Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 6 No. 8, April 2002
John Marmysz
The Cutting Edge Between Trash Cinema and High Art
Joan Hawkins _Cutting Edge: Art-Horror
and the Horrific Avant-garde_ Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2000 ISBN
0-8166-3414-9 326 pp. In her book _Cutting Edge:
Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-garde_, Joan Hawkins
examines a type of film that is frequently considered to be
lacking in artistic, philosophical, and social worth by
mainstream critics and scholars. The category of film she is
interested in includes titles drawn from pornography,
violent horror, exploitation, and other 'body genres'. These
body genre films have customarily been excluded from serious
critical analysis, the author claims, because of their
emphasis on 'affect' over 'intellect'. Since they provoke
visceral reactions in members of the audience and directly
influence the viewers' somatic condition, Hawkins claims
that serious critics have dismissed these films as nothing
more than pieces of exploitation or of lowly, trash culture.
However, according to Hawkins, the fact that a pornographic
film arouses an audience sexually, or that a splatter film
fills an audience with disgust and revulsion, is not
sufficient reason to dismiss it altogether. Such films often
have merits that go beyond their otherwise base and vulgar
qualities. Hawkins refers to body genre
films as examples of 'paracinema', a term which emphasizes
the outsider status these films enjoy in relation to the
mainstream of movie-making. Part of what she claims in her
book is that paracinematic films serve a political, and not
just a bodily purpose, insofar as they challenge the tastes
of mainstream culture. In doing so, paracinema rebels
against the 'regulation of culture' (31) by the middle
class, a group which has traditionally set public standards
of decency and good taste. In this manner, body genre films
share an affinity with forms of high art whose intended
purpose is to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and to
push the boundaries of what is considered socially and
aesthetically acceptable. Hawkins's book is less a
work of philosophical argumentation than it is a collection
of essays exploring the thematic overlap between low and
high culture in films. The most philosophical sections of
the book are the first three chapters in which the author
draws on the work of Linda Williams, Lawrence W. Levine,
Pierre Bourdieu, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Marshal
McLuhan, and Mikhail Bakhtin. The remaining five chapters
and the conclusion of the book are devoted to analysis and
evaluation of particular films that illustrate her main
thesis. In examining such films as _Eyes Without A Face_,
_The Awful Dr Orlof_, _Faceless_, _Rape_, _Snuff_, _Freaks_,
Andy Warhol's _Dracula_ and _Frankenstein_, and finally _The
People vs Larry Flint_, Hawkins demonstrates that many films
generally considered to be examples of trash cinema actually
have a dimension that goes beyond the merely shocking or
arousing. Although the entire book is quite engaging, I
found the chapter on Jess Franco's films and the chapters on
_Rape_ and _Snuff_ to be especially interesting. It is in
these sections that Hawkins most successfully illustrates
the sort of crossover that sometimes exists between examples
of high and low art. She also quite vividly shows that there
is a whole spectrum of historical, cultural, and political
circumstances that influence such designations. The cultural
acceptance of a piece of work as legitimate art often has
less to do with the intrinsic qualities of the piece itself
and more to do with the social circumstances into which the
piece is delivered. For instance, in her
discussion of the films of Jess Franco, Hawkins explains how
the legacy of fascism and the particular artistic traditions
of Spain contributed to an atmosphere in which graphic
horror films became a sophisticated vehicle for the delivery
of subversive political messages. The depiction of
'eroticized violence' (94) became a way for post-war Spanish
horror directors not just to titillate audiences, but to
comment upon the cruelty and inhumanity of the political
state. Lacking a literary tradition of horror, Spanish
filmmakers drew inspiration from imagery originating in
their country's rich tradition of horrific painting. Artists
such as Goya and Velazquez provided visual inspiration for
the nasty and rather crude depictions of sex and violence
that are commonplace in Spanish horror films. To American
audiences, Hawkins tells us, these sorts of depictions are
received out of their original context, and so are often
interpreted not as examples of art at all, but of lowly,
vulgar exploitation. However, within Spain, and among those
better prepared to understand the purposes and influences of
Spanish horror, these films are viewed as examples of
legitimate artistic expression. This particularly effective
example illustrates Hawkins's excellent point that an
audience lacking the necessary background information to
interpret a film in an educated and informed manner will
miss subtleties and nuances that are essential to give any
work of art a fair assessment. Film viewing is never a
passive undertaking, and the more sophisticated and
challenging a film becomes, the less passive an audience can
afford to be. Many of the other examples of paracinema that
Hawkins refers to throughout her book share the
characteristic of being 'difficult' in the sense that they
are 'demanding in unexpected ways' (97). In addition to
dealing with themes and subject matter that may be
unfamiliar to mainstream audiences, the films of the
paracinema tend to depict violent and sexual imagery, and
are often technically clumsy and cheaply made. These sorts
of films may run the risk being dismissed as trash culture,
thus, not because they lack social, historical, cultural or
aesthetic significance, but because that significance is
lost on an audience unwilling or unable to put the effort
into looking past surfaces. Part of the discussion in
_Cutting Edge_ is intended to highlight how class bias
colors the attitudes of mainstream audiences and critics.
Hawkins tells us that although the lower-classes have a
distinctive aesthetic sense of their own, *good taste* is
most commonly imposed from the top down, either by the
middle- or the upper-classes. Regardless of the fact that
both 'trash cinema' and 'art films' commonly violate
middle-class standards of decency, Hawkins claims that works
appealing to the educated tastes of the upper-classes are
much more likely to be accepted as valuable and legitimate
by the mainstream than similar works that comes from a
lower-class perspective. Hawkins illustrates this sort of
class bias in her comparison of the films _Rape_ and
_Snuff_. _Rape_, conventionally considered an art film and
not a piece of lowly exploitation, was directed by Yoko Ono
and John Lennon. The film consists of the seventy-seven
minute stalking of a German woman through the streets of
London. The most disturbing thing about this piece is that
the action depicted in it is real. The cameraman randomly
picks out and follows the subject of the film in an
unrelenting pursuit that ends with the woman cornered and
emotionally traumatized in her own apartment. Despite the
questionable morality of the methods used in its production,
_Rape_ was financed and directed by recognized artists who
offered the film not for mainstream titillation but for the
consumption and appreciation of serious art critics. Within
this context, _Rape_ garnered notoriety for its social
commentary and political message. It was both presented and
received as a legitimate and serious 'indictment of mass
media' (125). The movie _Snuff_, on the other hand, which
*was not* intended for consumption by an educated elite, met
with widespread condemnation as immoral pornography in spite
of the fact that it is a completely fictional work in which
no one is actually injured or victimized. The uproar over
this film stemmed from a staged rape and murder sequence
tacked on to the end of the movie in order to capitalize on
news stories about real-life snuff films. Hawkins points out
that the controversy surrounding _Snuff_ had the consequence
of focusing at least as much public attention on social
issues concerning the politics of the media as _Rape_ did.
Yet _Snuff_ is conventionally considered lowly trash cinema
while _Rape_ is considered legitimate art. In comparing the public
reception of both _Rape_ and _Snuff_, Hawkins demonstrates
that the designations 'art film' and 'trash cinema' are
influenced by factors that go far beyond the actual content
of a film or the consequences that it has on critical
discourse. Two works, depicting equally disturbing imagery
and fostering similar cultural debates on similar issues,
may meet with widely different critical reactions simply on
the basis of where and to whom they are shown. _Rape_ was
exhibited at art museums. _Snuff_ was exhibited at 'grind
houses'. The former was, thus, 'coded' by the audience as
serious art. The latter was 'coded' by the audience as
trash. This is, I think, a sound observation on the part of
the author. As I mentioned above, it is important to
recognize the central role played by an audience in film
interpretation. Nevertheless, when assessing
the aesthetic merits of cinematic works, Hawkins often seems
to over-emphasize audience reaction at the cost of
under-emphasizing both the intentions of filmmakers and the
very *being* of the art works themselves. Certainly Hawkins
is correct that the *categorization* of a film as high or
low art has much to do with the audience that receives it.
However, it is unclear from her account whether or not she
thinks that this is the *only* thing involved in
establishing the legitimacy of art works. At times she seems
to advocate the view that there is no objective distinction
to be made between better and worse films, and that all
movies are equal in their capacity to be imbued with
aesthetic value. This comes out most forcefully in the
second chapter of the book where Hawkins even suggests that
'channel surfing' television shows is a potentially
avant-garde cinematic experience. 'Channel surfing itself .
. . is the domestic version of a mode of viewing that, in an
earlier time, was decidedly surreal, that is, avant-garde'
(37). This I find somewhat bizarre. I appreciate that
Hawkins is here attempting to highlight the active nature of
those who choose to flip through channels in order to select
the bits and pieces of television programming that they
desire to consume. She wants to claim that such viewing is
not necessarily 'distracted' but is, rather, an example of
active, involved spectatorship. But does this active
involvement alone elevate 'channel surfing' into a form of
legitimate art? I tend to think not. By emphasizing the part
of the spectator so completely, Hawkins ignores the role
that a film (or television) producer's skill, artistry, and
intentions play in the creation of the final product. The
purposes of those who make films, and the specific content
of the films themselves, do not appear to be very important
on this view, and so Hawkins's account in _Cutting Edge_
might be read as a suggestion that it is solely up to the
viewer to bring meaning and worth to a film. Any low-brow
film, the author sometimes seems to suggest, might be given
an interesting, deep, and significant interpretation by a
viewer, and it is this process of interpretation that
elevates the film in question to a higher artistic level.
This is the theme that, to me, seems most prominent
throughout her book, although she never comes out and
unequivocally states it. On the other hand, however,
there are places where Hawkins seems to suggest (but never
states outright) just the opposite view. For instance, in
the second chapter again, while discussing the propensity of
paracinema enthusiasts to collect many versions of the same
film, including 'directors cuts' and 'rough director's
cuts', Hawkins writes: 'the closer you get to the source (in
this case the director), the purer and more unadulterated
the goods, the better the high' (49). This passage, instead
of emphasizing the viewer's subjective powers of imagination
and interpretation, shifts the emphasis towards the film
director's vision. Here, the suggestion seems to be that the
merits and worthiness of a film rely upon successfully
receiving the message imparted to the film by the filmmaker.
That message, already lying latent within the very being of
the film itself, awaits viewers who are clever and diligent
enough to discover it. Here, the interpretive activities of
viewers are downplayed and the audience is treated more like
a receptacle for the filmmaker's ready-made
message. Thus, it remains unclear
whether Hawkins is an objectivist or a subjectivist when it
comes to the aesthetic merits of film. Perhaps, as would be
most reasonable, she stands somewhere in between these two
extremes. But as a reader I'm left with no clear answer on
this point and, as it stands, I come away from _Cutting
Edge_ unsure of the philosophical foundations underlying
Hawkins's largely social and political critique of film.
Does the meaning and merit of a visual art form lie
completely in the hands of each individual interpreter of
that work? Is there any objective essence that lies in a
piece of artwork itself, independent of the viewer? I myself
am not sure how to answer these complicated philosophical
questions, but I think it would be worthwhile if Hawkins
devoted more space to clarifying her own thoughts on these
matters and offered more arguments in support of her
position, whatever it may be. My two final and brief
criticisms of Hawkins's book center on her techniques of
analysis. First of all, the method used by Hawkins to
convince us of the value of trash/low culture films is often
by way of demonstrating their similarity in content, tone,
or style to films that are customarily accepted by critics
and scholars as examples of legitimate art. This is ironic
since part of the message of _Cutting Edge_ is that
trash/low culture films promote an aesthetic sense that is
lower- rather than upper-class, and that as such they
represent a bottom-up rebellion against the top-down
imposition of good taste by the upper-class promoters of
high art. Alluding to the work of Bakhtin, Hawkins wants to
assert that trash/low culture films invert 'traditional
power hierarchies' (200), yet the effect of her discussion
throughout the book is to emphasize the shared resistance to
middle-class taste by both the upper-class proponents of
high art and the lower-class proponents of low art. This
does not so much demonstrate that trash/low culture films
*invert* traditional hierarchies as it shows that both
upper- and lower-class tastes are opposed to middle-class
conventionality. It would be interesting to see Hawkins
spend more time arguing for the distinctive value of
trash/low culture cinema on the basis of its own merits,
exploring how an emphasis on 'affect' over 'intellect'
contributes to the unique aesthetic appeal of the body
genre. Hawkins, instead, seems more concerned with
intellectualizing 'trash cinema' by transforming it into
something not 'trashy' at all. Lastly, I'm left somewhat
perplexed concerning the relationships that hold between the
various conceptual categories Hawkins utilizes throughout
the course of her discussion. Clearly, the main point
Hawkins repeatedly emphasizes is that the separation between
the categories of high and low culture is not unambiguous or
indisputable. What is less explicit is how she intends many
of the other concepts she introduces to relate to one
another. Hawkins often speaks equivocally of 'body genre',
'low culture', 'trash culture', and 'paracinema', blurring
the distinctions between these categories in the same manner
that she blurs the distinctions between high and low
culture. The effect is sometimes confusing and leaves me
wishing either for more conceptual clarification or for the
elimination of some of the superfluous concepts. Aside from these criticisms,
I found _Cutting Edge_ to be an entertaining and exciting
book. Hawkins gives serious attention to films that are
usually ignored or denigrated by the mainstream, not
necessarily because they are lacking in aesthetic worth, but
because they challenge conventional assumptions about good
taste. Corning Community College,
New York, USA Copyright ©
_Film-Philosophy_ 2002 John Marmysz, 'The Cutting
Edge Between Trash Cinema and High Art', _Film-Philosophy_,
vol. 6 no. 8, April 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n8marmysz>.
Save as Plain Text Document...Print...Read...Recycle
Join the Film-Philosophy salon,
and receive the journal articles via email as they are published. here
Film-Philosophy (ISSN 1466-4615)
PO Box 26161, London SW8 4WD, England
Contact: editor@film-philosophy.com
Back to the Film-Philosophy homepage
