There isn't room enough to list all the dysfunctional dudes (ranging from Zeus, Don Giovanni, and Bill Sikes to Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Brock Turner) who have become cultural icons of misogyny. Thankfully, The Jim Jeffries Show has some precious pearls of wisdom to share about men who personify "the weaker sex."
This year, two of San Francisco's most beloved film festivals featured works which deal with power dynamics in strange (and strained) relationships. While a chronological distance of 93 years separates their premieres, these two black-and-white films find their strength by focusing on a familiar topic: Who's really in charge?
- Is it the pampered man-child or the methodical manipulator?
- Is it the straight man whose wife can't do enough to cater to his every need at her own expense? Or the gay man whose critical thinking skills have made him the de facto brains behind the operation that keep a thruple thriving?
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During each year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival many forgotten treasures from the past get dusted off and trotted out before a most appreciative audience. With more and more movies from the silent era being found, reconstructed, and digitally restored, some beautiful films from the earliest decades of cinematic history are once again captivating viewers. |
| Poster art for 1925's Master of the House |
One of the gems that was screened at the 2018 SFSFF was Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1925 family drama entitled Master of the House, which does a splendid job of depicting what can go wrong when there is a severe imbalance of power in a marriage. Based on a play by Svend Rindom entitled The Tyrant's Fall (which was first performed in Copenhagen at the Det Ny Teater on February 2, 1919), the film offers a valuable lesson in how traditional gender roles can be impacted by the toxic effects of depression.
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| Karin Nellemose (Karen), Mathilde Nielsen (Mads), and Johannes Meyer (Viktor) in a scene from Master of the House |
Viktor Frandsen (Johannes Meyer) is the unfortunate husband who, having been forced to sell his business, has been left without any income to support his family. As someone who has built his life around the concept of being master of his universe (as well as his modest apartment), being stripped of power has left him bored, cranky, and ungrateful for the all the extra work his wife, Ida (Astrid Holm), and oldest daughter, Karen (Karin Nellemose), have been doing in order to keep their household running.
No matter what Ida does to try to keep her family afloat (there is also a son and an infant), it's never enough to satisfy her depressed husband. The smallest sacrifice (scraping butter off the family's toast so that Viktor can have more to spread on his own) is met with a mixture of scorn and sarcasm.
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| Johannes Meyer (Viktor) and Astrid Holm (Ida) in a scene from 1925's Master of the House |
It's only when Viktor's childhood nanny arrives to help Ida with household chores that a clear mind is able to size up the domestic situation. Mads (Mathilde Nielsen) is a quiet, taciturn woman who may not say much, but understands the damage being done to the family by Viktor's dismissive behavior. As his bad attitude continues to poison the atmosphere, Mads decides to take matters into her own hands.
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| Mathilde Nielsen stars as Mads in 1925's Master of the House |
Luckily, she crosses paths with Ida's mother, Alvilda Kryger (Clara Schønfeld), which allows the two women to work out a plan to restore order to the Frandsen's apartment. With the help of a doctor (Johannes Nielsen), they inform Viktor that is wife is suffering from complete exhaustion and needs uninterrupted bed rest for an undetermined period of time. While he is out of the apartment, Mads and Alvida bundle up Ida and whisk her away to her mother's home, leaving Viktor under the watchful eye of his former nanny.
Because she's not his wife, Mads has no trouble responding to Viktor's selfish demands by reminding him that he's perfectly capable of doing those chores all by himself. When his anger finally erupts, she warns him that once, when he was a child, she gave him a thrashing that he never forgot. She then tells Viktor that she's just about ready to give him another.
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| Mathilde Nielsen (Mads) and Johannes Meyer (Viktor) in a scene from 1925's Master of the House |
The threat of another beating and more humiliation has a startling effect on Viktor's sense of entitlement. Having clearly touched a nerve, Mads keeps at it until Viktor is begging for Ida's return. When she at last appears, the humbled husband begs his wife for her forgiveness and promises that he will forever be a changed man.
With Stephen Horne at the piano, the print furnished by the Danish Film Institute provided a powerful reminder of how stunningly the camera captured the faces of character actors like Mathilde Nielsen during the silent era. In the following clip, David Bordwell describes some of the techniques used by Dreyer and their relationship to popular stage dramas of the era.
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Wikipedia defines a sleeper hit as an entertainment industry term describing "a title (such as a book, film, song, or game) that becomes successful, gradually, often with little promotion." The Urban Dictionary defines a sleeper hit as "generally any type of media that is marketed as under the radar, yet is of quality to have been a top tier marketing tool."If ever there was a movie that displayed all the hallmarks of becoming a sleeper hit, that film would be Ryan Lonergan's delightfully twisted and lusciously homoerotic Kill The Monsters (which will receive its world premiere from San Francisco's 2018 Frameline Film Festival). Among the clues that this film was made on the tightest of budgets include the following:
- The complete lack of biographical information about its polymath filmmaker who wrote, directed, and co-produced the film while nailing one of its meatiest roles.
- The film's promotional tease, which states that "Dynamic triad Frankie, Patrick, and Sutton put their relationship to the test in this sexy, comedic American allegory that will appeal to U.S. history buffs and to fans of hunky guys in three-way relationships."
- The curious casting notice which appeared on the Facebook page for the Hunter College Theatre Department on October 14, 2015, stating that:
"I am a filmmaker in NYC casting a SAG Ultra Low Budget feature film entitled Democracy in America, a comedic political allegory about three men traveling cross-country in search of a doctor who will hopefully make one of them well. I need a charismatic young man to play the lead (Frankie), an energetic, very attractive young man. The actor must be in the borderline transitional period, no longer a boy and yet not fully a man. Actor must be in great shape and comfortable with full-frontal nudity. Training and strong improvisational skills are pluses."
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| Poster art for Kill The Monsters |
Like a trio of gay musketeers, the three men around whom Lonergan's film revolves are:
- Sutton (Garrett McKechnie), a handsome gay man with a trust fund who enjoys recreational drugs (and tries to seduce Frankie into snorting cocaine with him). Constantly telling every unhappy couple he meets that their lives would be soooo much better if they found a third partner so that they, too, could be a thruple, Sutton has enough money to act impulsively even if he doesn't always make the best decisions.
- Patrick (Ryan Lonergan) is a neurotic motormouth and control freak who talks a mile a minute, is extremely manipulative, and is the dominant personality with a clear vision of what his thruple's future should look like. Having been Sutton's partner for several years, Patrick frequently resorts to nagging, bickering, and occasional bullying to get his way. While Sutton is independently wealthy, Patrick writes a blog, which means that he can work from anywhere.
- Frankie (Jack Ball) is a recent addition to Sutton and Patrick's relationship. Young, fitness-conscious, and extremely careful about what foods he eats, Frankie likes to exercise and watch television. He's as affectionate as a puppy, as pliable as a young submissive, and strong enough to carry heavy objects while Patrick keeps talking. When Frankie starts to develop strange symptoms, a therapist suggests that he probably needs some kind of change in his lifestyle. Wondering if the stress from his job as an assistant to an overbearing bank executive from Great Britain might be the root cause of his mysterious illness, Frankie turns in his resignation and tries to figure out what to do with his newfound freedom. After Sutton, Patrick, and Frankie drive cross-country and find a new home in Santa Monica, Frankie ends up working three part-time jobs. Exhausted and tired of listening to all the bickering, he finally pushes back against Patrick.
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| Garrett McKechnie (Sutton), Jack Ball (Frankie), and Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
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| Garrett McKechnie (Sutton), Jack Ball (Frankie), and Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
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| Garrett McKechnie (Sutton), Jack Ball (Frankie), and Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
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| Garrett McKechnie (Sutton), Jack Ball (Frankie), and Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
Among the women who challenge the independence and idealism of this testy (and tasty) trio are:
- Edith (Zuhairah McGill), an old friend of Sutton's who is a financial whiz, a grifter, and gets indicted for insider trading (among other things). Edith isn't into bullshit. She's as refreshingly blunt as anyone can get.
- Leni (Julia Campanelli), an aggressive German lesbian who always has to dominate the scene and her lover, Gutrune (Laura Brocca). Put a deck of cards in her hands and Leni plays poker with a vengeance. If another player doesn't have sufficient cash to meet a bet, she'll slyly suggest that he wager his car, his parking spot in the building's garage, or anything else that can feed her hunger for power.
- Olga (Eve Grissinger) and Nadja (Careena Melia), a Russian lesbian couple living in the same building.
- Sajida (Anna Myrha), a foreign-born condo owner who tries to get Sutton to loan her a shitload of money from his trust fund.
- Cathy (Ellen Etten), an eccentric woman that Frankie meets at Venice Beach who appears as a clown on a television show.
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| Jack Ball (Frankie), Garrett McKechnie (Sutton), Zuhairah McGill (Edith), and Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
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| Leni (Julia Campanelli) dominates a mean game of poker in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
As the three men drive from New York to Santa Monica (where they hope that Frankie's health will improve), they stop at various landmarks that commemorate important moments in American history. Their road trip is framed by Andrew Huebscher's phenomenal black-and-white cinematography while resting on the solid foundation of Pier Harrison's witty snippets of easily recognizable themes from classical music.
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| Jack Ball (Frankie), Garrett McKechnie (Sutton, and Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
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| Ryan Lonergan (Patrick) and Jack Ball (Frankie) in a scene form Kill The Monsters |
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| A scene from Ryan Lonergan's Kill The Monsters |
As the story progresses, the audience begins to realize that none of the main characters in Lonergan's film really needs to work (although the three men try to pool their resources, Frankie knows that he can always rely on Sutton and Patrick for financial help). Thanks to modern technology (the Internet, smartphones, etc.) it is remarkably easy for these guys to exist within a bubble of wealth, privilege, and irony. In his Director’s Statement, Lonergan explains that:
"The idea for Kill The Monsters came when I was re-reading Animal Farm and was inspired by Orwell's examination of communism through allegory. It made me want to explore the evolution of democracy in the United States in a similar way; only my film would use humans rather than farm animals for protagonists. Frustrated by discouraging patterns in American politics, I wanted to explore democracy specifically as it pertains to the manipulation of the masses by both the liberal and conservative elite. I wanted to ask: if democracy is the final evolution of government (as so many philosophers claim it to be), then why is it so ineffective at serving the people?"
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| Leni (Julia Campanelli) and the lesbians get ready to take on the boys in a mean game of poker in a scene from Kill The Monsters |
"If one watches the men in this film and wonders why they stay together, one must also question the same for these united states. Why should we stay together? How did we get here? What, if anything, can be done to improve the situation? Lincoln once said 'If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it.' Whereas Animal Farm is, on the surface, a story about pigs killing humans and taking over the farm, my film is a road movie centering around the preservation of a long-term relationship. It never discusses politics or history overtly; only through allegory and humor. While never betraying reality, Kill The Monsters is in some way based in a slightly heightened world in which viewers watch the history of the United States unfold within the course of one feature-length film."In addition to a script that is rude, ribald, sexy, and sardonic, Kill The Monsters marks Lonergan's triumphant full-length feature debut as a cinematic triple threat (actor, writer, director) with a special flare for creative editing. I found his film much more than just hot and hilarious. It's a road trip like no other; a brash challenge that respects an audience's intelligence while daring viewers to keep pace with its bold vision. Here's the trailer:
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