Run Lola, Run and my reflection on the semester

This week in class we had a screening of a 1998 German thriller film, “Run Lola, Run”. The film was written and directed by Tom Tykwer, and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutsche Mark in twenty minutes to save her boyfriend’s (Manni’s) life.

Through my own research and through an analytical article written about the film, I have gained an understanding of what I believe the director was trying to portray. From the article: “Tykwer belongs to a generation of Germans that embraces popular culture rather than criticizes it as a colonization of the mind and a form of cultural imperialism.” The director made this film with the pride of germany, adding in various parts of german culture as well as different themes throughout the movie that are seen in other german films and literature.

 

The film touches on themes such as the role of chance in people’s destiny, and obscure cause-effect relationships. Through brief flash-forward sequences of flashing images, Lola’s quick interactions with bystanders she encounters while she is running to Manni are revealed to have surprising and drastic effects on their future lives, serving as illustrations of a butterfly effect (However, another explanation is that Lola’s interactions with them didn’t really cause anything. It’s just that each person inherently has vastly different possibilities of ways that their lives could play out, and a different version of their lives is shown in the three different ways.) The film’s exploration of the relationship between chance and conscious intention is shown in the casino scene, where Lola appears to defy the laws of chance through sheer force of will, wishing with everything she had that she would win the money, and making the roulette ball land on her winning number with the help of her glass-shattering scream.

The thematic exploration of free will vs. determinism is made clear from the start. In the film’s brief prologue, a narrator asks a series of rhetorical questions that cause the audience to view the film through a metaphysical lens touching on philosophical questions. The theme is reinforced through the repeated appearance of a blind woman who briefly interacts with Manni in each alternative reality, and seems to have supernatural understandings of both the present and potential futures in those realities. By the final telephone booth scene in which the blind woman directs Manni’s attention to the man who stole his money in the beginning of the film, which allows him to finally retrieve his bag of money, saving his life.

Several moments in the film show what seems to be a supernatural awareness of the characters. For example, in the first twenty minute reality sequence, Manni shows Lola how to use a gun by removing the safety, while in the second timeline she removes the safety as though she remembers what to do. This suggests that she might have the memory of the events depicted in the previous reality sequence. Also, the bank’s guard says to Lola “you finally came” in the third sequence, as if he possibly remembered Lola’s appearances in the previous two. There are other themes that are more obvious throughout the film; love, as seen through Lola and Manni’s relationship, and the kinds of things that love will lead people to do, also seen in the relationship with Lola’s Father and his mistress. Also, a big one, time. Time is the most obvious theme in the film, as there are many flashing images of clocks and watches, and the film being split up into four 20-minute sections.

As for my reflection on this semester as a whole, I had a great semester with what content I learned from this class. Entering class, I was completely unaware of the kinds of things I would be learning about, and wasn’t all that interested, just took it because a friend told me I should. Throughout the course I found that the things we were talking about had an impact on my everyday life, being an artist and constantly creating work, I found myself influenced by and thinking more about the history of film while I was creating. I find that I am more interested in older films now, and I appreciate them much more than I previously did.

I found an almost immediate interest within the first half of the class, learning about old german horror films which I have always loved watching and learning about. Going through the different decades and learning but why filmmakers and production companies filmed what they did caused me to be more aware of things like that as I watch films now, as I never compared films that I like to other films of their time to realize those similarities that connected time frames and production companies to their films. One of my favorite weeks was the week that we learned about “midnight movies” and screened “the Rocky Horror Picture Show” which has been always been one of my all time favorites, but I never realized that in the 70’s there was such a cultural movement caused by films like this.

The Overall mood of class, seeing how interested and informed other students are in class, definitely made me intrigued to learn more about the films and the history of how and why they were made. I am registered for next semester to take  “intro to film”, and heard about a “Cult Film” class that is happening next spring semester that I also am looking into taking! I hope that through taking these classes and learning about film that my art work will continue to hold those influences and I can sway my artwork in that way. Also as I start to form my schedules more around photography, I think that learning about film and incorporating that will be a big help in ideas composition of my work!

 

1980’s Cinema, and “The Fly”

Cinema in the 1980s took a very interesting turn. I feel like I have always been able to tell if a film was made in the 80’s without prior knowledge of that fact, as they all, or a great majority of them at least, seem to have a similar look and feeling to them. 80’s films usually seem to have a bit of sci-fi/ fantasy in them. Some examples of these films are “Back to the Future”, “Ghostbusters”, “Gremlins”(one of my favorites), “The Labyrinth” (even more of a favorite) and the movie that we were lucky enough to screen in class this week, “The Fly”. something that I love about films from the 80’s is the hopeless romance in them. This romance was heavily contrasted by horror and fear. These themes were not only played out on screen, but with the AIDS epidemic coming to play in the 80’s, this was also what was happening in real life.
Back to our screening, this week we watched “The Fly”. “The Fly” is a film from 1986 directed by David Cronenberg, who is a director known for making films having to do with sci-fi body transformations and infection, caused by futuristic technology gone wrong. The Fly was produced by  Brooksfilms and distributed by 20th Century Fox. This film is a perfect example of the science fiction/ horror/ romance that I mentioned before. The film stars Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. This plays out the almost unrealistic fast moving romance of the 80’s, while also holding the extremely unrealistic and dramatic sci fi horror themes. I feel as though the pairing of the two themes is a tactic used to grab and hold the attention of several different audiences. I myself am more drawn to the romantic aspects of film, for the most part, which is why I enjoyed this film. But others who may hate romantic movies, but who love sci fi, would also find great enjoyment in this film. The love story between the two main characters, A scientist who has discovered but not perfected teleportation, and a journalist reporter  trying to out his discovery until she quickly finds herself to have fallen in love with the scientist, was one that had me hooked quickly. This, also paired with the reporters own personal drama with her ex boyfriend/ boss was a great addition of drama to keep me interested throughout the entirety of the film. This film did an amazing job at holding a good amount of action from beginning to end, never trailing off or slowing down much. The special effects that became more and more apparent throughout the film as the scientist was morphed into a human sized fly after accidently teleporting himself with a fly in his teleportation machine, were just how special effects of the 80’s always looked. Very costume like, almost too much to take seriously, which gives a cheesy horror vibe which is a characteristic of old horror films that I love. Overall, I had a great time watching this film, the love story continued through to the very end where the audience gets to really feel the heartbreak of the ending of the relationship between the two main characters when the reporter is forced to shoot the scientist, as his body had completely changed into that of a fly’s, and he was deteriorating in front of her, grabbed the gun himself and held it to his own head, asking her to shoot him. A truly heartbreaking ending to this rollercoaster of a film.

70’s Cult Films, Midnight Movies, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show

This week, we discussed cult films of the 1970’s. This topic has been the most interesting topic that we have learned about in class in my opinion. I have always been a huge fan of cult classics. These films marked an important era in film history, the era of the midnight movie. Midnight movie culture began in the early 1970’s with “El Topo” playing in New York City at the Elgin Theater, eventually spreading across America. This type of screening, playing non mainstream films late at night, was aimed at building this community of movie goers, a cult film audience, encouraging social interaction as well as repeat viewing of films. Going back to “El Topo”, this is a film I have never seen before. It is a 1970’s Mexican Western film that was written and directed the star of the film, Alejandro Jodorowsky. This film, marking the beginning of an era, could be considered the most influential of its time, as huge crowds of people swarmed to see this film, and countless amounts of articles and reviews were written about it. In my own opinion, it is not one that I wish to see myself. This is a highly controversial film, showing scenes of rape, and abuse, and the harsh violence is not something that I find entertainment in. Some other films that are categorized as 70’s cult films are “Pink Flamingos”, a film that I had the pleasure of watching this week, “A Clockwork Orange”, and our screening of the week, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has been one of my favorite movies since the first time I saw it when I went to a halloween party when I was a freshman in highschool. This was before I knew about audience participation involved in the showings of this film. I have gone to a showing one time, my freshman year here at Alfred, where my closest friend was on stage as “Dr. Frankenfurter”. This kind of community interactiveness is what makes this film so amazing and what makes it a prime example of a cult classic. This movie was taken from a screenplay, and once adapted into a film, starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, and many other talents, this film went straight back to the stage with live performances played out in front of the big screen. This was a huge move for the midnight movie goers, as the audience was a huge part of each screening, with props and costumes, and also with following along to the script, which in my opinion is the most enjoyable part of a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The film has themes that are shown in other midnight movies of that time, it explores sexuality and gender fluidity, something that was much less talked about in the 1970’s than it is today. I believe that this film as well as others of its time have had an impact on the way society views members of the lgbt community, by audiences going to see these films many times for the fun environment, which exposed them to the idea that these nontraditional portrayals of sexualities and gender were not as unusual as previously thought.

American New-Wave and The Poseidon Adventure

In 1970’s France, there was a big change to French filmmaking. This change was a major influence on The film industry in America. We enter the American New-Wave. This marked the generation of the Baby Boomers, and also is marking point for the ending of major production code, that had previously halted filmmakers from showing things such as drug use, nudity, sexual content, or foul language in their films. The “American New Wave’ happened from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in the United States. They influenced the types of films produced, their production, marketing, and the way major studios approached film-making. In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role.Many studios got new owners, which changed the way that were done, as these new owners were much younger and had a new eye for filmmaking.  Some examples of American New wave films would be; Bonnie and Clyde (screened last week), Night of the Living Dead, and The Godfather.

This week in class we did a screening of a film called “The Poseidon Adventure”. This is a 1972  film directed by Ronald Neame.produced by Irwin Allen, and based on Paul Gallico’s 1969 novel. It features a cast which includes five Academy Award winners: Gene Hackman; Ernest Borgnine; Jack Albertson; Shelley Winters; and Red Buttons. This film is categorized under “disaster films”, and it definitely fit that description. Going into to watching the film, I was not very excited, as this film was picked over many other amazing films such as Jaws, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, ect. I had never heard of The Poseidon Adventure until wednesday’s class. The film starts off showing moments of different peoples lives as they travel on a cruise ship, which is taking its final voyage from New york City to Athens, and shows the boat heading towards and going through some pretty big waves. The people on the cruise ship go to big dinner, all dressed up. As the dinner is happening, a few key characters are focused in on. We watch their night unfold, and see their personal interactions with one another until ship suddenly is knocked over by a huge wave. The ship ends up upside in the ocean, causing the main characters to have to work together to navigate themselves through the ship, trying to find their way buy climbing and crawling through these dangerous obstacles, being lead by a preacher, Scott (Gene Hackman). Scott leads this small group of survivers throughout the ship, looking for the engine room that has a water tight door. Slowly, one by one while traveling through different parts of the ship which are flooded or on fire, we see many of the initial survivors die off. Once they reach the engine room, a broken pipe is spraying steam, blocking the doorway. Scott is seen jumping to the pipes valve, closing it off while giving a speech, asking God why has taken so many of them, and asking how many more God wants. After the steam is shut off, Scott drops to his death, and the few of the survivors who are left are rescued to safety.

If i’m being honest, disaster films have never been favorites of mine. I have always felt that the plots and reality of disaster films are just unrealistic and slightly uninteresting. In this film however, I was drawn to some of the characters, appreciating their backstory and character build up, which helped with then showing how these people with different back stories interact with one another.

Singin’ in the Rain, The French New Wave, and Bonnie and Clyde

This week in class, my group and I gave a presentation on “Singin’ in the Rain”. “Singin in the Rain” is 1952 film, doubling as a musical and a rom-com. It was directed and choreographed by Gene Kelley and Stanley Donen. The film shows behind the scenes of big movie production in Hollywood in the late 1920s, dealing with the transition from silent films to “talkies”. Starring Gene Kelley, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connar, the film gives amazing performances and an overall inflicts a “happy-go-lucky” feeling. I think very highly of this film, and am happy that this is the film that my group chose to present. The main character in the film, Don Lockwood, is an actor, who also has a background in singing, dancing, and is a stunt man. Hs is matched with a young Hollywood actress for publicity for their movies, but this actress believes, despite being told multiple times otherwise, that her relationship with Don is real off screen as well. Don meets a showgirl, played by Debbie Reynolds, who becomes his new love interest, making his co-actress upset and jealous. The film goes on to show the shift in hollywood production as well as moving through the relationships of people who were involved in making that shift.

As for the reading this week, we learned about the “French New-Wave” in the 1950’s and 60’s. Around this time, the French filmmakers were making films that broke convention of what was allowed to be shown in film. This led to American filmmakers wanting in on the R-rated activity. In 1967, the MPAA’s Hay’s Code, restricting the use of violence and sexual content, was lifted; films were free to use much more risque shots. These films were more realistically shot, capturing things such as realistic looking bullet holes in someone who has just been shot, less modest sexual scenes, and more use of drugs. Critics in the 1960’s were all over the place in opinions of this film movement, some loved the films, and loved how much more believable and capturing they were with the removal of such tight restrictions on what could be shown. Other critics were not so fond of this new method, with their belief that these things have no reason to be shown to audiences.  

On wednesday, our class had a screening of “Bonnie and Clyde”  a 1967 American biographical crime film directed by Arthur Penn.  The film stars Warren Beatty as Clyde Borrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker. The film features Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons, with Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Gene Wilder.  In the movie, Bonnie and Clyde are a couple who’s small acts of mischief turn into larger ones. The couple robs banks, and kills police officers. They meet when Clyde attempts to steal thecar of a woman, who happens to be Bonnie’s mother. Bonnie at the time is bored with her life and her job as a waitress; she is intrigued by Clyde and decides to be his partner in crime. Throughout the movie, Bonnie and Clyde are shown throughout their entire relationship, portraying their kind personalities outside of the crimes they commit, and telling a story of two people falling in love. Together they kill police officers and bank tellers, while being very kind to others, showing sympathy and compassion; to me, Bonnie and Clyde were only out to fight real problems in the world, the messed up police system, and capitalism. At the end of the film, the couple is at their happiest, having just decided that they were going to get married, when police massacre them, but not before they give each other a look of pure love and of knowing they have no regrets. The film was very good, and with knowing that this is a true story, it was much more upsetting to see the ending of the film.

Exploitation and the end of the “Golden Era”

*Posted Late w/ Permission from Prof. S

A huge shift in the film industry came about in 1948, which marks the end of the “Golden Age” of film. The “Big 5” studios, RKO Pictures, Warner Brothers, Metro-Goldwyn Meyer, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount Pictures, were monopolizing the film industry, which caused The Paramount Decision of 1948 to be put in place. This lost the Big Five a lot of money, and completely changed the way films were made and advertised. Theaters were now required to show a certain amount of independent films, this lead to the beginning of the “exploitation film”. Independent studios began making their way onto the big screen, with a new audience being marketed to, teenagers. Teenagers had never been marketed to, and with television shows on the rise, adults found it much more convenient to stay home and watch television, rather than going out to see a film.

We screened on documentary on this in class this week, called “Schlock!”. This documentary dives into the behind the scenes of what happened with film after the Paramount Decision of 1948. It shows the rise of directors such as one of the most notable and well known directors of the era, Roger Corman. Roger Coreman was under the production company “American International Pictures”, and produced “The Fast and The Furious” in 1954, as well directing movies such as “Day the World Ended” in 1955, “Attack of the Crab Monsters” in 1957, and “Teenage Caveman” in 1958. This documentary goes on to explain the making of exploitation and sexplotations film, and the impact these films had. These films were made very quickly, less than a week from start to finish of the production of these films. They also used young actors and actresses, as the films were targeted towards teenagers, which set off a lot of actors into their careers such as Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, and many others. The Paramount Decision of 1948 along with Roger Corman sparked Drive-in culture, with gave Drive-in theaters their  stereotype of teenagers watching cheesy movies on a date at a drive-in as this brought in a ton of money and notability to low budget independent film makers. Sexploitation was a huge thing at this time. Films where there was little plot, but a lot of nudity were an exciting new kind of film emerging as production code and censorship let up. It was also common for trailers of films around this time to be loud and exciting, but havealmost nothing to do with the film.

Exploitation was often looked down upon by older viewers, as they believed that the films were responsible for the behaviors of the teenagers who were going to view them. The producers of the films of course denied that being true. I think that this era of film absolutely could have had an effect of the actions of these teens, but that it also shaped the way that they saw the world, with this large amount of exploitation films being shown to them all the time, but also shaped a new idea of what film was in this new generation. Exploitation films shut down the monopolization and controlled environment by the Big Five, and made way the big jump of independent production companies.

Italian Neorealism and “Wild Strawberries”

 

     This week, we began to talk about Italian Neorealism, which is also known as “The Golden Age”,  and which came about around 1943 and continued on until about 1952. Some major influences of Italian Neorealism were poetic realism, marxism, and christian humanism. This was a film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, mostly in rundown cities as well as some rural areas. These films are known for often using non-professional actors, even some of the actors being pulled right from the street, although in a number of cases, well-known actors were cast in leading roles, in front of a background populated by local people, rather than extras brought in for the film. This continues on our topic of World War II as Italian neorealism films mostly show the difficult economic and moral conditions of post World War II Italy. The films told stories including conditions of everyday life such as poverty, oppression, injustice, and desperation after the war. A good example and one of the most notable Italian Neorealist films is “Bicycle Thieves”, an Italian drama directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1948. This film is about a poor father in post WWII Italy who is given a job which requires him to have a bicycle. He scrapes up enough money to get one, which would be a saving grace for his poor family, but has the bicycle stolen from him. The film goes on to show the father and son, searching for the stolen bicycle around the city of Rome so that the father can work to support his family. The ending of the movie is not a positive one, and leaves the viewer on a unsettled note, which was generally the case for Italian Neorealism films.

A still from “Bicycle Thieves”

     This week in class we also had a screening of the film “Wild Strawberries”  a 1957 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Bergman is a director well known for his dark themed films, touching on existentialism, religion, and dealing with the most inward personal doubt and internal conflict. In this film, a doctor, now an old man, is traveling with his pregnant daughter in law to receive an award. Along the way, the old man ( named Isak Borg) is brought back into different parts of his life, where he gets to watch and reflect on things that he did, and how he acted. He is shown that he was not necessarily the best man. He has this internal conflict concerning his old age, which is the cause of these nightmarish images and his flashbacks.

A still from “Wild Strawberries”

A still from “wild Strawberries”

They meet a group of fun, loud outgoing, seemingly manic young people along the way, two men and a woman. The woman, Sara, is a parallel of Isak’s lost love from when he was young. Each of these hitchhikers set off isak into a new memory of his past, forcing him to reevaluate his life. Isak and his daughter in law also pick up a middle aged couple along the way, who displayed such a toxic energy that they had to be forced to leave. This couple reminded isak of his own troubled marriage when he was their age. One of the heaviest scenes of the film in my opinion was the one with the examiner, a dream of Isak’s where he is asked to explain foreign writing written on a board in front of him and he cannot complete the task, which the examiner then explains that the board says the first duty of being a doctor is to ask for forgiveness, and then tells Isak that he is “guilty of guilt”. Scenes like this are so intriguing as they are a view into the mind of someone struggling with deep internal unresolved conflicts. He reminisces about his childhood and his sweetheart Sara, with who he had fond memories of gathering strawberries with, but who instead went on to marry his brother. He is confronted by his loneliness and indifference, recognizing these traits in both his old mother and in his middle-aged son, and he gradually begins to accept himself, his past, his present and his approaching death. This film surprisingly was also very funny, with the manic hitchhikers, the scenes with the twins from his past, and the scenes with his maid. Comedic tones are not very common in Bergman films, as they give an unexpected lift in mood to these heavy topics that Bergman displays. But in this film, the funnier scenes kept an engaged audience to the seemingly slow yet actually important and in depth scenes that make up the rest of the film.

Casablanca and The Impact Of The War on Film

     This week we focused on the WWII era and what that meant for film. During WWII films began being used as a means of propaganda and spreading information. The Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs was created as America Declared their spot in the war. This organization aided the making of films that made America look good, very patriotic films. In class, we watched “Casa Blanca”, A Warner Brothers film from 1942. This is the story of Rick Blaine who owns an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid; it also features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. Set during contemporary World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate who must choose between his love for a woman, and helping her and her husband escape from the city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis. This movie is a great example of what kind of films came as a result of the Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs. The goal here was essentially a “Pro-America” propaganda spread. Different producers and directors were making these films throughout World War II and also throughout the cold war with the  Soviet Union. Communism was America’s biggest fear, and many films and other things worked and gained from that fear as Many films were made about stories of communism during that time. Congress created a subcommittee on Un-American Activities to look out for communists possibly in the film industry.

     In films that were being made, often characters from different countries, such as Japan and Germany, the characters were filmed and talked about as very stereotypical versions of themselves, always being an enemy and menacing antagonistic character. Something very surprising to me as I was researching and doing the readings for this week is how much the United States being in war actually influenced the film industry. Hundreds or more films were made just telling stories that commented on individuals everyday life as affected by war. Now, in a way spreads some awareness about how awful the war is to deal with within a family, but also is kind of exploitive in the way that the film industry is making so much money by showing the lives of people who are actually dealing with this.

     Casablanca was a great film that I ended up enjoying a lot even though I was skeptical to start. Something I love about this era of film is how much you learn about the histories of the wars while being paired with a specific story of how individuals were affected by it. The story felt well put together, with just the right amount of their personal lives mixed with the story of the war. I think that adding the scandal of a woman making a man fall in love with her and then up and leaving to go back to the man she is married to was an intriguing twist to keep the viewers interested in the film the whole way through. I enjoyed the darkness of film setting the mood of the story, Rick not being able to get back to America during the war, falling in love with a woman only for her to abruptly leave him. But then by the end it didn’t feel so dark and heavy as the story ended on a good note, but I won’t give the ending away.

 

MPAA, The Best Days of Our Lives, and The 39 Steps

This week, we discussed the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), which later, around turned into the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The MPAA is a set of guidelines placed on films starting around the year 1930, censoring the movies to rid them of violence, promiscuity, etc. They were working from the idea that these things being showed in films caused people to act out in the ways that they saw in the films. After this topic was discussed, we begin the screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps”, which was filmed in 1935. These two things relate as it is known that Alfred Hitchcock was very good at keeping the movies that he directs in compliance with set guidelines, while also still insinuating the things that were not allowed to be showed in films.

    On wednesday, group one gave its presentation on the movie “The Best Years of our lives”. I have never seen this film, but the group did a very nice job at explaining each of their parts to help us understand the movie. The group members seemed very informed and excited to talk about the film and gave great insights. They also were able to conduct a lot of conversation during their presentation. I liked that the group played the trailer of the film, which showed how differently movies are advertised today than they used to be. The film being about men returning home from the war, seemed to be made into a love story for the trailer, excluding important characters and including unimportant characters. It seems that the way people viewed films in the past was different, like the majority wanted to see these love stories, and not anything having to do with the war or violence, so the trailers were altered in order to make them appeal more to the general public.

After group one presented, we continued to watch the film, “The 39 Steps”, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I have seen this movie before, but have always found it difficult to fully keep up with the story line and know exactly what was going on. In my opinion, the film seems messy and hard to follow, with the main story line being all over the place with things happening very quickly and then not being talked about again. This movie is low on my list of Alfred Hitchcock films, nowhere near comparing to films like, “psycho” or “The Birds”. Something that is done well in the film however, is the way Hitchcock is able to the let the audience know that something violent has happened without actually showing them the violent action. If any sort of violent contact is made, the camera is not showing it, but the way that Hitchcock directs, makes the reactions of the actors and the music in the background send a clear message of the violence that has happened. This is something to respect about Hitchcock, the way he walked around the guidelines that were being placed on his films.