Archive

Archive for January, 2017

Cautionary tales of cinema, the culture war and Donald Trump

January 28, 2017 2 comments

Cautionary tales of cinema, culture war and Donald Trump

©by Leo Adam Biga

Author of Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film

 

As a film buff and cultural journalist I naturally look for connections between cinema and social-political currents. There’s been much written about the parallels between a certain 1950s film’s fictional themes and today’s real-life the rise of Donald Trump to the seat of American power. I refer to Elia Kazan’s scathing 1957 “A Face in the Crowd” written by Budd Schulberg (the two previously teamed for “On the Waterfront”) that imagines a narcissist reprobate named Lonesome Rhodes, magnificently played by Andy Griffith, seducing segments of the nation through his insistent, cloying presence in the media and coming to a position of high influence. Only in “A Face in the Crowd” this egoist is exposed for the fraud and monster he is by those closest to him. But nothing dramatic like that happened in the case of Trump. So far. Instead of being called out and brought down, Trump rode waves of racism, classism, isolationism and xenophobia to win his party’s nomination and eventually the presidency. I mean, plenty of people outside the Trump camp pointed out reasons why he is unfit for the job but those cautionary notes about his character were variously ignored, dismissed, discounted and countered by Trumpsters who would stop at nothing to see their champion of alternative facts gain the Oval Office. What the Kazan-Schulberg film failed to anticipate is that unlike in the 1950s, when there were very limited primary means of people getting information – print, radio and TV – the number of news, information and opinion channels has exponentially increased. Where Rhodes used radio and especially TV to fool people into loving him and then became the victim of that same medium, Trump largely bypassed traditional media and used social media to directly appeal to his base and thus build a movement unaffected by the three major networks or PBS or CNN. We are far past the time when an Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite or Ted Koppel or some other trusted media news figure can make a difference by taking an editorial stand. There are far too many clamoring voices for any one pundit to count in the culture war being fought.

 

 A Face in the Crowd (film) movie poster

 

Then there’s the old but new phenomenon of some of the electorate and public turning a blind eye and ear to data, reason, even common sense out of sheer naked allegiance to ideas based in fear, not fact, and without the discernment to separate real news from false news or irrefutable facts from alternative facts.

Is there someone brave enough in the Trump inner circle to go rouge and reveal whatever may be the darkest, damning secrets and lies behind what we already know about his house of cards private business empire, his shady dealings, his fascist leanings? Or will it take someone in a prosecutorial or oversight role looking from the outside in to let in the light and awaken the sleeping masses of his supporters?

Two earlier films starring the same actor, one based on a famous novel. “All the King’s Men” and the other based on a hit play, “Born Yesterday,” have Broderick Crawford portray bellicose men whose blind ambition and power corrupts them absolutely. Whatever populist ideals they once espoused and perhaps even believed have been corroded by rank avarice. There are some obvious overtones with Trump in these characters and stories.

 

broderick-crawford

Broderick Crawford laying on couch and pointing in a scene from the film 'Born Yesterday', 1950.

Broderick Crawford laying on couch and pointing in a scene from the film ‘Born Yesterday’, 1950.

 

But the more I think about it, the film that most particularly speaks to the venal way Trump operates is “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957), whose J.J. Hunsecker is the true antecedent of The Donald. The character of Hunsecker was patterned after such predatory real-life columnists as Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons who could make or break careers with their alternately golden and poison pens.
Sweet Smell Of Success

 

Alexander Mackendrick directed the black and white classic that he co-wrote with Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets. In the figure of Hunsecker, brilliantly played by Burt Lancaster, they imagine a vain, mean-spirited big city newspaper columnist who wields inordinate influence through his opinions, many of which are thinly veiled innuendoes, attacks and disparagements. Hunsecker cows people by threat, coercion, vendetta and the force of a bullying, overbearing personalty and a dark, sinister character that can neither tolerate the light of scrutiny nor the flame of truth. Hunsecker is at the center of his own world that he expects to orbit around him to pay him fealty. He’s also more than ready to do verbal battle with and to threaten acton against anyone he views as an opponent or obstacle. As far as Hunsecker’s concerned, your either with him or against him. There’s no middle ground. Hunsecker sees only black and white and he’s predisposed to see the worst and weaknesses in people because that’s what he preys upon in order to exert influence and to extort favors.

A figure like Hunsecker can only survive by appealing to the lowest common denominator, i.e. an uneducated population’s fears and resentments, and by parlaying the weird cult of celebrity and authority that attends anyone in the public eye. A Hunsecker can only rule if he’s aided and abetted by toadies, stooges and functionaries who gladly put aside morals and scruples to further his ends and their own agendas. And a Hunsecker is only as powerful as the public’s gullibility allows.

Does this sound like anyone who’s recently maneuvered his way into the halls of power in our present day real world?

The difference being that Hunsecker, just like his real-life inspirations, never got this much power. The closest that an American political reactionary got to this much power in the last century was Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who was nothing more than a gangster and opportunist posing as a public servant. McCarthy was undone in large part by how poorly he came off on television. Trump plays poorly in the media to those predisposed to dislike him but he apparently comes off well to those inclined to support him, which may speak to both the idealogical divide and the weird space occupied by reality TV figures and their followings. If Trump could get this far with so little to offer other than his huge personal bankroll and eventual big GOP dollars, then who’s to say someone even more outlandish or dangerous than Trump might not rally enough support to follow in his footsteps?

In these reactionary times amid decentralized new media and dumbed-down public education, the once unthinkable notion of a Trump coming to power in America has happened. What comes next may be even scarier.

 
Categories: A Face in the Crowd, Cinema, Donald Trump, Film, Media, Movies, Politics, society, Sweet Smell of Success, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Lisa Haselton’s interview with writer Leo Adam Biga

January 27, 2017 Leave a comment

Thanks to author Lisa Haselton for featuring this interview with me on her popular blog Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews. Be sure to visit her site and support it. She has a wealth of rich content related to authors, books and other writing things.

Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews

Award-winning blog for book reviews, author interviews, and anything writing-related.

Interview with writer Leo Adam Biga

Writer Leo Adam Biga joins me to chat about his film book–

“Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”:

 

 

Bio:

Author-journalist-blogger Leo Adam Biga resides in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. His articles appear in various newspapers and magazines as well as on his popular blog, leoadambiga.com, and Facebook page, My Inside Stories. His work has been recognized by his peers at the local, regional and national levels. He was the 2015 recipient of the Andy Award for international journalism from his alma mater, the University of Nebraska at Omaha. That grant supported his reporting mission to Uganda and Rwanda, Africa in the company of professional world boxing Terence Crawford of Omaha and Pipeline Worldwide director Jamie Nollette.

Biga is the author of several books, including “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film” and “Crossing Bridges: A Priest’s Uplifting Life Among the Downtrodden”. Biga’s reporting and writing about Payne has made him a recognized expert on the Oscar-winning filmmaker (“Sideways“, “Nebraska”) from Omaha. His latest book is “Nebraska Methodist College at 125: Scaling New Heights” – a history of the Omaha-base college of nursing and allied health celebrating 125 years.

The writer is developing the Nebraska Screen Heritage Project as a multimedia celebration of native Nebraskans in the film and television industry. He is also developing a book about Omaha’s Black Sports Legends.

Welcome, Leo. Please tell us about your current release.

Articles and essays take you deep inside Alexander Payne’s creative process. This second edition includes significant new material related to his last film “Nebraska” and his highly anticipated new film “Downsizing,” It also features the addition of a Discussion Guide with Index.

Payne fans will appreciate the extensive interviews-stories that follow the arc of the writer-director’s career from brash upstart to consummate filmmaker at the head of the Indiewood movement.

Film historian Thomas Schatz (“The Genius of the System”):

“This is without question the single best study of Alexander Payne’s films, as well as the filmmaker himself and his filmmaking process. In charting the first two decades of Payne’s remarkable career, Leo Adam Biga pieces together an indelible portrait of an independent American artist, and one that’s conveyed largely in the filmmaker’s own words.”

Leonard Maltin:

“Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.”

Alexander Payne:

“Throughout many years of being interviewed, I find Mr. Biga’s articles about me to be the most complete and perceptive of any journalist’s anywhere. They ring true to me, even in critique, in a way that reveals the depth of his talent in observation, understanding and expression.”

What inspired you to write this book?

In covering Alexander Payne more than a decade and a half I accumulated a large body of work about someone I saw go from a promising newcomer few heard of and whose first two films were not much seen to an accomplished filmmaker recognized around the world. The book collects my journalism about Payne and his journey in film, thereby preserving my work about him in an enduring, hard-bound fashion and thereby contributing my take on this important film artist.

Excerpt from “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”:

Even though Alexander Payne demonstrates time and again that commercial considerations mean very little to him, following the breakaway success of The Descendants (2011) there was every reasonable expectation he might lean a bit more again in the direction of mainstream with his next film. I say again because I count The Descendants as a conventional, even mainstream work even though its protagonist rails against his comatose wife and sets out to wreck the life of the man she was cheating with, all the while trying not to lose it with his two grieving daughters in tow.

Payne soon quashed any notion of playing it safe when he announced the small, insular back roads comedy-drama Nebraska (2013) as his new feature project. It did not help its bottom line chances that the film is set in rural Nebraska, which for most filmgoers may as well be the dark side of the moon for its unfamiliarity, remoteness, and perceived barrenness. Indeed, if Nebraska conjures any image at all it is of endless cornfields, cows, and monotonously flat, uninspired scenery. When the story laid over such a setting features a confused, depressed old cuss alienated from family and friends and wandering around in a bleak wasteland made even bleaker by black and white photography and desolate late fall, post-harvest locations, it does not exactly engender excitement. The prospect of a dour, feel-bad experience devoid of life and color does not get tongues a-wagging to generate the all important buzz that sells tickets.

Of course, anyone who has seen Nebraska knows the film is not the downer it may appear to be from glimpsing a thirty second trailer or hearing a thirty second sound bite, but that it is ultimately a sweet, deeply affecting film filled with familiar truths amid its very Nebraskaesque yet also quite universal archetypes.

Payne’s insistence on shooting in black and white was a completely legitimate aesthetic choice given the storyline and tone of this stark, autumnal mood piece about an old man having his last hurrah. But it also meant a definite disadvantage in appealing to average or general movie fans, many of whom automatically pass on any non-color film.

Compounding the aversion that many moviegoers have with black and white is the fact that most studio executives, distributors, and theater bookers share this aversion, not on aesthetic grounds, but based on the long-held, much repeated argument that black and white films fare poorly at the box office. Of course, there is a self- fulfilling prophecy at work here that starts with studio resistance and reluctance to greenlight black and white features and even when a studio does approve the rare black and white entry executives seem to half-heartedly market and release these pics. It is almost as if the bean counters are out to perversely prove a point, even at the risk of injuring the chances of one of their own pictures at finding a sizable audience. Then when the picture lags, it gives the powerbrokers the platform to say, I told you so. No wonder then – and this is assuming the argument is true – most black and white flicks don’t perform well compared with their color counterparts. Except, how does one arrive at anything like a fair comparison of films based on color versus black and white? Even if the films under review are of the same genre and released in the same period, each is individually, intrinsically its own experience and any comparison inevitably ends up being a futile apples and oranges debate. Besides, there are exceptions to the supposed rule that all black and white films struggle. From the 1970s on The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, Young Frankenstein, Manhattan, Raging Bull, Schindler’s List, Ed Wood, and The Artist are among the black and white films to have found wide success. It is admittedly a short list but it does prove black and white need not be a death sentence.

To no one’s surprise Paramount did what practically any studio would have done in the same situation, which was to fight Payne on the black and white decision. In no uncertain terms Payne wanted to make Nebraska in black and white and just as adamantly the studio wanted no part of it. He pushed and they pushed back. He would not compromise his vision because from the moment he first read Bob Nelson’s screenplay he clearly saw in his mind’s eye the world of this story play out in in shades of black and white. It just fit. It fit the characters and the settings and the emotions and as far as he was concerned that was that. No questions asked. No concessions made.

What exciting story are you working on next?

At any given time there are interesting journalism and other narrative-based projects that arise. Much of my work as a journalist entails writing about various arts-culture subjects. I also write a fair amount on social justice issues. On occasion I travel for my work. I once went to North Dakota to research a set of stories about a campus serving developmentally disabled individuals. I participated in a baseball tour of the Midwest that resulted in a first-person story I wrote about the tour group’s visits to various baseball shrines and stadiums in a five-state region. I spent a week on the set of Alexander Payne’s Sideways in the Santa Barbara region and wrote a series of stories from that experience. I traveled with a group of folks from Omaha to the first Obama inauguration in D.C. and filed a story about that. I have been out to Los Angeles a number of times related to my reporting on Payne and his films. In 2015 I received a grant for international journalism that funded my reporting mission to Uganda and Rwanda, Africa with world boxing champion Terence Crawford. This past summer I made my first visits to the American South and I wrote a number of posts about the experiences on my blog and Facebook page.  In 2017 I hope to travel to New York or Toronto for the North American premiere of Payne’s new film Downsizing starring Matt Damon.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I suppose I began thinking that way in college, though I didn’t do all that much writing then. it really wasn’t until some years after college, having worked in public relations and then beginning to freelance as a journalist, that I identified as a writer. But it still took me a few years to say the words “I am a writer” without stumbling over them.

Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

Yes, I do write full-time. Like most writers, much of my time is not taken up with writing per  se, but rather with the different things that prepare me to write (interviews, research) and sustain my writing (pitching, marketing). There’s a fair amount of correspondence and phone conversation that takes place between myself and editors.

My writing schedule depends on what else I have going on in terms of interviews and such. It also depends on what kind of writing I’m doing . If it’s a book, I try to plan writing on certain days and even during certain times of the day when I know I’ll be able to devote some undivided attention to the project. If it’s an article, then it’s a bit more haphazard and directed in part by deadlines. If it’s a blog or Facebook post, then it’s much more in the moment and as the spirit moves me. With any of these forms of writing though, I might be at the keyboard in the morning, afternoon or evening.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

As a nonfiction writer I depend on primary interviews for my source material and I am a stickler for recording all my interviews and transcribing them myself.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I don’t recall ever really thinking in those terms as a child. I am also sure I would never have considered being a writer if not for some teachers in elementary and high school who encouraged me. There were a couple professors in college who also influenced me to follow this path.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Most of my original writing these days is actually done for my blog and Facebook page. But those sites also serve as an archive and new platform for my previously published work. If your readers want a real sense for who I am as a person and as a writer, I encourage them to visit those sites.

Links:

Blog | Facebook | Amazon

Thank you for being here today, Leo.

Posted by Lisa Haselton at 12:02 AM

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Labels: Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, Arts, author interview,Entertainment, Film, Leo Adam Biga

About Lisa

Lisa Haselton
I’m a NH native and love New England. I love writing about the region, exploring it on foot, on my bicycle, and in my car. There are so many small communities and fun and interesting people in this area, that I could be here a lifetime and not do all it is I want to do. 🙂

I’m a writer because I have a passion for words. I write YA and adult fiction, favoring all flavors of mysteries and I enjoy dark fiction. I belong to Sisters in Crime and Sisters in Crime – New England (SinCNE) and I’m a regular contributor to the SinCNE blog. My favorite mystery writing conference is the annual New England Crime Bakeheld each November in Boston.

I interview authors at Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews. All reviews are my own opinion. For interviews, you can contact me at ReviewsAndInterviews (at) gmail (dot) com.

I’m a moderator at The Writer’s Chatroom that hosts live chats with guest authors on Sunday nights 7-9PM EST. Join the e-mail list to get notifications of upcoming guests, then stop in and join the conversation!

View my complete profile

Links to check out

Categories: Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, Author-Journalist-Blogger, Authors/Literature, Books, Journalist, Leo Adam Biga, Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories, Writer, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Atticus Finch-Barack Obama give way to Bob Ewell-Donald Trump in this post-“To Kill a Mockingbird” world

January 24, 2017 2 comments

 

 

Hot Movie Takes – Atticus Finch-Barack Obama give way to Bob Ewell-Donald Trump in this post-“To Kill a Mockingbird” world

©by Leo Adam Biga

Author of “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”

 

In this 57th anniversary year of the debut of Harper Lee’s 1960  novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the 55th anniversary of the 1962 film adaptation’s release, I reflect on some sobering truths taken from that classic, much beloved story. Truths reflective of today’s American civil-societal-political landscape.

The irony is that the story’s revered figure of Atticus Finch, a fictional white Southern lawyer who represents so many universally admired qualities, found his most direct expression in this nation’s first black president, Barack Obama. The comparison was obvious  and Obama’s admiration for what Atticus embodies was made evident when in his farewell address he quoted something that fictional character utters in the book and film. Obama said, “If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation,  each one of us needs to try to heed the advice of a great character in American fiction, Atticus Finch: ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.'”

 

Barack Obama farewell

Associated Press

 

Yes, Atticus turns out to have racist leanings in the long-delayed sequel “Go Set a Watchman” but that’s hardly surprising given the time and place he came from. None of us are free of sin or fault. Good principles and actions don’t require perfection. The revelation that Atticus attended KKK meetings and opposed integration while still defending a black man accused of a rape he didn’t commit is simply acknowledgement of how complex race is and how far as a nation we have to go in addressing it. In his farewell speech Obama told blacks to learn the struggles of other minority groups and he admonished whites to acknowledge the stain of this country’s earlier generations are not gone. When minority groups “voice discontent,” he said. “they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised.”

Barack Obama gave Atticus Finch his good name back and naturally, literature fans on Twitter

During his two terms the diplomatic, gentlemanly Obama championed social justice and opposed infringements on freedom and equality. Like Atticus, he walked the walk of virtue and idealism, of fair play and public service, and he extended his hand to the equivalents of Boo Radley and Tom Robinson in our midst. Though Obama had considerable support within the Democratic party and even more broadly throughout the nation and world, he was repeatedly criticized and stonewalled by the Republican controlled Congress. Many of us surmised this was due to the gridlock of entrenched, unwieldy party politics grinding the tried and true American system of across-the-aisles idealogical compromise to a halt. Racism may have been the bigger issue in play. The recent election revealed how reviled Obama is by a sizable segment of the American populace whose elected representatives are some combination of Republican, conservative and fundamentalist. Not every Obama detractor and Trump supporter is an out and out racist but it’s true about enough of them to show a clear pattern.

Trump’s angry man campaign was filled with bigoted, misogynistic, nationalistic rhetoric that put big business and capitalism ahead of human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, social safety nets and environmental protections. He referred to harsh law and order crack downs on those deemed to be disloyal dissidents and enemies of the state. He threatened closing borders and deporting undocumented millions. He connoted militarism with nationalism, patriotism and Christian values. In his first few days in office he seems hell-bent on following through on his alarming agenda.

All of this has gave permission to white supremacists and other hate mongers to react violently against people of color and different origins, to disrespectfully treat women, to ignore clear and present danger realities such as global warming and to override the will of the people by renewing projects that history tells us will deface and pollute precious lands and waters.

 

Donald TrumpDonald Trump.getty

 

It is as if Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Ross Perot and Rudy Giuliani have somehow been melded together in the amoral heart of Trump. Just when America needs an Atticus Finch in its top leadership position, we now have someone who seemingly speaks more to the Bob Ewells of the world than to those of us who believe in the better angels of a more perfect union.

Instead of a voice of calm reason, considered compassion, resolute peace and sincere unity, we have a strident, histrionic voice of acrimony and division who speaks for the supposed moral majority and special interests of privileged white males. In movie-movie terms, I am reminded of the Franklin Schaffner adaptation of Gore Vida’s “The Best Man.” where the choice for a presidential nominee came down to a reactionary opportunist played by Cliff Robertson and a thoughtful, progressive essayed by Henry Fonda. It is unfortunate that Trump did not face anyone like the statesmen Fonda portrayed in “Young Mr. Lincoln,” “Advise and Consent,” “The Best Man” and “Fail Safe” or the socially conscious Everymen he played in “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Oxbow Incident” and “12 Angry Men.” Hillary Clinton embodied some of these same ideals, but America just wasn’t ready for her or for a woman like her as President.

How unfortunate, too, that there isn’t someone like the noble Atticus Finch or other figures of high character that Gregory Peck played (“Twelve O’Clock High,” “The Big Country,” “Captan Newman M.D.”) to lead us.

 

 

Then again, we had our Atticus Finch situated in the most powerful post in the world and a chunk of this nation rejected him and what he espoused. Obama even sounded a lot like Atticus when he called on people who want a more perfect union to not merely be bystanders but to be participants: “Show up, dive in, stay at it…Presuming a reservoir of goodness in others can be a risk, and there will be times when the process disappoints you. But for those of us fortunate enough to have been a part of this work, to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire. And more often than not, your faith in America — and in Americans — will be confirmed.”

For all its enduring popularity, “To Kill a Mockingbird” still only speaks to those willing to learn its lessons. Too many Americans, I’m afraid, are still unprepared to accept The Other represented by Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Even in 2017 the notion of embracing all people, regardless of color, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, physical-mental capability, is still too radical for a whole lot of folks to follow. These are the very same things Christians are called to do by 2,000 year-old teachings. Yet many bristle at the core idea of loving their fellow man even though this is the basis and essence for the very organized religions they’re baptized in and purport to believe.

 

To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch, Scout, Boo Radley... Just riveting, these relationships, these people.:

 

All of which tells us we are one hot mess of a nation. There’s nothing new about that, it’s just that events of the past few years make it easier to see things for how they really are. The cloak of civility and cooperation has been lifted. Maybe it’s a good thing the hate is there for the viewing and not all concealed or dressed up as something else. Now that it’s out in the open, at least we know who and what we’re dealing with moving forward.

We need all the Atticus Finch’s and Harper Lees amongst us to stand up and be counted lest the Boo Radleys and Tom Robinsons continue to be oppressed. The conspiracy of hearts who love what “To Kill a Mockingbird” and works like it teach about tolerance and love need to raise their voices against injustice. If this book and film that have touched so many can lead to social action, then their collective impact will be far greater than all the sales, box-office receipts and rentals they’ve earned over these last six decades.

 
Categories: African-American, African-American Culture, Atticus Finch, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Harper Lee, Hot Movie Takes, Politics, Race, Social Justice, society, To Kill a Mockingbird, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1950s Cinema: An under-appreciated decade of film and ferment

January 24, 2017 1 comment

1950s Cinema: An under-appreciated decade of film and ferment

©by Leo Adam Biga

Author of Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film

 

I am amused by the persistent myth that 1950s America was somehow this sterile time capsule when the mass consumer population became lulled into a kind of stupor that made them numb or oblivious to reality. Or that it’s a decade when nothing much happened compared, say, to the 1960s. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To portray the ’50s as a big bore or big nothing is as inaccurate as purporting that everyone in the ’60s was active in the counterculture movement, protesting in the streets, experimenting with drugs, et cetera, when in reality relatively very few people did those things. When it comes to social phenomena, most people are observers, not participants. But that’s not to say they’re unaffected by those same forces. They very much are.

The movies of any decade offer a somewhat reliable reflection of whatever is on the minds and in the hearts of artists and audiences during that time frame. The caveat to this is that you will inevitably find what you’re looking for if you examine any decade with a certain predisposition or agenda.

Sure, there was a lot of purely escapist fare released in the ’50s  courtesy the glorified soap operas, big studio musicals, sword and sandal epics and romantic comedies that filled screens. But there were also many pictures dredging up the fears, anxieties, neuroses and complexes over any number of social-political topics. Groundbreaking troubled youth pics, film noir classics, anti-war movies, socially conscious westerns and psychological science fiction flicks were among the genre films to take on sensitive subjects.

The ’50s was full of conflicting social, cultural, political, upheaval and the best film artists mirrored those currents in their work, if not overtly than metaphorically.

The canvas was even richer and deeper when considering the Hollywood films of auteurs like Ford, Kazan, Mann, Zinnemann, Boetticher, Hitchcock in combination with the best foreign films of that decade. The neo-Realists of italy, Bergman in Sweden, Kurosawa in Japan, Wajda in Poland, Ray in India, Bunuel in Mexico and Spain and the French New Wave vanguard of Godard and Truffaut took cinema to new heights of form and meaning.

Here is only a partial sampling of the very real issues that either became full-out movie fodder or that informed dramatic plot-points and throughlines in ’50s-era films:

Rock ‘n’ roll’s advent

The Cold War 

McCarthyism

The Black List

Civil rights

The Korean War 

The Military Industrial Complex

The Iron Curtain

The Space Race

Suburbia

Television

The Baby Boom

The Mob

The Beat Movement

Folk music

Films as disparate as “”The Blackboard Jungle” (Richard Brooks) “Rebel Without a Cause” (Nicholas Ray) and “East of Eden” (Elia Kazan) capture the youth angst Zeitgeist wave.

“Pickup on South Street” (Samuel Fuller) “High Noon” (Fred Zinnemann) “Stalag 17” (Billy Wilder) “On the Waterfront” (Elia Kazan),  “Touch of Evil” (Orson Welles) pand “12 Angry Men” pose the ethical dilemma of choosing to remain silent in the face of corruption or risking everything to stand up for the greater good.

Alexander MacKendrick’s adaptation of Clifford Odets’ “Sweet Smell of Success” presents the moral quagmire that comes with be willing to do anything to get ahead.

Everything from the films of Douglas Sirk (“Imitation of Life,” “The Tarnished Angels,” “Written on the Wind,” “All That Heaven Allows,” “Magnificent Obsession,” “There’s Always Tomorrow”) to Fred Zinnemann’s “From Here to Eternity,” Robert Wise’s “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Don Siegel’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Joshua Logan’s “Picnic” and Mark Robson’s “Peyton Place” juxtapose the dull, cold routine of conformity with the hot desires of the human heart.

Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” offers a prescient view of the mass media and general public raising a figure to a position of influence out of all proportion to their gifts and then bringing him down to a terrible fall.

“The Steel Helmet” (Sam Fuller) “Attack” (Robert Aldrich), “Paths of Glory” (Stanley Kubrick) “Men in War” (Anthony Mann) and “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (David Lean) show the cruel futility of war.

“No Way Out” (Joe Mankiewicz) “The Searchers” (John Ford), “Giant,” “The Big Country” (William Wyler) and “Odds Against Tomorrow” (Robert Wise) depict the poisonous evil of bigotry.

“South Pacific” and “Sayonara” (Joshua Logan), “The King and I” (Walter Lang), “House of Bamboo” (Sam Fuller) and “The World of Suzie Wong” (Richard Quine) examine race within the arc of interracial relationships that play out in larger contexts.

“Baby Doll” (Elia Kazan), “Anatomy of a Murder” (Otto Preminger),  “Some Like it Hot” and “The Apartment” deal maturely with sexual subject matter.

George Cukor’s “Born Yesterday,” Robert Wise’s “Executive Suite” and Nunnally Johnson’s “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” critiqued American consumerism.

Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevsrd,” Joseph Lewis’ “Gun Crazy,” Anthony Mann’s “Winchester 73,””Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire,” Mann’s “The Furies,” Fritz Lang’s “Clash by Night,” MGM’s “Forbidden Planet,” Budd Boetticher’s “The Man from Laramie,”Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” “Vertigo” and “Psycho” Budd Boeticher’s “Ride Lonesome” and “Comanche Station,” Sam Fuller’s “Forty Guns”are among a great number of films from that decade that delve into Freudian themes.

The ’50s even produced an unapologetic and uncompromising art film, Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter,” that broaches all kinds of sensitive subjects through audacious use of symbolism and allegory. This masterfully crafted black and white film plays as a fairy tale with its dark themes, evil villain, innocent children in peril and episodes of magic realism. The whole film operates on the level of a fevered dream-state or trance that’s triggered and ended by trauma.

So, don’t ever fall for the notion the ’50s represented a blank slate, cinematically or otherwise. Its screen stirrings are replete with potent content, context and subtext that will make your head spin or at least make you think twice about this supposedly banal, complacent and complicit decade. Yes, there was conformity and consumerism, but when hasn’t there been since the 1920s? But the masses were far from moving in lockstep and thinking alike. Diversity, division and rebellion were present. So were the nascent civil rights, black power and feminist movements. It just took the 1960s for it to more fully come to the surface.

 

100 Greatest Movies of the 1950s

A list of the 100 greatest movies of the 1950s compiled by Digital Dream Door.
Source: digitaldreamdoor.com · Added by Ilsa Lund
 3,339 users · 74,821 views
 Avg. score: 29 of 100 (29%)
 Required scores: 1, 10, 18, 31, 47
 How many have you seen?
1
Seven Samurai (1954)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
2
On the Waterfront (1954)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
3
Vertigo (1958)
Rotten Tomatoes®     98%
4
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Rotten Tomatoes®     94%
5
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Rotten Tomatoes®     94%
6
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Rotten Tomatoes®     98%
7
Rear Window (1954)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
8
Rashomon (1950)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
9
All About Eve (1950)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
10
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
11
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Rotten Tomatoes®     96%
12
North by Northwest (1959)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
13
Tokyo Story (1953)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
14
Touch of Evil (1958)
Rotten Tomatoes®     95%
15
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Rotten Tomatoes®     98%
16
Diabolique
17
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Rotten Tomatoes®     96%
18
The African Queen (1951)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
19
12 Angry Men (1957)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
20
La Strada (1954)
Rotten Tomatoes®     97%
21
Ben-Hur (1959)
Rotten Tomatoes®     87%
22
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Rotten Tomatoes®     95%
23
The Searchers (1956)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
24
High Noon (1952)
Rotten Tomatoes®     96%
25
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Rotten Tomatoes®     98%
26
Shane (1953)
Rotten Tomatoes®     97%
27
The 400 Blows (1959)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
28
The Ten Commandments
29
Ikiru (1952)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
30
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rotten Tomatoes®     98%
31
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Rotten Tomatoes®     97%
32
From Here to Eternity (1953)
Rotten Tomatoes®     89%
33
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday
34
A Christmas Carol
35
Rififi (1955)
Rotten Tomatoes®     93%
36
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Rotten Tomatoes®     94%
37
Roman Holiday (1953)
Rotten Tomatoes®     98%
38
Old Yeller (1957)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
39
Early Summer (1951)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
40
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Rotten Tomatoes®     100%
Page 1 of 3

Next Page

 

Categories: Cinema, Film, Hollywood, Movies, Social Justice, society, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Leonard Thiessen social justice triptych deserves wider audience

January 21, 2017 3 comments

There is a compelling social justice triptych by the late great Nebraska artist Leonard Thiessen that should be more widely seen. Every year around Black History Month I encourage folks to visit the worship space that houses the piece for the express purpose of taking in the powerful images and ideas expressed in the work. The piece is called “Crucifixion” and it can be found affixed to a wall just inside the sanctuary at Church of the Resurrection, a small but mighty Episcopal faith community at 3004 Belvedere Boulevard directly across the street from Miller Park and just northwest of 30th and Kansas. The blended congregation is a mix of African-Americans, Caucasians and Africans.

The Thiessen work is not like anything you’d expect to find there or in any worhsip place for that matter. “Crucifixon” juxtaposes jarring, disturbing scenes of lynching, gas attacks, warmaking, want, industrialization and propoganda with the crucified Christ. Passages drawn from scripture proffer warnings about sins against our fellow man and being led astray by false prophets. These abnomitions are leavened by promises of recknoning and salvation. Thiessen created the triptych many decades ago but it is still relevant today in its rumination on things that instill fear and conflict in the hearts and minds of human beings and that cause us to look to a redemptive Higher Power for mercy and justice.

The words that appear at the bottom of the panels read:

“In time of peace, men suffer from drouth and want. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring they seed from the Earth.”

“They are made with machines, slaves of other machines. Be strong, fear not, your God will come with recompense.”

“Other men incite them to persecution and destruction. Keep ye judgment and do justice for my salvation is near.”

“From all sides their faith is confused and confounded. Behold, I create new heavens and a new Earth and the former shall not be remembered.”

The artist created “Crucifixion” in memory of his aunt, Wilhemina Berg, who was a member of the former St. John’s Church before it merged with St. Philip”s to create Church of the Resurrection,  The work is an example of Thiessen’s ability to employ and transform classical forms into modern interpretations. The piece is regarded as one of Thiessen’s most important.

In an interview shortly after his retirement, Thiessen said he had worked to “break down the idea that the arts were the prerogative of the elite. Nowadays the arts, like boating, skiing, tennis and wines, are all for the person in the street.”

Thiessen spoke four languages and was particularly known for his wit, often trying to slip puns past his editors at the Omaha World-Herald, for whom he was an art critic. Over the years, he taught at many area institutions, including Creighton, UNL and UNO.

He is classified as belonging to the period as the First Nebraskans, an era in Nebraska’s art history from 1901 to 1950 when the various forms of modernism were flourishing.

His vision and passion for the arts in Nebraska laid an influential foundation.

A good way to see the triptych and get a sense for the church where it’s displayed is to attend a service there. The 10 a.m. Sunday service is an intimate experience animated by the choir most Sundays and the guest band ReLeaseT the third Sunday of the month. On Feb. 26 come to Soul Food Sunday for some great eats. But whenever you come, make sure you see the triptych.

Link to the Church of the Resurrection website here:

http://coromaha.episcopal-ne.org/

 

triptych2

 

Link here to a Museum of Nebraska Art page devoted to Thiessen:

https://mona.unk.edu/collection/thiessen.shtml

Here is an extended bio of the artist copied from the MONA page:

Leonard Thiessen was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. His family was small and his paternal ancestry had roots to the Swedish and German pioneer settlers of Grand Island, Nebraska. For a very short time, the family lived in Grand Island where, as a boy, Thiessen was employed in the mail department of The Grand Island Independent newspaper. His parents, Charles Leonard Thiessen and Jean Louise Berg Thiessen, together with his mother’s favorite sister Wilhemina, were all involved in various creative endeavors and had a profound influence on Leonard’s development. His father worked in the printing industry and introduced the young Leonard to the trade. Jean was a talented self-taught artist in her own right who produced on-edge felt mosaics that are fine examples of early 20th century fiber art. (MONA has seven pieces of her work in its collection.) The Thiessens were involved in Omaha’s music, dance, and theater groups and deeply connected to the neighborhood Episcopal Church. They were not wealthy but had many friends in the community and had an impressive social calendar.

Thiessen attended Omaha’s Miller Park Public School and St. John’s Protestant School and graduated from Central High School in 1919. His school years were privileged with experiences that helped to foster his development as an artist. While in high school, he decided to follow formal study in the visual arts and began to draw cartoons and illustrations for the school newspaper. During his teen years, he worked as an office assistant for an architectural firm in downtown Omaha, a job that offered a perk that proved helpful to his future employment. During his free time, Leonard would sit and read the collection of architectural books found in the office. After graduation he worked for the Omaha Bureau of Advertising and Engineering editing illustrations and photographs for an agricultural livestock catalog.

He attended the University of Omaha (now University of Nebraska at Omaha) for three semesters in 1921 and 1922 studying journalism and fine arts and producing illustrations and graphic layouts for the University newspaper The Gateway. During this time, he worked as a gallery assistant for the Art Institute of Omaha which was located on the top floor of the old public library building designed by Thomas Kimball. Thiessen became disillusioned with the University’s conservative art courses and left Omaha to continue his studies in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln from 1925 to 1926. He was not interested in “serious painting” and majored primarily in design and architecture. His professors were the artists Dwight Kirsch, Louise Mundy, Francis Martin (a contemporary of the portraitist J. Laurie Wallace), and Emily Burchard Moore. In the 1920s, Lincoln, Nebraska was an incredibly fervent environment. Some of Thiessen’s circle of friends and classmates included artists as well as writers and intellectuals among them Katherine “Kady” Faulkner, Louise Austin (who had studied in Munich with Hans Hoffman), Mari Sandoz, Weldon Kees, Loren Eiseley, and Dorothy Thomas. In the late 1920s, Thiessen pursued a highly successful commercial career as an interior designer and decorator with several design and architectural firms in Lincoln and Omaha. Additionally, he did freelance work and began to receive commissions as a mural painter. Later he studied at the museums of New York City, Boston, and Miami with his Aunt Wilhemina.

In 1929, while on a trip to Paris, Thiessen learned of the stock market crash in the United States and decided to stay in Europe. He enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris where he studied drawing and painting for one summer and later moved to London to study at the Heatherly School of Art. While in London, Thiessen studied wood engraving and graphics. In 1932, he applied and was accepted at the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and studied with Otto Skold who later became the director of the National Museum at Stockholm. At the Academy, Thiessen studied the classical manner, graphic arts, and the traditional forms of fresco and mural painting. He described himself as a “designer of interiors and mural painter in the Middle West, U.S.” Taking several short breaks in between his studies to return to the United States, he finally received his diploma in 1938. While in Sweden, Thiessen made a trip to Tallin, Estonia, to sketch the local architecture.

After returning to the United States in the late 1930s, he found that demand for interior decorators had fallen with the depression. He used his charm and talent to persuade the editors of the Omaha World-Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star to allow him to write an arts review column. He became the Omaha World-Herald’s first art critic and his now legendary column first appeared in 1939 and continued on and off for the next 30 years.

He had exhibitions at Morrill Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, in 1938 and Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum in 1940. He also resumed his friendships with artist Milton Wolsky and Alysen Flynn. Later he accepted a position in Des Moines as Iowa’s State Director of the Federal Artists and Writers Program of the Works Projects Administration in 1941. The program employed 300 people and Leonard supervised over 100 individuals in eight departments. Thiessen left Iowa in 1942 to join the Army and was officially promoted to the Office of Intelligence in 1944. Because of his training in architectural design and graphic arts, Thiessen was particularly suited for the position of draftsman in the intelligence department. He studied and made reports of pertinent visual data, maps, and serial photos during the war. He was stationed in Kettering, England, the place that would become the subject of many of his works on paper.

In the 1950s, Thiessen made another trip to London, returning to the United States to serve two years as director of the Herbert Memorial Institute of Art in Augusta, Georgia. In the 1960s, Thiessen took several other trips to Europe and returned to Nebraska where he immediately continued his involvement with the Omaha World-Herald, the Joslyn Art Museum and the Sheldon Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. By this time he was recognized as the authority on Nebraska’s developing art history and served as editor of the catalogue, Nebraska Art Today, by Mildred Goosman, curator at the Joslyn Art Museum published in 1967. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Nebraska Arts Council becoming its first Executive Secretary (a position now known as Executive Director) from 1966 to 1975. In addition, he taught classes at Isabella Threlkeld’s studio in Omaha for eight years. He became a close friend and professional colleague of the professors at Kearney State College (now University of Nebraska Kearney) and encouraged the establishment of the Nebraska Art Collection in the 1970s. He served on the board of the Museum of Nebraska Art for over ten years and was one of its founding members. In 1972 Thiessen received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Creighton University and was honored with the first Governor’s Arts Award in 1978. His work can be found at Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln; Kansas Wesleyan University, Salina; the Alfred East Gallery, Kettering, England; the Herbert Memorial Institute of Art, Augusta, Georgia; and in many private collections

Thiessen lived in Omaha, Nebraska, for most of his adult life. He eventually converted two upstairs rooms of the now famous house on Stone Avenue for his studio. Artwork dominated both floors, much of it his own. Thiessen remained a bachelor his entire life, and had an amazing number of friends and colleagues from the various Nebraska arts communities. He was respected by many prominent Nebraska artists who honored him by making him the subject of their work including Kent Bellows, Bill Farmer, Larry Ferguson, Frances Kraft, Paul Otero, John Pusey, and John Thein.

Leonard Thiessen died March 27, 1989.

The Museum of Nebraska Arts holds 109 works by Leonard Thiessen in addition to archival material.

Researched and written by Josephine Martins, 2002

NOTE: Biographical information was derived from a variety of sources, including unpublished biographical notes by William Wallis, 2001,  a recorded interview with Thiessen by Gary Zaruba, 1983 and compilations by COR member Keith Winton.

Categories: Art, Artists, Church of the Resurrection, Leonard Thiessen, North Omaha, Omaha, Race, Religion, Social Justice, War, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Film Noir, Donald Trump and art imitating life (or is it the other way around?)

January 20, 2017 Leave a comment

Donald the Imperious is now the President. For some, this movie-movie moment of a real estate tycoon and reality TV star reaching the Oval Office despite losing the popular vote in an unusally divisive election marked by his ugly rehtoric casts a dark pall over the land. This melancholic sentiment, combined with the grey, misty, foggy weather in Omaha, got me to thinking that Trump bears many of the characteristics of heavies in my favorite cinema genre – Film Noir. That cinema of dark intents, moods, goings-on and settings usually has as its villainous center a suave mastermind or crass boss. You decide which Trump is. The protagonist is generally an anti-hero private eye, cop, attorney or newspaperman going up against steep odds and powerful, sinister forces to expose an underbelly of misdeeds. My screen-fired imagination can easily see this playing out in a real way. Would Trump and his gang get away with it, whatever it is, or would he take the fall and get his comeuppance? Who knows? But the speculation is fun. As for me, I content myself with the thought that we’ll likely to have Trump for only four years. Even if his time in office should play out like a film noir and take us down some shadowy paths, I take faith in the notion that a trench-coated tough guy with a five o’clock shadow and a crooked nose for the truth will make Trump heel and, if need be, bring lawbeakers to justice, even if that means the chief executive himself. Of course, nothing like this may happen at all, but it sure would make a good movie. However this dark art-imitating-life or life-imitating-art episode in American history plays out, it should never be boring and like any good film noir story it should be filled with some interesting plot twists and turns.

 

 

 

Film Noir, Donald Trump and art imitating life (or is it the other way around?)

©by Leo Adam Biga

Author of Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film
The grey, misty, foggy gloom that’s settled over Omaha, combined with the United States presidential inauguration and transfer of executive power taking place today, has me in a Film Noir state of mind. The dark, ill-fated world of that cinema genre contains a certain beauty in its interplay of light and shadow, stark cityscapes, back alley brawls, smoky back room dealings, white hot neon seduction and cold betrayal. it is a dog-eat-dog, predatory world of nihilism and existenialism, of bald avarice, greed and lust. The genre grew out of German Expressionism and took root in a World War Ii America of waning innocence and idealism and had its heyday from about 1941 through 1959. The genre reflected the undercurrent of anxieties of those times: economic depression, hot war, cold war, the bomb, racial strife, organized crime and corruption, et cetera. Every once in a while film noir gets an update or homage when the genre seems a good template for a particulalry troubling period, and so “The Long Goodbye,” “Chinatown” and “Body Heat” spoke to their time. Even the most famous American film about a Whte House occupant brought down by an investigation, “All the President’s Men,” is at its heart a film noir.

Film noir is as apt a metaphor as I can find for the tenor that the new Commander in Chief and his henchmen are asserting as the new gang in town in this time of division and uncertainity.

Viewed in a certain noirish, fatalistic light, our nation’s capitol is a battleground between opposing mobs, syndicates and special interests that we just happen to call administrations, political parties, departments, think tanks, consultants and lobbyists. None may meet the technical or legal definition of crooks or criminal enterprises, but the corruption, under-handed dealings, budgetary overruns, hush money, slush funds, scandals, threats and vendettas are real. They certainly come with the territory. Some of our elected officials navigate this underworld with some subtlety. Others are more brazen about it.

Donald Trump is a lot like some of the heavies in classic noir. He doesn’t pose to be anyone than who he is – a rich, powerful man who will stop at nothing to get his way. Think of the character Noah Cross (John Huston) in “Chinatown” or – and how’s this for irony? – Ronald Reagan as Jack Browning in the 1964 made-for-TV adaptation of Hemingway’s “The Killers.” Yes. Trump has the part down pat. Calculating when it serves him and impulsive when things get tight. Ruthless, vindictive, self-centered, vain. A misogynist with a decorative dumb blonde on his arm. Always scheming to get what he sees as his. You cross him at your own risk. He’s right out front in his I’m-above-the-law attitudes and actions. Smug in his confidence that nothing, not even the rule of law, can touch him.

 

(credit: Paramount)  Reagan as the Bad Guy

Where before Trump had only partners and shareholders to answer to, he now has a nation, a party, a congress and an administration to hold him accountable. But will we? Will the office and responsibility he now holds change him? Will he grow emotionally and intellectually into the position? Will the system of oversight work to reign him in when necessary? Or will this rank opportunist find ways and loopholes to get around every modulating check and balance to feed his ego and greed?

What about his agenda? Is there really anything more to it than his nationalistic appeal to make America great again, whatever that means? Isn’t it just all about lining the pockets of rich people like himself? Will small business people and low to middle class workers really see any benefits, especially if they have to pay for health care themselves and if inflation spikes and interest rates go up? Won’t average homeowners and taxpayers pay the brunt of his plan?

Won’t Trump be just another CEO or Boss in this economic political landscape that puts the interests of corporations above the greater good? If he gets his way and follows through on his promises to deport the undocumented, to close borders, to crack down on undesirables, to force loyalty oaths and to cut the safety net for the vulnerable, won’t he be a capo or despot by any other name?

So, in this scenario who is the film noir equivalent of the hardboiled character that will take on Trump and his gang? if it comes down to it, who will help expose him in a journalistic or criminal investigation that looks deep into the shadows of some wrongdoing rising to the level of impeachable offense? Might it be a grizzled reporter or cop or attorney or even senator who has the guts and I’ve-got-nothing-to-lose chutzpah to poke his nose where it’s not wanted and risk getting it broken or slashed? Would any traditional media or law enforcement officer or court or elected official have the will and courage to risk everything to expose such things? Or would it have to come from an outlier like an Edward Snowden?

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to needing a Sam Spade or Jake Gittes to haunt those dark streets in search of answers to secrets and lies, plots and scandals. But if it does, I will try to view the brooding, menacing, treacherous America of Trumpland as a sprawling film noir and hope that a femme fatale or false move undoes it all and humbles him before our eyes.

Categories: Cinema, Donald Trump, Film, Film Noir, Movies, Politics, society, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film

January 11, 2017 Leave a comment

FINAL FRONT COVER 6-28-16

 

Author Leo Adam Biga is pleased to present the new edition of his acclaimed book “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”about one of cinema’s great artists (“”About Schmidt,” Sideways,” “The Descendants,” “Nebraska”). This second edition features expanded and enhanced content.

This is the time to get the book, too, because it recaps the Oscar-winner’s last film “Nebraska” and anticipates his new film “Downsizing.” Once “Downsizing” opens, his career’s likely to reach even new heights.

The book charts the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s rise to the elite ranks of his industry. It explores the arc of Payne’s career from brash new indie filmmaker to mature, consummate world cinema artist. Articles and essays take you deep inside the artist’s creative process. It is the most comprehensive look at Payne and his work to be found anywhere. This new edition includes significant new material related to “Nebraska” and “Downsizing” and the addition of a Discussion Guide with Index for all you film buffs, critics, filmmakers, educators and students. The book is also a great resource for more casual film fans who want a handy Payne primer and trivia goldmine.

Biga’s book explores the arc of Payne’s career from brash new indie filmmaker to mature, consummate world cinema artist.

The book has received strong praise and positioned Biga as an expert on Payne:

“This is without question the single best study of Alexander Payne’s films, as well as the filmmaker himself and his filmmaking process. In charting the first two decades of Payne’s remarkable career, Leo Adam Biga pieces together an indelible portrait of an independent American artist, and one that’s conveyed largely in the filmmaker’s own words. This is an invaluable contribution to film history and criticism – and a sheer pleasure to read as well.” –Thomas Schatz, Film scholar and author (“The Genius of the System”)

National film critic and best-selling author Leonard Maltin included “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film” in his end of year movie book survey. He wrote, “In this revised edition of his book about one of today’s most gifted writer-directors, Biga brings the narrative up to date with a chapter on ‘Nebraska’ and Payne’s long-awaited ‘Downsizing,’ which has recently completed production. With the filmmaker’s participation and cooperation, this is certainly the definitive guide and companion to the works of Alexander Payne, who has given us such modern gems as ‘Citizen Ruth,’ ‘Election,’ ‘About Schmidt,’ ‘Sideways,’ and ‘The Descendants.’”

Leonard earlier wrote, “Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.”

The new edition is from River Junction Press in Omaha, NE and sells for $25.95.

The book is a available at Barnes & Noble and other fine booktores nationwide, as well as on Amazon and for Kindle. In Nebraska, you can find it at all Barnes & Noble stores, The Bookworm and Our Bookstore in Omaha, Indigo Bridge Books in Lincoln and in select gift shops statewide. You can also order signed copies through the author’s blog leoadambiga.com or via www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga or by emailing the author at leo32158@cox,net. You can also call 402-445-4666.

Purchase the book at–

 

For more information. visit–

https://www.facebook.com/pg/AlexanderPayneExpert/about/?ref=page_internal

Categories: Alexander Payne, Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, Books, Film, Film Books, Leo Adam Biga, Movies, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Purchase your signed copy of “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film” directly from me

January 3, 2017 Leave a comment

Purchase your signed copy of “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film” directly from me. I know several of you planned on attending my book events and talks last fall, and so if you’re still without your signed copy of edition number two, then contact me directly here, through a Facebook inbox, by email at leo32158@cox.net or by calling 402-445-4666. I will be happy to put one in your hands. If you’re out of town, I’ll be glad to ship one to you.

Leonard Maltin included “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film” in his end of year movie book survey. He wrote, “In this revised edition of his book about one of today’s most gifted writer-directors, Biga brings the narrative up to date with a chapter on ‘Nebraska’ and Payne’s long-awaited ‘Downsizing,’ which has recently completed production. With the filmmaker’s participation and cooperation, this is certainly the definitive guide and companion to the works of Alexander Payne, who has given us such modern gems as ‘Citizen Ruth,’ ‘Election,’ ‘About Schmidt,’ ‘Sideways,’ and ‘The Descendants.'”

And here is what one of America’s leading film historians says about the book:

“This is without question the single best study of Alexander Payne’s films, as well as the filmmaker himself and his filmmaking process. In charting the first two decades of Payne’s remarkable career, Leo Adam Biga pieces together an indelible portrait of an independent American artist, and one that’s conveyed largely in the filmmaker’s own words. This is an invaluable contribution to film history and criticism – and a sheer pleasure to read as well.” –Thomas Schatz, Film scholar and author (“The Genius of the System”)

Also available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Bookworm, Our Bookstore and select other booksellers and gift shops. 

$25.95, plus tax.

 

FINAL FRONT COVER 6-28-16

Categories: Alexander Payne, Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, Books, Cinema, Film, Film Books, Leo Adam Biga, Movies, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Poverty in Omaha: Breaking the cycle and the high cost of being poor

January 3, 2017 1 comment

Vicious Circle

Breaking the cycle of poverty in Omaha

The December 2016 issue of the Reader featured a cover package on Poverty in Omaha, The High Cost of Being Poor. There are three stories on poverty and I have two of them, including this lead piece titled Vicious Circle, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in Omaha. My other piece is headlined The High Cost of Being Poor, Aggressive Creditors Exploit Nebraska Law. My blog, leoadambiga.com, features many other social justice stories I have written over the years.

 

In 2007 local media reported the stark dimensions of concentrated poverty for many African-American families in North Omaha. It was, sadly, old news to impoverished residents long beset by low income, high debt, unstable, substandard housing and food deserts. It  confirmed, too, what human service professionals like Voices for Children in Nebraska executive director Aubrey Mancuso already knew.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “things haven’t gotten much better. I think we’re largely in the same place. When we think about poverty in Omaha and Nebraska there are two main stories. One, poverty continues to be highly racialized. Children of color, particularly black and Hispanic children, have much higher poverty rates. So poverty’s gone up in general and the groups disproportionately affected by it continue to be. We haven’t made progress addressing those disparities.

“Secondly, there’s poverty despite work.”

Experts say want isn’t exclusive to the unemployed but extends to the underemployed working poor.

Mancuso said, “We often think just finding a job is the solution, and it is about jobs, but it’s about quality jobs that allow you to afford all your expenses, save for a better future, own a home, have a retirement cushion and something to hand down to your children and have a buffer against unexpected health-related expenses, job losses and all those things. It’s about the opportunity to stabilize your income by building assets.”

She said “the reality is more complicated” than pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. “People are doing the best they can with the situation they’ve been given. As a children’s advocacy group our position is we have a collective responsibility to all our kids. Kids are vulnerable and we need to think about how we can help them.”

She noted the recent presidential election revealed how the disenfranchised “sense somehow the deck is stacked against them, and when we’re talking about families in poverty, that’s really true.” She said generational poverty means “families and kids start off behind and face barriers that pile on top of each other.”

“We know poverty is very damaging for children and I think that starts even before birth. Prenatal care, early healthcare visits and early learning experiences are crucial. If parents don’t provide those things, you see consequences later in life.”

Chronic poverty can lead to hopelessness, said Jim Clements, executive director of the Heart Ministry Center.

“As a society I don’t think we appreciate the choices people in poverty have to make on a daily basis. Maybe your car breaks down and you don’t have another way to get to work. so you take out a payday loan to get it fixed, but the exorbitant interest rates get you caught in this cycle of debt you can’t escape. It’s day-to-day survival. It’s not through any lack of trying, it’s just super complex and really hard. But I’ve seen enough people who have turned it around with help and by working hard to know it can be done.”

Clements said even many middle-class Americans are a few big life bumps away from tough times.

“You don’t always know how close to the other side you are. All it takes is a bad series of events.”

Geo LaPole invested everything in his own flea market, where he also lived. Things went well until business dried up. Unable to make the rent, he lost his business and home. He struggled keeping a roof over his head. Then he lost a job. He went through Heart Ministry Center’s Fresh Start program and now works there.

“You’re given the basic things you need to start fresh. It helped me immensely. It gave me access to the pantry, mental health counseling, somebody to listen and to point me in the right direction.”

LaPole said pride prevents some from asking for help.

“I almost didn’t accept the help. I finally said, ‘I deserve help just like everyone else does, why not make myself normal so I can help somebody else.’ Until someone grabs you and helps you, there’s no helping yourself because you don’t know how to help yourself.”

Trust can be an issue, Clements said, “If you’re poor, you’re probably taken advantage of.” Together executive director Mike Hornacek said the poor struggle finding quality affordable housing, often settling for run-down properties owned by unresponsive landlords.

Poverty is not just confined to inner city neighborhoods either. Experts say there are pockets of suburban poor who also utilize helping services.

Everyone coming to Together or Heart Ministry Center has a story.

Clements said, “We were able to help a woman who fell on hard times pay her mortgage. I’m glad we were there to help her avoid sliding further down the poverty scale. We were able to get a woman living on the streets on general assistance and into the Literacy Center. Now she’s reading at a seventh grade level. Maybe she’ll get her GED.”

Big Lou Parker battled addiction, then buried his wife, leaving him to raise five children. He found sobriety and opened a soul food eatery only to suffer a massive heart attack. Medical bills forced him into bankruptcy. The center helped him get back on his feet and he now owns a successful lawn care business.

Homeless veterans and LGBT youth comprise subgroups of the poor seen at Together, 812 S. 24th Street. After making clients safe, any addictions or mental health issues get treated, and then pathways to education, employment and housing are found. Together refers clients to partner agencies for services as needed.

It works the same at Heart Ministry. “It takes a lot of different touches to get somebody through it,” Clements said. “That takes time. It’s baby steps. People can work on specific goals here. We try to find ways to connect them to mentors. The more people we can put in their life to build that personal infrastructure and to have in their corner, the better.

‘”Just by being involved in their lives, things tend to improve. It’s part of this puzzle. When they know somebody cares, they feel better about themselves.”

Clements said Heart’s Fresh Start job readiness program uses a holistic approach that includes mental health counseling. “Living in property causes trauma. If we connect people to jobs without addressing their mental health, they’re not going to keep those jobs.”

Most poverty services address urgent basic needs or crises, such as eviction, utility shutoff, hunger and clothing. The immediate goal is stability.

“Through our pantry we give out between 1.2 and 1.5 million pounds of food and feed 20,000 people a year,” Clements said. “You don’t want to feel you’re just a stop gap – you want to see change. When you see the tide of need, it makes you wonder … Is this going to end, is this going to get better for people?”

Longer-term goals get addressed with case management support, much of it dealing with financial counseling.

Unresolved debt can further trap people in poverty and expose everything they own to collectors (see related story in this issue). If someone’s already low wages get garnished, they may fall behind on rent or car payments and find themselves without a permanent place to live or a vehicle to drive.

Negotiating poverty’s cascade of effects and harsh decisions, such as forgoing regular healthcare or letting one bill ride to pay another, is reality at Minne Lusa Elementary School, where 94 percent of the students receive free or reduced lunch. Principal Kim Jones admires the fortitude of parents and kids who confront it daily.

“I’ve learned so much about resilience and about how much we’re needed.”

Lisa Utterback, an Omaha Public Schools administrator who turned around nearby Miller Park Elementary as its principal, said contrary to perceptions, “a child from these circumstances can be molded and influenced and can achieve – you can change their lives and give them a sense of hope that things will be okay.” She said too often society imposes artificial limits. “There’s just a lack of believing in potential. Sometimes adults don’t know how to fathom the obstacles kids face. If you can’t even wrap your mind around it, you can’t help problem-solve.”

 

Utterback said OPS provides additional supports to low performing schools, including a social worker and a school support liaison, literacy coaches, math and science coaches and more technology. Mental health support is also offered through Project Harmony.

Voices for Children’s Aubrey Mancuso said, “If we want to set youth on a course that leads them to higher education, we have to start with very young children. Early childhood education opportunities are part of it. We need to think about giving kindergarten students college savings accounts that grow over time and give them a resource to put towards higher education. That would help offset some of the disparities in being able to build wealth and access higher education. It’s important we get to kids much younger on the spectrum and really build that aspiration to take that next step after high school.”

She said more can be done for poor families.

“There are things that work to help build wealth that aren’t reaching lower income families that we can better leverage. One is the earned income tax credit for working families that puts more money back in their pockets and gives them an opportunity to save or pay off bills or whatever. Our state earned income tax credit is too low. We also have a state child and dependent care tax credit whose income eligibility levels haven’t increased since the 1990s, so we need to revisit that.”

Mancuso and her team worked with outgoing state Sen. Tanya Cook to write and pass LB 81 that allows families two years of transitional assistance at a much higher income level before they have to bear the full cost of child care.

Mancuso also advocates a public pay-in program that does for poor kids what Social Security does for seniors.

“We haven’t collectively made those same investments in our kids, and I think that’s what we really need to do next. We need to have the will to carry it forward.”

She said the widening division between haves and have-nots compel us “to work harder, be kinder, be more thoughtful and be more inclusive.”

Heart Ministry’s Jim Clements said in lieu of neighbors directly helping neighbors, centers like his as well as churches and shelters are the front-lines “to give people a lifeline and help pull them out. It takes some resources, some time, some patience,” he said, “but helping turn people’s lives around strengthens the entire community.”

Together’s Mike Hornacek said real strides addressing poverty will happen when people stop making judgments, assigning blame or viewing it as someone else’s problem and “come around to saying, ‘That could be my neighbor or friend, that’s something that can happen to me.'”

Humanizing poverty and having compassion is a start.

Experts advocate more avenues for the poor to acquire skill sets that net living wage jobs and to access capital for startups, asset-building and home ownership. Paths to self-determination should lessen the need for safety nets from crises and protections from predatory forces.

Owing money makes the poor a vulnerable target

Predatory creditors stop at nothing to collect from impoversihed minority communities

Economic Justice

Whether born or thrust into it, poverty takes a toll. Just getting by is a struggle but things really get tough when creditors hound you for a debt you can’t pay, target whatever little income or assets you have and even threaten taking away your home and freedom.

Janet and her pastor husband thought they were comfortably set, looking ahead to retirement in a few years, when he lost his job in a major downsizing at a local medical center and with it the couple’s only earned income. Janet. who can’t work due to a disability, said things soon went from bad to worse when they had trouble paying off a major purchase they made on credit with a local retailer. The couple paid down a previous credit card debt with the same store, though they still owed some $1,500. Then the creditor upped the pressure by putting a lien on their home.

Unable to pay their mortgage, the couple lost their home in a foreclosure. The foreclosure occurred despite working with the lender on a loan modification. One day a sheriff arrived to inform the dumbfounded couple they had 24 hours to vacate. They moved into an apartment.

“Forty years of stuff in there,” Janet said of giving up their home.

Meanwhile, the store pursuing the debt collection refused the couple’s entreaties to work out a partial payment plan. Then, to the couple’s dismay, legal action  resulted in a warrant being issued for Janet’s arrest.

Janet said, “I was like, How in the world? I think it’s a disgrace to society. We’ve never had anything like this happen to us before and people shouldn’t have to live in fear for not being able to pay a bill because of losing a job or getting sick or being incapacitated. They intimidate people to the point where you’re afraid to answer the phone or the door or to ever apply for credit again.”

She contacted Legal Aid of Nebraska for advice and an attorney represented her at a court hearing.

“Like I told the judge, I don’t even know why I’m here, because I offered to pay it and they wouldn’t let me. After they put through all of that, the store’s attorney didn’t come to court. The judge just said, ‘Don’t worry about, it’s over.’ But I have to carry a letter with me in my car should I get pulled over that says the warrant was rescinded.”

The store’s never contacted her again.

Janet’s appalled how far the store pushed things. As she learned from LAN attorneys, her experience is not uncommon.

“If the public knew what these creditors are doing, there would be an outcry,” she said. “This is working people they’re preying on who’ve had outstanding credit and then something’s happened to them. When you ask them to help you work with them and they won’t, there should be laws protecting you from that, especially from being threatened to be put in jail.

“There’s always another way.”

LAN attorney Jen Gaughan, who helped  advise Janet during her legal travails, said some clients face arrest when they fail to appear at a court-ordered debtors exam to review income and assets.

“Not all creditors ask for it in all situations but it’s something that happens.”

Often, LAN attorney Kate Owen said, clients don’t even know they’ve been ordered to attend a debtors exam or served with an arrest warrant as the law doesn’t require personal or actual notice, but only an attempt to serve at someone’s last known residence or place of employment. She cited the case of a single mom who missed a debtors exam when notice was left with a colleague at her employer and it never reached her.

“The police came to her home and arrested her in front of her kids. She didn’t have the $100 for bail to get out of jail, so her dad had to come into town to bail her out.”

Gaughan said creditors sometimes agree to set aside a debtors exam or arrest warrant. When they don’t, she said, “then we have go to court with the client.” She said Legal Aid invariably gets exams and warrants set aside or quashed. That’s what happened in Janet’s case. But that doesn’t wipe away the stress it puts people under.

Owen said Legal Aid is challenging the constitutionality of a state statute that allows a bench warrant be granted if   someone misses a debtors exam.

“In theory it’s not for owing money, it’s for missing a court hearing. Our point is in no other civil or criminal proceeding can you be held in contempt of court without first being offered a reasonable opportunity to explain why you weren’t there.”

Owen said creditors have overly broad leeway in Nebraska to collect.

“There’s no limit on how many different ways a creditor can target your assets. A bank account can be wiped out while your wages are being garnished. Often the last resort is bankruptcy. To say it’s stressful would be an understatement. It’s not uncommon for people who come see us to be in tears.”

She said creditors often overstep their bounds and even violate the law. She recalled a case in which a creditor unlawfully garnished a client’s Social Security savings.

“I claimed an exemption. She was a little old lady on oxygen and she only owed $10 but it was of money to her.”

Owen said the judge dismissed the action and cancelled the debt.

“Another case we’ve filed opposes garnishment of a student loan from a bank account, which is exempt.”

Exemptions are handy, Owen said, “but they only help when you assert them – they are not automatically applied. You have to make that argument.”

“In another case we’re challenging what methods a sheriff used to collect on an execution. We’re arguing he

created an impression in a reasonable person’s mind that the sheriffs department was the agent of a debt collector.”

Owen said a recent ProPublic study documented “the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be sued multiple times because you lack the funds to pay.” She said client debt is “not for frivolous purchases” – it’s for medical bills, child care, rent, transportation.

Predatory practices clearly target minorities.

She said “there is vast, cumulative debt in the most impoverished African-American and Latino areas, adding, “Many individual debts are well under $1,000. But even $100 is a lot to these clients.”

“We’re litigating a lot of cases where a year or two after moving out of a rental unit somebody gets sued for alleged damages. We’ve been trying some of those cases and I can’t say we get down to zero – every once in a while we do – but creditors will offset the security deposit and everybody just walks away.”

She said the aggressive tactics of creditors send even small accounts out for collection and exploit the situation by bundling accounts.

“For a lot of our clients, whether they owe $50 or $500, it’s equally unpayable. The more accounts that get bundled together, even though these are distinct debts, it becomes even more overwhelming. It’s death by a thousand paper cuts. Most states do not allow such bundling of debt.”

She said among Legal Aid’s “wish list of changes” to current state law is limiting collection filings to a single debt rather than bundling debts together.

“That would make it less economically advantageous for creditors to file for some of these really small debts.”

She said it would also help discourage predatory and nuisance cases if the state imposed higher filing fees.

Voices for Children in Nebraska executive director Aubrey Mancuso said there is “an entire industry of financial services – things like Payday lenders, small debt lawsuits, check cashers, pawn shops – that make it even harder for families who are trying to gain any type of financial stability. These companies are profiting off of families in difficult financial situations.”

Mancuso said, “It’s a huge problem. Payday lenders are a good example. Nebraska has one of the highest allowable interest rates in the nation for those types of loans. Small debt lawsuits is another way creditors are making money off of people’s poverty. It’s big business.”

Experts advise educating yourself about credit practices before making a purchase or getting a loan. Never borrow, even small amounts, against your paycheck and thus be trapped paying high interest rates. If you feel financially abused or harassed by a creditor, seek legal aid as soon as possible.

 

Categories: African-American, Heart Ministry Center, Latino/Hispanic, Legal Aid of Nebraska, Omaha, Poverty, Social Justice, Together, Voices for Children in Nebraska, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,
%d bloggers like this: