West Side Story (1961): Opening Sequence

West Side Story, one of my favorite films depicting the Big Apple, captures the spirit of the city. The tension between the the Jets gang, made up of American-born members, and the Puerto Rican Sharks, the immigrants and outsiders, resonates today. Some themes never change. 

Here is what an Australian critic said about the film's amazing opening sequence:

They are the breathtaking silent shots of New York City at the opening, the silence broken intermittently by the piercing whistles of one of the teenage gangs."

 Eva Sommers,  

The Sun (Australia), Monday, June 11, 1962

The film begins with 5 minutes of uninterrupted music! Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture” plays over a yellow screen punctuated by a series of thin vertical lines. The longing strains of “Tonight” reach a crescendo and then lower softly to “Maria”. A percussive Latin sound slams forth changing the tempo. The words “West Side Story” appear in block letters above a solid red background. The vertical lines dissolve magically to the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan and a gorgeous aerial view of the New York harbor emerges. 

Director Robert Wise's famous helicopter sequence-- became one of the most influential and imitated shots in Hollywood history. Wise explained the opening sequence for West Side Story:

The aerial opening shot was also my concept. I knew I had to deliver New York…. What I wanted to do was show a New York that people hadn’t seen, a different look, almost an abstract one. I wanted to put the audience in a frame of mind to accept the kids dancing in the streets without feeling that twinge of embarrassment.

The camera descends between tenement buildings and down to ground level and enters an inner city playground. Riff, the American gang leader, leans against a wire schoolyard fence accompanied by seven gang members from the Jets. The Jets snap fingers menacingly. The music rises as they grab a basketball from some innocent players. The group pivots in unison and encounters Bernardo, the Puerto Rican gang leader. They threaten him with a fist. Bernardo departs and joins two other Puerto Ricans. The three Puerto Rican dancers perform a series of steps, simultaneously doing a high kick in front of a façade of brownstone tenements. The graceful move by the trio would be become one of the most memorable images of the entire movie. At the ten minutes mark, Bernardo taunts a member of the other gang with “Jet boy,” the film's first words.

The opening ten minutes of every movie express the ground rules for the film. Wise uses the film’s opening to establish that Jerome Robbins’s theatrical vision will be central to the film’s narrative, but sound stage sequences will alternate seamlessly with location shots captured on the city streets.

Trump and Kim Jong-un Bring the Heat

Only took Donald Trump six months in office to bring up the N-word... nuclear. Hillary and Barack raised questions about Donald's fiery, impulsive temperament not being well-suited to the Commander-in-Chief job. Then he got elected. From Celebrity Apprentice to the nuclear code of the most powerful nation on earth. The United States used the atomic bomb twice. After Hiroshima and the deaths of 140,000 did not get the Japanese to issue a surrender, Truman calmly stated:

"If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware. ”

The Japanese did not respond and another bomb dropped on Nagasaki killed 70,000 more people three days later.

Truman's words help remind us of the context-- the war between American and Japan had raged for 3 1/2 years. The goal, defeat of Japan with as few additional American lives lost, had been clearly established and understood by the American people and our Allies. Only under these extreme circumstances did Truman make the decision to drop a first atomic bomb, incinerate 140,000 people and then warn the Japanese that a second bomb would follow. Truman chose powerful words to characterize a moment blighted with terror. Compare that to the present situation.

Trump pulls out the rhetorical blowtorch and talks about "fire and fury" being unleashed on North Korea, a small country on the border of China being run by a ruthless, tinhorn dictator. Trump's defenders descry the annoying dictator in Pyongyang with his missile tests and insane saber rattling rhetoric. Sounds like a lot of sound and fury has been generated by both Trump and Kim Jong-un, both men sporting unusual haircuts.

Meanwhile, more heat is the last thing we need: 

• Europe is burning under the influence of a heatwave nicknamed Lucifer.
• European glaciers are melting.
• A US climate report, produced by 13 government agencies, gets leaked to the New York Times out of fear that report will be suppressed by the Trump administration.
• Donald Trump hires General Kelly to manage the White House staff. Then Trump goes to a golf course in New Jersey on vacation. 
• Maybe Mr. Trump wanted to escape any chance of being managed himself? Issues a bunch of tweets from NJ!
• We should always be suspicious of somebody claiming to go to New Jersey on vacation. 
• The Kennedy's had Hyannis Port. The Bush family went to Kennebunkport. And even Bill Clinton and Barack Obama could afford the trip to Massachusetts, hanging out with the Eastern media moguls on Martha's Vineyard.

It's getting so hot in here-- now that's something to fume and fulminate about.

Stephen Colbert: healing a pained nation

The talk show host serves the role of an electronic shaman, a healer of society’s wounds, using a gentle nature and the toolkit of comedy, full of pun, metaphor and sleight-of-hand wordplay. He (almost always a male) brings up the painful issues while adding salve to these raw areas. He makes sense of sensitive subjects not yet suitable for polite discussion and not fully understood or absorbed.

The starting point for my understanding of the talk show host came from a single source: 

1) a single passage by Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae

Camille Paglia speaks of “a category of androgyne, the nurturant male or male mother. He can be found in sculptures of the river gods, in Romantic poetry ((Wordsworth and Keats) and in modern popular culture (television talk show hosts).”

Paglia’s discussion moves to the transsexual qualities of the Delphic oracle and the mixture of male and female voices in the prophesying of the Oracle of Delphi. The medium assumes multiple personalities much like the “ventriloquism Frazer ascribes to entranced shamans.” (Sexual Personae, p. 46) 

The phrase “nurturant male” offers a dazzling insight into the funny men in control of the late night airwaves. The late night host is a different kind of comic, more gentle in spirit and supportive by nature than the aggressive standup with the take-no-prisoners mentality. 

In recent months Stephen Colbert has played the role of healer in the era of Trump. Donald Trump does not have a serious political rival from the Democratic party. Bernie Sanders plays a leadership role from the left, but Trump's true adversaries are the comedians. Alec Baldwin, playing Trump on SNL, played a significant role in the political dialogue with his brilliant mockery of Trump's hair, mannerisms, speech, narcissistic demeanor, and all-around bluster. Baldwin could not don (pun) the Don Trump wig forever. The job fell to Stephen Colbert to take the Trump bull by the horns. Colbert would wrestle the bull downward using the comedian's toolkit.

Colbert earned his stripes with Jon Stewart Daily Show and on the Colbert Report playing his Bill O'Reilly sendup, a faux conservative done totally tongue-in-cheek. As Tonight Show host, Colbert could emerge as the real Colbert, closer to his personal beliefs and a more nurturant male. He has used the opening monologues and his comedic talents to calm some of the nation's angst. Colbert, as late night shaman, offers a enlightened man's sensibilities as a contrast to harsh worldview of Donald Trump. Colbert's rise in the rankings proves the talk show host remains relevant, perhaps now more than ever-- in our totally electrified universe. Trump tweets all day and Colbert answers at night.

The Talented Mr. Trump….according to Scott Adams

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why/?utm_term=.3518dc00b78c

                                                                                                            

The 800 pound gorilla on the TV screen… we cannot get the name Trump off her lips Recently I read a Washington Post article on Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist, from March 21, 2016, way before before Election Day. Adams brilliantly outlined the reasons for his prediction that Donald Trump would win the presidency.

Much of this blog comes directly from the Washington Post article by Michael Cavna. See the link above. The ideas come from Scott Adams, almost verbatim.

(I apologize in advance for any failure to include quotation marks. Scott Adams’ insights make the entire basis for this blog entry.)

We should all be listening to Scott Adams. Adams predicted Trump beating Clinton easily, playing Hillary like a fiddle much as he had with his primary competitors. Adams must know something none of the rest of us knew, including Nate Silver. We should be beating down Scott Adams door to learn the reasons behind Trumps victory…to learn the lessons of modern presidential politics in the electronic age!

Adams states that Trump, a master of psychology, understands a basic fact of human behavior—we are all irrational beings. We like to think of ourselves as fact-based. We are not. We are emotion-based. Trump realized this, created his own facts if necessary but mainly avoided facts altogether. Trump found the hot-button issues, immigration being a big one, and began to fill stadiums with enthusiastic crowds.

Scott Adams, thankfully, has taken the time to figure out the rhetorical style of Donald Trump. Behind Trump’s rhetoric lays a campaign strategy and an understanding of human psychology.

• Trump loves to win and crush the competition.

• Trump has a great mastery of human psychology. Adams believes this skill—psychology-- is the most important and only skill needed to win the presidency.

• Trump knows that human beings are ruled by emotion, not the facts.

• Trump has amazing powers of persuasion.

Adams likens Trump’s mastery of persuasion to the power a hypnotist maintains over a subject. Humans are irrational beings. Adams himself had to gain an awareness of human irrationality to become a successful cartoonist. Bill Keane of Family Circus instructed Adams to stop writing for himself. Adams changed his subject to the workplace, and the demands and inhumanity of the corporate work environment. Trump connected to a similar sort of invisible "suffering" and connected to people "on an emotional level."

Trump became the most interesting by a fearless approach. Adams said Trump “can always be the most interesting story if he has nothing to fear and nothing to lose.” Bolstered by a no-fear, nothing-to-lose perspective Trump could employ language in a way never seen before on the political stage. The audiences loved Trump’s rhetorical style. He spoke directly to them, like a comedian. The fans felt Trump sounded “like one of us”—. Trump became that microphone. He painted word pictures—Low Energy Jeb, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted and Crooked Hillary—insulting nicknames that knocked down his adversaries one-by-one.

Adams did and said whatever was necessary to strengthen his ties to conservatives. Adams believes Trump, if he so desired, had the ability to run as a Democrat, and could have found the hot-button issues to appeal to liberal-minded voters.

Adams compares Trump’s ability to warp reality to his own needs to Steve Jobs, the Apple creator, and his reputation for inventing new realities through force of will. Trump’s new reality, I am one of you heartland Americans… based on emotion, grew from a brilliant campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” From this cornerstone he went all out with his sales pitch to the conservative voter.

Trump’s manufactured reality led the building of a new identity—the onetime New York City socialite, braggart, multi-bankrupted billionaire became a friend to the truck driver, factory worker, flyover state mom, and unemployed coal miner. Adams explains it best, before Election Day:

“Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American, Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. Clinton is well on her way to owning the identities of angry women, beta males, immigrants, and disenfranchised minorities.

“If this were poker, which hand looks stronger to you for a national election?”

Cut to post-election. Donald Trump is President. His critics seethe with anger at the ineptitude of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Scott Adams has become a big Trump supporter. I disagree with his position. I wish Donald had stuck to building golf courses.

Meanwhile, about a week ago CNN promoted an upcoming program “How Trump Won”… produced by Fareed Zakaria. I’m not sure the show has aired or pulled from the schedule. If the CNN special does not include air time with Scott Adams… I remain a skeptic. Adams may be the one man in America who can tell us—What Happened. *

*Apologies to Hillary Clinton. Her similarly titled book on the election— What Happened – is due out any day. I’m not sure she knows.

Marshall McLuhan: The World is a Global Village, 1960

CBC TV—Explorations (Program)—The World is a Global Village 1960 

Marshall McLuhan can be seen on a YouTube clip from a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) television program entitled Explorations aired on May 18, 1960.

Any dedicated student of Marshall McLuhan will be richly rewarded for watching  patiently through the extended introduction by Canadian TV hosts. Stay with the video through the 3:00 minute mark. Marshall McLuhan himself arrives on the set and accurately predicts the world that you and I have come to occupy in 2017.

Here’s the link-- 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7WXagEHFFI

McLuhan enters the frame and deconstructs an idiomatic phrase, the slang term “with it.” McLuhan begins with the phrase “with it” to elucidate his main point—the connectedness of post-literate, electronic man.He asserts the meaning as “we’ve understood completely, we’ve got the message as it were in every way possible.”  As for the print era man “they were not with it, they were away from it, by themselves with their own private point of view.”

McLuhan’s predicts the re-tribalization of mankind over the next 5 minutes of his interview by Alan Millar, CBC TV host. 

“Tribal man," McLuhan expounds, is "the man created by the new electronic media.”

McLuhan presents the revolutionary notions cheerfully as a high school teacher providing an algebra lesson. The clip reveals McLuhan as firmly and precisely in command of his revolutionary principles well in advance of the publication of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964).

The YouTube clip extends just over 8 minutes (8:43) and is a small portion of a what was originally a half-hour show devoted to the subject of teenagers, a few years before the arrival of the Beatles and the youth revolution of the hippies. McLuhan comments on teenagers at the end of the clip, distinguishing adolescents from teenagers. Adolescents, he says, have an individualist print culture perspective, always searching for personal identity while teenagers, a product of electronic culture, seek identification with the group.

McLuhan’s provocative language captures the all-at-onceness of life in the 21^st century: 

“The new media has made everything into a single unit…like a continually sounding tribal drum where everybody gets the same message all the time… a princess gets married in England, an earthquake in North Africa, a Hollywood star gets drunk… I use the word tribal. It’s probably the key word of this whole half-hour.” 

McLuhan has circled back to the concept of the global village with the image of the tribal drum.

Alan Millar, host for the program, asks “Aren’t media, as I think most of us feel, on the edges of our life?”

McLuhan responds, “Media is at the heart of our life because the media work through our senses.”

Charlie Rose interviews David Letterman

Talk Show Host as Integral Man

David Letterman’s television interview on The Charlie Rose Show on Feb. 16, 1996 begins with Rose introducing Letterman as “a broadcaster’s broadcaster,” putting guest and host in the same category. Interesting to note Charlie Rose introduced Letterman in terms other than a comedian. Yes, Letterman is a broadcaster but the late night talk show hinges on the host's sense of humor. The late night talk show depends entirely on the host. The talk show revolves entirely around the comic sensibility of the host, whether Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Myers, James Corden or Jimmy Fallon.

Here's the YouTube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IYekI7ldSI

Letterman begins by saying his team reviewed the Steve Allen shows done for Westinghouse as a guide for developing his late night show. 

Rose asks about Johnny Carson. Letterman marvels at Carson’s ease of presentation: “It’s so easy, it’s so smooth, it’s so measured… he’s not breaking a sweat…. It’s just Johnny…”. Letterman pointed to Carson’s skill at bringing the audience into his most minute gesture. TV is the close-up medium: 

“He’s so comfortable. Here was a guy that understood his limitations and stayed within them and exploited that part of his personality to perfection. And I think that was the appeal of the man, night in and night out; it was always going to be Johnny, you could tell if Johnny would raise an eyebrow, oh Johnny’s upset, Johnny laughs, oh Johnny’s happy.” 

Rose presses the issue looking for a more analytical explanation for Carson’s genius. “What was the genius though?” Rose pushed Letterman further to explain the genius of Johnny Carson.  “What made him… that he could do that night after night?” 

Letterman adds little as elaboration, “He never tried to get out of what he was good at—Literally, “Here’s Johnny!” …

Letterman may be evading the question. Perhaps Letterman feels his own humor far exceeds Johnny Carson. If that's the case, I agree with Letterman. His rapier wit may be the best ever seen on the small screen. Rather than criticize Carson, Letterman attributes Johnny's long run of success to his ability to stay within himself.

                                           

Charlie Rose’s vain search for an easy explanation for Johnny Carson’s thirty year run of success highlights an interesting comparison between Charlie Rose, the interviewer, and Johnny Carson and David Letterman, the comedian/late night hosts. Charlie Rose cannot easily understand the comedian.  To use McLuhan's notions-- Charlie Rose embodies a very literate, literary, fragmented, rational style of communication versus the comedian, the integral man, the spontaneous, non-rational, intuitive, comedic style of communication.

Letterman creates Carson’s milieu, describing a minimalist world of television performance where every gesture moves mountains and the face tells everything… “Johnny raises an eyebrow, Johnny smiles…” as his explanation of the Carson magic. Dave Letterman prefaced his remarks by establishing his credentials in a modest manner,  “I know what it takes for me to get through a sixty minute effort each night.” In fact, Letterman is one of the few living humans who can speak knowledgeably about Carson's job description, the late night talk show host/comedian.

Letterman marvels at Carson’s mastery of the art of putting on the audience. The performer, as McLuhan states, must wear the audience, put them on the audience like a suit of clothes. Rose struggles to understand. Charlie Rose is a another breed of broadcaster, a documentarian, a writer of history. 

The comedy host works from the intuitive, right side of the brain. Letterman’s thoughts leap forward in a discontinuous manner, painting a picture in the cubist style without all the connections in place. Charlie Rose, on the other side of the fence, organizes his thoughts, lines them up in a, b, c order, the outlook of the literate man.

Letterman the late night host, the integral man, organic and post-literate in his outlook, responds from another perspective.