Jon Jost, independent film-maker. The early Films
4. 1, 2, 3, Four
Jon Jost's 1, 2, 3, Four' (1969-70) is another early short from which elements, both thematic and formal, can be traced into the features. It is an essay on political and social problems, constructed as a montage of images, dialogue, printed texts, readings, and action. The arrangement of these elements creates a dialectical process in which points of view are played off against one another both within each scene, and in the juxtaposition of scenes.
One short scene neatly illustrates Jost's aim (discussed earlier in connection with the scene which pans across four people) of translating his ideas into film:
A man is sitting at a work bench assembling a bomb, while reading aloud a passage which equates poetry and revolution. At the end of the reading he drops a lighted match into a tin can, and a little explosion sends up a puff of smoke. In front of the can is a clapper-board.
Jost is equating his film with a terrorist's bomb, both being intended to shock us into taking note of a message, and at the same time asserting his belief that a film is a better medium for the communication of his radical ideas than a bomb. Jost's bomb is purely visual, a harmless but potent tool designed to entertain us while he delivers his message.
The main subject of the film, however, is the difficulty of communication between people with polarised attitudes. Subtitled 'An Essay on Domestic Problems', (domestic in two senses), the film looks at private conflict and national conflict, and at the inseparability of the two. Perhaps the most important kind of polarisation, with regard to later development in the features, is that between male and female attitudes. The couple in the film do not talk to, or listen to each other, they are constantly arguing, and therefore not communicating.
He puts a record on the stereo, she takes it off. He puts it on again, she takes it off again.
He: Why are we living together?
She: Because you don't like to be alone. And because you're good in bed.
Voice: How do you translate happiness?
She: Money.
Voice: How do you translate love?
She: F - .
He: The dishes are dirty.
She: (angry) I don't feel like doing the dishes.
A plate is smashed.
Persistent confrontation without communication leads to the impoverishment of human values, such as love and happiness, and to destruction. And any hope of communication is thwarted by their irreconcilable attitudes to life.
She: Are you happy?
He: I can't be happy while General Motors exists.
She: What would make you happy?
He: To be rid of General Motors. Or to be fighting against General Motors.
He: What would make you happy?
She: A garden, a river, the sky.
We see her walking naked through a wood, but this pastoral fantasy is shattered by the roar of a jet aeroplane overhead.
This fundamental incompatibility of male and female is a recurring theme in Jost's work. The woman is content to exist, and looks for fulfilment in the quality of her day-to-day life, but the man can only define his existence in terms of what he does, he needs to live for something. This view is expounded in the short 'A Man is More than the Sum of His Parts A Woman is . . . ' (1971), in which women are likened to a queen bee, and men to the workers and drones. 'l, 2, 3, Four' takes the insect metaphor even further, likening woman to the female spider which seduces the male then consumes him while he copulates. These daunting, and perhaps misogynistic views might be seen as underlying the male/female relationships in 'Last Chants for a Slow Dance' and 'Slow Moves'.
'1, 2, 3, Four' ends with an attempt at reconciliation. We are given this argument connecting domestic life to political issues: 'If you traced the wires by which el ectricity reaches your home back to their source, you would find a pile of dead bodies'. Then, coupled with an image of a candle being blown out, a girl says: I love you, therefore I will never use electricity again. This final conceit synthesises the opposites, male and female, rational and irrational, political awareness and personal love. But it is absurd and impossible. It seems there is no real solution.
The film ends on a close-up of a happy-looking couple, leaning against their house with arms around each other. But how long can such happiness last? How long will it be before irreconcilable conflict sets in?
Read the full version of this essay at: http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/jon-jost.html
Ian Mackean runs the sites http://www.literature-study-online.com, which features a substantial collection of English Literature Resources and Essays, (and where his site on Short Story Writing can also be found), and http://www.Booksmadeintom ovies.com. He is the editor of The Essentials of Literature in English post-1914, published by Hodder Arnold in 2005. When not writing about literature or short story writing he is a keen amateur photographer, and has made a site of his photography at http://www.photo-zen.com
Author:: Ian Mackean
Keywords:: Jon Jost,Independent film-maker,Cinema,Director,Films,American,Media
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