Thursday, October 13, 2011
Dead Man's Cell Phone 51-63 (II.4-6)
1. From time to time a stage directions says "film noir" music. What is film noire music like? Look up film noire on wikipedia if you don't know what it refers to.
2. Why might "film noir music" be given as a stage direction from time to time?
3. Surprises occur in these last scenes. Please cite them.
4. "Money and organs and trade--up here--it's just road kill of the mind." Discuss.
5. "Life is essentially a very large brillo pad." Discuss.
6. What in this reading was funny?
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Wikipedia describes "film noir" as "a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations." As I listened to this type of music, it made me think of scenes in movies where a thick layer of mist covers a dark setting, and men in trench coats with hats walk around sneakily with the collars of their coats pulled up over their mouths. The music inflicts a sense of danger approaching, or a crime being committed in a wholly glamorous fashion. At the beginning of scene four, when film noir music is playing, it seems like the perfect scenario for the music. The two women are meeting incognito in an airport in Johannesburg. There is a sense of danger and mystery in the air, but at the same time the "other woman" is such a glamorous figure that there is still a classy, bewitching feel to the situation.
ReplyDelete"Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s." (Wikipedia definitions)
ReplyDelete"Film Noir" might be given as a stage direction from time to time because the story line has a bit of mystery to it. Jean and Dwight are caught up in a dramatic love story at the same time that Jean "dies" and Gordon tells her she has always been in love with him instead. I think the fact that film noir music is used during this play adds to the suspicion, the mystery, the love story, and the comedy all at once. There are so many small bits in this play that are funny, like the fact that Gordon tells Jean that people kiss with their hair while in heaven. With the dramatic film noir music in the background, I think that this play could over all be considered a comedy. At the same time, I really would like to see this play for myself after reading it to see how the comedy, mystery and love story fit together into one.
When i looked up brillo pad, i learned that a brillo pad was a scouring pad used for cleaning dishes made from steel wool impregnated with soap. This is a very interesting concept considering that in the play they related a brillo pad to life. "Life is essentially a very large brillo pad." Just before Gordon says this he says "When you're alive, the goodness rubs off you if you as so much leave the house." After reading this i think that the author of the play was trying to say that life is like a brillo pad because you rub off goodness to other people and clean them up. It could also mean that people are constantly cleaning up life, cleaning up mistakes, and working on making their lives perfectly "clean."
ReplyDeleteEither way, the parallel between a brillo pad and life is a weird metaphor. A brillo pad is a very rough and effective way of scrubbing pans. There are some interesting relations you can make between the two such as cleaning, and perfection, and striving for goodness. Using a brillo pad to scrub a pan is effective, so comparing it to life could be saying that a giant brillo pad is constantly being used to perfect, clean, and improve the quality of ones life.
When I read wikipedia's definition of film noir, I chuckled a bit. Hearing it described as commonly used in "crime dramas" and used to show "cynical" attitudes simply added to the rather weird humor used in "Dead Man's Cell Phone". I find it funny and illuminating that this type of music would be played in certain scenes during the play. I have an obscure and laughable image of a big man tip-toeing along a dark ally, trying hard to be quiet, but blundering because he is trying too hard. Film noir music has a dark and ominous quality, full of drama, almost so much drama that it becomes no longer serious, and is more of a comical kind of slapstick drama, full of suspense and pretend.
ReplyDeleteFor me the most surprising part of the story is when jean suddenly comes to live again. I had to read twice to make sure she was actually in the airport. When she and Gordon were in hell chatting, at first I didnt think she was dead, but as the conversation continued i was conviced the story was going to end there, Gordon telling her why he had that look in his eyes when he died. But when Jean comes to live again I didnt know what to expect, how the story was going to end.
ReplyDeleteWhen she told mrs gotlieb about her meeting with Gordon, it was the when i could predict that she was going to kill herself in order to be with her son, so by that time, i founded the ending quite predictable
Film Noir music is the music in a movie or film that gives the watches a feeling of foreshadowing and suspense. Typically, the music is found in mystery, horror, and thriller movies and tv shows.
ReplyDeleteI listened to a song called "The Mask of Dimitrios" and I could definitely imagine it in a movie as someone approaches maybe someone else's house and they're about to find something they definitely didn't want to see.
I wonder why they decided to put the film noir music in the stage directions. Maybe it wasn't the playwright's intention to actually have the music in the play, but to have the actor's imagine it to give them something to work off of to reach their goal.
Brillo pads, look like a knotted clump of a wire-y sponge. My kitchen sink drawer has a few brillo pads, that I use when I need to scrub a tough surface. Through Gordon comparing life to a large brillo pad is effective in many ways. For one, life is an entangled web of different wires that have the ability to destroy what it touches. In life, we as humans have the ability to manipulate different things we come in contact with unintentionally, but rather due to our rough exterior. In the context of the play, Gordon's life became similar to that of a brillo pad because his rough exterior was erased leaving a clean and polished person with no troubles, in other words dead.
ReplyDeleteTo me the biggest surprises in these final scenes were...
ReplyDelete1. The fact Jean spoke to Gordon and was gone from the world for several months.
2. Mrs. Gottlieb kills herself without hesitation based of Jeans word.
3. The calmness in which Dwight accepts her death without hesitation.
4. When Jean kisses Gordon after telling Gordon she loved his brother.
I think Its really interesting that Gordon compares life to a very large brillo Pad. I have used these pads made of steel wool when scouring metal to remove imperfections, and make the metal clean. So In this sense, being scraped by a Brillo Pad would be a good thing, removing imperfections and impurities. Maybe Gordon thinks the opposite, meaning that the Brillo Pad scrapes off the goodness of us, making us artificial and false. There are multiple meanings contained here.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Money and organs and trade--up here--it's just road kill of the mind."
ReplyDeleteI believe that this quote is describing how the important parts of our lives while we are living, become negligible in death. Or, at least in this kind of death (in DMCP). While at one time the organ trade and money were of paramount importance to Gordon, like flourishing animals perusing the land and acting as cogs and bolts in the machine of life, after he died they simply became a dead memory that can never be re-salvaged; similar to dead creatures slowly cooking in the heat of the sun after being struck by an on coming mindless automobile (or motorcycle for that matter), becoming dirt. Never again will these creates be restored to life (upholding ignorance towards the energy cycle in earthly ecosystems of course), and never again will they be useful. Except as memories.
Wikipedia defines "film noir" as "a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations...Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography." -
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir
Film noir music was also mentioned to be popular during the Great Depression. Film noir music sounds sultry, jazzy, aloof, calming, and mysterious.
I think that film noir music is sometimes written in the stage directions in order to set the scene for the strange, covert, yet humorous instances in the play. Almost like a sarcastic, playful sound bit in order to "set the mood." It reminds me of modern movies, when they play that kind of music in order to get a laugh out of the audience, ease a situation, as in comic relief, or use it to be overly-cheesy.
I like how with that written in the stage directions it can be taken seriously, because it seems to be put in between the more mature circumstances in the play, but it can also be taken as a joke, because the situations are so tense and surprising, and the music is very expected, dramatic, but animated. It's a comical contrast.
Brillo pads are something found under the kitchen sink at home. Comparing life to something used to clean pots and pans is a very interesting thought. In a sense he could be saying that we are always trying to make ourselves free of our imperfections, yet there will always be more and more. He is saying that life is all about striving for something and you just have to keep scrubbing and scrubbing away before you come close.
ReplyDeleteA few dramatic events that surprised me in these last scenes were the following:
ReplyDelete"They kiss a strange kiss". When Jean and Gordon kiss shortly after Jean tells him that she is in love with Dwight- which seems to com out of nowhere as well.
"What do we kiss with?" "Our hair". This is really bizarre and didn't make any sense to me.
"I can feel it coming out! Help me get it out! It won't come out! The skin is so tough! Uuuuugh!". This was a very disturbing and graphic scene where Gordon is trying to rip his kidney out of him. This makes no sense to me and it is scary that he is doing it himself. Most likely he feels no pain because he is already dead.
"Off stage, [Mrs. Gottleb] throws herself into the flames with the steak and self immolates but we don't need to hear or see that". This is another disturbing image. Out of nowhere, Mrs. Gottlieb kills herself because she cannot stand to live any longer and be separated from her son.
"Good-bye mother. Kiss my brother for me and be happy". Dwight says this to himself in a very calm and unmoved way. He is not even surprised that his mother just killed herself...
After all of this mess, Jean and Dwight kiss to close the scene. This is the final action that makes no sense to me because a series of very significant and traumatic events just occurred and they seem not to even care!