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Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
Dr. David Lavery
Fall 2014
PH 322, M 600-900
What precisely did Whedon take away
from Wesleyan? After making an obscure
reference in an interview to Deep Rising
(Stephen Sommers, 1998), Whedon
acknowledges, “Yes, I'm quoting a Stephen
Sommers movie—my knowledge of fim is
that deep” (IGN-Film Force). With the help
of the film studies auteur’s DVD
commentaries and interviews we get a
sense of just how deep. Not all the
cinematic intertexts detailed below date
back to Whedon’s film education, but his
signature importation of theme and
technique from film history into his
(mainly) television art had its beginnings in
Wesleyan classrooms.
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
At the outset of his commentary on
“Innocence” (2.14), Whedon
acknowledges that every aspiring
television director thinks of his work,
however, minor it may be, as equal in
weight and importance to Citizen Kane
(Orson Welles, 1941)—which, should
we have forgotten, he describes as a
“black and white film about a bald
guy.”
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The clash in the Buffy opening theme
music, in which the drone of an organ,
a staple of horror movie music, is
replaced by rock and roll, was
intended to signal that Buffy would
not play by the rules of the traditional
horror film. This collision is echoed, as
Whedon also points out, in the
frequent altercations between Giles,
whose generic roots are in the Van
Helsings of British horror, and Buffy.
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The backward head-butt Buffy uses in
the showdown with Luke in The
Bronze (in “The Harvest,” BtVSS 1.2)
was inspired by Abel Ferrara’s China
Girl (1987).
Describing the final showdown with
The Judge in the shopping mall in
“Innocence,” Whedon acknowledges
that the slow-motion violence of the
scene is his “incredibly low budget
attempt” to “do Peckinpah.”
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
As Drusilla and Angelus flee from the
oncoming rocket Buffy uses to destroy
The Judge, Whedon admits his
indebtedness to a similarly
choreographed scene in Luc Besson’s
The Professional (aka Leon, 1994)
(“Innocence”).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
With images from Blue Velvet in
mind, Whedon describes the sex
scene between Buffy and Angel
in “Innocence” as Lynchian.
Discussing his love of long takes
(“one-ers”), he cites the
influence of French New Wave
director [Max] Ophüls and
American auteur Woody Allen.
And he seeks to distinguish his
intention in using them from the
style of “Brian DePalma-seehow-far-I-can-take-mysteadicam-before-I-run-out-offilm” (“Innocence”).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
In Whedon’s eyes, the three-way
standoff in “Innocence” between
Xander and Jenny Callendar, Angelus
(holding Willow captive), and Buffy
(the scene in which Angelus first
reveals himself without a soul to the
Scoobies) evokes the style of a
gunfight in a western (the films of
Spaghetti-Western master Sergio
Leone are alluded to). In the same
scene, the shot of Angelus in vamp
face standing in shadow, not quite
visible, in the school doorway recalls
for Whedon the Joker's first
appearance before Boss Grissom in
Tim Burton's Batman (1989).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
Emphasizing his view that a horror
narrative should abide by its own rules
and exhibit internal consistency,
Whedon speaks sarcastically of the
scene in Blade (Steven Norrington,
1998) in which vampire Deacon Frost
is able to walk in sunlight thanks to his
use of a special sunscreen (“The
Harvest”).*
“Restless” (BtVS 4.22) has several
shots that are The Limey-ish (Steven
Soderberg, 1999), and Buffy’s mom in
the wall was suggested by Orson
Welles’ The Trial (1962).
______
* With great embarrassment Whedon points
out a few moments—the scene in “The
Harvest,” for example, in which Angel is clearly
standing in sunlight—in which Buffy
unintentionally violates its own rules.
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The one-er that follows the doctor from
the morgue to his meeting with the
Scoobies in “The Body” (5.16), Whedon
acknowledges, was “borrowed” from Paul
Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999):
“What can I say?” Whedon confesses on
the DVD. “I’m a hack.” Moments later, a
wide-angle shot, “where everything is a bit
too big, wide, and harsh,” evokes Stanley
Kubrick.
Kubrick would be on Whedon’s mind as
well in recollecting the filming of The Cabin
in the Woods (directed by Drew Goddard):
“We had been in the woods—we actually
shot the cabin stuff first—and then to
bring them to this stark, white Kubrickesque place was so startling” (CW: OVC
36). Whedon is probably thinking of the
Ludovico labs in A Clockwork Orange
(1971) or perhaps the space station in
2001 (1968).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
Buffy’s in-a-cemetery rendition of
“Going Through the Motions” in “Once
More with Feeling” was an homage to
the “I Want” songs in Disney/Howard
Ashman-Alan Menken musicals (Little
Mermaid [Ron Clements and John
Musker, 1989],* Beauty and the Beast
[Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991]).
Spike’s number, “Rest in Peace,” on
the other hand, was inspired by both
Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)
and West Side Story (Robert Wise,
1961).
_____________
*Whedon laments to Jim Kozak that “the
animated musical died with Howard
Ashman” (JWC 92).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The tone of “Doublemeat Palace” (BtVS
6.12) was suggested by Parents (Bob
Balaban, 1989), which Whedon made
screenwriter Jane Espenson watch
(Kaveney, “Writing the Vampire Slayer”
114).
That early slow-mo of Angel walking
toward the camera in “City of” (Angel
1.1)—John Woo indebted.
Whedon had asked Russ Berryman, DP
on Angel, to light the confrontation
between Gunn and Wesley in “Spin the
Bottle” (Angel 4.6) to make Angel
Investigations’ “muscle” look like
Michael Corleone in Godfather III
(Francis Ford Coppola, 1990).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The “Moulin Rougeiness” and “almost
mannered” stylization of “Waiting in
the Wings” is an amalgam of Vincent
Minnelli, Bazz Luhrman, and Douglas
Sirk (Angel 3.13).
The second fight outside “The Well” in
“A Hole in the World” (Angel 5.15)
would use a “45 shutter thing”
indebted to both Gladiator (Ridley
Scott, 2000) and Saving Private Ryan
(Steven Spielberg, 1998). (He also
acknowledges a possible dept in the
name of “The Well” to the “Well of
Souls” in Raiders of the Lost Ark
(Spielberg, 1981). Oh, and a shot of
Wesley and Fred at the beginning of
the 4th act elicits an unexplained
“Ingmar Bergman” from Whedon.
Special Topics in Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) was a
major template for Firefly, though at
the urging of Fox to amp-up the action
and the gunplay it became more like
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
(Firefly: The Official Companion 6).
The cgi zoom-in on Serenity at the end
of the Reaver chase (Firefly, “Serenity,”
1.2) would have been perhaps the first
use of the technique—if Star Wars:
Attack of the Clones (George Lucas,
2002) hadn’t been screened first, a
fact that, Whedon admits, “pissed”
him off.
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
(Robert Altman, 1971) and Die
Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)
influenced the look of the ship
in “Serenity,” Part I.
The character of the bounty
hunter Jubal Early in “Objects
in Space” (Firefly 1.10) was in
part inspired by Vann Siegert
(Owen Wilson) in Minus Man
(Hampton Fancher, 1999).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The Operative in Serenity was strongly influenced by Bill the
Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis) in The Gangs of New York
(Martin Scorsese, 2002), while Mal was indebted to John
Wayne in The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). (On another
occasion Whedon would praise Nathan Fillion’s ability to go
“from Harrison Ford to Franklin Prangborn on a very thin
dime”* [Serenity 16].)
_______
*Franklin Pangborn (1889-1958) was a
great American character actor, who
usually played fussy or officious
characters in films like W.C. Fields’ The
Bank Dick (1940) and Preston Sturges’
Sullivan’s Travels (1941).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
The Operative in Serenity was strongly
influenced by Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day
Lewis) in The Gangs of New York (Martin
Scorsese, 2002), while Mal was indebted to
John Wayne in The Searchers (John Ford,
1956). (On another occasion Whedon would
praise Nathan Fillion’s ability to go “from
Harrison Ford to Franklin Prangborn on a very
thin dime”* [Serenity 16].)
To help think through his concern in Serenity
that “Mal’s in a Western and River’s in a
noir,” Whedon consulted “noir westerns”
recommended by Jeanine Basinger: Pursued
(Raoul Walsh, 1947), The Furies (Anthony
Mann, 1950), Johnny Guitar.
____
*Franklin Pangborn (1889-1958) was a great
American character actor, who usually played fussy
or officious characters in films like W.C. Fields’ The
Bank Dick (1940) and Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s
Travels (1941).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
River’s triggered explosion in The
Maidenhead in Serenity Whedon
thought of as “Robert Altman’s The
Matrix” (Serenity 32).
We know, thanks to a series of rapid
questions to Whedon (“Joss Answers
100 Questions,” the CHUD interview),
Whedon’s favorite Western: Once
Upon a Time in the West (Leone,
1968); his favorite science fiction film:
The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers,
1999); number one musical: The Band
Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953); alltime favorite movie: also The Matrix—
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
Despite everything that’s happened
after” (Topel, CHUD Interview); and
last movie seen in a theatre (at the
time of the interview): Punch Drunk
Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002).
We know that “The Coen Brothers
[Joel and Ethan Coen] still continue to
amaze [Whedon] on a regular basis”
and that he will “watch anything David
Fincher shoots”—“he’s one of the few
nonwriting directors who really excites
me” (JWC 34-41).
_____________
* “An all time favorite movie? For a long time it
was a dead heat between The Bad and the
Beautiful and Once Upon a Time in the West, but
at the end of the day, my favorite movie is still
The Matrix” (Topel, CHUD Interview).
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
We know the Cabin in the Woodsinfluencing horror films he watched
before and after his college years. (See
the section on Cabin in Chapter 12.)
As Ensley Guffey demonstrates in his
essay on The Avengers in the Joss
Whedon Reader, the director’s
blockbuster is at heart a war movie
greatly indebted to Professor
Basinger’s The World War II Combat
Film: Anatomy of a Genre.
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan
And we know the filmmaker whose
“respect” he would welcome the most:
Actually, the person that has plagued
me has been Spielberg because I keep
like seeing bits of Minority Report
[2002], Catch Me If You Can [2002],
whatever he’s doing and I’ll come in the
next day and be a wreck. It’s like I’ll
watch five minutes of it and like every
shot was sexy, every shot was useful.
I’m a hack. I’m nothing. Somebody kill
me. Wait, I’ve rethought this whole
scene and it’s going to be totally wrong
now. I don’t look at his stuff anymore.
He’s just bugging me. He’s someone I
think everything he’s done is totally
fascinating. (Topel, CHUD Interview)
Special Topics in
Film Studies: Joss
Whedon
What Whedon Learned at Wesleyan