greatness of a great deal of films based on aesthetics of originality. Great films and or television has no one way of being created. Taking what people seem to respond to the most, and splicing and integrating them can produce something original in and of itself. Netflix like the 80’s is no less great at producing some of the finest television than HBO and I’d argue they are a lot less top heavy. It’s worth it to interrogate their dominance on the scene AND to criticize the laughable integrity of the belief that they are doing this out a desire to give platform to the underprivileged. But maybe not reduce it all to a joke, and maybe people and rival studios would do better to learn to throw some of their own money or support at a weird show like the OA, or films with unique concepts like the Velvet Buzzsaw, and stop notoriously effing with the visions of creators. Maybe whatever reason they find , they should try to rediscover the motivation to get behind projects that sound so outlandish they just might work again. Maybe imagination still has a place in Hollywood, even if the impetus is not altogether saintly.

The Oscars: This Means War, or at least it should.

The 2020 Oscar nominations were released yesterday, and well over some 48 hours later I am sick and tired, I am disgusted, and I am baffled, but mostly angry. I should explain the anger, or rather I want to. I am angry because I don't see this year's nominations as merely casual indifference, or woeful ignorance, but as a purposeful declaration of a social warfare of sorts. That may sound dramatic, and maybe it is, but I also dont believe there is much evidence to support much else considering what we've read and seen from many in the industry since April Reign started #Oscarssowhite. To be sure the Oscar's are just an old flabby over inflated pageant institution, but also it is an institution. An Institution invested in dictating canon. Sure we will always remember great films, but oscar noms and winners keep alive a tradition in storytelling that prioritizes white males as the inherent signifiers of greatness, of talent, of truth, and of purity in America cinema, and it is beyond clear to me that certain people from within the industry are tired of hearing from those outside their hegemony about the importance of different voices and more varied perspectives. You're not going to convince me that ( especially in this entertainment economy currently making its bones off the still mostly unpaid brand publicity offered by social media and its hashtags, fan castings, and memeification) that the academy board was unaware of the swell of disappointment and frustration hurled at their award season peers over their head-scratching omissions of the verifiably well received films, performances, and technical accomplishments of women and people of color this year. Especially when at least a couple of the films they declared worthy (Tarantino's Once Upon a Time, and Todd Phillips Joker) were as polarizing amongst the critical mass as they were. Especially while films like Lulu Wang's “The Farewell” , Greta Gerwig's Little Women, or Lorene Scarfaria's “Hustlers" received near universal praise and adulation. Critical praise should not be an isolated barometer, but in light of the wide crevice between these films it should count quite a bit. The Terry Gilliam's of the world are more than a few, and voices like his have been heard from the ranks of Oscar’s ranks very recently.

Todd Phillips “Joker” was the clear winner in this years oscar nods, despite being a polarizing film amongst critics upon its release

It could be said this may be a by- product of the academy's recent push to allow for films with more of a popular standing with mainstream audiences, but then while “Little Women”, and “The Farewell” never reached mainstream audiences (for a multitude of reasons that include distribution and marketing) why not the 150 million plus/over its 20 million budget “Hustlers”? The head of Bafta derided the lack of opportunity in the industry to defend the negligence of that institution. Hmm…you mean that institution who denied Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman their entire careers, and this year helped shut out Lupita Nyong'o, who gave arguably the performance of the year in Jordan Peele's “Us” - a film that didn’t quite receive the reception of his now seminal “Get Out”, but still far outpaced both Tarantino'sand Phillips films in critical regard, and wasn't far behind Once Upon a Time in Box office (especially when set against budget)? This is about several kinds of biases and prejudices. This was a clap back, or at least a stern stubborn affirmation of the previously held position of the last 100 or more years of cinema. Why else would one of their institutional peers hire someone of the constitution of the very non-asked for Ricky Gervais (whom mind you I somewhat like). Could be there was no one else…could be ratings, but neither of those are anymore solid than the possibility that Gervais was a representation of the animus of those tired of apologizing for what they feel are minor infractions, for being artist, for being taste makers, and as Terry Gilliam, and so many others have put it, for being white. There were too many categories, too many folk as close to objectively better than the chosen nominees, and that's before you get to the “like-clockwork” arrival of obvious miscues like the various Uncut Gems snubs. No actor, no director, no best picture nod(s) for a film that obviously made both an academic and social imprint on this year beyond most of the films they chose. The Oscars have long had a prestige bias, and that too is also coded, but the original language is so forgotten, so dated , so archaic that even its most ardent disciples don't ’t know what prestige is or means. Uncut Gems lack of nods is a case of a general lack of imagination and inspiration by the academy, and shows its age, but still mostly this feels like a pretty blatant repudiation of people of color, of women, of certain genres, and bias against certain types of performances, and stories. It's important to understand these things ( gender, genre, and racial bias) intertwine and intersect. Long held conscious and unconscious prejudices against various members of different sexual orientations, genders, and peoples are part and parcel of the biases against certain genres. Horror having a genuinely observable narrative obsession with femininity and empowerment, as well as masculine objection, rejection, and objectification around and about their bodies as postulated by folk like Laura Mulvey and Carol Clover, and also being arguably the most disrespected genre by both the gatekeepers of prestige and the Academy, cannot be reasonably construed as merely coincidence. Science Fiction, and action films have had a history of incorporating marginalized people throughout their cast and as leads in the narrative, long before drama which mostly insisted that if marginalized folk be presented it was in work or stories specific to their identity and not much else. Funny enough these same people who had no problem basing casting and story choices purely on rigid assumptions and definitions of identity take issue with the idea of identity politics based purely on identity. Whether Queen aliens, black oracle’s, sexual succubuses, slasher victims, psycho powered teenagers, over pressured asain males, possessed little girls, beleaguered wives or mothers, or women who dare object to motherhood, stories about women, gays, black folk, and people of color unencumbered by white male intruders, be they audience, characters, or directors have rarely been seen as worthy of the supposedly academic sensibilities of the academy as those made by white men, though the uber men villains of comic book films have (though both have thus far been iterations of the Joker ). The socially acceptable prejudices in white audiences towards black storytellers of color as to which depictions of what kind of black folks lead to nominations and wins are narrow, and many times guided by white hands with few exceptions. Slaves and struggling depictions of black folk will earn rave reviews, and most likely awards, but ultimately happy, or just average stories about everyday black folk less so. Dating back to Justin Lin and “Better Luck Tomorrow”, Mira Nair and The Namesake, all the way to LuLu Wang and The Farewell, and even to some extent the better received Parasite (Academy-wise) asain stories have been largely ignored , and same for many kinds of stories about Latinos, and worser still Native Americans. To blame the obvious industry wide problem of lack of opportunities is incomplete, lazy, and an insult to almost any filmgoers intelligence. Lack of opportunities doesn't explain why Bafta has famously excluded both Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman their entire careers. Lack of opportunities doesn't explain why “Kasi Lemmons's” American gothic classic Eve's Bayou was wholesale ignored in 1997. Why Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust received a similar ghosting, or why Smoke Signals, or American Me, or the Joy Luck Club received none of the kind of wide eyed adulation so many mediocre white entries like The King's Speech, Amistad, The Last Samurai, or Crash received. This is because the lack of opportunities are interwoven with the covert and overt lack of respect for storytelling outside the white hegemonic institutional paradigm, and tellers that do not regard the sensitivity of white viewers or allow them a pathway to ownership of the lens of perspective. It’s why “ Driving Miss Daisy", “The Help”, “The Three Billboard's of Ebbing”, and “The Green Book” can consistently do so well during awards season, and why “Widows”, “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Dolemite is My Name”, “Queen and Slim”, “The Farewell”, “The Handmaiden” “Hustlers”, and more struggle so mightily, or receive various iterations of consolation prizes.

Lupita nyong'O's performance in Jordan peele's “us” bears many aesthetic similarities in choices and effect (though spiritually and conceptually it’s better imo) as Joaquin PhoeniX's joker, but received none of his acclaim come awards season.

There are most certainly prejudices beyond identity. Clear biases have existed for years towards action films since their inception into the mainstream production values of film. Mission Impossible: Fallout should have been an Oscar nominee last year, and any argument to the opposite will inevitably lead back to some version of an argument regarding low/high art, and prestige. For much of the same reason if I had my way so too should John Wick 3 be nominated as best picture this year, and I remain firmly convinced that films like Die Hard, or even Top Gun should've been best picture nominees in their day. Raucous comedies like Coming to America, CaddyShack, Friday, or the 40 year old Virgin are far too important to the American lexicon and popular culture, never mind being brilliant to have been ignored. Science Fiction films like Alien, The Road Warrior, Minority Report, and The Matrix are more than just their technical achievements, they were astonishingly directed, shot, acted films that offered far more than many of their dramatic contemporaries did to the culture and gravity of cinema. Most certainly Horror films like The Shining, The Babadook and Hereditary at the very least gave us legendary characters and performances the likes of which have rarely been seen in any genre, and yet none of them bore their performers any fruit come Oscar time. What is this, but the most extreme kind of prejudice?

1980's “The Shining featured two of the most harrowing and memorable performances of th 20th century, neither was nominated by the academy.

I’m not wholly on board with the dismissal of the entire institution (In as far as the idea of a celebration of the years best contributions to the medium) because I believe a ceremonious pathway to film canonization that allows a mass audience to be introduced to films they may have missed or been obstructed from seeing is both entertaining and important. The alternative way to answer in my opinion such a clear response to outrage culture as to lionize a movie in the Joker (who in many not so subtle ways acted as it’s own response to outrage culture and the subsequent imagined repudiation of white men) , is continued outrage followed by action the likes of April Reigns #Oscarssowhite . White supremacy in all its forms including artistic tends to count on apathy, and eventual exhaustion, so my definitely not solitary solution is continued outrage. Continued suggested and actual boycotts, less viewing of that show, and even more outrage after . The Oscar's needs to bust its whole ass on the uphill ice rink it created. If viewers and especially social media personalities hate watch and rebuke it online, nothing is gained, they got what they wanted. The ratings need to be an unmitigated disaster, the kind that gets folk removed. I remember ( before I was booted from Twitter) observing a detestable and rather lame occurence of men commenting under beautiful women's pics anything and everything but anything about them. It was ridiculous there, but here it would be welcome to anyone invested in change. Folks who move cinema online should talk about anything and everything but the Oscars on that night. The Oscars should not trend on that night. It should be as if it did ’t exist on one of entertainment's most important outlets. We need outrage that doesn't stop after the ceremony, outrage that begins at Sundance and Cannes. Outrage and action that acts as a collective Samuel L Jackson screaming “I dare you, I double dog dare you to disnclude us again!” Then in the words of my man “Kuiil” from “The Mandalorian” we will “Have Spoken". No one has to do this, and I get it if no one does, because hell there’s a lot of shit in the world and we could use some good old fashioned pageantry, but I be damned if it’s not exactly what the Academy has earned. Earned after years of giving its laurels to racists films, sexist men, and gross depictions of those different from their members, and especially most egregiously after suggesting Casey Aflac gave a better performance in Sad Manchester White people by the Sea than Denzel Washington on Spinal Tap “11” in “Fences" (Sorry I had to get that off my chest)

My definitive (Kind of) list of The 10 Best Tarantino Characters of All Time.

It’s hard to guess exactly where Quentin Tarantino’s legacy will land amongst the great directors of all time, even harder to gauge what that legacy will be if you’re asking for any consensus. Im not. I do however, aim to have some fun with what I feel will inevitably be part of his legacy - that is his ability to craft characters. Whether he has borrowed these characters or not, whether they adhere to strict definitions of character development or not, is irrelevant to me. What is relevant to me is that all of these characters are memorable, severely quotable, and indelible. From Headliners like the Murderous leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad Bill, to cameos, and one scene players like Brett in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s dialogue, camera, and set ups ensure almost no character is left behind. I don’t think there is a director or writer in History who could boast so deep a roster of characters as commonly quoted, or easily recognized as Tarantino and that alone is a testament to the man doing a whole lot of something right. Hate all you want on Tarantino, ( and honestly Tarantino has given us plenty of reason to ) but any criticism, (or hatred if that's your flavor) is incomplete without including the fact that this white male, (out of nowhere) with no pressure from any outside forces, made a whole ass career of making movies that made bad asses out of some of the least recognized people in Hollywood. Not only as actors but as people. Black men,Asian men, white women, black women, asian women, bringing back, reminding us of their genius, or making the careers of actors like Pam Grier, Ving Rhames, Lucy Lui, Robert Forster, Daryl Hannah, or Gordon Lui. In the spirit of acknowledging that particular form of genius I attempt what in actuality was a pretty tough assignment for me. To compose a list of my 10 favorite Tarantino characters all time. I did considerable damage to my brain cells trying to dig deep for academic reasons behind what I would ultimately deem a definitive list of the ten best characters he ever produced. That failed when it started to become hard to delineate between whether the reasons for one character topping another were the actors ability (Take Michael Fassbender’s Archie Hilcox in Inglorious Basterds whose basement tavern scene rivals the films opening for intensity, because he’s so damn good) Tarantino’s writing, or my own bias towards genre or type (Pai Mei almost made the list based on nothing else but my love for his appearance from other kung fu films). So I gave up on making this list being strictly academic, or really even academic at all and instead decided to base it more so in heart and memory than anything else. Quickly writing down the first 20 or so characters that popped into my head from his films that I know stuck with me, and then beginning the process of eliminating them by asking myself:

“Which one stuck with me more?

“What is it about them that makes me love them so much acting, writing, a combination?”

“How close are to they to being fully fleshed out characters?”

“How much does it matter to me whether the are good or not, and then why?”

Some fared better in other categories than others , but made up for it in another, but ultimately it came down to some combination of all of these things, and besides that an admission that it would be rather impossible to make a definitive list , but much more interesting to make my own in hopes it inspires others to tell me theirs. So without further ado, MY TOP 10 FAVORITE QUENTIN TARANTINO CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME…

10. Stephen - Django Unchained (2012)

Quite possibly the most despicable villain of all time, Stephen is one of the examples on this list of meeting the criteria of almost all four of my categories near or at the peak. So why then is he at the bottom of my list?…Because besides being probably the second or third name I came up with, besides being one of the most fully fleshed out characters in QT’s catalog, and because Samuel L Jackson so skillfully plays him with so many detestable nuances, I hate him. I abhor this character. To the point I feel some sort of way even revisiting Django. Stephen is the “House Nigga” to end all House Niggas, a terrifyingly re-animated boogeyman of black history, one made even that much more terrifying by the fact black men like him may very well have existed and still do.

9.

GoGo Yubari- Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003)

As O-Ren Ishii’s most trusted bodyguard GoGo Yubari is as lethal as she is loyal, and though she appears on screen for only an extremely short time GoGo leaves quite the impression. She is a sadist of the highest order. Vicious, confident, and bloodthirsty. Given a bigger part I’d find it easy to draw comparisons between GoGo and Anton Chigur in “No Country for Old Men”. They are agents of carnage, angels of death. There is no rhyme or reason to what they do. Chigur invites you to play his game of death, and plays at it being about chance, but GoGo invites men through the perversion of their own fantasies, and requires no such fiction about chance, she kills because she can, because she wants to, because it provides her with pleasure. I think of GoGo as the cinematic embodiment of that great hidden fear all men have of the power women have over them. That not so hidden fear that If only but given the inclination to use the completeness of our attraction to them, the desperation in our need to control them, how easy it would be for them to gut the lot us. Leaving us helpless to do anything but to watch. Watch out boys she’ll chew you up.

8. Winston Wolfe AKA “The Wolf”- Pulp Fiction (1994)

Harvey Keitel’s “The Wolf” character is in the running for THE coolest character in Quentin’s entire filmography, and that is saying quite a lot. A wonderfully unique amalgamation of Hercule Poirot, Humphrey Bogart, The Driver, and Michael Clayton, the wolf is an anonymous player in Tarantino’s fictional underground world. He plays by his own set of rules, his own personal code, and commands the respect of everyone around him. Oh and he drives an Acura NSX, (one of the coolest looking cars ever made… fight me). You get the sense the wolf is the kind of guy who color codes his socks and arranges them in alphabetical order by brand name. I mean any guy who walks around in a f***ing tux at 9 am in the morning means business. Now the Wolf on Tarantino’s paper alone is worthy of some mention on a list of his greatest characters, but it is the steam from Keitel’s performance that propels Winston to the top of my personal list. As portrayed by Keitel, Wolfe is fast talking , but concise, and his movements and gestures match each of those qualities. The Wolf isn’t much for ostentation and ceremony despite the tux and the car, so Keitel gives him distinctive purpose in each line, and each gesture that follows, he keeps his body lines linear, almost protracted, and his eyes filled with intent. In a role that last maybe five minutes, Keitel in collaboration with Tarantino’s distinctive style and language creates a character that stayed with the audience well after that and now we all know just why Jules’s whole demeanor changed upon hearing his name… “Shit negro thats all you had to say!”

7. Hattori Hanzo- Kill Bill vol 1. ( 2003)

This one is easy. Hanzo (gleefully played by veteran martial arts actor Sonny Chiba showing quite some range) was one of the first characters to pop into my head (almost instantaneously). This is in some part due to the almost mythical storied history of his character both in and outside of the film, and in part due to Chiba. Hanzo’s change from mild mannered, cheerful sushi bar owner ( Who sometimes loses his temper with his lazy, insipid assistant) to deadly serious sword maker is Superman-esque and one of the best and most delightful surprises in Kill Bill Vol 1. Im sitting here right now thinking of his charismatic banter with Uma’s Beatrix Kiddo, each of them playing their roles within a role to the hilt of the swords they will brandish, and Im smiling ear to ear just thinking about it.

6. Drexl Spivey - True Romance - (1993)

Gary Oldman. Leopard Print. “White Boy Day.”…Moving on.

5. Marcellus Wallace- Pulp Fiction (1994)

Big, Black, Bold and Direct. The opening scene of Pulp Fiction acts sort of like a Carnival Barker setting you up for the big entrance of one of the films two or three most indelible characters, Ving Rhame’s Marcellus Wallace. When he finally appears, at first off camera, later the back of his head just off to the left of the screen, a large band aid front and center - it does not disappoint. Rhame’s signature baritone voice, smooth and somehow calming, despite the air of menace underneath, wraps itself in Tarantino’s words and then wraps us the audience around his fingers. Maybe my favorite part about Wallace, is his ability to articulate without having to conform to the accepted patterns, cadence, and use of the english language. He is profane, he uses slang, but he is still very well spoken. I maintain that Marcellus Wallace’s opening monologue is one of the greatest introductions to a character on film, and spawned numerous knock offs, none of them quite like the original. I remember first watching this character on screen and thinking “I have never seen a black man on screen like this ever. He was a new age incarnation of Superfly, and for a young teenager like me, I can’t tell you how much seeing him on screen meant to me, but suffice to say a lot. I guess you could say that was my “Pride, f***in with me”.

4. Shosanna Dreyfus- Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Thing is, if I were going off of acting Uma Thurman’s the bride may very well have been n this very place. It was a virtuoso performance. A knock down dragged out, physical and emotional tour de force. Both these characters suffer immense loss, both exact revenge, but the difference maker for me was in the execution of said revenge. I mean sure the five finger death punch is cool, but did you burn the entire third reich alive in a theater while watching their own propaganda film? Cool, calculated, and highly intelligent, Shosanna doesn’t end up living to tell her tale like Beatrix, and she’s no warrior, but she sure knows how to deliver punch, and having the last laugh on the theater screen ( the title of one of German director F.W. Murnau’s finest films) while your enemies burn…that is glorious indeed.

3. Jackie Brown- Jackie Brown (1997)

My favorite thing about Jackie Brown is how relatable a ant-hero she is. In fact if she had a super power it’d be like, survival or something. She’s not a highly trained martial artist, she’s got no assets, no partner in crime, and no team, but she’s resourceful as hell, intelligent, and she knows the game. She plays only the hand she’s dealt and yet she still comes out on top. I’ve rarely seen this type of woman portrayed on screen, even more rare by a black woman played with all the world weary “F*** you pay me” sincerity few woman but Pam Grier could provide. Jackie Brown gets to win, (Still very rare on screen for a black woman) and she gets over on everyone because A. she’s a woman, and B. she plays it so straight, no one’s any the wiser as to whats going on underneath. In that way both “Jackie Brown” the movie, and Jackie Brown the character’s genius lies in their simplicity. The movie doesn’t try to hide a lot from you, and neither does Jackie. Jackie communicates in a straightforward no frills fashion, and so to does the movie, without much of the verbose grandiosity and flashy cinematic call backs of his other films. Truth is, both are better for it , Jackie is smarter for it, and we all get to reap the benefits every time we watch her do it again.

2. O-Ren Ishii- Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003)

If ever there was a stand- alone movie I’d like to see based upon a character from one of Tarantino’s films, O-Ren Ishii would top that list. The character is in possession of one of the most harrowing, tragic, bloody, bad ass back stories in movie history, and Lucy Lui is in total possession of the character. The anime backstory is the stuff of legend , but the power in the anime is boosted and given legendary heft when we arrive to see a fully grown Ishii at the head of the Yakuza table. The following scene is not just a glorious continued ode to anime, but a supremely well acted one, that places O-Ren in an unquestionable position of power, while allowing Lucy Lui to show off her considerable acting chops. Here’s the best part about Ishii..or at least my favorite part. She takes over as head of an all male organization and installs only women as her most trusted advisors, she is a fierce warrior capable of dispatching any number of these men, so there is nothing to be done about it, that’s a revolution I want televised. O-Ren Ishii ‘s story is a story we are all familiar with, the rise and fall of a gangster. It’s “Scarface,” its “The Godfather,” except this time it’s a woman.

Jules Winnfield-Pulp Fiction (1994)

You had to know we were headed here. It would very hard for me to compose any list of characters from Tarantino films and not have Winnfield come out on top, whether academic or more from the heart (as this one is). Winnfield is almost incomparable. There was very little like the loquacious, Jheri curled hitman on-screen before 1994, and very little like him after. Samuel L Jackson imbued Jules with a fire similar to Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell from “Night of the Hunter”, and later in the film, the weariness of Gary Cooper in “High Noon” and its a revelation every single time I see it. There is an equal amount of poetry in Tarantino’s unorthodox rapid fire dialogue, and Jackson’s animated baptist preacher delivery that bonds in such a way as to create the kind of art that transcends the paper. Mostly because Jackson’s performance despite having a clear rhythm also goes off book. Its one of the few performances wherein I genuinely feel the actor might have been possessed. It really borders on the spiritual, and as wild and outlandish a character as Jules is in conceptualization, Jackson grounds him in electrifying authenticity. Never a false note, never a beat that feels forced. In my lifetime I feel it’s one of the 10 or so greatest performances Ive ever seen, and Winnfield, Jackie Brown, and O-Ren are the only characters on this list that would be on the top of this list even if it was academic. They’re that strong… they’re that good.

31 DAYS OF HORROR SCENES THAT STICK. DAY 28: THE BROOD

“MOMMIE DEAREST”

The covert and overt fear over motherhood are part of what lies at the core of the horror in David Cronenberg’s “The Brood”. The power (both physically and mentally) inherent in motherhood, and given over by a patriarchal society in which men are conditioned to believe that the job of rearing children is largely that of a woman's - never mind the unconscious fear of a woman who can create children independent of a man - are seated in the foundation of both the biological and psychological horror on display.  That Cronenberg wrote this film while still grappling with still raw emotions over a rough divorce is also germane, and an alternative reading of Cronenberg’s film finds it an “emotionally realistic horror movie about the collateral damage of divorce “ something I wholly agree with, while adding that considering the narrative allegiances he forms with the characters (especially Frank Carveth) and subconscious fears apparent in the writing it is apparent with whom Cronenberg most wants the audience to side with, or at least whose side he’s on. It's in the visual representation of a child almost literally bring clawed at and torn by the children of a Mother’s Rage. And in the recycling of a time honored tradition of men that holds that women often use children as bartering chips to keep a man in their life. As well as the subtle if not overt demonization of a woman (Frank’s wife Nola) who is being held prisoner in a cabin with every form of contact with the outside world regulated,  or restricted by the combined efforts of her husband and the veritable Dr Frankenstein of this wellness center Hal Raglan while he performs a very ethically questionable form of therapy on her.  But this is the terror of the film, the horror in the film again, in my opinion is rooted in Motherhood.

Since the film never seeks to acknowledge in any meaningful way the mothers own connection to her child, the horror she might feel being isolated by this mad therapist, or simply who she is beyond her trauma, and illness then in many ways she becomes not so much different than the Xenomorph queen in James Cameron’s “Aliens”. As a matter of fact she is referred to as the “Queen Bee” by a disgruntled former resident of the institute. Devoid of any real character development she is simply queen of a hive. Walled off from the world not only the fictional setting, but even from us the audience. She is the avatar of a complex combination of the inferiority, abandonment , and impotency linked with motherhood and pregnancy independent of male interference, and translated as horror.

End of The Brood

We are meant to be repulsed as Frank is - and that repulsion stems not only from the physically grotesque nature of the birth, or her almost ravenous licking of the blood off her child, but on a deeper level from this womans asexual ability to reproduce. I do not mean all of this to be a repudiation of the film (The Brood is a classic in my opinion, and not all good horror possesses messages good messaging), but rather to examine what is at the root of my own and (I suspect others) horror in this film, and in this scene which is one of the most memorable in Horror if you have seen it. What Cronenberg accomplishes here can and will be looked at as either subversive, or complaint in upholding horrors tradition of torturing, reducing, and (though maybe not in this case) objectifying its women. For me it is mostly the latter which in some strange way cements the horror of the scene and the film as effectively repulsive in more ways than one.

31 DAYS OF HORROR SCENES THAT STICK. DAY 24: POSSESSION AND STARRY EYES

“Out of Body Experience”

I am somewhat free styling going off the top of my head riding in the direct moment, but I would definitely venture to say as truthfully as is possible that body horror is either the number one or number one A. most terrifying form of horror for me. And for today I'm going to do a sort of a double feature of 2 scenes that I think represented the best of this sort of sub genre within horror. Heck even within body horror, because there are different kinds and types for example; the sort of corporealistic body horror of a Cronenberg,  or in another case the mirror touch synesthesia that comes with watching someone have their Achilles tendon sliced.   In these cases the body horror is one of a psychotic kind as well as a physical possession of sorts. The kind of possession that leads to the loss of control of one's own body and then begins to look and feels as if damage is being inflicted upon that person's body merely by the act of being watched. I think the easier part for an actor to perform (and in I say this with an air of relativity) is a production of the effect of just the possession and of itself the entry of something foreign into the body. This is mostly an action, and can be reproduced to the audience through a strange or unfamiliar dance move, or a combination of some form of jerking, or convulsing simulating to the audience that something foreign has entered possession of your body.  The harder part, the part that I think both these actresses the legendary Isabelle Adjani, and Alexandra Essoe execute is the indication that you yourself, the owner of the body is still there, as well as the foreign invasion, because that is where the deepest fear is at, or at least that's the case for me. When done well you can look into the actor's eyes and feel like they are still there, afraid, fully aware of what is going on but unable to do anything about it because that the entity is too strong , the feeling to seductive, or enticing. There is a real terror behind possession, in my opinion, it's not merely something taking over. Without your knowledge that is scary in and of itself, but I think when we can identify with a feeling of complete powerlessness, being awake and held prisoner inside our own bodies, aware of what is going on and yet out of control, I think that's a few layers deeper in the psyche. As far as the actor, it becomes their job to kind of take on a form of double mindedness . In essence, they're playing 2 roles with their body when they have to disconnect the mind a little bit from the body, disassociate. You have to produce this kind of air or feeling that has no exact definition,in experience but what the actor can imagine, and reproduce this for the audience. In 1981 “Possession” and the lesser known but absolute gem “Starry Eyes” (2014) we see two actors who provide us with both the body horror in the physical nature and the horror that lies in a more cognitive nature, the consciousness, the awareness. The recognition that you're going somewhere else.

Adjani’s work is physically terrifying.  Watching her writhe,  contort, and scream,  and resist,  and give in,  is something that goes seemingly beyond the pale of acting and ironically into possession itself.  It's mortifying watching her descend into her attack,  and equally as mortifying to watch her return.  It's maybe THE Masterclass in physical acting,  and body work as Adjani seemingly incorporates dance and breathing technique into a canvas of her own creation to morph into something unlike anything ever seen on screen before or after.  Its harrowing in and of itself and one of the greatest feats of acting Iv seen on screen that haunts much more than any ghoul or goblin Ive encountered on the silver screen.

a maravilhosa atriz Isabelle Adjani dando um show de atuação na cena do metrô no filme Possessão de 1981. Cena de ARREPIAR! palmas para Isabelle :) the wonderful actress Isabelle Adjani giving a performance show on the subway scene in the film Possession 1981. chilling scene! palms for Isabelle.

In Starry Eyes ( which I again highly recommend) Alexandra Essoe’s possession is more gradual, less explicit but nonetheless still there. There is more of a seduction here, a wooing, by an entity that begins to take hold of her and Essoe’s work is again like Adjani both very much so in and out of her body. You can feel the lure of letting go, but also the fear of being out of control and - without giving anything away - taken over. Essoes scene is terrifying because it seems like it feels good, and sometimes thats the worst of the lures into darkness. Essoe is hyper expressive, and a lot of the work integral to the scene is done with her eyes, her voice, and her hands. Its very expressive work done by an actor who has a clear hold on what and who her character is, and - maybe an actors best friend - a hyper imagination. Its great work creating one of the more memorable scenes in my recent memory. Both scenes are representative of the power, the allure, the physical and psychological terror of possession communicated to us the audience via fantastic performances etching the terror in our minds eye.