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<\/a><\/p>\n\nDirected by Kim Manners “So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is – other people.” On the Supernatural wiki , No Exit<\/i> (the play by Sartre) is described as “three people are locked in a windowless room expecting to be tortured. No-one arrives, but by probing each other’s sins, dark secrets and thoughts \u2013 they torture each other.” Well, kind of, but that summary is missing a very important detail: The three main characters in No Exit<\/i> (a male and two females) are dead. They have arrived in the afterlife, assuming they will be confronted with Hell-fire for the sins they committed. Instead, they are led into a room decorated, as Sartre says in the stage descriptions, in the Second French Empire style. (Hmm, something a little like the “green room” for Heaven where Zachariah puts Dean and then Adam to get them out of the way? That room, like the one in No Exit<\/i>, has no windows and no doors.) In the play, there is nothing in the room except for a couple of sofas, a bronze statue on the mantelpiece, and a random paper-knife. As the play goes on, the knife starts to seem more and more ominous.<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \n The French title of the play is Huis Clos<\/i>, which can’t be exactly translated into English – “behind closed doors”, or “in camera” (the Latin term, used in law, meaning a discussion behind closed doors, “in the chamber” – which takes on interesting implications considering where Jo is imprisoned later in the episode.) As the French title suggests (and the English translation of it doesn’t), there is a trial going on in the play. Each character, individually, puts the other two on trial. There are no mirrors in the room, which becomes a big deal: how do you know who you are if you have to rely on other people to reflect you? They have heard rumors that they will have to torture one another. They don’t want to do that so they all try to sit silently, ignoring one another. That lasts for about 20 seconds.<\/p>\n \n \nI recently re-read it, keeping Supernatural <\/em>in mind. Some fun connections, take them or leave them, they aren’t one-to-one connections, and I’m just riffing on some of the things that popped out at me: <\/p>\n — A “valet” shows each character to the room. Garcin (the male character) becomes unnerved at how the valet is staring at him. Garcin observes that the valet’s eyes are “paralyzed \u2026 Your eyelids. We move ours up and down. Blinking, we call it. It’s like a small black shutter that clicks down and makes a break. Everything goes black; one’s eyes are moistened\u2026” Garcin realizes that what is going to happen in this room is going to be “Life without a break.” <\/p>\n — The whole unblinking thing is looped into one of Sartre’s ideas, called The Look. (I studied him in undergrad. He was required reading in our theatre history classes. And we worked on scenes from his plays.) The Look is Sartre’s ideas on what it means to be looked at, and what it means to be an object. In the play, the characters get disoriented when they can’t see themselves, when they have to rely on the others to reflect them back. I’ve talked a lot about looking\/objectification with Supernatural<\/em>, as well as “mirror moments,”<\/a> of which Dean has many over the course of the series. The mirror is a way to touch base with himself, after being “looked at” so constantly by everyone else. His identity is completely unstable. <\/p>\n — The three people trapped in the room in the play have all done bad things in their past that got them there into that room. For example, Garcin, the male character, ran a pacifist newspaper and refused to fight in the war. His reasons are now irrelevant. He has shown himself to be a coward and as a coward, he must pay. You could say, “But these were his deeply held beliefs! He stood up for them!” But that’s Grey Area and there is no Grey Area in the afterlife. <\/p>\n — Along with that, each character pleads with the others, “But it wasn’t my fault” or “Let me tell you more about it.” No Exit<\/i>, the Supernatural <\/em>episode, ends with an argument about something that happened in the past, something that wasn’t Dean’s fault. And John would have been able to justify his choices as well (although the fact that he removed himself from the roadhouse circle following what happened speaks volumes about his guilt). But in the hot-house atmosphere of a room with no doors and windows, all of that is irrelevant. John will not be forgiven for being reckless, and the sins of the fathers have landed on the son’s head. <\/p>\n — Oh, and not for nothing but there’s a “men of letters” reference in Sartre’s play. <\/p>\n I mean, I could go on. Matt Witten wrote the script for No Exit<\/i> as well as the Shining<\/i>-inspired Playthings<\/i>, and I like his style a lot. <\/p>\n Kim Manners directed the episode, and as we have already seen in the episodes leading up to “No Exit,” Beauty has become one of the distinguishing characters of the series. Every single shot in “No Exit” is so beautiful that it starts to feel overwhelming. While Manners’ style is perfect for the horror genre, it is also an extremely romantic <\/em> style. And his love of the close-up reveals his interest in psychology, because that’s all that the close-up is about. Manners lingers on and loves the specifics of everyone’s face. He can’t get close enough. <\/p>\n Beauty like this is its own reward, and that’s the thing that a lot of people sometimes miss. Or they discount it, thinking that it might be a little bit embarrassing to focus so much on it. That is an error. Beauty exists to give pleasure. The old Hollywood masters used to understand that (and there are still many directors who work this way today). Beauty is entertainment, fantasy, a dream-world, a place where you can lose your way. You’re meant<\/i> to lose your way. Supernatural<\/i> has many strengths: the writing staff, the cast, Serge Ladouceur, the entire team who can create these different mini-worlds in each episode. But the Beauty factor is where myths are created, where things\/events\/people start to seem larger than they are and take on all kinds of emotional and subconscious import. <\/p>\n It’s not just “OMG look at the hot guys,” although that is a huge part of it. But it’s not just the hot guys who are given the Beauty treatment. It’s in every frame<\/i>. Every angle. Every color choice. Wall-to-wall beauty, in other words. In that type of environment, the hot-ness of the two leads starts to seem almost \u2026 incidental. Beauty that saturates the frame to this degree ends up NOT feeling self-conscious, and I’m not sure how that works on an alchemical level, but it does. It’s like watching, oh, The Master<\/i>, one of the most beautiful-looking films released in my lifetime. It’s sheer overload, that film. Every shot. Every. Single. Shot. And yet the end result does not feel like a self-conscious exercise in style. It ends up feeling disturbing<\/i> rather than pleasing (which is perfect since it is the story of how a man started a cult). You get sucked into the beauty, swayed, seduced, lulled to complacency. <\/p>\n Obviously, No Exit<\/i> (the Supernatural episode) features a lot of dead ends, and places from which there is no easy escape: tunnels, dungeons, sewer drains. But there’s also the fact that you can’t escape from your family, and that the sins of the fathers may very well indeed be paid for by the sons. It’s unfair, but it happens. There is “no exit” from that in the world of Supernatural<\/i>, and any small opening of familial feeling that has blossomed between the Winchesters and Ellen and Jo is ruined at the end. Taking these people as they are, (not as we think they should be, not as we wish they would be if they just said nicer things, etc.) there really is No Exit from what ends up going down. The secret was bound to come out. And probably not in a good and healthy way. And Sam and Dean would be blamed for the actions of their father. It brings up interesting thoughts, which we’ve talked about before, about how exactly John and his two boys were viewed by the hunter world at large. You can’t tell me Ellen doesn’t have opinions – and STRONG ones – about what John exposed his sons to. She practically lives her life in total opposition to that, maybe even consciously.<\/p>\n This is an episode about relationships. The three main characters “in the chamber”, Jo, Sam and Dean, are all fatherless. Their fathers knew one another. Despite that history, they have never met, and never even knew of one another’s existence. Nobody quite knows how to “look” at each other. Should they be friends? Ellen said John was “like family.” Instant intimacy isn’t going to happen. But what ends up developing over the course of “No Exit” is a relationship, a delicate tendril of almost familial feeling, especially between Dean and Jo. But \u2026 well.<\/p>\n Hell is other people, remember. <\/p>\n Dead Fathers have a way of stealing the whole show, don’t they.<\/p>\n Now about the women. <\/p>\n Buckle your seat-belts. Here we go. The below is quite long, and I (obviously) am EXTREMELY interested in the topic, and it seems very important to me. I understand if others are not AS interested, but this is my party, and I’d love it if you join. I swear it is relevant to Supernatural<\/i>. <\/p>\n Digression (Long-Ass Essay, Really) on Women in Supernatural<\/i>, Iconic Tough Guys, and the Awesome Creature Known As “The Howard Hawks Woman”<\/big> Supernatural <\/em>gets some shit for its treatment of women, but I think placing it in a specific context helps shuffle things into place, the same way that placing Sam and Dean in a specific context also helps (or should help) with not seeing their behavior as “macho posturing”. I wrote about both guys being part of the cinematic Iconic Tough Guy tradition<\/a>, the John Waynes, Gary Coopers, Humphrey Bogarts. Those guys would be required to go through Sensitivity Training today, perhaps, and the folks who scream on Tumblr about misogyny may not have any use for them. Their loss. By labeling that entire Tough Guy scene as chauvinistic and patriarchal, people miss so much good stuff, not to mention (for our purposes) a lot of the various intersecting influences (cinematic and historical) that pour into the landscape of Supernatural<\/i>. <\/p>\n What those Iconic Tough Guys created was a myth of a certain kind of manliness that is so out of style today (at least onscreen) that it can’t even be perceived properly by contemporary audiences. I went and saw High Noon<\/i> at the Film Forum and the entire audience treated it as a Mystery Science Theater episode, snickering and jeering. I walked out. Oh, you people are so sophisticated<\/em>, aren’t you, you’re so enlightened<\/em>, you’re so superior.<\/i> In the world of cinematic Iconic Tough Guys, strength and tough-ness is a natural response to the threatening environment. SOMEONE’S gotta be the Tough Guy in a dangerous world. <\/p>\n So. That’s my take on where we should “place” Sam and Dean, especially in Season 2, which feels very much like a Western to me. (Speaking of High Noon<\/i>, there are a couple of shots in “All Hell Breaks Loose” that are flat-out stolen from High Noon<\/i>.) The roadhouse is straight out of a Western. Ellen and Jo are out of a Western. Ash would be played by, oh, Walter Brennan, in the good old days. These characters stand on the threshold of a dark and dangerous pioneer. They huddle together, strength in numbers, getting ready to take that first step forward. The final episodes are a stand-off that take place in an abandoned Western town and then a country cemetery in the middle of nowhere. Classic Western stuff. Good against evil, white hat against black hat. <\/p>\n But there’s another element and this has to do with Ellen and Jo and, by association, all of the women who try to “get in there” with these guys. Now stick with me here. If you haven’t seen the films I’m about to mention, all I can say is: I beg of you to watch them because you are in for such a treat! They are some of the sexiest films ever made, and most of them were made before 1940. All of them were made by Howard Hawks. <\/p>\n Howard Hawks is my favorite director. <\/p>\n \n \nI’m not sure that any director who has ever lived had such a good run as he had in the late 1930s. He directed, in succession, Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings<\/i> and His Girl Friday<\/i>, back to back. Each one is a legitimate classic, with some of the fastest dialogue ever put onscreen. But even before that he made films that still get played today. Scarface<\/i> is one of the first gangster pictures, so influential that you could say it practically invented American cinema, still deep in its love affair with organized crime. Fabulous film. Twisty sexual brother-sister relationship, dangerous awful men, dark and dirty, Boris Karloff bowling<\/a>, I mean what more can you want. But then came his run in the late 30s, early 40s, that is so dazzling you wonder if someone had spiked his orange juice. After His Girl Friday<\/i>, he gave us Sergeant York, Ball of Fire<\/i> (a favorite of mine), and then, in the mid-40s, he “discovered” Lauren Bacall<\/a>, and gave us To Have and Have Not<\/i> (where Bacall gives one of the best debut performances of all time) and The Big Sleep<\/i>, back to back. Again, these are great films, classics, standards. Bogie and Bacall, blazing up the screen with sexual tension so huge you want to literally die from the pleasure of it. After that came the phenomenal Red River<\/i>, a Western, starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift (in his film debut). The 30s and 40s were the heyday of Howard Hawks, and he did it all: gangster films, screwball comedies, earnest dramas, noirs, action\/adventure films \u2026 In the 50s, he brought us Monkey Business<\/i> (with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes<\/i> (with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe), and the awesome Rio Bravo<\/i>, another Western, but it’s really more just a big rich ensemble piece, with John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, and Angie Dickinson. <\/p>\n
\nWritten by Matt Witten<\/i><\/p>\n
\n— Garcin, “No Exit,” by Jean-Paul Sartre<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWe’ve been prepped properly for Jo to take a larger role. We subconsciously need Sam and Dean to have women in their lives, not just as romantic partners, but friends, colleagues. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n