'Gorn' with the Wind

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006

(A replay on Marcus Nispel's 2003 production)

In 2003 Marcus Nispel directed a remake of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). This film contains many substantial differences to Hooper's version, which is acclaimed by many as one of the best horror films of all time. The film released in 1974 contained virtually no soundtrack; it utilizes close ups of victims and objects such as skulls, blood and the moon; all objects iconic within the horror genre. These images are accompanied by dischordant sound effects to create a sense of unease or discomfort for the viewer. There is also an overwhelming sense of helplessness for the protagonist, Sally. She spends much of the film trying to escape the homicidal yet enigmatic ‘Leatherface' only to be recaptured by his similarly deranged father. Sally's eventual escape is only possible through the incompetence of her abductors, and the assistance of a passing truck driver.

Whilst this can be seen to reinforce patriarchal stereotypes - that is, a woman cannot escape or succeed without the help of a man - it also adds to the terror felt by the audience. It is not unreasonable to believe a young girl would be unable to overpower three homicidal cannibals, therefore the viewer is somewhat overwhelmed by the fact that the protagonist is completely at the mercy of her abductors. Much of the violence in Hooper's film is implied. When Leatherface knocks Kurt unconscious it is obvious that he is being dismembered by a chainsaw, but it is not graphically depicted. An iconic scene in the film depicts a female victim being suspended on a meat hook while still alive. This scene is extremely powerful, but the audience is not shown anything apart from a few drops of blood and the face of the victim. Much the same as Hitchcock's Psycho, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) gives the viewer an idea as to what the character is enduring, but relies on the imagination of the audience to heighten the terror and graphic nature of the scene. Nispel's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) differs in many ways from the original. The film is far more violent than the original; characters are dismembered explicitly in the mise en scene, whereas in Tobe Hooper's film the viewer is able to imagine and mentally visualize the violence.

There are also far more characters than in the original film. In Hooper's version there are the three members of ‘the family,' five teenagers and a few flat characters who appear only as extras. In Nispel's film the family is much larger, incorporating a number of characters that make very little sense; for example, the two women in the trailer in the woods, and the young boy who tries to help Erin escape. This can be seen as an attempt by Nispel to make the film slightly more complex, in the hope that audiences will consider the remake a film of its own accord, not a simple recreation of Tobe Hooper's film. There is also a distinct effort by Nispel to try to explain or account for the actions of the family, giving Leatherface a degenerative skin condition that caused his social dysfunction, and put great strain on his family. This explanation is somewhat convoluted, and coupled with the mass of new family members the film is as much a mystery narrative as it is a horror film.

The release of the 2006 prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning explains the family from Nispel's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre even further, detailing how Leatherface was groomed to become a killer. This could suggest the modern horror film does not place the onus of deduction on the audience. Many conventional horror films leave the viewer pondering certain aspects of the narrative after the film has screened; for example, after viewing The Exorcist (1976) the viewer is never completely positive that Regan MacNeil was possessed by Satan.

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre allows the audience to make certain deductions about the family, for example, that the barbeque they serve at their gas station is in fact human flesh, and that the whole series of events that befalls the young friends is an elaborate plan used time and again by the family.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) is set in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War. Two brothers are travelling through Texas to a military base where they will be sent to Vietnam. The younger of the two brothers is planning to dodge the draft by crossing the border into Mexico. Their Texas road trip goes awry however, when they are abducted by an imposter sheriff and taken to the family home where they are to be killed and consumed by Leatherface and his family. In this respect Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning adheres to the conventions of a traditional horror narrative. Although most horror narratives contain strong violence and in some cases depict graphic sex, the ideologies portrayed are reasonably conservative. People are punished for taking drugs and having pre-marital sex. The younger brother in The Beginning is punished by the sheriff in the film for attempting to dodge the draft. In this respect the film can be seen to be promoting conservative values. Staunch right- wing Americans would consider it unpatriotic or anti-American to refuse military service. The depiction of violence in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning could lead it to be classified as gorno. Victims are dismembered, shot, and bludgeoned with sledgehammers. The scenes depicting this violence contain extreme close ups of the wound, often the chainsaw entering the flesh. This can be seen as representational of a sexual act (that is, the chainsaw is penetrating the flesh) thus due to the intense display of gore and violence in such scenes, the film could readily be classified as gorno.

In Tobe Hooper's film, there is no reason given for the family to be cannibals, other than the fact that they are sadistic and deranged. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning the family make a conscious decision to kill and eat people to avoid starvation. In relation to the abject, one of the infant's earliest fears is of the incorporating mother: "Fear of the uncontrollable generative mother repels me from the body...The symbolic body, the clean and proper body is non-assimilable, uneatable" (Kristeva 1982, p.78).

A subject that engages in cannibalism signifies the abject, and a fear of the devouring maternal figure (Creed 1993). The family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning can be seen to be fearful of starving to death. The imposter sheriff delivers a monologue in the film about the six generations of his family tilled into the soil of their farm. This fear of death can be read as a fear of being devoured by the mother, that is, in death the body would be ‘devoured' by the earth, which contains the remains of previous family members. Therefore the family become the abject, they devour others out of fear of being devoured themselves (Creed 1993).

Works Consulted

Creed, B. 1993 The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Routledge, London.

Kristeva, J. 1982 Powers of Horror: an essay on abjection, Columbia University Press, New York.

‘There are times when life calls out for a change'

Paris Je t'aime is a wonderfully diverse collection of vignettes from some of the world's best directors, set in that most wonderfully diverse city: Paris. From the opening scenes of bustling Parisian streets we're transported from our seats in a darkened cinema to a European cityscape steeped in the ideals of romance. Time stops, cares and worries drift away, and the audience collectively sighs at the first sight of the Eiffel Tower. The music swells and fills the empty pockets of our hearts and we're watching a man watching a woman on a side street in Paris, completely captivated by the visual banquet in front of us.

The venue for tonight's screening is Rocky Flix, the monthly film screenings held the Walter Reid Cultural Centre in Rockhampton. Organiser Judy Couttie scours the cinematic globe, seeking the latest offerings from Australia and abroad.

Recent screenings have featured a range of exceptional films including The Lives of Others, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Perfume, Pan's Labyrinth and Almodovar's Volver. A small but dedicated group of cinema-goers gather once a month to watch the best arthouse films available. Fine wines and food follow each screening, with the friendly staff of the Walter Reid Centre and Rocky Flix volunteers providing a finger food feast themed to the film's location, whether it is the American South-West, Germany or France.

While the films themselves are the centre-piece of the evening, the post-film discussion is also a highlight. Here you'll find like-minded souls reflecting and responding to the nights' entertainment. Small groups huddle deep in conversation, revelling in atmosphere and discussing each films themes and key moments, reliving scenes

Each of the Rocky Flix films are selected for their quality and Paris Je t'aime is no exception.

Paris. Forever synonymous with romance and love, Paris continues to transfix visitors and locals alike. Seeing eighteen five minute arrondissements all set in the City of Light was something not to be missed, and this is how the Rocky Flix crowd finds themselves watching a French film on a Thursday night. A random assortment of kindred spirits sit surrounded by darkness and accordion-flavoured music, absorbed in all things romantic.

Judging from the assortment of gasps and sighs emanating from the audience, everyone swooned over Paris Je t'aime.

The film uses simple thematic links to create a narrative of sorts: a story of a city and its effects on the people in it. Each of the protagonists has some kind of conflict in their relationship. It might be with others, or with themselves; they might have communication issues; they might have given up on love and then found it in the oddest of places. Paris is culturally diverse, and this is reflected in the stories presented here: we have interracial and intercultural relationships, and the arrondissements are presented in four languages: French, English, Spanish and Chinese.

The nature of relationships is diverse too, and Paris Je t'aime offers us the entire gamut of relationship ups and downs: violence, jealousy, passion, trepidation, confusion, bitterness, tenderness, acceptance, role-playing, loss, pain, hope, fantasy and contentment. Each of the main characters in the film express their love for each other and their surroundings in their own unique way, and while the film has as its' central theme the ongoing love affair that is Paris, each director's arrondissement expresses this in wildly different ways.

It's not really fair to separate the films into rankings, but some of the vignettes were more interesting or moving than others. Others were just funnier: they upped the quirk quotient to an acceptably cool level. Of particular note were offerings from Gus Van Sant (Le Marais, with Marianne Faithfull as an art collector oblivious to her assistant's flirtation with a seemingly mute prospect) and Joel and Ethan Coen's violent and funny Tuileries with everyone's favourite Beautiful Loser, Steve Buscemi.

Buscemi plays it straight here as the Everyman taunted by amorous lovers; they notice his wistful sidelong glances and react as violently as their embrace was passionate. It's an apt response; Paris Je t'aime shows us that passion can be overwhelming in its intensity. This particular arrondissement is explosive in parts, but ultimately the city wins out; the romance of the place leaving its indelible mark

Equally charming, but far more poignant were those segments featuring some of the greatest and most elegant female actors ever committed to celluloid: Juliette Binoche; Fanny Ardent and Gena Rowlands. Natalie Portman is ingénue personified, regardless of whether she's wearing jeans or couture. Margo Martindale's performance in the final act is beautifully simplistic and poignant despite featuring one of the more unusual love stories. Beginning with self-conscious American-accented French, it ends the film on a bittersweet satisfying note. Not surprisingly, the segment is directed by Alexander Payne whose memorable Sideways is a perennial favourite of the arthouse crowd.

Bob Hoskins plays his role in Pigalle with a twinkle in the eye, as impossibly sexy as ever; the most unlikely sex symbol in a film where unlikely sex symbols ruled the day: Gerard Depardieu's apt cameo as a restaurateur in a cafe in Quartier Latin also ruffling a few feathers in the audience.

Natalie Portman's Francine conducts an aural affair of the heart with blind Thomas (Melchior Beslon) in Faubourg St Denis, providing us with the title of this review when she whispers to him over a phone:

'Thomas. Listen. Listen. There are times when life calls out for a change. A transition. Like the seasons. Our spring was wonderful, but summer is over now and we missed out on autumn. And now all of a sudden, it's cold, so cold that everything is freezing over. Our love fell asleep, and the snow took it by surprise. But if you fall asleep in the snow, you don't feel death coming. Take care.'

As with much of Paris Je t'aime, what seems to be an ending is just the beginning of a montage-like sequence presented by Run Lola Run director Tom Twyker, who also directed another of the recent Rocky Flix films: the delightfully French and strangely romantic Perfume. And so we return to the beginning again. We sit and watch the credits roll in a film screening in a cultural centre surrounded by romance, presented to us in Technicolour splendor and wish that it would never end. Kind of like a love affair in Paris really.