381 La haine

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I'm not sure if anyone dug this as well, but I loved the idea that all these kids were drenched in American culture, that the culture is less Franch, and becoming corrupted by commericalized hip-hop.

Or maybe I'm looking into it a bit too much.

It's a great movie nonetheless. All the performances are excellent and has plenty of great scenes, especially the one in the art gallery and when the meet the holocost survivor in the restroom.

[LeeB.Sims]

American Hip-Hop culture is definitely huge in France as represented in this film, especially with kids of this social class. If you consider that they really are the French equivalent of the poor and displaced youth in the downtown NY scene that spawned Hip-Hop in the late 70's it makes perfect sense. I don't know about your use of the word “corruptedâ€

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

[quote="LeeB.Sims"]American Hip-Hop culture is definitely huge in France as represented in this film, especially with kids of this social class. If you consider that they really are the French equivalent of the poor and displaced youth in the downtown NY scene that spawned Hip-Hop in the late 70's it makes perfect sense. I don't know about your use of the word “corruptedâ€

[miless]

American (and British) music have always had a big impact on the rest of the world (look at The Beatles)
I think it's interesting that these other countries throughout the world often take what they hear and make their own mutated forms of it by combining it with their own traditions. In the past you got a lot of really bizarre pschedelic bands from South America, Eastern Europe and Asia (like The Speakers, The Slaves, The Mops and The Spiders). There's also now punk and hip-hop from every corner of the globe. Sometimes that music comes back to bite us in the ass (such as raggaeton, the terrible mixture of hip-hop, raggae and house music from Latin-America... it has become increasingly popular among many people I know who have gone abroad during college).

so... in La Haine they were, for a large part, listening to French rap. But the French have always had a fascination with a lot of American music, such as The Blues or Jazz.

[bearcuborg]

Not to mention Jerry Lewis.

[tryavna]

It's important to remember that cultural globalization is not a one-way street (i.e., it's not synonymous with "Americanization"). Other cultures may be heavily influenced by American forms and styles of music and movies, but they tend to re-make them into something new for their own purposes, as miless has pointed out.

Besides, this sort of cross-cultural exchange has been going on for centuries. The modern novel is an artform that developed more or less entirely among the middle classes of Western Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Do we decry an Indian or Chinese author for betraying his or her own culturally specific narrative forms when he or she chooses to write a novel? (And I don't hear anyone complaining that Truffaut and Godard were "corrupted" by watching too many American films noir.)

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Big diffrence is Godard and Truffaut were cultured and the movies they love and made offer a lot. Most hip-hop is mostly one-hit wonders that promotes bad stereotypes of urban culture. The worst hip-hop tends to be the most popular (reggaeton) or feature god awful ideas.

I have no problem with intergrating cultures, but I have a problem when it`s the lowest form of popular culture.

[miless]

people called Rock 'n Roll in the 50's the lowest form of pop culture (because they sang about love, and angst!) but it's now a respected form of music.

[kinjitsu]

Blaming Hip-Hop culture or any other foreign idiom on the social condition of the central characters of this film is missing the point entirely. The social complexities and background surrounding their lives is profoundly important, and taking a simplistic view, I think, is a mistake. As long as the doors to mainstream French society remain closed to these guys, they will remain outsiders; bored, frustrated, alienated, and poor.

Frankly, I didn't think the trio's behavior noticeably reflected American culture except for maybe a few superficial pop-cultural idioms. I would imagine that these guys have their own lingo, and what outside cultural influences that do manage to filter into their vocabulary and lifestyle are assimilated to suit their own needs within the context of their own social milieu. As tryavna has stated in terms of cross-cultural globalization, it's simply a process of cross-cultural assimilation. But unfortunately, once outside the banlieue, the trio's isolation from the mainstream social norm is readily made apparent and painfully exemplified by their confrontation in the gallery. A preceding scene in which Hubert and Said are brutally humiliated by the police more or less hammers home what lies in store for them.

[125100]

Most hip-hop is mostly one-hit wonders that promotes bad stereotypes of urban culture. The worst hip-hop tends to be the most popular (reggaeton) or feature god awful ideas.

I'm not a hip-hop fan at all but from that comment you seem to be a total muppet. I have no idea which music genre is your weapon of choice but Elvis, The Beatles, and Miles Davis are all people once dismissed as appealing to the lowest common denominator but are now revered as legends. So in future perhaps you should pause, take a minute, and think something along the lines of "I'm a pretentious, elitist who should be taken out to the barn and put down old yella style" or at least "Oh My Lordy, I've become my father"

Also as far as I understand it in the hip-hop world the talent/writer/composer/whatever is usually the producer, 90% of "hits" in these genres are made by a select few... Kanye West, Jay-Z, Mark Ronson, Pharrell Williams (who in 2003, as one half of The Neptunes, produced 43% of ALL music played on the radio in the US and 20% in the UK) that's why you see so many "one-hit wonders" because they're merely vocalists while the real talent is often uncredited.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I'm not a hip-hop fan at all but from that comment you seem to be a total muppet.

When I mean low forms of popular culture, I shouldn't have dismissed all hip-hop. That was my error. I meant BAD hip-hop, whish is always the most popular. I love and respect the music of Kanye West, Mos Def, and Common, but saddenly, outside of Golddigger, they aren't the most popular artists.

My last year of high school was full of shitty hip-hop like Daddy Yankee, E-40, Snoop Dogg's "Drop it Like it's Hot" and of couse, Li'l Jon & The East Side Boys. I couldn't go anywhere without hearing the lyrics "To the sweat drop down my balls, To all the bitches crawl".

That's what I mean by low form of culture. Rock 'n' Roll wouldn't talk about things like this with complete seriousness. Even when Kanye West does something like his Workout Song, it has a humor about it, and doesn't come off as profane. That's a great diffrence between those musicians.

Sadly these songs are the most popular one. I live in a a urbna area, where around %95 percent of the population is hispanic, and they DON'T play good hip-hop on their radios, and I know this one out of experince. Playing on the radio is always what's popular at that given week or at the most month. That's the reality of it.

To say that music doesn't influence peoples thought, modes of dress, and even matter of thinking is ridiculous. Think what Rock 'n' Roll did and how it progressed from something fun to much more serious in the 60's with Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Hip-Hop seems to be the opposite. It started off very low key and would be taken quite seriously (GrandMaster Flash) and as it gets bigger and bigger, hip-hop loses any seriousness as big money corrupts it, and as it get's put down on our speakers, influencing our generation. Hell, think about the whole group of kids in the early to mid-nighties who thought it was cool to wear jeans backwards because Kris Kross did it!

You can't deny that music must influence modes of thoughts in the characters from La Haine. Think about a phrase like Fuck tha Police, which wasn't popular until N.W.A. named a song about it, on their honest thought of the police.

[Kinsayder]

Blaming Hip-Hop culture or any other foreign idiom on the social condition of the central characters of this film is missing the point entirely. The social complexities and background surrounding their lives is profoundly important, and taking a simplistic view, I think, is a mistake. As long as the doors to mainstream French society remain closed to these guys, they will remain outsiders; bored, frustrated, alienated, and poor.

I think that's exactly what Kassovitz is saying in this movie. Kids out in the projects feel like they've been quarantined off from the rest of French society. They cannot derive their cultural identity from a culture that has overtly rejected them, so they turn to extremist groups like the Front Nationale (FN, pronounced F-Haine) or to "outsider cultures" from other societies. Hip-hop speaks to Vinz and his pals because it's the music of people in a similar situation to themselves, who have responded by developing their own distinctive cultural identity.

[tryavna]

Big diffrence is Godard and Truffaut were cultured

Not always, especially not if we're talking about Truffaut when he was the same age as the characters in La Haine. While he was certainly well read and already a film buff, he wasn't "cultured" in a way that the French upper classes at the time would have recognized. Point is, if you're not born into it, you've got to start somewhere.

You can't deny that music must influence modes of thoughts in the characters from La Haine. Think about a phrase like Fuck tha Police, which wasn't popular until N.W.A. named a song about it, on their honest thought of the police.

While the particular phrase "Fuck the Police" has perhaps not been around that long, I can assure you that the sentiment has. Seems to me that it's a case of finding one's own experiences/thoughts/feelings expressed more directly and creatively by someone else -- which is, of course, one of the more basic appeals of art.

By the way, I have to point out that I'm not a big fan of this movie. Like a lot of other forum members, I was very disappointed with it and found it derivative. But obviously, it raises a lot of interesting issues.

[Luke M]

Ugh, why must people compare Rock N Roll of the 50s to Hip Hop of today. Apples and oranges.

Rock n Roll culture did not preach gang related behavior, degradation of women or illiteracy.

Of course not all hip hop suggest such themes but comparing artists such as Elvis to Kanye West makes me weep for humanity.

[LeeB.Sims]

I meant BAD hip-hop, whish is always the most popular...
... I couldn't go anywhere without hearing the lyrics "To the sweat drop down my balls, To all the bitches crawl".
... Sadly these songs are the most popular ones...

You speak the truth there. However, when you looked at what was happening to mainstream Rock and Roll in the ‘80s (i.e. aqua-net hair metal, empty headed butt rock) you would have thought that art form had seriously digressed as well. And yet, there was still some high quality artists around at that time producing great work if you dug below the mainstream (someone else could drop some names here, I'm not a good source). The same could be said for Hip-Hop today. If you seek it, there is still high-quality Hip-Hop being produced for a fairly large underground audience (i.e. Atmosphere, Living Legends, MF Doom). By the way, I am a Hip-Hop fan.

Hip-hop speaks to Vinz and his pals because it's the music of people in a similar situation to themselves, who have responded by developing their own distinctive cultural identity.

This is what I meant in my last post, and why I think a discussion about Hip-Hop and it's influence in foreign societies is certainly relevant to this film.

[tryavna]

However, when you looked at what was happening to mainstream Rock and Roll in the ‘80s (i.e. aqua-net hair metal, empty headed butt rock) you would have thought that art form had seriously digressed as well. And yet, there was still some high quality artists around at that time producing great work if you dug below the mainstream (someone else could drop some names here, I'm not a good source).

Whoa...! When I think of 80s rock, I immediately think of all the great British bands -- The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, etc. -- who were certainly mainstream successes as well as being good. And of course, there were The Pixies on this side of the pond, and it's not like they were underground, exactly.

But your point is well taken. You certainly can't judge the quality of current popular music (of any genre) simply by watching MTV or listening to a Top 40 radio station.

I don't find rap and/or hip-hop particularly appealing from a musical standpoint, but the liveliness and inventiveness of their rhymes can be quite impressive.

[psufootball07]

Man that Jodie Foster interview was much longer than the ones I have previously seen through Criterion. Didn't she work with the director in A Very Long Engagement? I remember her French wasn't that good, but I could understand it so I guess thats the point.

Jusqu'ici tout va bien....

[jbeall]

Man that Jodie Foster interview was much longer than the ones I have previously seen through Criterion. Didn't she work with the director in A Very Long Engagement? I remember her French wasn't that good, but I could understand it so I guess thats the point.

Yes, she has a cameo in Very Long Engagement. Her French is actually pretty good to my relatively untrained ear, but my girlfriend (who's French) thinks that Foster speaks French beautifully.

[manicsounds]

La Haine is directed by Kassovitz, Engagement is directed by Jeunet.

Anyway, Foster has been fluent in French since she was young. She personally dubs all her English performances in French. Quite a rare case there.

[karmajuice]

So I finally watched this last night after holding it in my keyvip for a few months. Very impressed, and I think accusations of it being derivative are inevitable but maybe half-baked. Lots of movies have been made about life in civilization's outskirts like ghettos and slums, trying to capture the alienation and the difficulties that these people face. These films all take place in similar settings, feature similar cultures and subcultures, and I have to wonder to what degree is this derivative of another film, and to what degree are they merely kindred representations of similar milieux? I've seen some comparisons to Taxi Driver, maybe due to Jodie Foster's involvement and the superficial reference in the film. I think the two films have remarkably little in common, though. They both have guns and violence and alienation, sure, but they present completely different scenarios with completely different intents and results. La Haine resembles other films, but it did not feel particularly derivative to me (obviously it is informed by other films, but I don't think it relies on them).

The subtitle discourse was an entertaining read. I don't have much to say about it, because I know enough French to see through the changes. I'm a little disappointed, but that's all.

I'm most interested in hearing people's opinions about two elements from the film. First, the moments of absurdity in the film, these bizarre and seemingly incongruent situations that provide such stark contrast to the harsh realism of the piece (the cow, the man who tells the story about Siberia; to a lesser degree the drunk man who hangs out with them while they carjack, the whole scene with the guy Asterix). What do you think these accomplish? Why include them? I loved them, but I'm trying to think about their purpose, how they might function in the narrative as something more than just random comedy.

The other thing I noticed was the tendency for the camera to linger, often staying on a scene after the characters left, and typically seeing something there, often for comedic or ironic effect. This happened several times, to the point where it either seemed like directorial excess or like it might have a particular purpose. I found the shots interesting, just not sure what to think about them. There were several instances of this, but some that stand out clearly: the guy peeking out of the bathroom stall after they all leave (hysterical), the breakdancer spinning and spinning for a few seconds after everyone else has run to see "the shit going down" outside, and the Eiffel Tower cutting off after their attempt to mimic turning it off themselves (eloquently suggesting that they have no control over their world; I also think the allusion to "that only happens in the movies" is also relevant).

Any ideas? Humor me and my random observations.

[LightBulbFilm]

I watched this tonight and I too am wondering of the purpose behind the odd comedic scenes. Though I have come to some possible conclusions myself.

***SPOILERS***

As far as the cow goes, I believe Vinz had convinced himself it was a sort of sign - Perhaps this traces back to Freud's "The Uncanny", where he elaborates on how man can perceive something as a sign if his or her encounter with it is itself, uncanny. Though I haven't totally figured how it works into the film. Perhaps paralleling the uncanniness of death itself? That seems a bit of a stretch though.

The man's story in the bathroom: Once again perhaps a stretch, but at the end of the film of course there is the quote: "It's not how you fall, it's how you land." Well of course the old man explains how the man was running towards the train attempting to run while holding up his pants, as he had abruptly stopped shitting, and every time he tried to reach for his hand to pull him on the train, the man's pants would fall tripping him to the ground. The scene of the man running consistently tripping over his own pants is a funny story. Then the man responds the the question of "What happened to him?" with "Nothing. He froze to death in the harsh cold of Siberia." bringing the story to a rather sad ending, or landing. My thought is that this story is a parallel to the quote in the end. The funny and entertaining part of the story representing the fall and the bummer ending being the landing, the exact opposite of what the quote warns to do in the end.

Yes, stretches, but my best guesses freshly after seeing the film. Anyone want to play with my theories? Ha ha.

[jbeall]

I don't remember if he says anything about the cow, but on the commentary track Kassovitz says that the old man, who was in Cafe au Lait, told him that story at the end of shooting, and Kassovitz liked it so much that he put him in La Haine so he could tell it on camera.

[swo17]

Finally, La maine is coming on Blu, May 8th.

[manicsounds]

blu-ray.com review

[dwk]

For those of you that haven't read Chris's review of the Blu-ray (the only place I've seen this mentioned), the subtitles on the Blu-ray drops the name changes, so Asterix, Obelisk, and Le Pen are in the subtitles and Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Hitler are not.