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Film-Philosophy14.1 2010

Film-Philosophy| ISSN: 1466-4615 310

Visions and Revisions: Hollywoods AlternativeWorlds

Review: James Walters (2008) Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema:Resonance Between Realms. Bristol: Intellect.

David SterrittLong Island University

Near the beginning of Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema: Resonance

Between Realms, media scholar James Walters cites the observation by film-

philosopher Stanley Cavell that Hollywood movies have always had a taste

for contrasting worlds of the everyday with worlds of the imaginary, which

Cavell sees as playing on the two primordial possibilities of film, realism and

fantasy (10; Cavell 2005, 345). This statement covers an enormous amount

of film-historical ground, and Walters takes it as an invitation to consider

the vast array of contrasting-world movies as a metagenre that can be

systematically organized and analyzed. Setting to work, he elaborates on the

notion of cinematic worlds via assorted film-theoretical concepts. One

starting point is Edward Branigans idea that a narrative films visual and

aural components are experienced in two ways: virtually unshaped on a

screen as well as apparently moving within, reflecting and issuing from, a

world which contains solid objects making sounds (17; Branigan 1992, 33).

Another is V.F. Perkinss contention that the relationships between realityand illusion, object and image in narrative cinema derive their complexity

from every films need to forge a synthesis that both records what has been

created and creates by its manner of recording (20-1; Perkins 1993, 61-2).

Still another is David Bordwells account of the forking path or what-if

story, which aims to create resonance between one world and another,

reversing or revising key details in order to communicate the weight and

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purpose of certain decisions and directions, as Walters paraphrases it (34-5).

Other antecedents cited by Walters include Peter Wollens description of the

multiple-diegesis movie, la Jean-Luc Godard, and Jane Feuers work on

dream worlds and dream stages in the Hollywood musical.

Walterss survey has two appealing features. One is its way of putting

theoretical ideas into play with one another, as when Branigans concern

with the three-dimensional depthof the cinematic world is contrasted with

Cavells explication of an implied world extending beyond the cameras

scope (17). The other stems from Walterss wish not to engage in theory for

theorys sake but rather to study how alternative movie-worlds can matter

in specific and distinctive ways, exploring questions of individual self-

awareness and fluctuating self-identity (13) that affect us in the audience aswell as characters in the films. This part of the book also has two

weaknesses, however. Not all of the ideas Walters cites are equally pertinent

to the films he goes on to examine none of them has much (or anything) in

common with Wollens counter-cinema paradigm, for instance and some

of his conclusions are rather obvious, as when he deduces that the world in

film is a complex amalgamation of real and fantasized elements, but

crucially the existence of both does not compromise our definition of the

fictional world as a world (25). True enough, but hardly a revelation.

Having set up his theoretical framework, Walters goes on to deploy his

tripartite scheme for classifying alternative-world movies. Films in Category

1 present Imagined Worlds, dreamed or hallucinated by characters who

otherwise dwell in familiar-seeming environments; those in Category 2

present Potential Worlds, transformed or distorted versions of the characters

usual milieus; and films in Category 3 present Other Worlds, wholly different

from and discontinuous with the characters normal habitations. The book

introduces each category with a chapter using several f ilms as examples, and

then probes the classification more deeply in extended analyses of two or

three movies. In one of his most successful strokes, Walters opens his

investigation of Imagined Worlds with Let Me Dream Again, a 1900

comedy by British filmmaker George Albert Smith wherein a man makes

movie-style love to a frisky young woman in what appears to be his living

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room, and then after a moment when the image slips out of focus

abruptly finds himself in bed, attired in a nightshirt, and accompanied not by

the young playmate but by an older, less attractive female that we take to

be the mans wife, as Walters puts it (44). Along with subsequent examples

ranging from the film-within-a-film in Sherlock Jr.(Buster Keaton, 1924) to

the Salvador Dal sequence in Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945), Smiths

antic dream-movie provides an apt introduction to the extended close

analyses that follow.

These analyses focus on The Wizard of Oz(Victor Fleming, 1939) and

The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944), which exemplify how two

movies can seem diametrically different at first glance but reveal uncanny

resemblances when even briefly examined.1

They also shore up Walterss

thesis that effective Imagined World movies are those where the worlds

inflect and resonate with one another in epistemologically and

psychologically meaningful ways. Judy Garlands Dorothy and Edward G.

Robinsons Dr. Wanley both hail from colourless environments an

unexciting Kansas farm for her, a monotonous professorship (assistant! at his

age!) for him and both fall into dreams, one of Oz and one of murder, that

carry the force of reality while theyre unfolding and leave the dreamers

with (normative, obedience-inducing) life lessons after theyve faded.

Walters unpacks the films similarities in useful and sometimes creative ways,

closing with the accurate observation that these characters have always

been ill-suited to the waking worlds in which they actually live, and that

whatever forms their lives might take in the future, neither film has

givenmuch hope to build upon (77). He then applies his Imagined World

model to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004),

showing that the model is flexible enough to illuminate a movie that, unlikethe Lang and Fleming films, makes the characters and audience continually

aware that much of the action is occurring within the protagonists

hyperactive, and acutely imperilled, mind.

1Or maybe not so uncanny; see Langs masterly The Testament of Dr. Mabuse(DasTestament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933) for evidence of his interest in L. Frank Baumspopular Oz fantasy six years before Flemings film appeared.

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Next up is the discussion of Potential Worlds, beginning with brief

considerations of several relevant films including Donnie Darko (Richard

Kelly, 2001), Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985), and The Last

Temptation of Christ(Martin Scorsese, 1988); pointing to the next chapter,

about Its a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946), Walters reinforces his

theme of resonating realms by quoting a newspaper critic who likened

Scorseses biblical epic to an upside-down version of Capras depression epic.

The expansive analyses of Its a Wonderful Life and Groundhog Day

(Harold Ramis, 1993) flesh out the concept of Potential World films, in

which protagonists enter different versions of their usual environments; of

Walterss three categories, this is the one most directly in sync with the word

alternative in the books title. I also find it the most artistically compelling,

since the movies it subsumes generally avoid the easiest narrative tricks, such

as dream sequences, and it is the most philosophically rich as well, offering

fertile territory for the explorations of identity and consciousness that

Walters wants to highlight. This said, his analyses of the Capra and Ramis

films have pretty much the same outcome, finding their carefully detailed

alternative worlds to be mechanisms for little more than educating anduplifting the protagonist, leading in Capras drama to Georges rescue and

resurrection and in Ramiss comedy to an unexpected reinvention of Phils

life, to quote the final words of their respective chapters. Its too bad that

the interpretive energy of Walterss close readings do not bring about more

original conclusions. A discussion of the problem of other minds, the

philosophical topic raised by every frame of Groundhog Day and very

germane to the concept of alternative worlds, would have been welcome

too.

Other Worlds are just that worlds entirely apart from the characters

habitual surroundings and Walters efficiently sets the scene with concise

treatments of such films as The Others (Alejandro Amenbar, 2001), A

Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven, Michael Powell and

Emeric Pressburger, 1946), and The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen,

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1985); the most intriguing are Flatliners (Joel Schumacher, 1990), not a

great movie but a fascinating conceit, and Langs 1934 version of Liliom,

which Walters could (and should its a missed opportunity) have compared

with Frank Borzages astonishing 1930 version. The chapter-length analyses

that follow are devoted to Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954) and

Pleasantville(Gary Ross, 1998), which certainly present Other Worlds but

hold little narrative or cinematic interest in themselves. In the books

conclusion, Walters reiterates his desire to present readings that support the

value of his chosen films as works of fantasy which are pertinent to the

human condition in ways both complex and profound (213). My critical

judgements arent necessarily more valid than his, but nothing in Walterss

extended studies of Minnellis flat, laboured musical and Rosssinconsequential teen-pic persuaded me that complexity and profundity are

afoot. This would be a better book if its primary objects of study were works

of more aesthetic and philosophical substance.2

I also wish Walters had incorporated the philosophical notion of

possible (and incompossible) worlds in his discussion; the Imagined,

Potential, and Other Worlds that he identifies, classifies, and scrutinises have

powerful resonances with ontological and epistemological issues linked to

the legacy of Gottfried Leibniz, and philosophically informed reference to

the polyvalent interrelationships among actual, virtual, possible, potential,

necessary and their discursive kin could have broadened and deepened his

project in many ways. Missing too is a discussion of the connections between

Walterss alternative-world schema and the ever-expanding domain of

virtual reality; the book is fundamentally aboutthe virtual realities cooked

2 If ever Walters decides to expand further on alternative worlds, perhaps looking

beyond Hollywood, my suggestions would include Vampyr Der Traum des AllanGrey (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1932), When Worlds Collide (Rudolph Mat, 1951),2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Hot Tomorrows (Martin Brest,1977), Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) for its terrifying final scene, Jacobs Ladder(Adrian Lyne, 1990), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1998)because drug experience should surely play a part in this discourse, MulhollandDr.(David Lynch, 2001) for its unprecedented spin on dream-world aesthetics, theMatrix trilogy (Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, 1999-2003), for a longlist of reasons, and 25 th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002) for its sublime and visionaryending.

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up by an industry whose technical armamentarium and means of distribution

grow exponentially from year to year, and while Walters has every right to

focus his energies on Hollywood theatrical films, his avoidance of even

glancing remarks about such topics as digital imaging, interactive

telecommunications, and the teeming realms of cyberspace is regrettable.

These matters aside, I find James Walterss alternative-world paradigm

to be useful as an analytical tool and valuable as a springboard to further

discussion along the lines he has imaginatively opened up. There is one more

problem with the volume, however, and its a major one for me, although

some readers (not too many, I pray) may find it just a quibble. Much of the

book is badly written not badly in the sense of pretentious or jargon-ridden

or obscure, but badly in the sense of frequently displaying an insecure graspof the English language. Intellect Books must share the blame; still, a

scholarly author should be able to steer clear of malapropisms, solecisms, and

the like. The phrase being as is not an acceptable substitute for since (49);

one follows the regimens of everyday existence, not the regiments thereof

(213); using gender-neutral language is well and good, but when youre

referring to a male character played by a male actor, its well and good to

write the character himself, not the character themselves (34); an element

of mise-en-scne might distract, not detract, our attention from what the

characters are doing (63); the pronouns he and him are not

interchangeable (passim); ditto for she and her (passim); in the phrase

concert-standard pianoforte (35), the hyphenated words constitute an

adjective, not a verb, and while some people may still say pianoforte, they

probably arent referring to Bill Murray tickling the ivories in Groundhog

Day . Et cetera. Errors like these detract from the books persuasive power,

and its best ideas are too interesting to warrant such slipshod prose. I

respectfully suggest that all involved with producing Alternative Worlds in

Hollywood Cinemafine-tune their future projects with more care. They and

their readers will be much better served.

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Bibliography

Branigan, Edward. (1992) Narrative Comprehension and Film. London:Routledge.

Cavell, Stanley (2005) The Good of Film in Cavell on Film. Ed. WilliamRothman. New York: State University of New York Press, 333-348.

Perkins, V.F. (1993) Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies. NewYork: Da Capo Press.

Filmography

Allen, Woody (1985) The Purple Rose of Cairo. USA.

Amenbar,Alejandro (2001). The Others. USA/Spain/France/Italy.

Borzage, Frank (1930) Liliom. USA.

Brest, Martin (1977) Hot Tomorrows. USA.

Capra, Frank (1946) Its a Wonderful Life. USA.

Dreyer, Carl Th. (1932) Vampyr Der Traum des Allan Grey .France/Germany.

Fleming,Victor (1939)The Wizard of Oz. USA.

Gilliam, Terry (1985) Brazil. UK.

Gilliam, Terry (1998) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. USA.

Gondry, Michel (2004) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. USA.

Hitchcock.Alfred (1945) Spellbound. USA.

Keaton,Buster (1924) Sherlock Jr.USA.

Kelly, Richard (2001) Donnie Darko. USA.

Kubrick, Stanley (1968) 2001: A Space Odyssey. UK/USA.

Lang, Fritz (1933) The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr.Mabuse). Germany

Lang, Fritz (1934) Liliom. France.

Lang, Fritz (1944) The Woman in the Window. USA.

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Lee, Spike (2002) 25thHour. USA.

Lynch, David (2001) Mulholland Dr.France/USA.

Lyne, Adrian (1990)Jacobs Ladder. USA.

Mat, Rudolph (1951) When Worlds Collide. USA.

Minnelli, Vincente (1954) Brigadoon. USA.

Powell, Michael, and Emeric Pressburger(1946) A Matter of Life and Death(Stairway to Heaven). UK.

Ramis, Harold (1993) Groundhog Day. USA.

Ross, Gary (1998) Pleasantville. USA.

Schumacher, Joel (1990) Flatliners. USA.

Scorsese, Martin (1988) The Last Temptation of Christ. USA.

Smith, George Albert (1900) Let Me Dream Again. UK.

Wachowski, Andy and Larry Wachowski (1999) The Matrix. USA.

Wachowski, Andy and Larry Wachowski (2003) The Matrix Reloaded.USA.

Wachowski, Andy and Larry Wachowski (2003) The Matrix Revolutions.

USA.

Zemeckis, Robert (1985) Back to the Future. USA.

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