Is Greed Good? : Debunking the Myth of the "Christian" Free Market

The Republican Party might not have a demographic monopoly or majority within the Christian faith, but its evangelical members are among its most vocal advocates. An even more interesting question than, “why is this?” might be “why are Republicans, and especially Christian Republicans, so predominantly capitalist?” A recent USA Today poll found that only 37% of GOP members “believe that capitalism and Christian values are at odds,” and that white evangelicals are more likely than any other people group to think that “unregulated businesses will behave ethically.” It seems like modern Christians are placing a great deal of trust in our current economic system. Are we sure that it’s worthy?

After all, capitalism is no more a Christian institution than republicanism. Yet, the modern church has been quick to either justify it in terms of biblical concepts like “stewardship” and “free will,” or to forgo examination completely. Most conservative Christians dismiss participants in the admittedly nebulous “Occupy” campaign as whiners and bums. Whether or not they actually are, the overarching sentiment is one that asserts, “I am not my brother’s keeper.”

There are huge spiritual problems with this attitude. “Stewardship” does not mean hoarding, the “free will” aspect of the competitive “American Dream” does not give you license to withhold help from your less-fortunate neighbor, and an earthly need for income does not justify an idolatrous belief that “the invisible hand of the free market is actually the hand of God,” as religion professor Andrew Walsh states.

Read any gospel, and you will see that Christ himself took no stock in the free market. In fact, if he were on Earth today, he might be more socialist than we’d like to admit. If wealth were a virtue, he would not have thrown vendors out of the temple in rage (Mat. 21:12-13). If his goal was to perpetuate “healthy” financial inequality, he would not have told rich men like Nicodemus to give away their possessions and live in poverty (Mark 10:17-27). The Bible does not condemn worldly success altogether, of course. But the Kingdom of God is not a state that celebrates ladder-climbing for its own sake. The rest of the world might not hear a call to be keepers of their neighbors, but we should (Rom. 13:9, Mark 12:30-31). We are repeatedly warned not to put value in money, because none of our riches will go with us when we leave this world. That being the case, it’s shameful that many Christians will trust God with most everything except their pocketbooks.

By now you might believe that I am claiming socialism as a superior alternative to free market economy. If you are, you’re missing the point. In a perfect, fully redeemed form, I believe that socialism would be the most Christ-like economic system available. In the current world, however, the ugly truth is that stubborn self-interest is not a trait that limits itself to the confines of Wall Street. A socialist structure cannot prove beneficial without universal cooperation, which is impossible to achieve in this fallen world.

But does that mean capitalism is automatically a better option? I don’t think so. No matter how you slice it, the primary “virtue” instilled by a capitalist system is greed. Yes, with socialism, we would be forced to trust that a vast governmental machine would care for the individual. But even now, with capitalism, we blindly assume that corporations will work for our betterment out of basic human decency, despite their primary goal of “getting.” I don’t see much of a difference. Both options rely heavily on the assumption that people are basically good. You see the problem. We humans are not good (Rom. 3:10).

Thank God, then, that He is. That’s why we should place our ultimate trust in his will and his way, not in any system that we could devise. Left to our own devices, we lose the ability to give. Even worse, we forget what we have in the first place.

Empty Darkness: David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the newest feature by award-winning director David Fincher, is the “Saving Private Ryan” of rape revenge films. It contains sequences of gut-wrenching sexual violence that seek to give viewers a first hand education in the horrors of human depravity - in much the same way that the first fifteen minutes of Spielberg’s famous WWII epic sought to teach the terror of war. Yet, to label this film and author Stieg Larsson’s source material so crudely is to do them both a grave injustice. “Dragon Tattoo” is clearly meant to be an emotional journey into a deep chasm of familial shame, and a glimpse at the blossoming of an angry, anti-social young woman into a human being who is capable of love and trust. 

Too bad, then, that this new adaptation never really connects as much as it needs to in order to be truly successful. I can’t speak for the original (and supposedly superior) Swedish version, but Fincher's “Dragon Tattoo,” while high on shock value, commits the cardinal sin of being deficient in emotional impact. Its stellar, crisp production aesthetic (courtesy of cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth) perfectly echoes the story’s snowy Swedish landscape, but the film itself proves too clinical as a result to provoke any real response from its audience.

This is not to say that it’s a total loss. Rooney Mara’s performance as the now-infamous hacker Lisbeth Salander is endlessly fascinating, and as true to Larsson’s source characterization as I could imagine. Daniel Craig struck others as the wrong actor to play the barely-reputable journalist Mikael Blomkvist, but seemed to me from the outset to be the obvious choice. He and Fincher seem to have wisely agreed to tone down his James Bond charm, and screenwriter Steve Zaillian (of “Black Hawk Down” fame) makes the correct choice of excising some of Blomkvist’s more extraneous (and eyebrow-raising) physical affairs. This has the distinct benefit of making him a more believable and grounded character, even if some of his color is lost in translation. I also hear that we have Craig to thank for the incorporation of Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” into a critical torture scene – one of the film’s scattered moments of pure genius. 

The three-hour long “Dragon Tattoo’s” primary flaw, then, is in its pacing, which feels maddeningly uneven and frequently rushed. The set-up of the central mystery (which takes up the first hundred pages of the novel) is here reduced to a scant fifteen minutes, and feels especially clipped. Characterization is scrapped for rote expository speechifying. Key dialogue exchanges occupying pages of manuscript are often reduced to three or four lines, and cut off before they have the chance to really become interesting. As a result, we never really get the chance to know or become close with Blomkvist, and although such distancing might help us to realize Salander’s solitude and strangeness, her much-awaited moments of fiery retaliation are disappointingly brief. In fact, there is little emotional payoff at any of the major plot twists, and most every revelation feels less satisfying and more like a missed opportunity. That, of course, is when we can actually understand how those revelations were reached; the truncated nature of Zaillian’s script left me wondering if I could have followed the story at all had I not read the novel beforehand.

Gone, too, is the sterling sound editing that made Fincher’s Oscar-nominated (and equally labyrinthine) “Social Network” comprehensible. The audio mix here, especially at the outset, is frustratingly mushy, and all the characters resurrect the briefly dormant dramatic mandate that lines must be delivered in a hushed mumble. It’s totally annoying, and since all of the players sport regularly unintelligible Swedish accents, it represents a serious technical misstep. 

Finally, there’s the issue of the film’s graphic content. I sat down in the theater expecting the worst, and “Dragon Tattoo” was only a fraction more tasteful than I thought it would be. It could have been worse, but I would be irresponsible to gloss over this aspect of the experience, especially considering my earlier treatise on discernment. There are several scenes that portray the sexual exploitation and rape of Salander at the hands of her state-appointed guardian, and they are unremittingly intense. The film leaves considerably less to the imagination than Larsson’s novel, but it accurately portrays the inherent evil of rape that too many women experience in their lives. The act itself is not glorified, and certainly does not arouse. It is an act of brutal psychological warfare, and portrayed as such. The film would function were they merely implied, but at a much less effective pitch.

The same cannot be said of later sequences depicting consensual intercourse between our two leads. These were merely implied by the novel, and their inclusion serves no major purpose in establishing or furthering plot or theme. 

In the end, this “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a toss-up. It is a functional adaptation of an excellent book, but perhaps only seasoned fans and readers will fully appreciate it. Those uninitiated should not expect a masterpiece. They should, however, expect an exploration of sexual violence that is as dubious in its execution as the characters that inhabit its plot structure. There is some good, and some evil – but not much light either way. Here’s hoping you’re not too afraid of the dark.

Escaping Reality: Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin"

Steven Spielberg, absent from the directorial scene since 2008, is back in a big way with “The Adventures of Tintin,” a crazy, pleasantly campy, and all around thrilling film based on the much-loved comics by Belgian artist Herge (unknown to me but acclaimed by others). It is no small wonder to me that Spielberg himself claimed it as the inspiration for his and George Lucas’ classic “Indiana Jones” franchise, and I’ll agree that Spielberg, with his unique blend of blisteringly-paced action and heart-string manipulation, was the perfect helmsman for this new series. 

Quite simply, “The Adventures of Tintin” is everything that “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” should have been. If “Indiana Jones” is going to be in the adventuring business as long as George Lucas seems to want him to be, Spielberg should consider making future installments into animated features like “Tintin.”  This particular brand and style of animation lends itself perfectly to the Saturday morning serial aesthetic and atmosphere that makes Indy so enduringly popular. It might even serve to make George Lucas’ increasingly bizarre story ideas more palatable to audiences.

“Tintin” is perfect proof of concept in this way. It has a story that succeeds in spite of a really fruity-sounding subtitle (“The Secret of the Unicorn”) and action scenes that spit in the face of physics and logical sense in equal measure. It works because the animation, though lifelike enough to keep us involved, is not grounded in any fundamental state of reality. 

Audiences were jarred in “Crystal Skull” when a live-action Indiana Jones survived a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator, and were turned off completely when a flying saucer blasted off from underneath a Mayan temple. This is because Jones, while clearly an element of pulp fiction, is still registered subconsciously as a flesh and blood character that could plausibly exist in our world. Viewers can only take so much of the supernatural or extraordinary in films that are live action, because the illusion of reality will naturally limit their suspension of disbelief, no matter how detailed the visual effects are.

“The Adventures of Tintin” gets away with so much because it has no such restrictions. The entire movie consists of special effects, so the only reality we have to reference during our experience of the film is that of the film itself. That’s why we can see one pirate ship riding a wave over another, a character surviving a crash while sitting on an airplane’s nose, and two cranes “sword fighting” with their arms, without batting an eyelash. 

It also helps, to be sure, that this is the single most thrilling piece of adventure mythos that Spielberg has cranked out since his “War of the Worlds.” It is joyful escapism in the classic tradition, a visual playground made out of kinetic energy and breathless motion. The animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, rivaling Pixar’s best (and maybe even surpassing it). And the 3D, while not entirely necessary for the fullest enjoyment of “Tintin,” does actually add quite a bit of depth to the experience, in much the same way that it did for James Cameron’s box-office extravaganza “Avatar.” It never feels gimmicky, cheap, or exploitative. I went into the film largely to see if Spielberg, one of our great American directors, would find a way to use the technology artistically. I was not disappointed.

It’s not a perfect film, but the only critiques I have are relatively minor. The ending feels too open, and doesn’t quite pay off as well as earlier sequences suggested it would. In addition, Spielberg does at points seem to get drunk on the freedom that filming on a digital frontier can provide, and his hot-dogging with swooping camera movements occasionally draws more attention to the computer-generated “wonderland” setting than is really necessary, especially during some of the more frenetic action set pieces. He never forgets the basics of his craft, nor does his experimentation ever knock us out of sync with the story. He simply has a tendency to go overboard here that I have never noticed before. Being a sometimes overly enthusiastic storyteller myself, I can’t say as I blame him. A kid suddenly presented with all of the finest toys in existence will use them with exuberance and vigor that matches the excitement of finding them at his fingertips. Steven Spielberg’s flights of fancy have entertained us for decades. No one more richly deserves the right to play.

The Destructible Spy Thriller: Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol"

“Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” surprises us by recycling the plot from two of the first three films in the series and still managing to rework it into something truly inventive and engaging. I could have sworn that this franchise was long out of gas, and I admit that I groaned a bit when I heard that “M:i-III” was not going to be the final chapter in the chronicles of Ethan Hunt, superspy. “Ghost Protocol” is helmed by Brad Bird, the man behind Pixar’s “The Incredibles.” This automatically makes him the most unexpectedly obvious directorial selection this year. In the hands of such a creative as he, I’m not only convinced of the franchise’s continued vitality, but also on board for however many more they want to make, as long as they don’t hire a complete idiot to spearhead the operation.

In point of fact, this might be the first true sequel to the 1995 blockbuster that we’ve seen. “Ghost Protocol” is the only follow-up so far to replicate the pleasantly campy atmosphere that made the original so endearing. Most of us will agree to forget John Woo’s terrible second film, which concerned itself more with slow motion and karate chopping (oh yeah, and lots and lots of doves) than plot. J.J. Abrams’ third installment had the best villain of the series in a creepily deadpan Philip Seymour Hoffman, but the worst MacGuffin in the “Rabbit’s Foot,” which Abrams’ tiresome secret-mongering refused to let us know the slightest detail about. Not to mention that Ethan’s impending marriage, though a handy plot element, felt more like a gimmick than anything else. “III” was a blast of an action film, but didn’t feel any more ideologically in line with the original than “2.”

I was surprised, honestly, that “Ghost Protocol” didn’t try to sweep Ethan’s wife under the rug, and even more astonished that it managed to get some drama out of her mysterious absence. And that’s the first of its storytelling innovations. “Ghost Protocol” provides us with two other phenomena that are virtually unheard of in espionage fiction. 

First, it shows us an adventure that is, in essence, the purest dramatic realization of Murphy’s Law I’ve seen. Everything that can go wrong in this film does go wrong, often in a darkly comedic manner and always at the least opportune moment. Ethan and his team are, for quite possibly the first time, in way over their heads. Watch any James Bond film before “Casino Royale,” and you’ll know that this is simply not done. The master spy always knows what to do; is always cool under any circumstances. But in “Ghost Protocol,” we see a team pushed to its limits. Ethan’s sarcastic reply to a comrade’s statement of the obvious – while dangling harness-free along the face of Burj Khalifa (a truly harrowing and beautifully shot sequence that serves as the film’s centerpiece)– is not only the biggest laugh of the film, but also one of its most human moments. 

“Ghost Protocol’s” second innovation is what may be called the singe-handed creation of the physically vulnerable action character – you know, the antithesis of the bullet-resistant hero that we mock whenever we watch an Arnold Schwarzenegger film. When gunshots are taken in this film, our team members feel the effects… and when bones are broken, as in the frantic climactic showdown between Ethan and this year’s psycho-villain extraordinaire Hendricks, they stay broken. This means that by the end, the two men aren’t sparring anymore so much as crawling. It is both a strangely humorous and riveting image, and it certainly means that the action hits home more than it would otherwise. It really is the simple things like these that can make or break an action movie this outrageous. “Ghost Protocol” succeeds in a big way. 

A word must be said about Hendricks, because his character is unfortunately the film’s weakest element. It’s the second time this season that an excellent Swedish actor (here Michael Nyqvist, another “Dragon Tattoo” alum along with “Sherlock’s” Noomi Rapace) is left with woefully little to do. Nyqvist is mostly asked here to stand aloof from the action and look evil, though he must also occasionally spout some really ludicrous stuff about nuclear war being necessary for “reaching the next stage of human evolution,” and reluctantly fistfight Tom Cruise in the film’s final minutes. Critics complained about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s “Owen Davian” having no personality in the third film, but I think that can be said far more of Hendricks in this one. The Hollywood gears must be grinding hot in preparation for Christmas. I’ll never understand what compels executives (or sometimes even the actors themselves) to stick good people in lousy roles.

Hendricks, however, is honestly such a small presence in the film that his blandness doesn’t distract much from the fun. And there is the best sort of fun to be had here. For sheer holiday spectacle, the IMF has you covered, and looks to be in business for quite a while.

Well-Played: Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"

In general, there is little that can be said about “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” that was not already said about its predecessor. Because the 2009 reboot of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective series was one of the best films of its year, this is almost better than anyone could have hoped for. Robert Downey, Jr. is still manically brilliant as the eponymous master sleuth. Jude Law’s Watson, ever the straight man, still rolls his eyes and covers his partner’s back. Sherlock purists are still balking at the very idea of this update, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s their own fault. I too grew up reading the short stories, but made a promise to myself before seeing the first installment of this new used franchise that I wouldn’t try to fit director Guy Ritchie’s gritty, action-heavy product into Conan Doyle’s decidedly more urbane mold. It worked; I think the only film of 2009 I enjoyed more than “Sherlock Holmes” was “Avatar.”

I will say, however, that the purists do have a point this time around. “A Game of Shadows” isn’t only a loud “Sherlock Holmes” movie; it’s just a loud movie. It’s got enough explosions, gunfire, and slow motion to make Michael Bay take notice for more than his typical fifth of a second. The crime-fighting duo are always running, gunning, or both, usually with their gypsy client Simza (a cruelly underused Noomi Rapace) in tow. 

Granted, the stakes here are high: either Holmes and Watson succeed, or World War I breaks out thirty years early. But the level of action in the first film, though undeniably high for anything Conan Doyle might write, never struck me as gratuitous. Here, it’s occasionally distracting, and I felt that certain story elements, like Holmes’ signature powers of deduction, were left in the dust while we careened from one set piece to another. “A Game of Shadows” is really more of a chase movie than a mystery, so there’s woefully little detective work for Holmes to do here, unlike before. I also think that with a little more breathing space in between action sequences, as spectacular as some of them are, poor Noomi Rapace (the original “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) could have shown American audiences more of what she can do. Apparently, she’s an incredible actress. You’d never know it from this film – she exists here more as a plot device than an actual character.

Thankfully, the same cannot be said of Holmes’ arch nemesis Professor James Moriarty. I had concerns that he would become simply another “villain of the week,” and that his implications in story and theme would go untapped. They are not, and whatever criticisms I level at “A Game of Shadows” in terms of action and pacing are completely redeemed by the sheer power of the scenes between the Professor and Holmes. 

The “Napoleon of Crime” is played by relative unknown Jared Harris, who has apparently existed on the lower levels of the Hollywood superstructure until now. He’s brilliant, and his portrayal of Moriarty is, in my opinion, definitive.  He doesn’t speechify on matters of twisted philosophy like Ledger’s Joker, but he exists on a very similar plane. Harris is masterful at hinting at the madness behind Moriarty’s placid façade. We see it in subtle ways, like the manner in which he’ll stare blankly at whoever he’s speaking to regardless of whether he is being conciliatory or making a dire threat. Indeed, there’s a torture scene that features the cultured Moriarty, for dramatic effect, singing a Schubert art song with complete and terrifying lack of expression. Harris’ performance is deeply unsettling, bordering on sociopathic. In other words, pitch perfect. And don’t even get me started on the final showdown between Holmes and Moriarty, in which Holmes’ habitual previsualization of fighting moves is cleverly turned against him. This is a moment of inspired storytelling, and would be worth the price of admission even by itself. 

For the second time this week I am in danger of churning out another review that seems to be divided against itself, so let me be clear. “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is more than worth a view, and establishes itself as a very worthy sequel to the excellent 2009 film. Though it doesn’t quite improve on the formula set by the first installment, it is at the very least a highly successful carry over. I enjoyed it just as much, and for a sequel that’s no elementary achievement.

9 Reviews from the Land of JBU Cinema: "Children of Men"

Written for various prompts in and out of my Cinema classes at John Brown this past semester, these reviews/analyses seemed to warrant inclusion here.

 

Nominated at the 79^th Academy Awards for its film editing, Alfonso Cuaron’s critically acclaimed “Children of Men” is at first glance admirable more for its handheld cinematography than for the work done on it in the editing suite. It is doubtless the single best example of handheld photography that I have seen, making ideal use of the much-contested “shaky-cam” technique to create immediacy without once sacrificing scene geography or visual sense.

And yet, since an Academy Award nomination so often means more than an Academy Award win, there must be something to the editing work that Cuaron and Alex Rodriguez completed before the film’s theatrical release. One may begin an analysis of the edits contained within “Children of Men” with discussion of the film’s numerous “oner” sequences – scenes shot and allowed to run for minutes at a time seemingly without cuts whatsoever. The most impressive of these include a bombing that opens the film, an attack on a car in the middle of the woods, and an elaborately staged urban warfare sequence that runs for an unbelievable 9 minutes in length. If you listen carefully, you can hear Orson Welles weeping with shame.

Further research may prove comforting to him, however: digital trickery was used to blend separate 3-4 minute shots together into one seamless whole. You can see this through only very subtle give-aways. The most obvious occurs during the aforementioned battle scene, when a few small droplets of blood that splashed on the camera lens mysteriously disappear halfway through the shot. 

It took me at least five minutes to register their absence, and to be honest I can’t quite remember whether or not there was an actual hard cut to another camera angle that marked the disappearance of those droplets. Ironically, I was so busy marveling at the sheer improbability of the shot length that if there were any edits to break it up, I must have missed them.

And therein lies the reason for the nomination. “Children of Men,” as far as I’m concerned, defines the concept of the “invisible edit.” Such edits are an essential component of its documentary-style verisimilitude. “Children of Men” seeks to create a complete illusion of reality, and for two hours, through its flawless use of subtly jerky cinematography and edits that carefully conserve directional camera movement from one shot to another, it succeeds in placing the viewer within a future world that is only a hair’s breadth away from existence in our own. 

From the outset, it is made clear to us that the camera, and therefore we by proxy, are a participant in this world and the story that drives Theo and the other characters. Rarely, if ever, is the camera ever standing still. It is always in motion, trailing the action, circling tense situations like a combat photographer might. But I digress; these are matters of cinematography. I will assert, however, that if the camera serves as our avatar, the edits here serve as our eye blinks. This film is rated R for graphic violence, and it lives up to its certification – but not necessarily because of content. There is blood, and there are deaths. But Cuaron is careful to never show more than he has to – and when the camera cuts away from a particularly violent image, it is timed to the exact moment at which we realize what we are actually seeing. Look, for example, at the opening scene: Theo has just narrowly escaped being a victim in the bombing of a coffee shop on a major London thoroughfare. He looks in shock back at the smoke, and the camera runs past him. Through the haze, we see the shape of a woman staggering towards us. She is screaming. And in the microsecond before the camera cuts to the black title card, we realize that she is carrying one of her severed arms. The camera cuts at the precise instant an observer might have squeezed his or her eyes shut from shock and nausea. It is not the image we see, exactly, or remember; it is the impression. And it is this visual shorthand, this form of truncation, which forces us to fill the rest in with our imagination, and thus magnify its intensity within our minds.

“Children of Men” is a film that thrives on impression. We never truly understand the politics of the society we find ourselves surrounded by, nor do we understand why humans, as Michael Caine’s character puts with characteristic delicacy, “can’t make babies anymore.” We see only glimpses on the ground – flashes of propaganda or gore or violence that say infinitely more than any narration. Cuaron and Rodriquez were nominated because they chose exactly the right elements to make the impression, and spliced them together in a way that lets us experience them as someone who is actually there.

9 Reviews from the Land of JBU Cinema: "Collateral"

Written for various prompts in and out of my Cinema classes at John Brown this past semester, these reviews/analyses seemed to warrant inclusion here.
 

I had always wanted to see this one, but for some reason never got around to it until just now. Perhaps because of my inherent interest in the story, then, “Collateral” was the easiest to sit through of all the films required for this class. And this is a story that lived up to my expectations thematically and narratively. It’s hard for me to remember when I last saw a film with characters that were so well-drawn and believable - yes, even the Cruise character, though sociopathic to the extreme, seems to be grounded in the film’s reality. Though they are abstract, he has motivations, and a clearly defined personality. I specifically remember the scene just after Vincent shoots the lowlifes who rob Max while tied to the steering wheel in the alley. For an instant, as Vincent stalked back towards the taxi, I feared for Max’s life. Then I chided myself, because I knew instinctively that retaliation for Max’s attempt at attracting attention would be out of character for Vincent. Sure enough, he simply unties Max and they go on their way. That is truly great character writing. A lesser screenwriter (myself included) would have resorted to at least a pistol-whip. But to Vincent, Max is just a means to an end – hardly worth the exertion. He is coolly confident that the unlucky cab driver is cowed.

That said, let’s talk about Michael Mann’s camera work and lens language. It seems that a common thread between his films (especially his later ones) is his consistent decision to shoot in HD at higher frame rates than is standard. This lends his footage a real-life veracity that is usually missing in other films. The shots look and feel real – there is none of the almost imperceptible “slow-down” that occurs with 24 fps film that distinguishes shot footage from real life. 

As far as the overall mood of claustrophobia is concerned, I noticed specifically that there is very little camera tilt or pan. The camera is always level, and more often than not, it looks straight ahead, even while action is taking place. Cuts take place from one stationary angle to another, and it created the feeling for me that I was unable to turn my head, almost as if Vincent’s gun were being held to my head. Camera motion only seems to occur when an action by a character would take him out of frame otherwise. I also took note of a large number of clean singles, especially close shots of Max as he frets, or on Vincent as he dominates the frame. We feel trapped with the characters inside their own minds, or trapped with them under the influence of Vincent.