The English Renaissance pastoral might be better understood within a context of the rich literary traditions which preceded it; in the real world, a literary genre never springs forth fully developed like Venus in the half shell.  The development of a literary genre requires the complex process of evolution, with each step in that evolution entirely dependent upon what has come before.  To remove a genre such as the English Renaissance pastoral from its place within the context of history severely compromises our ability to understand that genre and its manifestation at any particular stage of its development.

Current literary scholarship routinely attaches the English Renaissance pastoral to its ancient roots, a rebirth of the genre brought about by the influential Renaissance humanism movement.  One central feature of the Renaissance humanism movement was a commitment to study the primary sources of the best writing from ancient Greece and Rome.  This commitment was summarized in the Renaissance humanists’ motto “ad fontes”, which means “to the sources”.  Renaissance humanists glorified the ancient civilizations and sought to both imitate and recreate the ideals of ancient literature.  From this aim, the Renaissance pastoral emerged as a direct descendant of works by the Greek writer Theocritus, who may have drawn on authentic folk traditions of Sicilian shepherds.

Theocritus’ bucolic poetry represented the life of Sicilian shepherds living in an idealized natural setting reminiscent of the Golden age of Greek mythology, the highest in the Greek spectrum of Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Golden ages.  Theocritus’ shepherds lived in a time of peace and stability.  He wrote in the Doric dialect but in dactylic hexameter, which had previously been associated with the Greek’s most prestigious poetic form, epic poetry.  This melding of simplicity and sophistication would later play a major role in the history of pastoral verse in the hands of Renaissance writers.  The devices of these early pastorals were later adopted by the Roman poet Virgil, who adapted the genre into Latin with his Eclogues.

Virgil wrote about a more idyllic vision of rural life than Theocritus had done and was the first to set his poems in Arcadia.  Arcadia, although an actual location, became highly idealized within the realms of literature and developed into the most popular location for ancient pastorals.  Virgil presented a rural life more idyllic than what Theocritus had given; a distinction which gave the pastoral a foothold in the world of fantasy and opened the door to the use of allegory.  He implemented the practice of exploiting the pastoral form to make clandestine insinuations about contemporary problems. Virgil’s Eclogues contained a blend of visionary politics and eroticism, and his work was met with popular success in the Roman theatre, catapulting Virgil into fame and establishing him as a celebrity and a legend among his contemporaries.

In its simplest form, a pastoral represents a shepherd’s life in a conventionalized manner.  However, the Renaissance pastoral model was more involved than that.  Its features included:

1. A fantastical world where the constraints of geography, nature, gender and time may become irrelevant and subverted.
2. Exiles from urban life who are outsiders from the Pastoral situation form the focus of the Pastoral Romance. Shepherds are not the primary focus.
3. When the exiles arrive in the countryside, they converse with the shepherds.
4. The urban characters often disguise themselves as country folk or shepherds.
5. Advantages and disadvantages of court and country are discussed; differences between the natural and the artificial are fundamental to the genre.
6. Pastoral Romances include songs, masques and disguises.
7. The Pastoral Romance celebrates rural simplicity, but in a highly stylized and artificial manner.
8. Discussion and examination between the concepts of nature and nurture are present throughout the Pastoral genre.
9. Pastoral figures are used to examine the evils of greed, cruelty, deceit, corruption and bribery through actions or discourse.
10. By the culmination of the play, the exiles are reintegrated into the urban life and order has been restored.
11. By providing an artificial realm through the imaginary forest and Shepherds, the Pastoral Romance provides its characters with an opportunity to see more clearly and therefore gives them the opportunity and freedom to change.

William Shakespeare made frequent use of the Pastoral, both through brief examples within works such as Love’s Labor’s Lost (”When icicles hang by the wall”) and the Shearer’s feast in The Winter’s Tale or sustained examples like the play As You Like It.  Other plays by Shakespeare contain individual pastoral scenes, such as the bandits in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.  The Pastoral influence is also found within A Midsummer’s Nights Dream and The Tempest.

Shakespeare drew from classic pastoral literature for the subject matter in As You Like It, specifically Lodge’s pastoral romance, Rosalynde.  Lodge’s 1590 novel had adapted “The Tale of Gamelyn,” a narrative poem from the 14th Century.  Shakespeare’s version gave characters greater depth than Lodge; he introduced humor into the story, and created new characters such as Jacques, Touchstone, William and Audrey.

The play’s Phebe and Silvius appeared in Lodge’s novel, but are stock pastoral figures as well.  Within the classical pastoral, conventional shepherds and shepherdesses had occurred in pairs with names like Phoebe and Silvius or the alternate Phoebus and Silvia.  In these traditional roles, the shepherd is lovelorn while the shepherdess is disdainful.  The lovelorn shepherd laments the loss or disdain of his lady, either in solo lyric or eclogue (a dialogue between shepherds about the simple life).  In As You Like It Silvius complains to Corin about his love’s rejection and the lovelorn Orlando hangs lyrics about his own love from all the tree branches.  Again true to the classic pastoral form, Phebe supplies the customary elegy for a dead shepherd by quoting Marlowe:

“Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
‘Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?’”

As may be expected, Shakespeare was not content to merely use the Pastoral in his works but his contribution further developed the genre.  As You Like It utilizes many of the thematic and dramatic requirements of the Pastoral:

1. Corruption of family and court forces several characters into exile and the Forest of Arden, thereby creating a platform where questions of nature, nurture and nobility may be raised.
2. Cross-gender disguise is employed and allows Rosalind to freely discuss love and relationships with Orlando.
3. As You Like It contains more songs than any of Shakespeare’s other plays.
4. The play features a wedding masque with the god of marriage, Hymen. Supernatural elements were important to the Pastoral genre.
5. Social (and gender) order is restored at the end. Duke Senior resumes his place at Court and the brothers Orlando and Oliver reunite. Rosalind casts off her male alter-ego (Ganymede) as well as the freedom of speech which accompanied that role.

For all its merit as an example of the Pastoral genre, the interpretation of As You Like It is not without problems.  While some scholars have rated the play among Shakespeare’s best, others do not see it as an equal within the Shakespearean canon.  Critic such as Samuel Johnson and George Bernard Shaw did not believe As You Like It was a good example of Shakespeare’s high artistry. Several scenes in As You Like It are essentially skits made up of songs and joking banter.  Accenting the “You” in the title, Shaw theorized the play may have been written as a mere crowd pleaser, but one which did not particularly please Shaw.  Even Leo Tolstoy remarked about the characters’ immorality and took issue with Touchstone’s constant clowning.  On the other hand, American literary critic Harold Bloom believed Rosalind was one of Shakespeare’s greatest and most fully realized female characters.

As You Like It, although neglected in performance for more than a century after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, has been a popular play on the stage ever since.  It was revived in England for the first time in 1723 in an adaptation called Love in a Forest.  This version of the play interpolated passages from other Shakespearean dramas and comedies, notably A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Shakespeare’s original was restored to the theatre seventeen years later.  In the 19th century As You Like It was staged by a number of eminent English actor-managers including Charles Kean and William Charles Macready.  In late nineteenth century America, especially, the play became a favorite with audiences.  Rosalind found noteworthy interpreters in Helena Modjeska, Mary Anderson, Ada Rehan, and Julia Marlowe.

But perhaps Shaw’s observation about the play’s title does provide insight and Shakespeare’s play is a commentary on the theatrical tastes of Elizabethan England.  For all its Pastoral elements As You Like It does not strictly adhere to conventions of the genre, but in fact appears to satirize them.  The Forest of Arden is a place where Dukes have been usurped, brothers are deadly enemies, starvation, lions and deadly snakes lurk.  For all the idyllic Pastoral qualities, Arden marries fantasy with a harsh reality.  As a departure from the pastoral form, in As You Like It Shakespeare tempers the idyll of the sweetly picturesque pastoral scene with the adversity of the malcontented Jacques, as well as the unlikely pairing of Touchstone and Audrey, ensuring neither court life nor pastoral idyll is presented as either too sweet or too adverse.  The play provides opportunities for its main characters to discuss love, aging, the natural world, and death from their particular points of view.  It presents us with the worldviews of a chronically melancholy pessimist preoccupied with the negative aspects of life (Jacques), and Rosalind, who recognizes life’s difficulties but holds fast to a positive attitude that is kind, playful, and above all, wise.  Whatever Shakespeare’s intent may have been for As You Like It, its composition does mark a turning point in his output as a playwright since; Shakespeare abandoned comedy soon after its completion and turned to the composition of his major tragedies.

Although current scholarship routinely attaches Renaissance Pastoral Literature to its ancient roots, and these connections are certainly valid, they stop short of realizing the influence of literature between the classical period and the European Renaissance.  While it is evident Virgil introduced political allegory into his tales, this might not directly explain all the the techniques employed by Renaissance writers. To understand the English Renaissance pastoral it seems important to attach this technique to literature immediately preceding it.  Without this important link in the genre’s evolution we are apt to overlook its most important influences and our interpretation of works within this genre will not reflect their deeper meanings and purposes.

Before the pastoral gained widespread popularity, satire had already been established as a staple of Medieval English Literature.  If we give the pastoral its proper place in the history and evolution of literature, the genre may seem less an enigma and more a continuation of the rich satirical tradition of Medieval and Early Renaissance writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and Thomas More.  Ignoring the satire’s popularity in Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe may cause us to forget how the stage had been set when the pastoral rose to popularity in the 16th century.  When viewed as a continuation of the satirical tradition Renaissance pastoral literature may be greater appreciated, and its sense of wit, style and daring may come into clearer focus.

Satirical poetry is believed to have been popular in Chaucer’s time although little has survived.  Examples of such poetry may still be seen in the bawdy lyrics of Carmina Burnana, set to music by Carl Orf in the 20th Century.  The Canterbury Tales served as Chaucer’s platform to satire blind religion and the thoughtless bigotry of his day.

Chaucer created “The Prioress’ Tale” to satire the blind religion and thoughtless bigotry of his day.  Chaucer lived in a time when religious stories thrived among a largely illiterate population.  These stories were Saint’s tales where the villains were impossibly bad and the heroes impossibly good.  The line between “good” and “bad” people was drawn by their religious beliefs; anyone who believed in the Christian church was good, and everyone else in the world was bad.

Knowing nothing else of him, we can deduce from the rest of The Canterbury Tales that Chaucer is a talented writer, skilled in both subtlety of character and storytelling.  So why would his Prioress tell a story so obviously shallow, improbable, and bigoted unless Chaucer labored behind some hidden agenda?  Judging from his other stories, Chaucer doesn’t seem squeamish about poking fun at hypocrisy in religion; he points to gullibility in religious devotion through “The Miller’s Tale” as well as through those who purchase the Pardoner’s “relics” in “The Pardoner’s Tale.”  Further, history tells us Chaucer was part of a group of intellectuals who opposed the prevalent anti-Semitism of his time; in reality he would have been against characterizing Jews as “Satan’s Hornet Nest”.

Thomas More criticized the religious and political views of his contemporaries by obscuring his true intentions through the use of satire in Utopia (1516).  Modern readers have come to understand a “utopia” as a paradise, a world built on higher ideals where the lamb lays down with the lion.  As such, it would be natural to assume that in this book More had explained his designs for a more perfect world, with his own religious, political, and moral beliefs fulfilled.  But in fact, the word “utopia” (which was coined by More himself from Latin) would be literally translated as “no place”.  By calling his dreamland “Utopia” More is betraying his story, showing it is a made up tale; he is literally calling it a place which does not and presumably cannot, exist.  He further betrays his true view by the names he assigns to various characters and places within the story.

Thomas More wrote Utopia as a satire on his contemporaries’ religious and political thoughts.  The positive light given to religious, political and philosophical ideas diametrically opposed to those of the author, the presence of ridiculous wordplay in the names, titles and locations within the piece, and the pseudo Renaissance-humanist air given by setting the work in Latin, all reveal More’s satiric intent.

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines “satire”:

“A literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule, satirical writing or drama often scorns such folly by pretending to approve of values which are the diametric opposite of what the satirist actually wishes to promote.”

The implied benefits of divorce, euthanasia, married priests, and women priests, expressed in Utopia, disagreed with More’s celebrated dedication to devout Catholicism. More was a persecutor of heretics (Protestants) yet the book extolled the virtues of embracing varied religions, and even under the same roof.  The piece engaged in political criticism, but More himself was Lord Chancellor, an influential English lawyer.  Communism and the idea of communal living expressed as an ideal in Utopia could be seen as the opposite view expected from a rich landowner such as More.

Because Renaissance humanist movement, which glorified the ancient civilizations, had already established an influence during his time it seems possible More could have been tipping his hat to them by setting his work in Latin and telling of an ancient idyllic civilization built on “superior” ideals. If this was More’s intent, and if the tale of a perfect communal society was a reference to New World legend (although in reality Amerigo Vespucci’s Incas practiced cannibalism), then this would be further proof that More viewed Utopia to be seen as a satirical work.

In Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham argues the pastoral is a literary form especially designed “not of purpose to counterfait or represent the rusticall manner of loves and communication: but under the vaile of homely persons, and in rude speeches to insinuate and glaunce at greater matters, and such as perchance had not bene safe to have beene disclosed in any other sort.”  In The Making of a Poem, Strand and Boland note how the pastoral spoke to poets of the Renaissance period and their “deep European unease about power, urbanization, and the demands made for a new centralization”, citing the pastoral as “one of the true intellectual engines of [Elizabethan] poetry”.

First in Latin with the work of Petrarch, Pontano, and Mantuan, and then in Italian vernacular with the works of Boiardo, Italian poets led the way in a 14th Century revival of pastoral form.  The pastoral became fashionable throughout Renaissance Europe.  Because of the satire’s popularity in England during Medieval and Early Renaissance times the pastoral’s appearance there may have simply represented a new incarnation of the satire.  In 1579 Virgil’s Eclogues inspired Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calendar (a series of twelve eclogues, one for each calendar month) and ushered the pastoral form further into fashion, but Spenser’s creation was more than just a collection of colloquialisms.  A study by Robert Lane interprets The Shepheardes Calender as criticism of the Elizabethan hierarchy and how society exploited and neglected society’s underprivileged.  According to Lane, The Shepheardes Calender undermines the courtly role assigned to Elizabethan poetry and capitalized on such pop culture mainstays as woodcuts, proverbs, fables and the calendar format to further drive its point home.

Understanding the connection between the English Renaissance pastoral and the satirical literature which preceded it, it is easier to see how William Shakespeare used the pastoral form to explore the realms of political and social commentary.  Shakespeare frequently exploited poetic form and theatrical convention to provide a vehicle for his legendary wit, so it may be safe to assume his use of the pastoral was also intended to “glaunce at greater matters”.  He made frequent use of the pastoral both through brief examples within plays and as the framework for complete works, riding on the shoulders of the public’s love for satire, to transport the pastoral into the world of social and political commentary.

The main plot of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is derived, somewhat more loyally than Shakespeare is usually inclined, from Robert Greene’s pastoral romance Pandosto (1590).  Perhaps the most apparent pastoral element of the play is how pastoral life in Bohemia offers a sharp contrast to the world of the Sicilian court.  Although the idealized character Perdita may be the primary spokesperson of the pastoral world and its values, Shakespeare does not romanticize the play’s pastoral world itself.  As a matter of fact the typical pastoral vision is undercut by sadness and ambivalence throughout the length of the play.

Historian Eric Ives has argued the play is actually a parody of Queen Anne Boleyn’s fall, the wife of Henry VIII who was beheaded in 1536 for charges of adultery.  Ives states numerous parallels exist between the two stories, including how Sir Henry Norreys, a close friend of Henry, was beheaded as a supposed lover of Anne, refusing to confess to save his life on the grounds that everyone knew of the Queen’s innocence.  Following this theory about the play, Perdita could represent Anne’s only daughter, Queen Elizabeth I.  An understanding of the play in this light further strengthens the connection Shakespeare made between the pastoral and satire.

His poem “When icicles hang by the wall” from the play Love’s Labor’s Lost may at first glance appear quaint.  In this piece the country folk go about their daily work, subjected to the harsh and cold winter.  They carry firewood into the hall, watch the sheep, milk the cows, all the while dealing with the bitter cold.  But the owl represents more than a common bird; Shakespeare’s owl represents the wealthy of society who watch over the poor, oblivious of the plight and singing a “merry note”.

It is no stretch to assume Shakespeare’s owl played an allegorical role in this pastoral.  Shakespeare frequently used the owl for similar purposes. As Lady Macbeth prepares to murder the king she is startled by the shriek of an owl:

“Hark! - Peace!
It was the owl that shriek’d, the fatal bellman
Which gives the stern’st good-night.” [Macbeth - II, 2]

Prior to the assassination of Julius Caesar an owl was reported:

“The bird of night did sit,
Even at noon-day, upon the market-place
Hooting and shrieking.” [Julius Caesar - I, 3]

Further, Puck says of the owl:

“Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.” [A Midsummer Night's Dream - V, 1]

Since Shakespeare often associated the owl with death, its use here may very likely represent the pending death of such rustics as cataloged within the poem.  Also noteworthy is the owl’s disregard for their situations throughout this poem, singing his merry song in spite of their toil.  Given the possible satirical heritage of the Renaissance pastorals, the owl could easily represent the wealthy officials who go about their merry way oblivious of the common man’s trials.

Understanding the connection between the English Renaissance pastoral and the satire, the interpretation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It becomes less problematic.  In the Arden Shakespeare edition, As You Like It is represented as a multi-layered chronicle of late English Renaissance culture and of all the various social and political conflicts marking the final decade of the sixteenth century.  Dusinberre outlines how the play functions to “glaunce at greater matters”.  She cites Jaques’s indebtedness to the period’s vogue for satire and the faction-ridden politics occasioned by the Earl of Essex’s career and his rivalry with Sir Robert Cecil. In the Arden Shakespeare edition of Shakespeare’s pastoral play As You Like It, editor Juliet Dusinberre comments:

“Social and political realities would not have been far from the minds of its first audiences in 1599, whether at court or in the public theatre.  Beneath an impeccably sunny surface ‘As You Like It’ touches on troubled territories.”

The work of other Renaissance writers such as poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe may also be understood when a connection is made between the English Renaissance pastoral and its satirical heritage.  Marlowe made the pastoral his own by introducing exaggerated imagery and sexuality to the form.  Shepherds in the pastorals of Theocritus and Virgil had expressed love as a deep longing without sexuality, but in his pastoral poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” Marlowe’s shepherd asks a woman to share an idealized romantic relationship.  However, the shepherd’s proposal is actually more ridiculous than idyllic, possibly indicating Marlowe’s intent to satirize the traditional pastoral form.  The shepherd offers his love:

“Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold . . .”

While a pretty promise, these and other claims in this poem are far from anything an actual shepherd could afford to bestow upon anyone.      The poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard had previously utilized the country life as a refuge for rejected suitors, but Marlowe’s shepherd is not concerned about rejection or whether his social or financial status is acceptable to the girl; his only concern is the desire for immediate pleasure:

“And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.”

Today’s America lives in little or no fear for ridiculing the government or speaking out against “progress”. But the pastoral provided those less fortunate a venue to play with questions “which verged on a philosophical subversion of traditional religious themes in poetry” (Strand and Boland, 208). The works of Renaissance writers like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare provide compelling evidence pastoral literature of that period was often used as a vehicle for political and social commentary, and this intent becomes more clear when the satirical elements of these works’ lineage are not overlooked; following in the shadows of the popularity of such well-loved writers as Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas More, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the pastoral would naturally have received a satirical interpretation by Renaissance readers and audiences. With this in mind, and although the references may likely be obscured with the passing of time, interpretation of the pastoral poem enters a new realm of understanding; instead of relegating these pieces to the world of kitsch and quaint, we may now be compelled to dig below the surface, blowing away the dust to uncover a treasure, and in doing so are likely to at least appreciate, if not enjoy, the wit of the pastoral form’s most famous practitioners.

Works cited.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penquin Classics, 2003.

Moore, R..  ”As You Like It: Introduction.” eNotes: As You Like It. Ed. Penny Satoris. Seattle: Enotes.com Inc, October 2002. eNotes.com. 24 June 2009. <http://www.enotes.com/as-you-like-it/introduction>.

More, Thomas. Utopia. New York: Penquin Classics, 2003.

“Pastoral in Shakespeare’s Works: Introduction.” Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 89. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 24 Jan, 2009.

Shakespeare, William. The Arden Shakespeare As You Like It. Edited by Juliet Dusinberre. London: Thomson Learning, 2006.

Shepheards Devises: Edmund Spenser’s ‘Shepheardes Calendar’ and the Institutions of Elizabethan Society. Renaissance Society of America, 1995. The Free Library. 2006. 24 Jan, 2009 .

Strand, Mark, and Eavan Boland. The Making of a Poem. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love: Introduction. Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 0. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2009.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (Style). Notes on Poetry. Answers Corporation, 2006. Answers.com 01 Feb. 2009.

“The Winter’s Tale: Pastoral Elements.” Shakespeare for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 30 June 2009. <http://www.enotes.com/winters-tale/pastoral-elements>.

The vampire film genre has held audiences in its spell almost since the beginning of film history. The 1922 German film “Nosferatu,” directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau featured a supernatural vampire, an unlicensed version of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (whose estate sued and won), and the Dracula character appeared again in Universal’s “Dracula” of 1931 (featuring Bela Lugosi). However, the vampires in both films are quite different. “Nosferatu” presented the hideous creature of European folklore, while Lugosi’s vampire was a more alluring character with a sexual appeal. These differing representations of vampires subsequently reappeared throughout the genre’s history, presenting many interpretations of the character from mindless zombie to captivating siren.

Changing with the times, vampire films have somewhat left the larger classification of the horror film genre. For the most part, horror films have retained their focus on the victim. Whatever monster might be present is an evil to be avoided and its exploits are the thing to be feared. But in the vampire film genre our monsters have become beings with feelings, sometimes we are sympathetic of their blood-sucking fates and often the vampire has actually become the protagonist in these films. We may feel a passing regret for Freddy Krueger’s (”Nightmare on Elm Street”) fate, yet he remains the monster. Jason may briefly tug our sympathy strings in “Friday the 13th” but again, he is an evil to be overcome. On the other hand, in Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire,” the vampire Louis is sensitive and thoughtful.

Louis says, “It was only when I became a vampire that I respected for the first time all of life. I never saw a living, pulsing human being until I was a vampire. I never knew what life was until it ran out in a red gush over my lips, my hands!” He is a Byronic hero who has transcended the demonic vampire of Hollywood and revisited the Romantic movement and 19th century Gothic fiction. Flawed yet enchanting, Louis has the brooding sexuality of Heathcliff from Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” (1847) and the rough-edged charisma of Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” (1847). He is Erik, the Phantom from Gaston Leroux’s “Phantom of the Opera” and Claude Frollo from Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Louis’ partner and counterpart Lestat de Lioncourt embodies the Byronic spirit as well.

Like the vampire novel, vampire films have become character driven, growing from pulp fiction into literature. These films have created a film language of their own, moving from a fascination with blood and death to an exploration of the soul and life.

Since auteur theory was never summarized in a collective statement, its use could be broadly interpreted. Truffaut and those who wrote for Cahiers expected directors to wield the camera like a writer’s pen (Alexandre Astruc’s notion of the caméra-stylo or “camera-pen”), superimposing the director’s vision on the film through the mise en scène, therefore diminishing the screenwriter’s role. Filmmakers such as Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renior were considered prime examples of “auteurs” of their films.

The director’s contribution did not need to be consciously made and according to Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, “the defining characteristics of an author’s work are not necessarily those which are most readily apparent. The purpose of criticism thus becomes to uncover behind the superficial contrasts of subject and treatment a hard core of basic and often recondite motifs. The pattern formed by these motifs . . . is what gives an author’s work its particular structure, both defining it internally and distinguishing one body of work from another.” Because of its scope, depth, and the length of his tenure in Hollywood the work of director Howard Hawks is seen as a test case for auteur theory.

One defining characteristic of Hawks’ work is the use of an exclusive, self-sufficient, all-male group who is often isolated physically or emotionally from society. Men are accepted into this elite group only after a period of testing where they must prove how “good” they are at whatever job the group is responsible for. Women are generally seen as a threatening force and are only admitted to the group after a long ritual courtship, and even then are never really considered full members. An undercurrent of homosexuality never fully surfaces, but does occasionally run close to the surface. Often men in the group have either been married or committed to women, but suffered some unnamed trauma at their hands. Men in the group are usually considered equals, but women are clearly associated with animals (most explicitly in “Bringing Up Baby,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds,” and “Hatari!”); the men in the group must strive to maintain mastery.

Because of the collaborative aspect of making a film, auteur theory began receiving criticism in the 1960s. The New Criticism school of literary criticism called auteur theory’s speculations about what the author meant, based on the author’s personality and life experiences, an intentional fallacy. New Critics believed the author’s intention was secondary to the experience of reading or viewing literature.

Film allows its audience to take a more passive role in understanding the story. Cinematic narration relays its story through visual cues which may compact a greater amount of information in a shorter time. While written and cinematic narration both convey description and viewpoint, the old saying holds true and “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

The 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich, the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Rear Window,” echoes the sense of doom and personal impotence found in much of Woolrich’s fiction. Because of his homosexuality, Woolrich must have understood the dichotomy of walking between the shadows and the light. Francis Nevins called Woolrich “the Poe of the 20th century and the poet of its shadows, the Hitchcock of the written word” (Francis M. Nevins. “Tonight, Somewhere in New York”. Carroll & Graf, New York, 2005. p. 1). In this story, his hero suffers from a broken leg and is relegated to the status of “peeping Tom.” As an invalid he must depend upon the actions of others to impact his surroundings, and if he is not believed or at least taken seriously he cannot effect change. When his suspicious neighbor confronts him in his own apartment, the hero is unable to defend himself and must be rescued.

Woolrich’s fiction seems to echo or parallel his own life experience. This fragment was found in Woolrich’s papers after his death in 1968:

“I was only trying to cheat death. I was only trying to surmount for a while the darkness that all my life I surely knew was going to come rolling in on me one day and obliterate me. I was only trying to stay alive a brief while longer, after I was already gone. To stay in the light, to be with the living, a little while past my time.” (”Blues of a Lifetime. The Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich.” ed. Mark T. Bassett. Bowling Green State University Popular Press. Bowling Green, 1991. p. 152).

“Rear Window” is considered by many to be one of director Alfred Hitchcock’s best and most thrilling films. We see how the hero (photographer L. B. “Jeff” Jeffries, played by James Stewart) not only is separated from his neighbors by a courtyard, window blinds, and a broken leg, but also how he must depend on binoculars to bring the world in closer and other people to interact with it. We can see his sympathy for Ms. Lonely Hearts and understand how he must relate to her lonely plight, and wonder why he avoids the topic of marriage with his beautiful girlfriend (Lisa Fremont, played by Grace Kelly). Even Jeffries’ profession reminds us of someone attempting to connect with reality through a camera lens. Ultimately, we understand how we all can be limited in some way and relate to a feeling of personal ineffectiveness.

Critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times remarked:

Mr. Hitchcock’s film is not “significant.” What it has to say about people and human nature is superficial and glib. But it does expose many facets of the loneliness of city life and it tacitly demonstrates the impulse of morbid curiosity. The purpose of it is sensation, and that it generally provides in the colorfulness of its detail and in the flood of menace toward the end.

Perhaps Hollywood felt content with merely producing another thriller and wasn’t quite ready to explore the original story’s particular brand of shadows. The film received four Academy Award nominations: Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock, Best Screenplay for John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, Color for Robert Burks, Best Sound Recording for Loren L. Ryder, Paramount Pictures. John Michael Hayes won a 1955 Edgar Award for best motion picture.

Vertov called fiction film a new “opiate for the masses” and belonged to a movement known as kiniks (or kinokis) who hoped to abolish non-documentary film-making. His “Man With a Movie Camera” was Vertov’s response to critics who rejected his earlier “One-Sixth Part of the World.” Because of its experimental nature, Vertov worried this later film would be ignored or destroyed, hence the film’s opening statement:

“The film Man with a Movie Camera represents
AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC TRANSMISSION
Of visual phenomena
WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES
(a film without intertitles)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCRIPT
(a film without script)
WITHOUT THE HELP OF A THEATRE
(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)
This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema – ABSOLUTE KINOGRAPHY – on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature.”

Despite Vertov’s claims that filming could capture reality without intruding, cameras of the day were large, loud, and could not be hidden easily. To be truly hidden, Vertov and his brother Mikhail Kaufman attempted to distract their subjects with something else, something louder than the camera. So even if the camera itself was not imposing itself on the scene, the necessary distraction would alter the “truth” to some extent. Therefore, “film truth” could not technically be a reality during Vertov’s time as a filmmaker.

Much like Vertov’s earlier “Kino-Pravda” series, 23 short documentaries created over a period of three years, “Man With a Movie Camera” contains a propagandist element. Vertov wished to create a futuristic city following the Marxist ideal, an industrialized city built on the back of workers and their hard labor. Much of the film’s style seems to borrow from the earlier “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” by Walter Ruttman. However, these stylistic choices do seem to create a symbolic language which is generally effective.

While “Man With a Movie Camera” may not fully realize the goal it sought to portray, a “truth in film,” it may have inadvertently produced a true statement of the era which produced it. The film contains an optimism, idealism and naivety representative of its place in history.

However, the dialectic theory of film has not left us. The dialectic has been proven itself an effective way to condense an argument and persuade the audience, sometimes in less than 30 seconds. You can readily find any number of examples by flipping through a few television channels, watching a few commercials. The conflict may be presented through colliding words, colliding images, or both.

MAN: So are you trying to watch your weight?

WOMAN: No, why?

MAN: Nothing, it’s just the Cheerios box. It says it’s low in fat.

WOMAN: Does it look like I need to watch my weight?

MAN: No, no, no, no. It’s just the box. It says there are only 110 calories per serving.

WOMAN: There are other reasons why I like it.

MAN: I know. It’s just the box. It says it’s made from five whole grains. That’s good, right?

WOMAN: What else does the box say?

MAN: The box says, “Shut up, Steve.”

But herein lies the at least part of the reason this technique has fallen out of favor in film today. Dialectics are by their very nature manipulative and unnatural. It is difficult to witness use of this technique without feeling on some level you are being “sold” something.

In the famous “Odessa Steps” sequence of Battleship Potemkin we are exposed to a montage of images calculated to bring about an emotional response. In one part of the sequence, a woman with a baby carriage is shot and not only does her death leave the child unattended, but even the fall of her body pushes the carriage down a flight of stairs. She clutches her large belt buckle, a swan (probably a symbol of culture, civilization, beauty), as blood pours slowly over it. Even if the mythological associations of the swan had passed viewers’ attentions, the woman’s fine clothing would have made them realize she was another middle-class victim of the Cossack assault. Eisenstein knew his audience would associate the Cossacks with their reputation for horsemanship and ruthless military skills, and knowing that,  he capitalized on it.

When an art form is new, its boundaries remain to be defined. The fact Eisenstein believed the addition of sound to film was a passing gimmick seems to show he believed film’s boundaries were similar to that of visual art. It would be easy to say Eisenstein lacked an understanding of film art, but how can anyone understand what has not yet been defined? It might also be tempting to say he lacked a vision of what the form could become, but judging from his experimentation and passion for film as a dialectic tool, it might be more accurate to say his vision was merely of something different than what film eventually did become.

Regardless, the modern television commercial owes him a great debt.

The bellhop ascended from a trap door behind the counter, something like Satan appearing on stage during a play (possibly an allusion to Fink leaving is stage writing career behind). Fink’s sixth-floor destination is announced three times in the elevator, alluding to the mark of the beast. Most consequential of all, Fink meets his neighbor Charlie Meadows whose anger and frustration not only increases the hotel’s temperature but ultimately produces fire (obviously a symbolic fire since it is no impediment to Fink departing the “burning” hotel). If Fink had noticed the pencil on the hotel stationary didn’t have a lead, then perhaps he might have realized this might not be the best place to do his writing.

While theatre and film are two places illusion reigns supreme, it might be argued the stage is a little less illusory since we are at least viewing live actors. In film, we watch shadows of actors from a time somewhere in the past. With this in mind, it could be said Fink began a descent from reality to illusion the moment he agreed to write for film. This descent into illusion increased throughout the story, with Fink’s world (or at least his view of it) becoming less and less likely, and ultimately ending in a conversation between Fink and the mysterious “girl on the beach” from a painting in his hotel room.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” provides us with an almost prophetic description of the illusory effect of Hollywood movies. In it, prisoners watch shadows projected on a cave wall much like we view a movie projected onto a screen. In the allegory, the prisoners have never seen the real objects which make these shadows. The prisoners only hear sounds through echos off the same cave wall, again like our experience in the cinema. Because this has been their only experience since birth, the prisoners assume these shadows are the real thing and they cannot imagine any other reality. In movies we are asked to buy into the reality projected on a screen. The line between shadow or illusion, and reality, can become blurred, even if this effect is only temporary.

In “Barton Fink,” Fink loses his ability to distinguish between “shadows” and the real thing. Hotel Earle seems to be the epicenter and to some extent the impetus of Fink’s departure from reality. Like some of Plato’s allegorical prisoners venture from the cave Fink ventures from his hotel room, but his experiences in the “real world” are not as enlightening as those of the prisoners. He meets the writer W.P. Mayhew, whom Fink practially idolizes. Mayhew dresses in a white suit and has written a novel about Nebuchadnezzar, which could mean he is meant to be a “God” character in contrast to Charlie representing a fallen angel (if not Satan himself). Fink associates Mayhew’s writing with the Holy Bible, seeing Mayhew’s text written in biblical format, but when he imagines his own words printed on such a page, Fink’s struggle with writer’s block only increases. Fink learns Mayhew’s texts were in fact written by a personal secretary, but when he tries to adopt her as his own muse she is murdered by Charlie, who has in his own way tried to be such a muse. Unlike the prisoners in Plato’s allegory, Fink’s experiences outside the cave do not inform his understanding of the illusions in film and his hotel room.

It wasn’t my first attempt. In the fifth grade I got involved with a group of kids who were rehearsing during recesses. When I gave them my new and improved version of their script, unsolicited, I was named director. It might have had something to do with the subsequent departure of the original authors, since they had been the directors as well. How very Charlie Brown.

My follow-up piece, something to do with mice and Christmas, never made it on the boards.

Neither did my PTA-sponsored attempt at the Broadway musical The Pajama Game a few years later. At the time it was my big failure in life, but in retrospect I understand dealing with my own adolescent turmoil, along with that of a cast comprised fully of adolescents, might have been too much for anyone.

So I approached that later attempt as a young man with something to prove.

Originally I had intended to produce Arsenic and Old Lace but only three people auditioned. I told them I was the stage manager. These were experienced community theater folk and I was afraid they might balk at a teenage producer/director. I don’t know how I expected to make the “real” director materialize, especially since I had already given her a name and identity, but since we never made it to rehearsals I was spared the trouble.

Instead, I rounded up a few loyal friends from back in my Pajama-Game days and settled on producing one of those more intimate, small cast shows. One of the community theater women from the audition stuck with me. I don’t know if she believed my story about the “real” director, who had supposedly quit the whole affair because of a low turnout at auditions, or if she actually stayed around because she wanted to support my effort. Looking back I suspect the later.

I haven’t mentioned how another of the community theater women stuck around for a few rehearsals before coming up with some excuse to bow out, or how that led to my first experience playing a role in drag. But that is another story and I was able to draw upon the experience a few years later when I played Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Anyway, I’m not sure why I decided to use the words “little theater” other than because there were a few groups I had read about and admired with similar names. But it was always about the type of theater group I had set out to build, and never about the fact most of us were so young.

Looking back, I realize the missed opportunity. The very thing I worked so hard to downplay was also the very thing that made it all so remarkable. How many teenagers would find a place to rehearse, gather a cast, rent an auditorium and advertise the production? If I had known how marketable such remarkable things can be, more than the half dozen people we did attract might have witnessed our performances.

Sunday evening an entry came in for my contest on Bloggity. Bloggers are entering to win what I’ve called a Blog Boosting Brouhaha, a session where we’ll confer on five ways to improve their blogs. This particular entry was thoughtful, intelligent and realistic, but that isn’t what made it truly remarkable. The remarkable part was the blogger is only 13 years old.

At 13, Dan Miranda is writing a blog with the maturity and thoughtfulness few adults attain. He is writing about time management, but he could just as well write about the fantasy sports that got him started. The point is, he isn’t hiding behind some imaginary adult façade:

“I can’t help to reveal I’m only thirteen years old, but I only see this as an advantage. My writing can only get better, my blog can only go higher, and my readers will only increase their knowledge - with perseverance, determination, and intelligence.”

I guess you can tell why I’m going to do whatever I can to encourage him.

Sometimes the things that make us remarkable may be obvious to everyone but ourselves.

Photo: Mikelo

“Ready to go back?” A staccato voice.

“Yes.”

“Eat your desert this time?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl. Want me to push you?”

Her soft blue eyes shifted. “I can do it.”

“Good girl, Elsie. It’s important to take care of yourself some.

Elsie released the brake, carefully, one wheel and the other, slowly, not to betray herself. Back from the table, aim at the door.

“Elsie!” The staccato nurse.

Elsie froze.

“That blanket’s filthy, I’ll get it washed.”

Elsie pressed the tight space again. “No!” Then softer, “It’s fine.”

She searched for a good line, “I’m cold.”

“It’s seventy degrees in here.”

“I’m cold. Please.”

“Well, whatever. You want that nasty thing, I offered.”

Elsie waited. Must not appear rushed, hurried. Slowly to the door.

“Elsie, you taking anything from the dining hall this time?” Another bossy nurse.

Elsie couldn’t speak. She shook her head.

“Show me your hands.”

Slowly Elsie held her palms up, like a small child. Empty.

“Good girl.”

When the nurse had gone and the path seemed clear Elsie rolled into her room. She loosened the afghan and pulled a small napkin-clad square from the tight place, and smiled a little; mischievous, younger and alive.

Savoring the moment, Elsie pulled back the napkin, knowing the brownie would taste like freedom.

Photo: freeparking

If one or the other “team captain” doesn’t particularly like you, you’re screwed.

They’re going to take turns picking kids for their team, and you’re going to stand there hoping you’re not the last one left in line; the one somebody has to take because nobody else did.

Unless you’re one of the star players, be it dodge ball, softball, flag football or any of the other domains of those blessed with that particular mix of excellent hand-to-eye coordination, competitive spirit, and aggression you learn early on it’s best to be named “team captain.” And if you don’t think you’re likely to be named “team captain,” you learn the best thing to do is start your own team.

That’s a pattern I’ve followed most of my life; because they might not pick me for the team, I’ll just start my own. They weren’t sports teams, but that doesn’t matter. It’s all about control, really. Because you might not give me what I want, I’ll just circumvent the entire process.

Oh sure, I might start out on someone else’s “team.” But the pattern has been I’ll start my own if I’m afraid they won’t let me take things where I want to go, even though I never asked if they would let me.

It’s all about fear and it’s all about power. I’m afraid of the power you might have to control my choices, so I take control myself. I intercept your ability to reject me and make it a non issue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

“What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.”

I fled from being part of existing teams because I was afraid the teams wouldn’t have me, then because I fled, they fled from me. To an extent, it’s another self-fulfilling prophecy.

I got a postcard in the mail the other day. The essay I submitted to North American Review has been received, cataloged and given a number.

So I’ve decided to stop running away. I’ve decided to stop creating my own teams. I want to see if, after all this running away, if I might be good enough to play on theirs after all. How will I know either way unless I try?

One way or another I’m due for a first. I’ll get my first rejection slip or my first published article.

But either way will be a victory.

Photo: wsilver