Introduction

                                   Welcome to Stuart Fernie’s Blog

Please scroll down or find on the right links to articles, pages of reflections on films and books, and occasional pieces of short fiction.

Articles include discussion of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2009), "American Gigolo"(1980), "Ace in the Hole", "Suite Française", elements of a good lesson (secondary level), "Sweeney Todd", "The Yakuza", using film and song in the modern languages classroom, "The Dirty Dozen", "Megalopolis", Critical Thinking, "the relationship between an artist, a work of art and the consumer of a work of art", "respect, self-perception and self-healing", "Sicario" (2015), Steve McQueen, "Dracula entre l'amour et la mort" (the French-Canadian musical), science-fiction films, films about teaching, "A Tale of Two Cities" (1958), "The Invention of Lying", the Arts, the James Bond films, "Sweet Smell of Success", "Rollerball" (1975 and 2002), "The Professionals" (1966), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Name of the Rose", "The Man who would be King", "Mr. Holmes" (2015), "The Last Samurai", "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961), "The Sand Pebbles", "Forrest Gump", "Gran Torino", "Gangs of New York", "Emperor of the North", "Five Easy Pieces", "Chinatown", "Casablanca", Blade Runner", "The Big Red One", early Luc Besson films, "Being There", "An Inspector Calls", "La Belle et la Bête", "The Searchers", "The Mission", "High Plains Drifter", "Nuremberg" (2025), "Prime Cut", the influence of existentialism in society today, anxiety, professional criteria and essential attributes in teaching, professionalism versus careerism, thoughts on the meaning of "success" and "worth", "Hobson's Choice", "Quai des Orfèvres", "Le Corbeau", "The Wages of Fear", advice and questions to assist in the writing of essays about films, thoughts on Proportion and Self-respect, "The Offence", "Trainspotting", "Three Days of the Condor", "Spotlight", "Good Night and Good Luck", "The Count of Monte Cristo" (French version, 2024), "Midnight Express", Jason Bourne, Advocating Arts and Humanities, "Heaven's Gate", "Civil War", "The Ghost and Mrs Muir", "Ad Astra", Duality in 19th century literature, "Living", "Hell in the Pacific", "Point Blank", "Vera Cruz", "Dr Strange in the Multiverse", my interpretation of "Il faut cultiver notre jardin", "Jean de Florette" and "Manon des Sources", "Drive my car", "The Batman", the place of acting in society, thoughts about religion and fate, "The Banshees of Inisherin", "Full Metal Jacket", "The Bishop's Wife", "Moliere", "Les Fleurs du Mal", "Soylent Green", "Bad Day at Black Rock", "The First Great Train Robbery", The Dreyfus Affair, "Persona", "The Seventh Seal", "A Clockwork Orange", "Night Moves", "Lonely are the Brave", "In the heat of the night", "The League of Gentlemen" (1960), thoughts on the nature of film noir, "Star Trek", "Seven Days in May", "Dead Poets Society", "Good Will Hunting", "Callan", "The Hill", "Cool Hand Luke", "The Hustler", "Road to Perdition", "The Verdict", "Three Colour Trilogy", "Jojo Rabbit", "Jeremiah Johnson", "Collateral", "Joker", "Barry Lyndon", "The Bridge at Remagen", "Le Mans '66 (Ford v Ferrari)", Charles Foster Kane ("Citizen Kane"), "The Deer Hunter", "Highlander", "No Country for Old Men", "Gattaca", "The Adventures of Robin Hood"(1938), "Apocalypse Now", "Spartacus", "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Long Good Friday", "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", "The Third Man", "Finding Forrester", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "Untouchable" (2011),"Unforgiven", "The Manchurian Candidate", "The Wild Bunch", "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", "Papillon" (1973), "Public Eye", "Existentialism in society today", "Seven Samurai", "It's a Wonderful Life", "Don Quixote", "We're No Angels", "The African Queen", "Babette's Feast", "War for the Planet of the Apes", "Dunkirk", “Dances With Wolves”, “Inherit The Wind” and “The Prisoner”. 

A link to my YouTube channel with video presentations of a number of my pages.

After I retired from teaching, I thought I’d write my memoirs, “What have I done?”, and present them online. Please find links to these memoirs, some French support pages and reflections on "Les Misérables" below.

I can be contacted through the comments sections or at stuartfernie@yahoo.co.uk

Other blogs available:

French Support Pages

Discussion of “Les Misérables”

Tales of teaching – memoirs of a former French teacher

Version française d’articles initialement publiés en anglais sur mon blog

All intellectual property rights reserved

Reflections on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2009)

 

Reflections on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2009)

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev

Screenplay by Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel

Based on the book by Stieg Larsson

Starring Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace et al.

 

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a Swedish neo-noir thriller that has two major assets – its storyline of topical relevance concerning the abuse and murder of young and vulnerable women by wealthy or influential men who operate apparently unchecked by law enforcement, and the film’s enigmatic heroine, or anti-heroine, who plays with convention and reverses stereotypes.

Wealthy businessman Henrik Vanger seeks information about the disappearance or, he suspects, murder of his niece Harriet some 40 years previously and he hires famed journalist Mikael Blomkvist to investigate.

Mikael is a man of integrity and principle who has been framed by a corrupt businessman and who is awaiting a prison sentence for libel. He pursued an investigation into mega wealthy businessman Hans-Erik WennerstrÖm but he is outplayed by WennerstrÖm who feeds Mikael false information that allows WennerstrÖm to take Mikael to court where he is sentenced to a few months’ imprisonment, though that is deferred for a short time. WennerstrÖm is clearly unscrupulous, devious and willing to sacrifice the freedom of others in order to further his cause and to protect himself, and this episode constitutes an introduction to the themes of abuse of power and the inadequacy of the justice system that will be further explored in the film.

Eventually, Mikael is joined in his investigation by Lisbeth Salander, a troubled, rebellious and intelligent young woman with a chequered past who has highly developed skills in the field of cyber security, poorly developed social skills and is utterly determined to see justice done, at least in her eyes.

Mikael’s investigation into Harriet’s disappearance quickly reveals Nazi connections within the Vanger family as well as links to unsolved murders. It transpires that Harriet was brutally abused by her father Gottfried and her brother Martin and she uncovered links to a number of murders, putting her own life in danger, so she disappeared or escaped, leading her uncle Henrik to believe she may have been murdered.

Many years later, and in a situation that echoes that of Harriet, Lisbeth is savagely abused and raped by a man in a position of trust and responsibility, her legal guardian assigned by the courts, who is willing to exploit his status and influence to indulge personal desires at the expense of those in his care.

It appears that despite the façade of civilisation, ideals and equality in society, misogyny, brutal abuse and criminality are alive and well across all strata of society, and this is confirmed and emphasised by the experience of both Harriet and Lisbeth Salander.

The clear implication is that morality and ethics need not apply as some rich men or some in positions of authority act as they wish, gratifying themselves without considering the consequences for or impact upon their victims, and the law, there to protect the innocent and the abused, applies only to those willing to conform or those not powerful or affluent enough to cover their tracks. Given this premise, our film may fairly be called a film noir with Mikael and Lisbeth representing conventional idealism and personal accountability respectively.

Lisbeth is an intriguing, unconventional and enigmatic heroine or anti-heroine. She has suffered in the past and is living with the consequences of trauma in her childhood. We see the result in her outlook, her relationships, her lack of trust and her almost total self-reliance, operating by her own judgment and certainly not confined by societal structure and legality. She is not defeated but she is damaged, with her traumatic experience, only really hinted at in this film, leading her to a dedicated pursuit of truth, principle and accountability, often at the expense of financial gain and personal comfort and without recourse to recognised institutional networks of protection and care. After she suffers severe abuse at the hands of her so-called guardian, she displays endurance, clarity of thought, resilience and intelligence in outwitting and gaining vengeance upon her abuser, all qualities the audience finds admirable.

Refusing to fall in love, though she feels affection for some, she insists on retaining control of her life. She gains by the proceeds of criminal activity, stealing from the corrupt businessman who targeted Mikael for seeking to denounce him, while clearing Mikael’s name and condemning WennerstrÖm in the process, and as such she is the perfect film noir heroine. She acts in accordance with her acumen and her own sense of justice, which may explain why she is drawn to Mikael who shares her belief in justice though he is more straightforwardly and conventionally idealistic.

Noir elements are further accentuated when there is something of a clash between Mikael’s idealism and Lisbeth’s personally principled revenge – she saves Mikael from Martin’s torture but chooses to allow Martin to die in a car crash. Mikael tells her he couldn’t have done what she did but rather than judge her by traditional standards, he is grateful for her existence and recognises the value of her actions despite the questionable circumstances that created her and led to her dubious deeds. There are times when moral judgment needs to be fluid.

Lisbeth Salander is the true star and point of interest in the film. She is enigmatic and there is a mystique surrounding her, a mystique and fascination that risk being eradicated if her character is explored and explained to any great extent. To make her back story the focus is, I think, a mistake, at least in film versions of her adventures. It is better to drop incidental hints about her past along the way, maintaining our intrigue, than to explicitly reveal her past which may satisfy our curiosity but which may also reduce our fascination with the character. Stieg Larsson constructed his trilogy around Lisbeth’s character and back story so that she is the element around which the themes pivot, but I would suggest that in the cinema the themes are the essential element, to be explored by a character made incidentally human and intriguing, rather than have the character become the focus. It seems to me that this mistake has been made with the James Bond, Doctor Who and even Jason Bourne franchises.

 

My thanks for taking the time to read this article. I hope you found it of some value.

Stuart Fernie (stuartfernie@yahoo.co.uk)

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Brief reflections on "American Gigolo" (1980)

 

Brief reflections on “American Gigolo” (1980)

Directed and written by Paul Schrader

Starring Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton, Hector Elizondo et al.

 

“American Gigolo” is an allegorical tale cum thriller that is very European in style in that it focuses far more on observation of character and society than on plot, and as such it is much more insightful and successful as an allegory than as a thriller.

Julian Kay is a high-end male escort who is pretentious, materialistic and somewhat superficial, perhaps necessarily so due to his profession. We see him as he charms his way through his life, providing an attentive service to his clients but also grating on colleagues and business partners as he pursues his career and puts his ambitions above loyalty, gratitude or even true friendship.

His world is one of heartless transaction and reciprocation in which ambition and self-promotion are set above compassion and values, and I suggest this is to be seen as an allegory for American society at that time. Everyone, though especially Julian, appears to be content to be superficial and mercenary, committed to the principle of quid pro quo and cold-bloodedly using one another for personal benefit. As such, the choice of male prostitute as the central character is perhaps perfect as Julian uses others but is also used by others to achieve personal satisfaction.

However, Julian learns the disadvantages of this state of affairs when he is suspected of the murder of a former client and no-one is willing to support him or tell the truth about their involvement with him. He discovers that his entirely superficial existence, void of connection, depth and attachment, renders him entirely expendable. Indeed, he may be seen as the perfect candidate for a frame up exactly because no-one is willing to defend or support him, making him the perfect patsy, and the thriller element of the film involves his attempts to prove himself innocent despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

He meets socialite Michelle, with whom he starts a relationship and this relationship becomes essential both in terms of Julian’s personal development and the thriller aspect of the film, and it is Michelle’s involvement that I find particularly problematic. She invites compassion and represents genuineness and depth, and she is clearly the means of Julian’s spiritual salvation as she provides him with emotional closeness, spiritual depth, loyalty and sincerity. However, while I can see that she may not be receiving such relational features within her marriage and may seek them elsewhere, I fail to see why she would find Julian so spiritually attractive as he has displayed none of these qualities beyond the most superficial level.

Nor can I understand why he would abandon his carefully cultivated outlook on life all of a sudden and indulge in the kind of emotional attachment he has resolved to avoid and which has, from the evidence presented to us, held no interest for him.

I understand that for the sake of the storyline and the desired transformation, this shift in character is essential, but I find the rationale behind it quite unconvincing.

I understand that virtually everything in the film is about fakery and appearance and we, along with Julian, are being taught a lesson about the need for connection, honesty and sincerity, but ultimately, Julian’s alibi, provided by the loved-up Michelle, is also a fabrication. Granted, it reveals the depth of her feelings for Julian and the lengths to which she is prepared to go for him, but it is yet another lie in a web of fakery, appearance and reciprocity as opposed to integrity, authenticity and compassion hinted at as an alternative.

The film is stylish and beautiful to look at but it is quite uninvolving and unconvincing in terms of character development. Its strengths include its observations of character and society, its depiction of a spiritual and moral vacuum, and the plot device of the death of a former client, but the frame up is an obvious and clumsy attempt to introduce much needed threat and urgency while the genuine jeopardy created by the death of Julian’s business associate (and Julian’s direct involvement in it) is casually discarded on a legal technicality to allow for Michelle’s act of salvation!

Quite apart from these structural issues, I would say it doesn’t succeed terribly well as a thriller because we don’t really care about Julian’s fate. We may recognise the injustice of his situation but we are curious, not outraged, as we have remained emotionally unengaged by a character whose principal trait is lack of emotional engagement.

Somewhat ironically, if fittingly, I found it a beautiful but shallow and not very rewarding experience.

My thanks for taking the time to read this article. I hope you found it of some value.

Stuart Fernie (stuartfernie@yahoo.co.uk)

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