Kung Fu Hustle ... Culture, Genre and Industry

Kung Fu Hustle ( Stephen Chow, 2004) is a film that is co-written, co-produced, directed by and stars Stephen Chow. The film encourages viewers to reflect upon the past and its present conditions of China , its people and culture, as well as Hong Kong’s cinemas industry. Throughout the film there are scenes that reflect a 1940s Shanghai. Contextually the film also illustrates the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, reflecting the regions political change from being a British colony in its past to a becoming part of the People’s Republic of China. Kung Fu Hustle also parodies many martial art films and genres from both the west, Hollywood and from the east, China. Kung Fu Hustle is a film that can be placed in its cultural , industrial and generic context.

Industrially the film pays homage to the Shaw Brothers studio films and the kung fu genres. On the other hand in terms of the wuxia genre ,the film has references to the wuxia works of The Buddhist Palm (which was a major element plot based on the 1982 martial arts film Ru Lai Shen Zhang (Taylor Wong, 1982) Many classic kung fu films refer to the Buddha Palm as a supernatural mixture of spiritual strength and physical power. Stephen Chow enjoyed a series of films based on the idea of Buddha Palm produced in Hong Kong in the 1960s and reprised by Shaw Brothers in Buddha's Palm (1982). The film alludes directly to the Shaw Brothers studio system in which Chow cast Chang Cheh a martial arts director of that studio era. Most of the characters are portrayed by respected martial artists, kung fu film actors, and Peking Opera performers. Chang Cheh influenced Chows casting choices for the film as he had a favourite which was Dong Zhihua who plays Doughnut. Even the Pig Sty setting is borrowed from the 1973 film The House of 72 Tenants (Chor Yuen,1973) also by the Shaw Brothers studio. Ironically this film beat Bruce Lees Enter The Dragon (Robert Clouse,1973) in 1973 too. The Shanghai setting therefore alludes to the past cinematic world of the Shaw Brothers films.

Kung Fu Hustle is a co-production of the Beijing Film Studio and Hong Kong's Star Overseas and was distributed by Columbia Pictures. Thematically the film does explores the past and present. Evidence to support this comes from the circular narrative that the film employs. Stephen Chow’s character Sing is obsessed with his childhood memory in which he was sold a false Buddhist script. He attempts to saves a girl from school bullies but fails and as a result lives a life of crime as Sing realises that the "good guys never win". With the films multiple references to genres, the film throughout explores the history of cinema from mainland China, Hong Kong and that of Hollywood cinema. A critic had argued that ,"Chow’s passionate embrace of the history of popular film makes quotation more than subliminal but turns it into sublime moments of global integration"(Stephen Teo,2007:129).The kung fu genre, the actors and the parodied films, all provide what Edwin Jurriens calls a "intertextual minefield"(Edwin Jurriens, 2008:308).Audiences are bound to cross these ‘minefields’. This becomes important as it draws audiences from regional, local and global areas, drawing audiences from China, Hong Kong and the west itself. Thus the films engrossment of $100 million worldwide at the box office shows how Kung Fu Hustle was able to draw audience from a local Asian market to a global one, reflecting the concept of ‘Glocalisation’. By referencing the Shaw Brothers Martial art films, this acts as a global approach to draw global audiences. Yet the local aspect that Chow uses is seen through the Columbia Asian division, which works through local taste. Kung Fu Hustle’s place both amongst the plethora of recent transnational martial arts films and within the history of kung fu cinema.

Both Chinese and Hollywood films have significant cultural effect. The films , The Shining (Stanley Kubrick,1980) and most dominantly The Matrix (Wachowski brothers,1999-2003) and A West Side Story( Robert Wise,1961) with the Axe Gang dance paying tribute to this. The film draws on connotation of the western genre with Sing’s character being an outlaw. The film also references The House of 72 Tenants. The landlady in Kung fu Hustle has a cigarette in her mouth yet in 72 Tenants the lady has a toothbrush. It is these visual gags and jokes that pave the way to reading Kung Fu Hustle as a "cinema of attractions"(Edwin Jurriens, 2008:45). However it could be argued that Stephen Chow’s jokes and gags in his film are a result of his personal consciousness wanting to address Hong Kong’s cultural, political and economical issues of both past and present. This ties in with the theory of psychoanalysis. In 1905 Sigmund Freud analysed humour in his book ‘Jokes and Their Relation to The Unconscious’ (Matte,2001:12). Freud’s argument was that jokes surfaced when a persons consciousness allowed forbidden thoughts which society suppresses. This is very much the case with Kung Fu Hustle in which the mass appeal comedy and action is used to hide any political referencing. Stephen Chow hides his political criticism of the lower class people through depicting them as extraordinary people amongst the ordinary. But he is only able to do this through the visual jokes and blends them with the political allusion to the film of The House Of 72 Tenants . However it is also possible to argue that Kung Fu Hustle is just a film that only pays homage to films with no subtext underneath.

Kung Fu Hustle blends the conventions of the Hong Kong martial arts genre and the gangster, western, slapstick genre. However the most significant genre that the film explores is that of the wuxia pian genre. Kung Fu Hustle is indeed a martial arts comedy, but it incorporates many of the conventions of the wuxia genre and in particular urbanises the themes of Jianghu. Instead of having rivers and lakes as settings, the film uses buildings and casinos as a narrative. Furthermore it soon becomes clear that Pig Sty Alley is the home to a number of martial arts masters who have sought to leave Jianghu behind them. The film takes place in Shanghai during the 1940s. Nonetheless this is Shanghai very much like that in Shanghai Noon (Tom Dey,2000), a western comedy shanghai, it is anarchic ruled by the Axe Gang, who previously terrorized Shanghai in the 1972 Shaw Brothers film Boxer From Shantung (Chang Cheh, 1972)and Drunken Master II (Lau Kar-Leung,1994) by Golden Harvest. The character of Sing does not follow the code of xia. He is not a noble or honourable at the start of the film. However by the end of the film he transforms into a xia hero as he defends the landlady, landlord and the Pig Sty alley residents from the beast. The Landlady and Landlord stand for the traditional wuxia hero(ine) who battle the Axe Gang to defend their Pig Sty home. The Axe Gang represent the anti authoritarian mind-sets that make them outlaws as opposed to civilised people in traditional society. They also drive the wuxia pian narrative into final showdown between the protagonist, Sing and his nemesis, the Beast. The history of xia is that of a disruptive social force, defiance against oppression. Kung Fu hustle also depicts the world of Jianghu through portraying both Sing and the Axe gang are outcasts and outlaws and clearly there is no courts of law, they are merely dysfunctional.

The setting of the film is important as it reflects the economical and political issues of China during the 60’s and 90’s. Pig Sty Alley is a reference to the Kowloon walled city of Hong Kong, reflecting Hong Kong’s colonial history. It was caught between a political and legal dispute between the Britain and mainland China before the handover took place in 1997. It is a no mans land ,neither British or Chinese, it is caught between the two powers. Kung Fu Hustle is littered with references to this ‘no mans land’. The film is set in 1940’s Shanghai as it references the economical debate whereby " Shanghai contributing about 10% of the GDP yet the city authorities had little concern to protect the water bodies in its environments"(Seungho Lee,2006:236). Evidence to support this comes from the water ration scene reflecting the severe draughts that Hong Kong went through during the 60’s. On the other hand the film draws on post colonialism in which the Axe gang’s mise en scene and costumes reflect Hong Kong’s modernism as they all wear black business suits and drive cars as opposed to the pig sty alley residents.

Comparisons can be drawn between Kung Fu Hustle and The House Of 72 Tenants film. Both films include the important staircases buildings. The buildings are also used in Kung Fu Hustle as a set, part of a mise-en-scene that acts as a theatrical space and allows Chow/Sing to battle the Axe Gang. Before 72 Tenants the Hong Kong film industry of the 1960s and early 70s was dominated by Mandarin films, produced by the studio of Shaw Brothers with the help of actors and actresses emigrating from Shanghai. However 1973 is celebrated for being the "… year in which no Cantonese pictures were produced, Shaw Brothers, which was still regarded as the king of the Mandarin film studios, took the lead in the revival of Cantonese by making and releasing The house of 72 tenants."(Gary G. Xu, 2007:92).This is complimented further by David Bordwell’s comments that "in 1973 no other films in the local dialect were made". (Bordwell, 2000: 18). This is important to note as this had revived the Cantonese films that Stephen Chow was so used to watching when he was young. The Cantonese comeback also introduced authentic narratives about people who were socially inept and poverty stricken.

In conclusion it is clear that Kung Fu Hustle represent 1940s Shanghai. Steven Chow scatters and literally litters his film with the history of kung fu/ Hong Kong cinema and the wuxia pian themes. Kung Fu Hustle blends the present with the past and the history of cinema into this blockbuster film. The film clearly adheres to the observations made one film critic. They suggested that Kung Fu Hustle is a "intertextual hall of mirrors"(Edwin Jurriens, 2008:304).The film evidently layers reference upon reference from other films, drawing on the history of Hollywood and Hong Kong cinema rather than the history of Southern China for its visual and narrative context. Thus Kung Fu Hustle calls attention and relies on its intertextuality to the martial arts. Sing’s character adheres to the xia hero, he is the conventional martial arts hero at the end of the film. In contrast to the Hollywood films of the Matrix , Kung Fu Hustle combines choreography and special effects to parody CGI. The film also revitalizes the story elements of wuxia culture, exploring the world of Jianghu, Kung Fu Hustle satirizes martial arts films and generically lampoons the association of xia masculinity. The film subverts against the Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee masculine appeals. Pig Sty Alley is full of unlikely martial arts warriors, including a child who has muscles, a cook, landlady and landlord. Its fair to conclude that Kung Fu Hustle was a film that responds to how Hollywood has used both the kung-fu and wuxia genres. The Matrix fight scene is parodied to suggest how Hollywood has incorporated and yielded to the forms of Asian cinema. The film has adapted its comic style for a international audience, has become global through local references. This is all to help the film cross borders, initially is Glocal. Therefore Kung Fu Hustle is a film that that can be placed in its cultural , industrial and generic context.

“To treat these lovelorn films as abstract allegories of Hong Kong’s historical situation risks losing sight of W.Kar wai’s naked feelings about LOVE"

Wong Kar-Wai is a Second Wave director who is linked by his socially engaging attitude to young romance, his commitment to history, and his interest in the identity of Hong Kong as a place that during the years preceding and following the 1997 was handed over to Mainland China. His films often reflect the directors appeal which is “to recognise the past which has formed him but to bend it in the present to face his future, like Hong Kong”(Peter Brunette,2005:45) Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai,1994) In The Mood For Love (Wong Kar-wai,2000) Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai,1997) and Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai,1991) are all lovelorn films that intermingle the characters relationships with the historical situation at the time: the pre and post 1997 handover. Wong Kar Wai films can not be viewed as romantic films without some form of nostalgia of Hong Kong’s historical situation.

Wong Kar Wai films have characters who embody loneliness and this is often paralleled with the way people of Hong Kong were separated from the people in Mainland China and the tensions this had caused during the 80’s. At the time that Chungking Express was being made, Hong Kong was undergoing changes and moving even closer towards the historical moment, its handover to China in 1997. The character of Wu the young cop in the film comments after dumping his girlfriend that “If my memory of her has an expiration date, let it be 10,000 years”. As a result every day he buys a tin of pineapple with an expiration date of the day he ended his relationship. The canned pineapples and romantic relationships share a reciprocal relationship themselves . Therefore this very lovelorn obsession that Wu has with his food and ex girlfriend is an allegory that had been very common among people in Hong Kong during the last few years before 1997: an expiration date was date stamped on the city of Hong Kong. The character of Wu is perplexed when he buys the cans of pineapples. It is as if he is experiencing the colonized cultures of the West. The symbols being music, food and many other products. These symbols appear within a lovelorn environment to highlight the history of Hong Kong. People thought that the day of handover would be the ‘expiration’ of the Hong Kong they were now in. Therefore the people in Chungking Express are uncertain about their love in the same way as Hong Kong citizens were unsure about their future.

Moreover young romance is explored further in the character of Faye in Chungking Express. Faye is a lonely young women who tells the audience in a voiceover that she is isolated from the rest of the crowd and is fearful of relationships; this is most obvious in the bar scene in which she resisted the young cop Wu’s flirtation. People in Hong Kong were just like her when it comes to her attitude towards the people of Mainland China, who were about to be united with them in one nation. People of Hong Kong have by and large high standards of living standards and expectations. Therefore it appears that young romance in Hong Kong was under threat as it was unclear whether they could ever form a relationship with a person from Mainland China, form a relationship with a foreigner. Faye’s uncertainty towards love plays into the hands of her historical situation.

Wong Kar Wai films, some would argue, struggle with issues of representations of sexuality, and culture within a post modern context. His films do however highlight representations of young love. Yet perhaps ironically, at the historical moment the Hong Kong film industry was finding and portraying specifically ‘Hong Kong identity’ and what is was to be a Hong Kongoer as seen in films such as Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau, Alan Mak,2002) and Who Am I (Benny Chan, Jackie Chan,1998). However Happy Together is a film that highlight the theme about young romance, and more so about young sexuality. It appears from the narrative that Wong Kar Wai saw homosexuality as wayward and even foreign. For Hong Kong cinema, the late 80s was also a period of social change signalled by more liberal attitudes towards film censorship and the decriminalisation of homosexuality, confirmed in 1990 through a majority vote in the legislative council. The very narrative of a homosexual relationship compliments Bordwell’s concept that Wong Kar Wai wanted to highlight that this film is more than an abstract allegory to the historical situation at the time, this being the laws passed in 1990. This film is a lovelorn film and it clearly establishes that in the opening scene of the film where they are making love.

Yet on the other hand Wong Kar Wai’s himself can be read as “the allegorist of post-modern urban culture”(David, Harvey,1990:103).Wong Kar wai’s films tend to depict in great detail the lives of Hong Kong residents as they struggle with issues of romantic and domestic love and the search for personal identity. The director very often pairs the themes of young romance with that of the landscape and mise en scene of Hong Kong in his films. The film Happy together is a clear allegory of Hong Kong’s historical situation. It becomes problematic when the film takes the route of a romantic lovelorn narrative yet only achieves this through constantly referencing Hong Kong’s political situation of immigration. The film deals with a couple who come from a pre-handover Hong Kong and they visit Argentina hoping to renew their ailing relationship. Here the director couples images of urban landscapes with the characters search for their identity and romantic journey. The opening shots of the film follow multiple shots of passports. These serve the dual purpose of emphasising travel , the characters romantic and physical journey by the two leads as well as hinting at a concept of identity. Shots of the passports also emphasise the crossing of national boundaries; the political situation at the time. Both characters are British Nationals (Overseas).This acts as a direct reminder of the omnipresence of 1997 for Hong Kong citizens. Therefore Wong Kar Wai uses the urban landscape as a back drop to his characters romantic journey, suggesting that the passports denote their identity, but more the passports denote their sexual identity. Wong thus acknowledges the significance of history, especially for Hong Kong citizens who are constantly in transition, the passports in Happy Together are allegories of the characters sexual and love journey.

The soundtracks that Wong Kar Wai uses in some of his films often reflect the emotional aspect of his narratives but also serve the multiple purpose of addressing Hong Kong

’s past. Days of Being Wild and In The Mood for Love are two films that explore the emotion of love through their soundtracks. The Cantonese language was widely used in both films. Contextually Cantonese was one of the two official languages in Hong Kong; the other being English. There was no Mandarin in either film. For In The Mood for Love this concludes that the language in Hong Kong was not largely influenced by Mainland China in post-1997 Hong Kong. Evidently In The Mood for Love also uses a celebrated traditional 1946 Chinese song. Therefore this shows that Wong implied that Mainland Hong Kong culture was gradually influenced by China after 1997. In terms of lovelorn romance this track was always played when the characters of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung were alone. Ironically western tracks such as the track “I’m in The mood for love” by Nat King Cole was used and ran parallel when the two lovers were together. It appears that Wong Kar Wai does appeal to our feelings about young romance, examining how two individuals bond without actually kissing. He explores intimacy yet once again he is only able to achieve this by alluding to the historical situation at the time. He values the past memories of the day when Hong Kong was colonized by the British. He achieves this by using the track of Hua Yang De Nian Hua which is based on a song by famous singer Zhou Xuan from the Solitary Island period. The 1946 song, used in Wong's film, is a paean to a happy past and an indirect metaphor for the darkness of Japanese-Occupied Shanghai. In his film this track does not symbolise the Japanese Sino war but becomes more a substitute, an allegory for the past memories of the day when Hong Kong was colonized by Britain. Wong preferred to use Nat King Cole’s songs to accompany Chow Mo-Wan and So Lai Chun’s affair, but used the 1946 traditional Chinese song to portray the loneliness of two protagonists. Nat King Cole’s songs romanticized Chow and So’s love affair and seemed to convince them to run away from their respective marriage. Alternatively, traditional Chinese songs were played with an absolutely opposite purpose. These songs always appeared with the scenes that Chow and So missed each other and they were longing to be loved. It may be metaphorical that Wong applied cultural hybridity to present that Hong Kong enjoyed being influenced by Western cultures as well as Mainland Chinese cultures. The Chinese music no doubt reflects post 1997 Hong Kong despite being set in the 60’s. Wong Kar Wai suggests that the characters are happiest when they hear western music because they are comfortable with their way of life. However more significantly is the Chinese music. This music acts as exposition for how people in post 1997 Hong Kong were struggling to form a new relationship themselves with a new Country, Mainland China. It therefore appears that young romance was unable to flourish in a post handover Hong Kong because the Hong Kong residents had to brace themselves for their new allegorical affair with China, as people were unsure how their lives would change once Hong Kong returned to China in 1997. It becomes more about a future relationship between Hong Kong with China then about the characters themselves. Therefore the soundtrack in In The Mood for Love does

lose sight of Wong Kar wai’s naked appeal to our feelings about young romance as it juxtaposes the storyline with Hong Kong’s post handover anxieties.

To conclude its clear that Wong Kai Wai’s films show a desire to contrast a character’s narrow-minded consciousness with wider social repercussions of change, most notably the pre and post 1997 changes to Hong Kong society. The characters of Wong Kar Wai's films have adjusted from worrying over whether to leave Hong Kong or not . This was seen in Happy Together contemplating how they feel about the handover. The characters in Chungking Express feel happy, and through this film the director invites the Hong Kong audience to adopt an optimism about things they cannot control, such as the handover. In the last stressful years before 1997, such a portrait of hope must have brought inspiration for the frightened citizens who were about to experience the biggest political change in their lives. Wong attempts to bond the landscape of his lovelorn outsiders and inevitably as a post modern auteur he is seen in his films delving into melodramatic and romantic moments linking them both to the history and the personal, whether directly or indirectly. Notions of identity and the ever-present fusion between East and West find context in the themes of love, loneliness and alienation no better seen and heard than in the soundtrack of In The Mood for Love in which all these elements pervade his protagonists. Tension between the past and present is linked to desire, memory, time and environment. Happy Together blends the landscape of Hong Kong with objects such as passports to directly question Hong Kongers about their identity and where they will stand following the handover in 1997. Agreeably, “to treat these lovelorn films as abstract allegories of Hong Kong’s historical situation risks losing sight of Wong Kar wai’s naked appeal to our feelings about young romance”. Its clear that on screen we do not see young romance exist independently on screen but rather we witness ‘young romance’ take a form of itself and has paradoxically its own relationship with ‘history’.

National identity and the national History in Cinema...

Rome, Open City (Rossellini Roberto,1945) is a film that interconnects the fates of a number of Romans enduring the last years of the German occupation. At the centre of the film is Don Pietro, a priest who risks his own safety by aiding members of the Resistance against Nazi occupation. The other characters include a communist, Manfredi who is on the run from the secret police and a pregnant young woman Pina. The

narrative is based on the actual events of the real life execution of the resistance priest Don Giuseppe Morosini, in April 1944 and the shooting of a pregnant women by German troops on Rome’s Viale Giulio Cesare. This is a Italian neorealist film which employs hand held camera work, natural lighting all adding to its realist feel. The movie is about Rome and its people, Rome speaks for Italian national identity. Rome Open City develops a more democratic way of telling a story, giving more equal time to a wider array of characters. In comparison The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Fassbinder,1979) was made during the period of the Cold War, the film is clearly a political allegory for the disapproval of the politicians behind the building of the new Germany. We are introduced to a new Germany when the country itself becomes a signifier in its own right from the moment when Hitler’

s portrait comes crashing down at the start. The Marriage of Mario Braun clearly subverts against the notion of the Heimatfilme, the Homeland Film. Both films aim to explore “Historical amnesia” and try to embody national identity and national past of Italy and Germany.

The Marriage Of Maria Braun opens up and ends with a explosion scene. Maria marries Herman during an Allied bombing raid on Berlin in the later stages of World War II. In comparison, the film ends with a house gas explosion in which both Maria and Herman die. Openly love is equated with war. In comparison, the character of Pina in Rome Open City also reflects this notion. Pina

resists the Nazi officers when they seize her yet to be husband Francesco. She runs after him on the open street. To note her resistance is not political but is identified with her natural moral decency, her love for Francesco. These traits establish both Maria and Pina as emblems of Italian and German womanhood and in Rome Open City this is reinforced further by the image of Pina’s dead body on the street where she is. However we could read The Marriage of Maria Braun through a feminist perspective. It could be argued that the character of Maria Braun symbolises the fate of not only German women but women around the world for whom the immediate post war period had brought the kind of autonomy and liberation to. The film alludes to the ‘Trummerfrauen’

the women of the rubble. These women were in the reconstruction period of the late 1940s and 50s and had claimed social benefits. Maria becomes a business women and Pina merely joins the looting of the Bakery. Therefore national identity is closely linked to the struggles of women during the war and post war period.

The Marriage Of Maria Braun employs Brechtian style techniques to highlight how the German families became fragmented and distant following on from the war years. Fassbinder does “not allow his protagonist Maria to embody her part but rather enact her role” (Joyce Rheuban, 1986:253). He distances his audience from the action in the same way he uses the depth of field technique making all his characters in focus in the same shot “visually distancing the characters from one another”(Joyce Rheuban, 1986: 254).This is most evident in the scene in which Maria's husband, thought to be dead, finally arrives home to find Maria with another man.

The film also seems to suggest that post-war German business was one that was built from cold individuals. When Maria goes and visits Herman in prison he senses that she has changed emotional and asks her “ is that how it is between people outside? So cold?”, she responds by saying that, “it’s a hard time now for feelings…”. Fassbinder seems to deny us the opportunity to witness Maria’s feelings. However there are two shots of her running cold water on her wrists , first when she is told that her husband is dead, then later following Oswald’s will. This can be read as symbolic of her tears, her emotion.Therefore the film shows the politics and reconstruction period of the Federal Republic of Germany, showing the decline in human values and showing that they correspond directly to the increase in business success. In comparison the Germans in Rome Open City reflect similar characteristics . In terms of national past, the Germans are represented as people who drink excessively. Importantly one German officer exclaims that, “we can do nothing but kill. We have sown Europe with corpses and hatred blossoms from the graves. Everywhere there’s hatred. We re devoured by hatred, without hope . We shall all perish without hope

”. His attitude on Germany and European history shows that German national past was a dark past.

Rome Open City on the other hand uses the technique of binary oppositions and handheld camera work to highlight Italy’s Fascists opponents. During Nazi raids the camera is situated as a window or on a rooftop as if sneaking in on an illicit peek at what goes on below. This highlights the audiences point of view, we are that of ‘The Resistance’ and the Germans are always clearly ‘the enemy’. As an audience we side with the Italians because the Italians are represented as

good and the Germans as evil. The Italian people are basic people and give comic moments such as when Don Pietro knocks out a sick old man with a pan in order to conceal guns in his bed from the Nazis. The Nazis however are consistently demonised by Rossellini. He uses high angle and long shots to establish the extent of terror the Nazis have against the roman people

. Therefore this film highlight Italy’s national past. The Italians identify with the forces of liberation from fascism in the final days of WW2 and the film even loosely indicates towards a Marxist society in terms of morals not politics.

The soundtrack of both films are important in reflecting national identity and national past. In Rome Open City there is a scene whereby the boys are playing football outside. Sound is important here as we hear a group noise, just like earlier scenes in the Bakery protest where we hear sound off screen. This shows communal joys. The priest Don Pietro is the referee. The blowing of the whistle foreshadows what he did not do towards the end of the film, which was to expose Giorgio’s involvement with the communists. In comparison , The Marriage Of Maria Braun uses the soundtrack to highlight new national beginnings. The film ends with a explosion, we hear a radio presenter excitedly yelling “Germany is master of the world”. Contextually West Germany beat Hungary and won the 1954 World Cup in football. Germany is shown to have regained its standing status in the world by winning the world cup match, showing a fresh new beginning for the country. Therefore both Rome Open City and The Marriage of Maria Braun use the sport of football to convey the message of national unity. For Rome Open City , the priest hands the whistle and the ball to one of the older boys, a symbol that he as the next generation is to take over from him when he departs the football ground : departs his country. In The Marriage of Maria Braun, Maria and Herman depart Germany when they die but they leave Germany in good hands, leaving the country to celebrate its football success but most importantly its National success. Therefore the two films employ soundtrack and images of sport to convey national transition.

Both directors, Fassbinder and

Rossellini, confront the hostility that existed against races, politics and religion. Rome open city shows that Italian national identity was one of a reciprocal relationship between politics and religion. Pina’s character epitomises the resistance of ordinary Italians, a resistance which is linked to her devout Catholic faith through her strong relationship with Don Pietro the priest. She also plans to wed her fiancé Francesco in a church rather than at the local fascist registry office. The joint resistance and heroic death between Manfredi and the Catholic priest Don Pietro show the effective joint venture between communists and Catholics in the actual nationalist resistance. It highlights that the collapse of the fascist state resulted in further divisions within the Italian culture. Further evidence is the proposed marriage of Pina who is a catholic and Francesco who is a communist. In juxtaposition , in The Marriage Of Maria Braun there is a reference to the Nazi prejudice of Jews during the 1940s. When Maria trades a piece of family jewellery for a low cut dress and a bottle of wine, the black market trader wants to sell her the complete collection of Heinrich von Kleist author, she with ease replies with, “Books burn too fast and don’t give enough heat”. Here the book burning refers to Germany’s national past. It clearly refers to the Nazis infamous action against the ‘Un-German Spirit’, against the Jewish and Communist writers in 1933. Therefore Rome Open City explores how the Italian population had rejected Fascisms attempt to forge a national identity: it was fragmented, both religiously and politically. On the other hand The Marriage of Maria Braun reflects how the director

Fassbinder was very concerned about what memories the German people had had about their recent dark national past.The character of Maria can be read as representing Germany’s past. A critic, Jean de baron, suggests that, “the fate of the heroine parallels the fate of Germany, conquered, corrupted and reconstructed. Maria Braun not only symbolises Germany, in Fassbinder’s eyes she is Germany” (Marcia, Landy,2001:190) .The concept of corruption is explored at the end of the film. Maria learns that whilst Herman was in prison he had made a deal with Oswald’s wealth for allowing Oswald to enjoy Maria until his death. Essentially he had agreed to sell Maria to Oswald. This indirectly reflects Germanys national past. Just as Maria’s dream is destroyed , the film implies that the German nation was deceived as well. The West German chancellor, Adenauer, is twice heard on a radio in the background in the film, at first he declares that Germany shall never rearm, then later insists that it is the clear that German must rearm. therefore the German chancellor Adenauer had made a secret deal to rearm Germany. Thus the film addresses the realisation that Germany's post-war prosperity was based on a series of false premises.

However if Maria is seen as representing national womanhood during the post war period then surely the female character can be read as a National emblem, reflecting her country too. The Marriage Of Maria Braun can

be read as an allegory of West Germany. In the film world audiences did not know about how the Germans had felt about defeat and rebuilding. As Douglas Sirk suggests, “ This treatment of a woman who picks herself up from the ashes of a war and national disgrace and becomes an efficient modern business women is a dramatic metaphor for a nation making similar transitions”(Marcia, Landy,2001:210). This is reflected in Maria Braun’s transformations from daughter to wife and from prostitute to business women. She symbolizes the national past of Germany, with the apparent changes from the Weimar Republic, to the

Federal Republic of Germany and from one politician to another : from Hitler to The Adenauer era.

To conclude it is clear that Maria Braun shows how Germany struggled to live in the new Germany. Fassbinder uses a women to comment upon the history of the forties and fifties and especially to critique Germany's ‘Economic Miracle’. Rome Open City endows all those who resist, whether Communist (Francesco, Manfredi ) or Catholic (Don Pietro ). Rossellini is able to encompass the entire nation in his film. As

Geoffrey Nowell Smith helps to put forth, the real heart of the Neorealist movement was that of the ‘resistance film’. Rome Open City is a resistance film against Nazi ideology. The film was shot in

Rome during the Nazi occupation, shot in the still war-torn Roman streets shortly after the Nazi withdrawal, therefore conveying Italy’s present-day more so than its national past. As a result Rome Open city is ‘cinéma vérité’. Accordingly both films represents national identity and past by representing their individual characters to social problematics, through depicting the hopes and struggles of people who were caught up in the material historical world. Equally both films restore some measure of national identity and community.

　

　

　

Representation of male sexuality in Cinema

In the 1980’s a new style of gay and lesbian focused films emerged that came to be termed as the ‘New Queer Cinema’ to distinguish between earlier classical gay and lesbian films. The formula that these films took were to provide pleasure and escapism for gay and lesbian audiences. Another central element of much New Queer Cinema was the re-appropriation and reform of previously negative representations of male and female sexuality. The film Swoon (Tom Kalin,1992) exemplifies the New Queer Cinema’s quest to place male sexuality of the characters at centre stage. The film Swoon is about is about the relationship of two young men which results in the kidnapping and murdering a small child. It recounts the Leopald-Loeb crimes of the 1920’s. However this film was released in 1992 at a time where the Hayes code was loosened in the 1960s and 1970s and onwards which also saw the emergence of the gay rights movement. However in terms of representation, gays and lesbians were becoming more visible and vocal in public life yet disappointingly their representation in films was becoming even more homophobic. An example would be the 1980 film Cruising (William Friedkin,1980) with Al Pacino. The film is about a killer who murders homosexuals and a cop Steve Burns, Al Pacino’s character goes undercover as a gay man in hope to lure the killer to himself. The undercover operation is clearly a examination of the representation of male sexuality: the homosexual world. The representation of male sexuality will therefore be explored in the two films Swoon and Cruising.

Male sexuality in the film Swoon is represented as having a mutual relationship with unlawful acts and sadism. Loeb and Leopold kill Bobby Franks a young 13 year old child in the film. On the other hand the film also represents Loeb and Leopold as guilty criminals who murder the child together as they bound together in love. Leopold’s and Loeb’s sexuality places them both outside the law: their homosexuality exiles them to a world of criminality. It appears that male sexuality is therefore represented as sharing a communal bond with crime and violence. Furthermore , homosexuality appears to represent the exchange of misdeeds for sex. As a critic helps to suggest “Leopold accepted Loeb’s criminality endeavours and received in return opportunities for certain twisted biological satisfactions”(Francis Xavier Busch, 1992:169). The character of Loeb even supports this further in the film when his diary entry give evidence to this truth. The diary entry states that “killing Bobby Franks together will join Richard (Loeb) and I for life” (Tom Kalin,1992). The act of crime for sex can be further explored in the film Deliverance (John Boorman,1972), most notably the infamous male rape scene. The film deliverance contextually is a film about the hillbillies who contextually are often characterized by excessive or deviant sexual behaviour such as rape and sexual violence and therefore “sexual deviance is seen as endemic to the region and its people”( William B. Thesing, 2009:199). Deliverance compares to Swoon’s take on male sexuality as an act of law-breaking, as the hillbillies in this film rape another man in order for sexual gratification and as an act of crime.

Male sexuality is also represented as some form of sexual deviant in the film Swoon and Cruising. Cruising uses montage in one scene to depict how male sexuality is a sexual abnormality. One scene shows a fashion designer being stabbed in a porn movie cubicle. This is edited and juxtaposed with the orgasm of a man getting spanked in the porn film he was watching before his death onscreen. This is then spliced with the fashion designers own death. Therefore the moral of this scene is clear. As a critic helps to put forth, male sexuality is represented as equating “sin with death” (Lewis Jacobs,1968:139).The relationship between Loeb and Leopold is displayed onscreen as one of a married couple. The mise en scene of jewellery and ‘rings’ suggests some sort of binding between the two. According to actual court records , there are reports that Loeb was a “willing partner in crime only because he was offered sexual treatments” (Hal Higdon,1999: 78) Leopold in the film also goes on to say after they exchanged rings earlier that, “I'll do what you want,” and a unconcerned Loeb replies, “And I'll do what you want.” We also watch Loeb, relaxed and smiling in bed, calling out “I suppose you want your payment now” before giving himself in payment for crimes committed after they kill the young child Bobby. Also later, as they prepare to bury and lay to rest the murdered boy Bobby, Leopold stops to kiss Loeb, who at first returns the kiss and then shoves him away. Clearly the positive aspects of male sexuality in terms of love, affection and compassion are represented as a transaction between friendliness and love which ultimately becomes demonised and is represented as corrupted with violence.

An interesting debate during the 1970’s was that American cinema was relentlessly “coding male rape as homosexuality” ( Harry M. Benshoff, 2004:310). In terms of context this draws parallels with the circumstances surrounding the 1970’s and 1980s where it was stereotyped by Tim LaHaye in his book The Unhappy Gays: What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality in which he suggested that “gay men were prone to violence, sadomasochism and rape”(Tim LaHaye,1978:27). However Tim LaHaye comments that rather than equate male sexuality with violence, he argues that homosexual men are “prone to violence”. He therefore argues that male sexuality exists as being exposed to the world of violence , in that gay men are represented as vincible and vulnerable to attacks, most notably homophobic attacks. Yet what becomes challenging with the film Swoon, is that the two male characters are gay men, yet they refuse to be “prone to violence”(Tim LaHaye,1978:ibid). In fact the film completely subverts against this notion and in fact it is male sexuality itself that becomes a form of violence in itself. Loeb and Leopold are not prone to violence in the film but rather the film chooses to represent male sexuality as a resounding protest against the homophobic attitudes of the 1920’s or more significantly the violence towards individuals who shared queer elements. However the film Cruising plays into the hands of Tim LaHaye’s comments on gay men being “prone to violence””(Tim LaHaye,1978:ibid). The film is littered with images of males in leather black outfits. According to context the leather subculture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities. In this film the sexual activity is male sexuality. Cruising rebukes the homosexual men by insisting that in allowing their male sexuality to be displayed by their leather outfits, they automatically take on a sexual representation that depicts them as vulnerable to attacks. Therefore male sexuality is represented as what Sigmund Freud coins as the “death instinct” (James Strachey, 1978:144) which pervades through sexual activity.

The “Death Instinct” ( James Strachey,1978:ibid) is explored further In terms of representation of male sexuality in the film Cruising which deals with this significantly. It is yet another film that draws on the comparison between male sexuality and crime. The film Cruising draws links between New York City’s urban gay scene juxtaposing it with the night life knife crime. It also appears that every time a character on screen engages in some form of a homosexual act whether it be gay sex or images on screen on gay men in leather gear. Whereever we are littered with homosexual icons, a murder would follow suit. An example would be the opening sequence of the film which features gay men . This film also puts forth that male sexuality can only be explored through violence and more importantly through homophobia. When the police cop Steve Burns mistakenly leads the police to investigate the waiter Skip Lee, he is intimidated, beaten, and forced to strip and masturbate in front of other detectives in order to provide them with a semen sample, the evidence they need in their police investigation. Steve Burns is disturbed by this police brutality . This scene confirms that the police are merely motivated by homophobia and therefore male sexuality becomes an undertone in the police force. This film also becomes problematic in terms of its representation of male sexuality because violence appears to out weigh the positive connotations of homosexuality. As one critic helps to explore further, “Gays who protested the making of the film maintained that it would show that when Pacino recognized his attraction to the homosexual world, he would become psychotic and begin to kill” (Vito Russo, 1981:238). Therefore Cruising implies that if one decides to explore homosexual desires, he will be killed or these emotions will be suppressed.

However in terms of spectatorship, both films draw upon what the psychiatrist Edward J. Kempf coined as “Homosexual Panic”(Vito Russo, 1981:200) Both the films Swoon and Cruising display many scenes whereby all we see on screen is two males in homosexual activities or a homosexual environment. In Swoon we have a shot of both the main characters Leopold and Loeb ducking into a corner and kissing onscreen. Leopold removes two rings from his mouth and places one on Loebs finger. In comparison, in the film Cruising the male sexuality that we are displayed with is much more aggressive. We are bombarded with a the character of Skip Lee, the waiter who is being interrogated yet intimidated, beaten, and forced to strip and masturbate in front of four police detectives. In terms of audience and spectatorship , These images of multiple men together on screen leaves a heterosexual male viewer with no one to identify with expect the gay man , and this situation can cause a strong discomfort in some male spectators. This discomfort is paralleled to “Homosexual panic”(Vito Russo, 1981:ibid) a term that refers to someone becoming highly agitated when confronted with his or her own potential homosexual feelings. Therefore when male audiences are confronted with representations of male sexuality on screen, male audiences are forced to react almost with shock to their own possible feelings of homosexuality. Male sexuality is therefore represented as affecting heterosexual spectators, cornering them into a situation where they themselves start to question their own sexuality, male sexuality to be specific.

To conclude gay characters in both the films Swoon and Cruising have been only defined by their sexual orientation, and the characters of Loeb and Leopold lack any complex character development. Swoon briefly touches upon the issue of love and relationships , but they always display acts of love through sexual deviance, exchanging crimes for sex and so forth. Swoon as a film subverts against Hollywood films and tells the story of male sexuality from a male sexuality point of view. The two films also put forward that male sexuality itself is a complex theme, it exists by paralleling acts of crime with sexuality. The gay characters all “function as both villains and frustrations of the heterosexual development” (Richard Dyer,2002:183). In other words , male sexuality corresponds to elements of evil and criminality which are all intertwined. Therefore it becomes impossible to view these two film texts without seeing male sexuality as harmonious, pleasant or even melodious. We will always be bombarded with acts of violence and aggressions towards and from gay males. Male sexuality is only able to exist as either a or a vessel or a act of violence.

　

　

　

The action heroine is always motivated, and her actions justified, by maternal instincts. Do you agree? I DOUBT IT!

Within the traditionally male action genre there have always existed the subgenre of the "action heroine" . Some suggest that the action heroine s really just a "man in women’s clothing not a gender-bender , but a cross dresser" ( Clover, Carol.1993 :27). The films The Long Kiss Goodnight (Renny Harlin,1996), Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino,2003-4) , Mr and Mrs Smith (Simon Kinberg,2005) Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) and The Terminator (James Cameron,1989) all argue that the maternal instincts and motherly nature of the these female characters are only present in the narratives to these films to legitimize their extreme use of violence. These action heroines are certainly provided with maternal motives so that their goal and objective in their aggressiveness is framed as mothering. Even the names of these heroines in the action genre are challenging, Lady Lara croft, Charlie Angle, Beatrix kiddo. The names here function symbolically to weaken them and to demonstrate their subordinate place within the conventional system . Yet by juxtaposing their feminine names with their aggression they subvert against notion of patriarchy. In this way the action heroine is shackled to conventional ideals of femininity such as maternal instincts, despite the fact that she takes on the guise of the traditional male warrior, with the use of guns and swords.

The heroine in the film The Long Kiss Goodnight continuously battles with her maternal instincts. Its also important to look at the transformation of heroine to mother and mother to heroine. To explain how Samantha became Charley the subject of the daughter is used. As her alter ego Samantha, she devotes herself to daughter Caitlin but as Charley she at first ignores the Childs well being and even states that "Samantha had a kid, not I". By the end of the film Charley is driven by her maternal instincts and rescues the her daughter. The closing credits compliment this point further. The credits accompany a song that personifies her maternal instincts to save her child. The song that plays is called Woman (Neneh Cherry,1997). However it is the lyrics of "to save my child I’d rather go hungry"(Neneh Cherry,1997) that strike importance. When the song is juxtaposed with the film itself, the lyrics of this song clearly suggest that maternal devotion can overcome the resistance of even a tough female and therefore the action heroine in this film is motivated by her maternal instincts. Furthermore The Long Kiss Goodnight also draws on the images of castration and family. Guns are used in the film to masquerade the females maternal instincts. Charley even contemplates "Who am I?" whilst stroking her gun, "Am I a woman or am I a man?" This scene can be juxtaposed with when Charley looks at her family through a gun. These two conflicting scenes suggest that as a action heroine she is divided between killing and caring and even the soft music in these two scene signal the return of maternal feelings.

Many films show the heroines in motherly situations in Kill Bill and The Terminator.These motherly situations remind viewers that powerful women and despite being in a traditionally male genre they are still women. However is could be argued that the action heroine will always be motivated by her maternal instincts but she will always channel this through identification with the "male" action hero and his masculine characteristics. This is supported further by psychoanalysis. Freud pointed out that the female "borrows her masculine attributes and characteristics from the man" (Strachey, James,1978 :179) because his motivations are hidden within her maternal instincts and therefore her motivations. The character of Vasquez in the film Aliens is deliberately compared to her male marines and scenes consist of her physical strength and authority. As she performs a series of chin-ups, the vulgar Hicks yells ,"Hey, Vasquez! You ever been mistaken for a man?", "No," she retorts, "have you?". This scene perfectly illustrates that the film self-consciously rejects gender difference. Lieutenant Vasquez character subvert against the notion that the action heroine is motivated by maternal instincts. She clearly is not.

As a result it is the female stock characters that are not motivated by maternal instincts but the female protagonists are maternalized: The Bride (Kill Bill) and Sarah Connor (Terminator) both fight antagonistically because of their children. Even the Alien franchise’s iconic Ripley, though childless, is maternalized throughout the films be it through emotional adoption of Newt or unplanned pregnancy where she herself is harbouring a alien inside her. Therefore the character of Ripley is motivated by maternal instincts but only because the film turns Ripley into a good mother by confronting her with a bad mother, the deadly alien queen. The Terminator and character of Sarah Connor also shows the binary opposites of bad/good mother. However unlike Ripley, Sarah Connor in the second film emotionally abandons her son in preparation for the war against the terminators. However it could be argued that Ripley also abandons her biological daughter although not intentionally as she wakes up from space coma. Therefore I would argue that action heroines are motivated by maternal instincts but only by exposing the binaries of the good/bad mother. The action heroines transform from bad mothers to good and they channel this maternal journey to motivate them to kill and fight the "bad guys".

Therefore maternity is a theme that runs through many of the action female heroine. Effectively the entire Alien film is about two mothers battling each other in order to protect their children. Ripley’s daughter has grown-up and died whilst she’s been lost in the escape pod, she projects her maternal instincts onto Newt. Newt even calls Ripley "mommy" at one stage when she is terrified about the impending threat of death. Ripley behaves like a mother does, protecting Newt and against all odds rescuing her from certain death on more than one occasion. When the marines are initially captured by the aliens for cocooning, Ripley opposes the remaining marines from launching a rescue mission because they "can’t save them", however later when Newt is captured for cocooning Ripley hypocritically risks the male characters of Bishop and Hick’s lives to save her. Therefore the rational side of Ripley is overwhelmed by the maternal instinct.

The action heroine can also be present in The Queen Mother in the film Alien. The Queen effectively gives birth to every alien on the colony. She shows protective impulses at the end when Ripley threatens her eggs with a flame thrower and she is enraged into attack when Ripley decides to kill all of her young ones. Thus even the antagonists in the film Alien are motivated by maternal instincts. Although the alien Queen is a good mother, for her own offspring she uses her maternal power to impregnate and kill another race, in other words , humans.

As is well known, in Alien Ripley was originally written to be a man and the transition to female was as simple as changing "he" to "she" and "his" to "her" in the shooting script, even Ripley’s first name is not revealed until the sequel. Now as a mother as well as a hero we can truly see her as a female action hero.

The character of Beatrix in the film Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2 draws attention to the problematics surrounding the action heroine and her motives. Her character blends temper toughness with maternal motivation. The female heroes in these films are kept isolated from other women because their loyalty resided ultimately with children’s well being. However there is a scene whereby Beatrix kills Vernita then her four-year-old daughter arrives. This scene shows highlights Beatrix’s killer instincts. It also appears that here the action heroine embodies both the maternal and fighter instincts and these two are fused together and therefore become inseparable.

When Beatrix finally finds Bill, he questions her actions and stresses that her instincts as a fighter somehow overrule whatever maternal instincts she may possess. When Bill questions Beatrix’s decision to leave him and settle down to raise their daughter, she says that she made her decision for the safety of her child, "I had to choose… I chose her" However ,Bill states that Beatrix is a cold killer at heart and it is deep-seated in her. Beatrix supports this notion and admits that killing all of those people to get to Bill felt "damn good", which somewhat supports Bill’s notion that she is motivated by her killer instincts than her maternal ones. However, once again we are being drawn back to whether Beatrix was driven by her maternal instincts, she even declares, "It was the right decision and I made it for my daughter". Bill replies, "I think you would have been a wonderful mother, but you are a killer". Here the character Bill juxtaposes both the words ‘mother’ and ‘killer’ clearly highlighting that the action heroine’s killer instincts are stronger than her maternal instincts yet Beatrix’s cold and brutal violence is balanced by her love and affection toward her daughter, which suggests that it is possible for a woman to embody both killer and maternal instincts and therefore an action heroine is not just singularly motivated by maternal instincts but rather by both killer and motherly instincts.

Another interesting film to note it Mr and Mrs Smith , more importantly Angelina Jollies’ character. The film is void of children and maternity yet it still shows how women are not necessarily motivated by maternal instincts. The scene whereby Jane and her female entourage rummage through her house destroying her belongings is significant. The employees come across a DVD of John and Jane’s marriage. Jane’s character rejects the images she sees on screen and rather battles with her feminine instincts as after a whiles thought she switches the video off abruptly. The act of her turning the T.V off suggests that as a action heroine she makes a conscious decision to marry her job rather than to commit herself to a full time job of marriage. Therefore Mrs Jane as a female heroine refuses to be motivated by maternal instincts and even goes on to imply that Marriage is not a prerequisite for having children.

In conclusion it is clear that films such as Kill Bill, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Terminator , Mr and Mrs Smith and Aliens all include female characters in the same roles as men. As a action heroine the characters as themselves all unite two genders, they may be in the same genre as the male hero, but they are each not given the same narrative in which to play out their heroine quests. However when a women becomes the action heroine, her story is told in two stories at the same time. The first story is what motivates her to kill and act "masculine" and the other is the "feminine" world that she is surrounded in therefore flooded us with the fact that very

"few action heroines can wholly escape maternal imagery". Thus the films of Alien, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Terminator and Kill Bill all seem at a loss to deal with female perpetrated acts of maternity without labelling them maternal. All these films embody motherhood themes to motivate and justify the unfeminine aggression that all these females seem to possess. To conclude not all action heroines are motivated by maternal instincts but rather it is more close to the fact that the "cultural environment that we live in today has become more receptive to female characters on screen, demanding power within their narrative worlds"(Yvonne Tasker,1993:38). For that reason these action heroines all have a set of motivations and aspirations beyond those of motherhood.