Cosmopolis

Like all of his previous works, David Cronenberg’s latest film Cosmopolis explores some of the most profound aspects of the human condition. It’s an intense psychosexual thriller from the postmodern novel of the same name by Don DeLillo, with themes ranging from mortality to the dehumanising effects of capitalism. We follow Wall Street tycoon Eric Packer and his chauffeur-driven limousine as he rides across town to get a haircut at his father’s old barber. During the course of his journey, the world outside descends into financial and civil chaos triggering the personal and professional disintegration of Packer, played assuredly by Twilight star Robert Pattinson.

With prolonged scenes of dialogue about economics enunciated in a mannered style akin to characters in Beckett and Pinter, Cosmopolis is one of the more unusual critiques of capitalism. The billionaire protagonist retains only shreds of his humanity among a closed off world where money, as Cronenberg puts it, ‘is talking to itself’. Obviously the film taps into the zeitgeist of the global economic crisis, but Cronenberg didn’t at first realise how much his film was prophesying; during shooting in New York the Occupy Wall Street protests broke out, resembling those in the film and prompting Cronenberg to call Cosmopolis ‘a documentary instead of a fiction film’.

Once more in a David Cronenberg film, a car is at the heart of the action. Packer’s limo becomes his exoskeleton, a capitalist carapace in which to exert his wealth, power and control. With its stale, high-tech interior it feels more like a spaceship than a car, functioning simultaneously as a prison, a coffin and a throne in which Packer hides himself from the outside world. Sound from the outside the limo is almost entirely muted, forming a suffocating bubble in which Packer resides. As his financial empire crumbles Icarus-like, we see him try to escape this closed-off life by leaving the limo and interacting with people outside of it, but he finds himself confronted with hostility.

Perceiving the world from his car window, Packer reminds us on one hand of Travis Bickle, who skulked around the streets of New York in his vehicle, and the paparazzi-stalked actor playing Packer. The casting of Pattinson as the quasi-psychopathic playboy may be a surprising move, but he delivers a magnetically credible performance. Packer is a curious creation, a man who views life through a mathematic prism, obsessed with control and perfection, terrified of abnormalities and who insists on having daily health check-ups. It would be easy to interpret him as a symbol of American capitalism, but Pattinson succeeds in bringing out the humanity of his character, particularly in one scene where he is struck with grief for the death of an idol. Samantha Morton, Juliette Binoche, Mathieu Amalric and Paul Giamatti are all also excellent, the latter especially in a nail-bitingly tense stand-off that seems to go on forever.

In Pattinson’s own words, ‘You have to be incredibly sympathetic... to a movie that’s not sympathetic to you at all’. It’s a film that doesn’t present you with a likeable character for the most part, and makes little effort at emotional engagement. The silences between the words make for difficult viewing, as the usual music and sound that fill these gaps are stripped away. Cronenberg’s is the cinema of unease, and in Cosmopolis he continues to explore ways to make audiences squirm. If you’re prepared to put up with this, and the long discussions of the nature of the modern economy, then Cosmopolis will be a compelling and rewarding experience from a director who continues to excite and experiment.

“I am Heathcliff”

 Around the month of December and the year 2006,

I was given Wuthering Heights to read in school.
It made it to my list of favourite books.

Heathcliff and Catherine's love for each other pulled on my heartstrings.

Having received a wedding proposal from Edgar Linton, Catherine, confiding to her housekeeper Nellie Dean, explains her love for Heathcliff: “My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.” Thus, she continues, “I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, […], but as my own being.” He is “in”, not “on her mind”.

Heathcliff, being informed that Catherine has died, tells Nellie Dean that he did not wait for her to learn this; he already knew because he had felt it. Their souls are the same. She is “his life, his soul” (he cannot live without). Heathcliff is as much Catherine as she is him.

How do you define such a relationship? I can see four main characteristics.

Written days of Heathcliff’s arrival, Nel notices that “Miss Cathy and he were now very thick”, meaning close together. When Hindley is sent off to college, the strong bond between them grows as they are left to themselves to roam the countryside. “She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him”, Nel observes. When Heathcliff is demoted by Hindley, they still manage to sneak away. Even when he turns into a boorish, uncultivated person running around ragged and dirty (as compared to Catherine who has returned from the Lintons as a lady and is trying to balance her relationship with both Linton children and Heathcliff), she remains his constant companion. She is only 15 years old! This is still very mature. This is still very much a childish bond, beyond which they actually never mature. They remain puerile to their respective ends.

Second, the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine is platonic. They are both married to different people, each has a child. (Heathcliff does not like his wife not his son; they are both tools to work out his plan of revenge against Edgar Linton.) For Catherine, Edgar Linton represents youth, charm, good looks, wealth(and he loves her). Those are all temporary values, in her words “like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.” (She not only tells Nellie but eventually also Linton himself before dying). Her love for Heathcliff “resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.” Their relationship is spiritual.

Thirdly, this is tragic. Catherine dies and accuses Heathcliff: “you have killed me”. After all he did leave. However there was a misunderstanding: he left because he overheard her saying that she would not marry him because of his status, without staying until she explained her love for him. Heathcliff does not accept her accusation however: “Why did you betray your heart, Cathy? [..] You have killed yourself […] Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.” When she asks if she will forgive her, Heathcliff answers: “I will forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but yours! How can I? This is pure Shakespeare.

Finally, the love between Catherine and Heathcliff is self-destructive. He has lost “his life, his soul”. If he would have died first, she would have found herself in an universe she “should not seem part of it”. Catherine accuses Heathcliff that he will forget her once she is dead. She knows that this cannot be true. When she dies, he asks her to be haunted. He is, but she refuses to show her face. As his end inevitably draws closer, he sees her in young Cathy, in Hareton, everywhere. Thus concludes the narrator (Nellie Dean to Mr Lockwood), Heathcliff’s death (he had stopped eating and sleeping) was “the consequence of his strange illness, not the cause.” Only in death can they reunite, and Heathcliff makes sure that he will be buried next to Catherine, so that their dust will mingle.