Why the Darth Vader Volkswagen Advert is Evil

You might not know this, but that adorable 'Star Wars' advert - the one that sees a cute kid try to use "the force" in the name of selling cars - is evil, damaging and must be stopped.

I'm not just ranting about George Lucas "selling out" here. Sure, it's sad to see the space opera series used in this glaringly commercial way, with John Williams' glorious Imperial March put to such sinister corporate use. But 'Star Wars' has been assaulted in the name of profit since the day it was born and will have to withstand similar attacks forever more.

No, for me the problem with the advert is that 'Star Wars' - at least in the UK - hasn't been used to sell anything other than itself in my lifetime. Toys, video games and whatever else are all part of selling 'the brand' and as such it is in the interest of Hasbro (or whoever) to take some duty of care towards it. Maybe there would have been a Burger King tie-in or a coca-cola promotion in the early part of the last decade, but there were at least new films to sell then.

This ad, however, is happening in 'peacetime'. There is nothing to promote except the car. This is Darth Vader in the service of Volkswagen with no bloody excuse for being there.



This is much worse than the franchise just being milked as a cash-cow. For the sake of a few easy bucks now, Lucas is damaging the series for future generations.

The following argument is mostly sentimental and contains several amorphous references to "the kids" which serve to age me horribly.

I didn't see 'Star Wars' until I was ten years old and I was then living under the previous system - where the characters were not also expected to sell affordable family cars. Hard as this might be to believe, I had no idea what 'Star Wars' was as a ten year-old. I grew up in that 'Star Wars' free bubble that existed between the original franchise finishing and the Special Edition theatrical release some years later. As a result, it was able to take me by surprise and had a tremendous impact on my childhood.

I didn't know anything about it at all. I'd heard the name "Luke Skywalker" and knew of a "Dark Vader", but really I assumed it was just another old film my dad was making me watch. In this environment, I was allowed to hear the Imperial March for the first time within the context of The Empire Strikes Back and I was given the chance to come to "Darth Vader" and "the force" in their original context too.



I'm not saying the Volkswagen ad is especially evil in of itself. Rather it's part of a disturbing trend in which all popular culture is now endlessly re-regurgitated for pay until people hate it. The kids of today who are yet to see 'Star Wars' are experiencing it first through these advertisements and, as a result, they won't care about it as much.

Maybe we're entering an age where viewing a cultural object in isolation is the stuff of fantasy. It's worth remembering that, when I was growing up, there was no You Tube and kids didn't have access to every film/piece of music/TV series on their mobile phones. In fact they didn't have mobile phones at all.

Forget 'Star Wars', maybe future humans will only know of 'Casablanca' or 'Indiana Jones' via bits of 'Family Guy' and three minute web parodies made of LEGO. That is what the Darth Vader Volkswagen ad represents to this embittered and prematurely old man.

For anyone who hasn't been moved to watch 'Star Wars', this is how you were supposed to hear that awesome car advert music for the first time:

'The Great White Silence' review:

We British are very good at turning crushing defeat into heroic victory, whether it's at Dunkirk or the death of General Gordon in Khartoum. But no British colonial folly has ever been so celebrated as the 1910 journey of Captain Robert Falcon Scott - beaten to the South Pole by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, before freezing to death on the trip back - Scott is seen as the very model of an English gentleman and his fate is held up as a fine example of the British character. It is in this tradition that photographer Herbert Ponting's celebratory and romanticised account of the badly managed expedition, the recently BFI-restored 1924 documentary 'The Great White Silence', is best understood.

Ponting was part of Scott's expedition as far as Ross Island, charged with taking the photographs that would then form the basis of a lucrative lecture tour for the explorer upon his return home. He was expected to capture the Captain's heroic return as conqueror of the Antarctic, though the documentary as exists takes a different and more tragic direction. The final third of the film is restricted to Scott's journal entries, as well as an inspired mix of rudimentary stop motion animation, model work and staged pre-enactments of Scott's expedition trudging to the South Pole (filmed before the party made the actual trip). This is a film which, from the off, nakedly hopes to capitalise on Scott as myth - with a telling opening inter-title declaring that the following is a tale of courage which should inspire boys around the Empire. And doubtless it would have done upon its original release, with Ponting's miraculous images rendering our most romantic ideal of the "Age of Exploration" palpable.



Doubtless the original run would have been accompanied by triumphant, patriotic music, but this 2011 restoration benefits from an eerie and atmospheric new score by Simon Fisher Turner. Turner's restrained and haunting soundscape lends the whole enterprise a sort of otherworldly quality - as if we are watching strange men from another planet. It puts a surreal, almost Herzogian slant on things which gives the hundred year old footage renewed vigour. It's also often quite funny. Ponting's film is already rich with comic moments - with shots of sailor's dancing, a performing cat and stills of bewildered looking penguins - but Turner's score gives them all a new lease of life. Turner proves that a silent movie well scored can be every bit as effective now as it was then - in fact I'd wager the film is better now.

Yet even Turner's majestic accompaniment would struggle to lift the material were it not for the fact that Ponting's film feels so very modern to begin with. The best part of the film - in terms of running time and enjoyment - takes the form of a wildlife documentary, which sees us observe penguins, gulls, seals and orcas in their natural habitat. And this is takes the form of something instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with the work of David Attenborough. Ponting creates the same narrative as a modern wildlife documentary maker would, asking us to root for a hapless baby seal and its mother as a pod of killer whales closes in. He creates tension and prepares us for heartache as we see that infant struggle to come ashore as its mother frantically tries to push it up onto the ice.

The only anachronism that pulls us out of the moment, and reminds us we're watching antique footage, is the moment's resolution, as the crew of Scott's ship, the Terra Nova (a whaling vessel), harpoons one of the giant mammals and causes the attackers to break away. It's hard to imagine that happening in an episode of 'Planet Earth', but there are many details which flag up cultural changes (for instance, the ship's mascot, a black cat, is called "Nigger"). Also familiar to a modern audience will be Ponting's casting of the animals as little Christian families, with terms like "Mr & Mrs Penguin" or "the husband" used frequently, showing that there is nothing new about the anthropomorphism evident in films like 'March of the Penguins' (2005).



The most eye-catching, modern feature of the film however, is Ponting's frequent reference to the making of the film. He is sometimes seen on-camera himself, walking among the animals, and he often shows several takes of the same incident, allowing us to see how many times a particular set-up didn't go to plan. When watching a seal, he tells us how grateful he was that the "fellow" didn't keep him waiting long before performing the desired action. Better still, after inviting us to see a close-up of the bow of the ship breaking through the pack ice, he pulls back to show us how the shot was achieved - with the filmmaker perched atop a specially constructed wooden rig hanging precariously over the starboard side of the vessel. Ponting demonstrates himself to have been a very fine cameraman, with every frame of the film a beautiful photograph in its own right. His use of a handheld camera was pioneering and one panning shot, as the Terra Nova is buffeted by waves on the sea, sees him afford us an astounding view of the ocean filmed from somewhere up in the rigging.

The film ends with pages of Scott's immortal journal, telling us he and his comrades died like proper, stiff-upper lip Englishman and didn't grumble too much about their "unlucky" fate. Scott wrote that, whatever private misgivings they might have had, morale was always high among the men, who met their fate as esteemed examples of imperial valour. To my mind, these are the writings of a defeated man, once full of hubris, conscious of history and chiseling out his own legend. Even at the time of the film's release in 1924, the heroic ideal was being undermined by the senseless waste of life that was the 'Great War', and now those nineteenth century attitudes - which cast people as the expendable instruments of Empire - seem all the more alien to us. But set to a breathtaking new score and amongst Ponting's gloriously restored images, Scott's tale - and the dubious values of his age - are afforded a new lease of life.

'The Great White Silence' is rated 'U' by the BBFC and has been given a limited release in the UK.

'Silken Skin' and 'Day for Night': Two Truffaut Films Worth Watching

I've been doing a bit of reading around the Nouvelle Vague of late, with Emilie Bickerton's comprehensive chronological history of the Cahiers Du Cinema the book I'm currently reading. So it was a happy coincidence that the Duke of York's recently put on a Francois Truffaut double-bill featuring two films I'd never seen before: 1964 thriller 'Silken Skin' - also know as 'The Soft Skin' - and 'Day for Night', which won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1973. Below are mini-reviews of both:

Silken Skin (La Peau Douce)


'Silken Skin' is about a French literary celebrity, Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly), who takes a business trip to Lisbon, where me meets a young air hostess (Françoise Dorléac) with whom he falls deeply in love. The majority of the film concerns Pierre sneaking away from his wife (Nelly Benedetti) to hook-up with his mistress, before he is eventually caught in a lie and has to make a decision.

It all seems simple, even banal, enough - a straightforward relationship drama. Yet Truffaut shoots the whole thing as if in homage to his idol Hitchcock and it plays like a thriller. The music is foreboding and the over-the-shoulder shots of people driving are reminiscent of 'Psycho', with the whole thing building to a powerful climax which is all the more striking due to the director's knowing refusal to forecast it during the preceding events (Truffaut was far too well schooled in Hitchcock for the abrupt ending to have been a result of structural deficiency).

It's seemingly a film about a cheating, nihilistic, self-satisfied husband - a man who tells his women what to wear - but 'Silken Skin' ultimately turns out to be about the women, as it cleverly subverts your expectations. It's also every bit as human as something like 'The 400 Blows', and though it's played straight for the most part, the film is not lacking in its directors subversive, darkly comic sensibility.

Day for Night (La nuit américaine)


When Jean-Luc Godard commented on the falseness of the motion picture industry in films like 'Tout Va Bien' (1972) (the credits of which feature a producer writing cheques to the cast and crew), it was tinged with bitterness and cynicism. On the other hand, Truffaut made 'Day for Night' just a year later - the quintessential movie about making movies - with a great sense of fun. Above all else, the film is entertaining. Visually it is a splendid, brightly coloured precursor to Wes Anderson, who most certainly paid homage to the film in his American Express advert - basically a riff on Truffaut's role as director within the movie, forever fielding questions from his crew and making decisions. (Though Anderson also borrows liberally from Godard and 'Tout Va Bien' in particular in his work.)

The film boasts some fantastic tracking shots too, but Truffaut never showboats without pulling back and making a joke at his own expense - and at the expense of the art form. It's always clear that he held cinema in the greatest reverence, but he was also able to channel that love into this high-spirited, good-natured look at the process and the industry.

The film is about the making of a movie, but the movie is beset by problems, feuds, death and even by a kitten who can't drink milk on cue (in a hilarious nod to an identical shot in 'Silken Skin'). Truffaut invites us into the kitchen and shows us how the sausage is made - and in a way which, for me at least, is far more fun than Fellini's '8 1/2'.

It also has a fantastic score, composed by Georges Delerue, which celebrates the wonders of the film making process as we watch sets being constructed or stunts being performed. It's clever without being smug and thoroughly enjoyable from the first minute to the last.

Both these films are deserving of far more attention than these short write-ups here, but I wanted to urge anyone who reads this to seek them out. Fantastic films both.

'Love Like Poison' review:

The bombast rituals of Catholicism cause Clara Augarde's fourteen year old Anna to faint twice in 'Love Like Poison'. The first time is at a funeral, with the intense, haunting chants of the bereaved seemingly too much to bear, and the second time is on an alter during the final stages of her own abortive confirmation. Director Katell Quillévéré's debut feature opens in similar fashion, with Anna refusing to receive the "body of Christ" during mass - her mouth firmly closed. Anna is reluctant to give herself up to the church, perhaps in favour of giving herself up to a local boy, though she is hardly a devout non-believer either. She clutches to religious symbols, even placing a crucifix above the bed of her ailing, atheist grandfather (Michel Galabru) to safeguard his immortal soul. It's a film of internal conflict, exacerbated by the throes of puberty as Anna discovers sexual desire.

In spite of its slender 90 minute running time, 'Love Like Poison' manages to express a lot without feeling hurried. Anna has time to confide in the local priest (Stefano Cassetti), row with her neurotic and jealous mother (Lio) and tend to her dying grandfather - a farting mess of bodily functions who makes some troubling, even incestuous, requests of the blossoming teenager. Anna's parents have also recently separated and she is unhappy at boarding school - leading to several tender scenes with her father (Thierry Neuvic). Meanwhile, her mother has a thing for the priest, who in turn has his own crisis of faith - perhaps wishing he's pursued life as a footballer rather than a man of the cloth.



What makes the film such compelling viewing is that it's non-judgemental and made richer by the moral ambiguity of much of the action. When Anna's grandfather gets an erection whilst she is bathing him, it's undoubtedly embarrassing and creepy (Anna herself runs away screaming), but is it inherently immoral? We're certainly not encouraged to think so by this compassionate film which empathises with all of its characters - and none more so than this lecherous, irreligious old man. It's this refusal to accept moral absolutism that is the most telling anti-Catholic facet of 'Love Like Poison', more effective even than a scene in which a craggy-faced old bishop sermonises about sin to a room full of bored teenagers. Though, as with last year's 'Lourdes', the film is ultimately more respectful than it is incendiary - subtly satirical rather than hectoring or confrontational.

With an unfussy, intimate and naturalistic directorial style, punctuated by several elegant single-take tracking shots, which perfectly suit her nuanced characters and eye for detail, Quillévéré establishes her cinematic voice with well-placed confidence. It's no surprise that the director caused such a stir in Cannes when the film premiered at last year's festival, with 'Love Like Poison' not only serving as a fine piece of cinema, but also as a calling card for a potential major talent. It's also another intriguing entry in a recent (if only tangentially related) strand of French cinema exploring crisis of religious faith, joined not only by the aforementioned 'Lourdes', but also by 'Of Gods and Men' and even Jacques Audiard's 'Un Prophete'. These films engage with the concept of "faith" without superficiality, in extreme contrast to Hollywood where the term is smothered by received wisdom and unpalatable smugness. You might not know what you're supposed to think after seeing 'Love Like Poison'. But therein lies its appeal and its greatest strength.

'Love Like Poison' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is on limited release in the UK now.

The Best Video Game Movies Never Made? + More Muppet Craziness!

As with yesterday, I spent this morning channelling my renewed enthusiasm for video games into writing a video game film adaptation article over on Obsessed with Film. Check it out!

And so this wasn't a complete waste of time for loyal blog readers, here is the second trailer released for 'The Muppets'!

'LA Noire': The 10 Best Cameos

I posted this article over at Obsessed with Film earlier, having recently completed 'LA Noire'.

Studio Ghibli Blu-rays

I just posted a couple of Studio Ghibli Blu-ray reviews up on Obsessed with Film:

Laputa: Castle in the Sky
My Neighbours the Yamadas

These two films are interesting to view alongside each other for a number of reasons. Most obviously, they represent work by both of Ghibli's key animation directors - Hayao Miyazaki having made 'Castle in the Sky' and Isao Takahata helming 'My Neighbours the Yamadas'. Another reason for their significance is that the two films differ wildly in terms of the form the animation takes. The former is a slightly more traditional anime, albeit with Miyazaki's unique sensibilities, whilst the latter is highly stylised, resembling a newspaper cartoon strip brought to life. The latter was also produced using computers, whilst 'Castle' is a traditional hand-drawn film. Finally, they were both made at nearly opposite ends of the studio's chronology. Miyazaki's film was the first to be released under the Ghibli banner back in 1985, whereas 'Yamadas' came out almost fifteen years later.

In any case, check out those reviews (and buy the Blu-rays) if you've any interest in animation as an art form.