Class Screenings, week 2 - The People vs Larry Flynt

THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLYNT

Director - Miloš Forman 

Czechs are very proud of their fellow citizens that manage to make it in the world. Franz Kafka, Tom Stoppard, Miloš Forman … Czechs always make sure their foreign friends know where these geniuses come from originally. You could sense the buzz about this week´s choice of movie among the classmates as well. Very proud to be able to watch a movie by a Czech director in a “cinematography of English speaking countries” class.

                The People vs. Larry Flynt is a movie about the “porn king” who fought for free speech rights in the US, and to this day is called a hero for what he accomplished.  Or did he? His daughter, Tonya Flynt seems to have a very different opinion: "He doesn't give a damn about freedom of speech ...all he cares about is making millions of dollars out of the sexual exploitation of women and children."

                I am “ashamed” to say, I had no idea who Larry Flynt (who actually even played a tiny role in the movie as well) was before the Tuesday class. I remember holding Hustler Magazine once in my hands, back at primary school when one of the more spoiled kids wanted to brag about what kind of literature he reads. And the owner was not what we were looking at, so the fact that Larry Flynt was the man behind all this was very new to me.

                Obviously the movie serves as a kind of biographical film of the successful publisher, shows a bit of his childhood, his rough starts, falling in love etc. etc. up to the point when he became a billionaire. The main part of the film is when Larry Flynt gets in trouble with the law after publishing a parody of the then famous Campari ad, in which a Baptist Reverend, Jerry Falwell is pictured saying that his first (sexual) time was with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued Flynt and Hustler for 45 million dollars for emotional distress and invasion of privacy and libel. Flynt brandished the First amendment, and the movie then elaborates the problem, while displaying Flynt consistently mocking the court and the church.

                The whole case goes all the way up to the Supreme court, that finally decides that “public figures, such as Falwell (or how Flynt likes to call him, Fartwell) cannot circumvent the First amendment protections by attempting to recover damages based on emotional distress suffered from parodies.”

                We can talk about whether it was right to include Falwell´s mother into it, but I find this decision crucial for democracy and free press. And was quite surprised the decision was unanimous, since people like Scalia were still there. Imagine a world without media being able to make fun of public persons, or current situations. That would be a very depressing environment to live in.  I am glad I was born into a society that is able to distinguish satire from reality. And laugh along with it. Because I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t able to watch Saturday Night Live, and Last Week Tonight.

                So from this point, I think of Larry Flynt as a hero. Although we don’t really know whether he did it for free speech rights, or for the money, as his daughter suggests. I don’t really agree with the concept of Hustler, nor do I think Larry Flynt is a particularly a nice person, but we still have to understand how crucial the whole “Larry Flynt thing” was and still is for the world. We must stand up to anyone who questions free speech and free media, wherever it is a Jerry Falwell or ISIS.

                Lastly, I want to appreciate that Miloš Forman didn’t make this into a porn movie about a porn king, and managed to make it decent as possible. Miloš Forman himself said that he does not like Hustler, and that he agrees that it is “tasteless”, which I think is really why the movie is that good. If it was directed by a person, who is a Hustler subscriber and is a porn fan, I believe the final product would have been very different.

                Also, I thought Courtney Love was outstanding in this movie, and I was very disappointed to find out that she did not grab the Academy Award for her performance. Neither did Woody Harrelson or Miloš Forman, but Kolja won that year, so at least something.

                As of now, I think I will be doing my final seminar work on this movie, but I will gladly change my mind, if something better comes up.

Class Screenings, week 1 - Dead Man

"Class Screenings" is a new series I am going to bee publishing here for the course of the whole semester. Each week we watch a movie in class and my assignement is to write a review of it. This will NOT serve as a comprehensive review of the movie though, but more as a page full of my thoughts and ideas.

DEAD MAN (1995) 

Director - Jim Jarmusch

                The movie we watched the first week is considered to be a “cult classic” in the movie industry which was why I was very excited to see it. Jim Jarmusch isn´t really my cup of tea, I always considered him to be a bit too “arty” for me, I half hated, half loved his Cofee and Cigrarettes series, but I was willing to give him another shot.

                Before the film started we were told that there would be references to William Blake. I knew of course, who he was, but didn’t poses any relevant information about him that could help me with understanding the movie better, so I was a bit worried. Although throughout the movie there were a couple of shout outs to his work, I didn’t feel like it was necessary for enjoying the movie as a whole since the name of the famous poet served only as a part of a much bigger point.

                The movie started off very slowly, with virtually nothing happening in the first 15 minutes, but one of the very first lines in the movie “Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?”  is a line worthy to come back to at the end of this review.

                When William meets Thel, the beautiful rose-selling woman, I was worried that the film would be an attempt of an arty western. Because westerns usually do have that love triangle situation in them as well. That turned out not to be true even when Thel´s fiancé entered the picture. Here I also laughed at the scene when Bill discovers Thel´s revolver and asks her why she has it. She replies: “This is America, everyone has guns.” Now, I´m not sure whether this was intentional and that Jarmusch was really trying to expose the ridiculousness of the 2^nd amendment, but I found it pertinent.

                After Bill meets Nobody, the Indian, I started paying a bit more attention. The wonderfully haunting soundtrack by Neil Young didn’t let me do anything else. While Nobody is looking through Bill´s stuff he asks whether Bill has any tobacco, to which he simply replies: “I don’t smoke”. This is the first of many instances where we hear the memorable line, and just as Bill we don’t really think much of the question. I really enjoyed the way the movie pictures the wilderness in the times of the Frontier. You see how completely different it is to the Vinnetou movies, and I dare to say, more accurate. Complete isolation, solely fighting to survive. I also found interesting, that even though it seemed that Nobody healed Bill at first, we really see that Bill is still dying. Get the joke? Nobody healed, but nobody actually healed Bill. This play on words is visible in other scenes throughout the movie.

                Nobody is the only person in the movie to mistake Bill for William Blake, which already sounds absurd since he is an Indian. He even cites a few lines of Blake´s most famous poem Auguries of Innocence. Nobody finds funny that Bill doesn’t know his own poetry and tells him that "Your poetry will now be written in blood." And indeed it will.

                Throughout the movie I felt that Nobody guiding Bill to death was a very familiar theme to me. When I got back home, I googled whether there was any connection between this movie and Dante´s Divine Comedy, because the resemblance was obvious. And indeed, in 1827 William Blake had been working on a new version of Dante´s book, so that might have been an inspiration to Jarmusch as well. Another reference I discovered later at home while reading the above mentioned Auguries of Innocence was the line “The Lamb misused breeds Public Strife, And yet forgives the Butchers knife”, which could possibly be why Johnny Depp was lying next to that dead lamb in the movie.

                The cast was another thing that surprised me a lot in this movie. Although I have never heard of Dead Man before, I knew virtually every actor in it. Having so many brilliant actors (may John Hurt rest in peace) even though most of them lasted only a couple of minutes shows how well respected Jarmusch is.

                We get to hear the tobacco line on and on from each of the characters and the reply didn´t change. William didn´t understand that they weren´t asking because they fancied a fag, the were asking because tobacco was the currency in the Wild West. This on-going joke served as a way to show the miscommunication that the people had. It was just another of many things that showed, that Blake didn’t belong in this world. He was a dead man from the beginning. Hence the line from the train at the beginning.

                All in all, I would say that Jim Jarmusch continues not to be my “cup of tea”, but I did enjoy this movie a little bit more than Cofee and Cigarettes. There were so many hidden references and jokes, that I´m sure that if I watched it again, I´d find something more. And I like that.

Oscars 2017 - no, no, no

            "Casey Affleck is a good actor" ... said noone ever. And yet he has somehow managed to win every award possible for his role in the deeply traumatizing drama Manchester by the sea.

             This year´s Oscars was a weird one for me. Fourteen nominations for the musical La La Land, which tied them with James Cameron´s blockbuster Titanic from 1997.

            I can´t say that the movies last year were bad, but I just feel like the Academy has set certain standards they want to see in Oscar winning movies, and they totally crushed those requirments this year. Imagine what Leo DiCaprio must have felt like when for 10 years he produced unbelievable perfromances, going trough insane physical transformation and pain, and winning the well deserved statue after long ten years or so. And then he sees Casey Affleck winning the same exact award for a movie where he uncomprehensively mumbles for two hours, and shows zero kind of emotion. Don´t worry, I get it. He was playing a man mentally disturbed after being responsible for the death of his three children, but come on ... he gave the exact same impression while the children were still alive.

          So in one weekend, the Affleck brothers managed to win both an Oscar and anti-Oscar award. Although vice-versa than one would imagine.
       
          La, La, Land. Okay, it was a nice movie. Once again, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling together, and once again dancing. But surely it doesnt compare to the likes of The Martian, Revenant, Dallas Buyers Club and Spotlight, just to name a few of the movies that dominated the previous years.

         What I simply cannot understand is the lack of awards for Hacksaw Ridge. What was in my oppinion the best movie of 2016 was completely ignored at all award ceremonies including the one last night. I really hope that this was not only due to the persona of Mel Gibson, because that would set double standards with many other showbiz people, that won.

         In conclusion, I hope that the movies produced this year will be next level to the ones in 2016. And if not, I hope that the Academy spends a bit more time considering the nominees, so that we dont end up with winners like this year. It just shows what the state of the cinematography is in a year, where Daniel Day Lewis, or Leo DiCaprio fail to make a movie.

Donald Trump stepping into office.

January 20, 2017. 180 years after one of the most controversial, and some would say racist presidents of the US finished his second term, another controversial - and some would say racist -president steps into the White House. So what can we expect from Donald Trump?

It doesn´t matter what you do during your presidential years, people will always remember you for the bad decisions. What you need to do is minimize the amount of these bad decisions. Donald Trump is historically the least favourite president ever to step into the office, and as we all have heard a thousand times, the majority of the Americans did not vote for him. It will be interesting to see whether the new president sticks to his outrageous promises that he said during his campaign.

Will he build The Wall? Will he ban all muslims entering the country? Donald Trump needs to be very careful about what he does in the next four years, because I´m sure he doesn´t want to be remembered by all those negative conotations that people now remember Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson set the bar very high to be remembered as a bad president, and he didn´t even use Twitter. Good luck. I guess.

Democracy 2.1. - Czechs are searching for the ideal president

            The Prague Café. No, that´s not a coffee-house I reccomend you visit. It is a term denoting the unhappy populace of the Czech capital, Prague. Or so the current president says.
             In 2013, the Czech Republic experienced the very first direct election of the president. After a tight first round, Miloš Zeman stole a narrow victory with 54% of the popular vote. Take a note, America, popular vote. Miloš Zeman, a poltician known especially for his close relations with Russia, was popular mainly in the countryside, whereas his opponent Karel Schwarzenberg, in big cities. Prague was one of those cities where Mr. Schwarzenberg won by a big margin. Since then the Prague citizens held many public protests against the president, because of his disgraceful behaviour in office. One could make comparisons to the president elect Donald Trump. Trump supporters (ehm, I mean Zeman supporters) have since then called unhappy citizens as "Prague Café", mainly based on the fact that people from Prague like to spend time in coffee-bars. If you find nothing wrong with that, thats because there isnt. What at first was considered a slur was later used by everyone to describe anti-zeman activists. Even by themselves.
              After all these years people are starting to finally understand that Zeman might not have been the right choice, and many persons of the public sector and organizations have searched for the right man/woman to stand against Zeman in the 2018 elections. One of those people is Karel Janeček, a Czech matematician, philanthropist and billionaire. And this guy truly is a genius. In 2012 he presented a evolutionary project called Democracy 2.1. that introduced a whole new concept of voting. The idea is that the votar has multiple votes. Not only plus votes, but also one minus one. This would create a fairer result, because one would simply not vote for the lesser evil as one does now (hence the presidential election in the US) but could freely choose what he feels is right and also stop a biggot or even an extremist being elected.
             Mr. Janeček initiated an internet game called President 21, which uses this system on finding the right candidate for the presidential election in 2018. You have three positive votes (thumbs ups) and one negative (thumb down). Since the launch in December, 40 thousand people have joined in to play, but the game has been criticized for being a game of the Prague Café. That is probably true, since the last place is being occupied by Miloš Zeman with 17 thousand negative votes and about 3,5 positive ones. It will for sure be interesting to watch how the game goes on. Janeček has said that he will try and share the game even offline, especially so that older people can join in (and vote for Zeman) and that he will also eventually erase people who publicly decline the idea of running for office.
            There have so far been 265 people nominated for the presidency in this game, about 100 of whom I find respectable to even consider as qualified, and about 20 of them who I wouldnt mind seeing in the Prague Castle in two years. Have a look yourself and maybe cast a cheeky vote or two? Or three? I genuinly find this electoral system progressive and worth a try, even if not in a such a big election as the presidential one is.

PS.: Yes, Jaromír Jagr has been nominated and to this day holds the 14th place with 1500 positive votes and 300 negative ones. :P

Was George Orwell a genius? A little comment on the Czech governement initiating an anti-fake news unit.

The Ministery of the Interior of  the Czech Republic is launching a special unit that will browse the internet and look for so called "fake news" websites. They will then fact check the articles published on these sites and expose them publicly. The world is in a weird place right now, and due to the great popularity of social platmorms such as Twitter and Facebook, many people tend to read and share telic falsehoods about controversial subjects such as migrants and conspiracy theories. The idea of this unit is to stop these things being spread.

The Czech Republic although not an ex-soviet country has a big problem with russian propaganda. At least thats wha a great deal of state officials have claimed. Looking at the Russia´s interfierence in the recent presidential elections in the US, it is fair to say, that that is clearly possible. A regular Czech citizen (and surely any other citizen) encounters fake news on daily basis.

It is quite natural, that if you have a certain oppinion or attitude towards something you will happily share that respective article without bothering to factcheck it. If I believe that money growns on trees, and I see a headline "Experts find money growing trees, economy of XY shoots up!" I will inform all my friends of this fact and since its 2017, I will share the article on Facebook. That is the reason why April fool day is so popular. Because people tend to be fooled from time to time. (Hence the spagetti-growing trees April fool joke ages ago). But how often do people behave like fools? Does society need a government unit that will tell you what the truth is?

"Dont believe everything you see on the internet" - Abraham Lincoln. I have seen people actually sharing this quote with Abe Lincoln´s name attached to it. Several times. Sure, some of them might have shared it for the banter, but I assure you the majority really believe Lincoln said this. Nevermind the fact that there was no internet in Lincoln´s time. So, if people can share nonsence like this, what stopps them from sharing serious fake news headlines like "African migrants riot and fight the police in France" with a video attached. Video of different people doing something completely different in a different country. I got in an argument the other with my friend about this. Took my 5 minutes on Google to prove him wrong. I´m not saying above mentioned events don´t happen, what I´m saying is people don´t seem to care if what the read is true.

So yes, I agree with the government on that note. Most people do. But with politicians being one of the least respected people in the Czech society (sad yet true), will their verdict on something being true help the situation or will it, more likely, be counter productive? Ivan Bartoš, the leader of the Czech Pirate Party, calls this new unit "Ministery of Truth", obviously reffering to the fictional ministery in George Orwell´s 1984. And to quote the man himself: "As long as person´perception of the truth can be externally verified, then even a lie can become truth.".

It will certainly be interesting to watch how this unit tackles the problem, but I expect this anti fake-news squad to be dissmissed once a new government comes to office.

PS.: Did you check whether the Orwell quote was real?