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\nDirected by Kim Manners \u201cThere is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.\u201d – Francis Bacon<\/big><\/p>\n For this episode, I’ll be going over ground I’ve covered – extensively? – in two other re-caps mainly, although it’s everywhere: Season 1’s “Shadow”<\/a> and “Devil’s Trap<\/a>. It has to do with Beauty. Are y’all bored yet? In the best films, beauty is not set-dressing or superficial. It is thematic<\/i>, which is why you hear film critics talk about it so much. In the right hands, style IS story (or a huge part of HOW the story is told.) <\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \nKim Manners was a risky director with a dramatic painterly style. You can clock his shots in a line-up. The shadows have texture, softness, depth: they creep<\/i>, they flow<\/i>. It is a difficult look to achieve (otherwise we’d see it more often). Robert Singer has a great visual style, too, lots of nods to films from the past, but his interest lies mainly in the intricacies of relationships<\/i>. Kim Manners is interested in what goes on in the backs of people’s heads. He is interested in memories and how those memories blot out the world. He is interested in the spaces between people: what happens in between? Is that space taut, or slack? Does it vibrate with electricity? What’s the current<\/i> across that space? His use of the spiraling camera move is scene-stealer-ish, but it calls attention to itself only so it can do what it is meant to do: make palpable the space between people, and how people reach across that space. OR, how the space around people vanishes, leaving an inky-black void. The void blots out distractions: the only thing remaining is the characters’ emotional experience.<\/p>\n In a more conventional style (close-ups, medium shots, and back), even with very good acting, individuals are cut off from one another, there is no sense of the space in the room, or that characters inhabit the same space. But a spiraling camera move allows us to see one person, then another person, and where these people are in relation to one another. Style does not necessarily dictate substance. But sometimes it does. Every frame in the episode (even, maybe, the Roger-Corman-dry-ice cemetery at the end) expresses the substance. <\/p>\n \n \nAnd THAT’S what’s to keep in mind with Manners, more so than any other director on the series. <\/p>\n To compare to other directors: The Coen Brothers: whatever movie they make, the style expresses the substance. Some people think they are slaves to style, or that their movies are ONLY style. I disagree. The style of Inside Llewyn Davis<\/i> is not the style of Blood Simple<\/i> is not the style of Hail Caesar<\/i>. PT Anderson’s style, one of the most lusciously aesthetic in the business, also shifts from film to film, although he has his “tics” like most great directors do. Alfred Hitchcock’s style does not change from film to film, but his style always expresses the substance, because he chose material in line with his sensibility. <\/p>\n In terms of Supernatural<\/i>: Think of recent seasons. The lighting is sometimes flat and “realistic”. The settings are not transformed by the Mood of the series, but used only for their function. (The first scene in “The Purge” with Donna and the donuts is extremely entertaining but NOTHING in terms of its style. Nowheresville. Look back on the pilot to the scene where Dean and Sam interview the goth girls. It’s a NOTHING scene. But my God. That STYLE.<\/p>\n \n \n \n“All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2” is a tour de force from Manners, after the pre-amble of Robert Singer’s mud-soaked High Noon<\/i> Part 1. The psychic kids are gone (mostly), the way cleared for what really matters: the brothers. First up: we have Sam dead on the bed, with Dean boo-hoo-ing over him. The first time (with “Faith” a testing of those waters) a brother has died outright. And secondly: Dean’s crossroads-deal, which single-handedly creates the Arc of the next season. What also matters is Sam’s REACTION to the deal, and Dean’s reaction to that reaction, and on down the hall of mirrors. Samuel Colt, Devil’s Trap, Hell, Demons … That’s the plot, but that’s not the story<\/em>. <\/p>\n Kim Manners’ style buries us, traps us, smothers us. How to film tragedy and operatic emotion? Make it as beautiful as you possibly can<\/i>. Beauty also illuminates one of the dark subtextual things running through the series: The Winchesters flirt with death, seduce it, court it, run towards it. They bargain with it. They play chess with it. <\/p>\n \n Death appears as a sexy girl at a crossroads. Or a Reaper whispering that there is peace, if only one would submit. Sylvia Plath wrote about death like it was her longed-for lover. Her terrifying poem “A Birthday Present” opens with the line:<\/p>\n What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want. \u2018Is this the one I am too appear for, Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Is this the one for the annunciation? But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a life filled with trauma and anguish, is it any wonder that they run towards oblivion, arms outstretched? Isn’t it better to choose<\/i> as opposed to having that choice made for you?<\/p>\n As Dean tells a devastated Bobby later, choosing death will mean his life meant something. He will “go out” obeying his father’s final command. (This was one of the things that disappointed me in Season 11: how the Amara arc fizzled out. After episode upon episode showing Dean yearning for Amara, and Amara telling him he was “the one,” and how awesome that was – for me, anyway – and definitely something we’ve never seen before – turns out the whole thing was a feint, and it was actually CHUCK who was “the one.” Good to see Chuck (I guess?) but not good to see Chuck take over the whole damn narrative. When it was DEAN she wanted, when it was DEAN that wanted her …. THEN we had something. Oblivion, death, nothing-ness, the End of Being, peace, bliss, Dean’s yearning for all of these things … represented by a woman in a boobalicious black dress and an interpretive-dance style of walking. Dean’s yearning for Amara was consistent with his death-wish throughout the series, sometimes barely managed, always a secret coiled up in himself, away from prying eyes. His ace in the hole. His check-mate.)<\/p>\n If you had to boil Dean Winchester down to his essence, you’d find most of it here in “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2.”<\/p>\n Such deep and OLD emotions require the painterly style of Goya. Or Rembrandt. <\/p>\n \n Or Caravaggio. <\/p>\n \n … or the genius whose quote opens this re-cap, Francis Bacon, whose work is so beautiful, so violent, so drawn to decay, so erotic<\/i> … that it is the Death Wish made Manifest. <\/p>\n \n \nKim Manners has a lot in common with these guys. <\/p>\n In searching for art images that remind me of Kim Manners’ distinctive style, I came across a fascinating link: Rembrandt Lighting in Photography<\/a>. This is what we get in the closeups of Dean in the opening scene. Although Manners often created a look that was a scene-stealer in and of itself, his was a purely emotional<\/i> and psychological<\/i> style. <\/p>\n So I’ll be talking a lot about that. <\/p>\n Part 1 was grey too, but it was a living grey, mud and sky and rain. This grey is lifeless. Dead. Decay. Starting with a God’s-Eye omniscient point of view of Sam, the camera circles down and around until it rests flush with the bed, looking across Sam’s body at Dean, leaning in the doorway. HOW the story is told helps create powerful emotional reaction (whether you are explicitly aware of it or not), and that camera move is a heart-breaker.<\/p>\n There are religious connotations to the imagery, the body laid out with a mourner watching over is reminiscent of a million religious paintings and triptychs around the world. <\/p>\n \n \nThe final moment of Part 1 had Dean shaking the body that no longer houses his brother, trying to jolt Sam back in. Dean could feel him leave, though. He could feel that Sam was no longer there. And what an absence Death is. <\/p>\n \n \nThe lighting on Sam is like that “Rembrandt Lighting” article. Christ in the tomb. This iconography matters, it works ON us: the associations it calls up may be subconscious, but those are the most powerful associations of all. <\/p>\n \n \nIf Sam’s body is lifeless, then Dean’s energy is lifeless, too. He’s been crying for probably two days. He’s cried so much he’s made himself ill. You can hear it in his voice when he talks to Bobby, his voice nasal, thick, his nose stopped up from sobbing. His whole head is filled with tears. Imagine trying to create what your voice sounds like when you’ve been crying for two days. That’s what Ackles pulls off. <\/p>\n I’ve written before about Manners’ adoration of beautiful faces. Look at how lovingly he filmed Gillian Anderson in The X-Files<\/i>. To him, she was a Sistine Chapel Madonna and needed to be treated accordingly. Nobody is so beautiful that they can’t be ruined by a director who doesn’t know how to film them properly. Watch the first season of X-Files<\/i> before everyone figured Anderson out, figured out just what a Babe she was. She almost looks dumpy in some of the episodes, she’s wearing block-y suits and pale white tights. WHITE TIGHTS? It’s unforgivable. Manners approached her face not just with care, but with love and appreciation. He painted<\/i> her with his camera. It’s like he had been dreaming about her at night, obsessing over her coloring (because who wouldn’t?), and how he could film it so that the whole world could see what he saw. If this sounds objectifying or male-gaze-y … grow up and welcome to Hollywood. I’m actually not against objectification. I enjoy beautiful things myself. If it’s pornographic, then sure, that stuff can be damaging. And when it’s the attitude of the GOP nominee, well … <\/p>\n But the male gaze also gave us the Mona Lisa. It gave us this …<\/p>\n \n In these opening scenes in “All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2”: Manners has obsessed on Ackles’ face, its almost … delicate? quality … its paleness and the bright green eyes and what all that would look like surrounded by black velvet shadows, and how that would highlight him like a jewel. Because what is the story? Dean’s alone-ness, Dean’s grief, Dean’s desperation, so desperate it leads him to the crossroads. <\/p>\n Our responses to beauty are not un-complicated. Most of us are not beautiful like Ackles or Dietrich is. Beauty like that can summon and beauty like that can also alienate. Interestingly, Supernatural<\/i> deals with that all the time<\/i> in scenes with Dean (most especially), one of the unexpected quirks of the show. If Dean sashayed into every room and people fell over like nine-pins … well, okay. That’s one obvious way to go. But boring and expected. (Manners to Ackles: “Give them what they want but give it to them in a way they won’t expect.” That’s it.) I’ve known about 3 people, off the top of my head (one of whom I dated<\/a>), who were so beautiful that I could actually see how their beauty operated in a room. People would withhold how awestruck they were, they would almost recoil. A friend of mine who looks like Christy Turlington has an entirely different experience of the world and other people, because when she walks into a room, she turns heads, but people are also afraid to talk to her, or men make a point of ignoring her to show that her beauty doesn’t work on them. Elaine Dundy writes about this phenomenon in her book about Elvis, Elvis and Gladys<\/i>. Elvis’ beauty showed up early, as a child, and he developed into an exotically stunning teenager, and while, yes, he was very shy, Dundy theorizes that it was his beauty that isolated him from his peers. Beauty – like athletic ability – like mathematical genius – is an aristocracy. We live in a society that is supposed to be a meritocracy, but beauty doesn’t play by those same rules (“eye of the beholder” notwithstanding). All people are NOT created equal on the Beauty-Spectrum, and so non-beautiful people have REACTIONS to Beauty that are not just “OMG pretty pretty.” <\/p>\n \n People sometimes re-coil from Dean, because Beauty like his comes across as a demand<\/i>. And often Dean IS demanding, he wants attention, sexual connection, he wants to be acknowledged as funny, or cool. More often than not, the response he gets from people who don’t know him is: “What the hell does this guy want from me?” Beauty creates intimacy without any relationship behind it. The fact that Supernatural<\/i> incorporates this very human and strange reaction to the Beauty of Others is one of its weirdest and most insightful qualities.<\/p>\n And so there is a kind of queasy pleasure<\/i> in seeing Beauty suffer. Nobody understood this better than Alfred Hitchcock, who cast the most beautiful people in the world in his films, and then proceeded to make them suffer horrible fates, getting stabbed in showers, groveling in the dirt hiding from a cropdusting plane. Hitchcock understood that audiences love their beautiful movie stars, but they also love it when their beautiful movie stars are made to pay – just a little bit – for how unlike us they are. Hitchcock knew he had no beauty himself. He was a bit of a sadist. <\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \nManners isn’t a sadist, but he loves pain most of all, because pain makes us human, pain connects us. Dean’s pain is the source of the episode, and so Manners lingers on it, circles around it, obsesses on it, blurring out the background in fuzzy greys, or obliterating it in velvet-blacks, so that our confrontation with it – and our feelings about it, whatever they may be – cannot be avoided. Alongside all of that, though, is also an awareness of the effect of eyelashes and freckles and eyes and how the light plays on all of this. (Serge Ledouceur, of course, is Manners’ most important partner in this.) <\/p>\n \n Look at the variety there. The exploration of an actor’s face, and how shadows fall on that face. <\/p>\n Another thing that happens – in this scene and the scene that follows when Dean talks to Sam – is that Ackles is free to move, within his closeups. The camera is not set on a tripod in a rigid way. The movements are so slight you can barely perceive them at times, but the camera follows him. Gently. Adjusting when Ackles moves, and so Ackles is free to do what he wants to do, because he knows the camera operator won’t miss anything. Trust. This is most evident in the moment when Dean suddenly stands up screaming, “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?” His movement is wild and unfettered. It’s done in one, and the camera doesn’t miss ANY of it. THAT IS COLLABORATION. <\/p>\n In the second most famous scene in White Heat<\/i>, James Cagney’s character, in prison because he’s a total sociopath, learns that his beloved mother has died. What follows is one of the greatest pieces of acting ever caught on celluloid. No contest.<\/p>\n \n
\nWritten by Eric Kripke<\/em><\/p>\n![\"hb10\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/hb10.jpeg\")
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\nPlaying chess with death. “The Seventh Seal,” Ingmar Bergman (1957)<\/i><\/p>\n
\nIt is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?<\/p>\n
\nWhen I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking<\/p>\n
\nIs this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?<\/p>\n
\nAdhering to rules, to rules, to rules.<\/p>\n
\nMy god, what a laugh!\u2019<\/p>\n![\"emmaus\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/emmaus.jpg\")
\nRembrandt, “The Supper at Emmaeus”<\/i><\/p>\n![\"beheading\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/beheading.jpg\")
\n“The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist,” Caravaggio, 1608<\/i><\/p>\n![\"crucify2\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/crucify2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1st scene<\/h1>\n
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\nMarlene Dietrich, “The Blue Angel,” directed by Josef von Sternberg. My life would be much the poorer if von Sternberg had not been so 100% OBSESSED with Marlene Dietrich.<\/i><\/p>\n![\"-Elvis-elvis-presley-32865455-339-254\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Elvis-elvis-presley-32865455-339-254.gif\")
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