Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema (review)

Daily Existence

Timely and brilliantly written, Wheeler Winston Dixon's Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema explores the relationship between images of paradisial escape in film and the realities of daily existence and the constant assault of digital technology, an assault that forces many to physically escape by vacationing to the "Eden paradises" presented on the silver screen. However, as he points out through numerous examples, the escape to Eden, though liberating, can never be permanent as there are always real life needs—such as earning a living—that supplant the fantasy. The same is true of "Edenic cinema," which provides a momentary escape from the "betrayal, illness, cupidity, and misfortune" of one's daily life. Like the vacation, however, the film too will end, forcing one to leave the theater and step out into the real world.

Divided into five deftly crafted chapters, Dixon begins with "The Great Escape," which explores various examples of escapism found in films such as The Enchanted Forest (1945), The Enchanted Cottage (1945), and Portrait of Jennie (1948). He points out how reality is exorcised from the filmic world of the characters and replaced by an idealized vision of the world where "happily-ever-after" is the norm. He also compares how video games operate in the same manner, if not more so, by offering a point of escape for the player through the acquisition of a new identity. However, like film, the trip into the world of pixels is transitory, and, at some point, the player must return to reality. Likewise, he explores variations on the theme of escapism, noting the role Westerns and "stories situated on a tropical island paradise" have played in expounding on the idea of "Eden."

From "The Great Escape" he moves to the "Eternal Summer," which examines the films produced in the early 1960s that "promised an endless world of sun, surf and innocent pleasure" using American International Pictures' "beach party" films and Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer (1966) as primary examples of this era. In contrast, he also studies British cinema of the 1960s and "their casual treatment of sexual activity, lack of responsibility, and thoroughgoing hedonism," which, like their tamer sun and fun American counterparts, collapsed under the invasion of the reality of the period—Vietnam, drugs, and general civil unrest.

As with all the chapters in this text, "Eternal Summer" is divided into subsections that provide historical information on filmmakers and photodramas. In this chapter Dixon devotes sections to Andy Warhol and Performance (1968), which work to expound on the post-Edenic period of the 1960s. He explores how the commerce of art destroys its "Edenic" aspects and uses Jean-Marie Straub's The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach as an example of a film that speaks to this subject.

Keeping to the subject of commerce as a corrupting force in the arts, "Paradise Now," the third chapter, presents a historical smorgasbord of the who's who of 1960s experimental filmmakers, labeled "Edenic cineastes." It analyzes and then compares the radical Living Theater, founded by Judith Malina and Julian Beck, to the experimental cinema of the 1960s', comprised of radical filmmakers wishing to break free of the formulaic restrictions of mainstream cinema. This chapter serves as a lament to a time past—a pseudo Eden in the midst of commercial productions—when film was a "cheap" medium in which any director could afford to work.

Chapter four takes an abrupt, albeit well-executed, turn to examine "The Uses of Heaven." He dissects the various ways film utilizes Heaven and/or Heavenly bodies, noting The Sixth Sense (1999) and Gabriel Over the White House (1933) as examples of celestial intervention. He also boldly explores the sexist and racist nature of the "Heaven" films produced in Hollywood where white males dominate, making special note of films that break the stereotype like Alice Guy Blache's The Birth, Life, and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1906...