USE OF UGLY IN CINEMA AS AN IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM: A CASE STUDY ON TAXIDERMIA* Çağıl Erdoğan** Yaşar University, İzmir ABSTRACT The dominance of aesthetic categories in art has changed from beauty to ugliness in time period parallel to the changes in socio-economic values during modernity. The use of ugly started to take place in variety of art forms as an opposition to modern society’s statements of good, right and morals. Avant-garde formations in art used ugly as a critical challenge to bourgeois culture. Also cinema, as an important rhetorical and ideological media, displayed the possibility of establishing avant-garde attitudes in art as a review of socio-cultural facts by using ugly formations. Therefore since 1960’s, the use of ugly has been an important aesthetic choice as a critical approach in both independent and main stream film productions. The ugly representations in filmic narration have been confirmed as a violation of classical cinema’s ideology. György Palfi’s film Taxidermia (2006) has been a modern example of using ugly as a critical factor in cinema. Therefore it has been analyzed to express the role and importance of ugly aesthetics in cinematic expressions to open new perspectives for film studies. Keywords: Ugly in Cinema, Aesthetics of Ugly, Györy Palfi, Taxidermia INTRODUCTION Beauty has been accepted as the essence of art since the beginning of art history but it lost its power with the fall of modernity and left its place to anti-art movements which used ugly as a critical challenge. These avantgarde formations in art which appeared as crisis of modernity, comprehended a criticism of the whole cultural system upon ugly aesthetics. Therefore ugly became a critical discourse in representation of art interrogating political regimes, social class distinctions and cultural transformations in society. The concept of ugly has been used in every form of art including cinema in a wide range of films; however no considerable research on the function, purpose and usage of the term is done effectively in film studies. Kendall (2011:2) states that ugly is a cognitively and culturally coded, learnt and developed form of reaction; and it creates an appeal and arouses curiosity to look at. Therefore it requires a more effective investigation within the theories of cinema. Thus, issues such as how ugly is presented in cinema and function of ugly in films, need to be clarified effectively. Therefore this study focuses on the transition of aesthetic categories from beauty to ugliness based on historical perspective and encompasses the role of ugly in art as an essential social critique. It reveals the general use of ugly in today’s contemporary art and exposes the meaning of it as a denial of status quo and expression of a new reality. Central to this argument, it examines ugliness as a new approach in film studies to fill an important gap. Therefore it expresses the function of ugly in underground and art films as well as in mainstream cinema. It intends to create a systematic review with the content analysis of György Palfi’s film Taxidermia (2006), establishing categorical descriptions to indicate the role of ugliness in cinematic expressions. REFLECTIONS OF MODERN CRISIS: FROM BEAUTY TO UGLINESS Since the 18th century, in terms of the production and philosophy of art, beauty that had been the condition of artistic goodness has started to give its place to ‘bad taste’ with cultural modernism. In early modernity, the value system of bourgeoisie that consists of economic, social or political elements; democratic understanding and technological developments altered the aesthetic taste of the period. Capitalist economy in Europe that has been getting stronger till 19th century caused alienation from one’s own labor, created social class differences and made important changes in socio-cultural life. Beech states (2007:8) that in a world, in which value system of bourgeoisie had turned everything into an object of trade including labor as well, beauty itself has become the subject of exchange of mind and commodities. Beauty has lost its innocence and became aggressive by being attached to design, style and marketing. After the destruction and poverty in Europe during World War I, people started to question the dreams of rational mind and virtue that has been introduced by modernity; so that the degeneration and devaluation of socio-cultural and economic manners, found more severe criticisms in artistic representations. Therefore, the *Taxidermy (from the Greek for arrangement of skin) is the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of animals (especially vertebrates) for display (e.g. as hunting trophies) or for other sources of study. **Yaşar University, Research Assistant, cagil.erdogan@yasar.edu.tr MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University concept of beauty that formed an important value category in art at the beginning of 1900s, started to be politicized. Beauty in modernity now appeared to be chaotic, arbitrary, ruined and problematic (Beech, 2007:8). The society that had been captivated by the degenerated ideal of modernity became free with the emergence of cultural modernity, which had been originated to the mid 19th century. Modernism in art, by opposing the normalizing-functions of tradition, started a riot against everything that is normative. This riot was a way of neutralizing the standards of morality and utility (Habermas, 1987:3,4), so various avant-garde movements maintained this understanding. With Dada manifesto in 1918, an attitude has been adopted against compulsorily relation of beauty-art and beauty-goodness. The resistance to beauty became a part of the resistance to bourgeois culture in general. Dada movement was against to satisfy the aesthetic sensitivity of the ones, who were responsible for the World War I; so it showed the meaninglessness of all the values they found sovereign by hurting what they labeled as beautiful and taunted them by ‘teasing art’ (Danto, 2004:57). Thus, ‘negative’ aesthetic qualities such as ugly, disgusting and grotesque, joined to the positive qualities of bourgeoisie aesthetic values like beautiful, sovereign, interesting or funny; and abolished the place of beauty, which had been the center of art for centuries. The tradition that Dada has left to art, was maintained by the latter artistic schools, such as Neo-Realism, Fluxus, op art, pop art, happening, ready-made, action painting, body art and conceptual art movements (Humble, 2002:246). During late-capitalism of 1960s, a postmodern society was formed in Europe that does not believe in the existence of high values in opposition with the repressive and totalitarian attitude of modernity. The economic and social changes resulted in faithlessness to social values; thoughts based on sovereignty and rationality gave its place to a social environment that taunted everything, in which no one took anybody seriously. The reflection of this change in society to artistic fields caused artists diverging to Dada’s anti-capitalist, cynical, iconoclastic and nihilistic methods as a means of expression, again. Thus, the concept of beauty that could not survive in a period in which almost nothing was beautiful and almost everything could be a work of art, disappeared not only from art but also from the philosophy of it (Danto, 2004:25). Therefore from that period on, ‘negative’ aesthetic tendencies have questioned, harmed, and even turned what was ethical, good and beautiful into ugly and disgusting. The essence of art, which has attributed a critical and liberating role to itself, was challenged by many other aesthetic possibilities (Danto, 2004:58,59). What made art valuable and joyful to a certain extent rather than being aesthetic was its cognitive structure. The general use of ugly in today’s contemporary art works and postmodern deconstructions is the indirect expression and imaginary of the pessimist, miserable and terrible which dominate the modern. As Antonin Artaud states, the cruel, hurtful, ugly or disgusting representations that we face with in artistic representations are necessary for us not to believe that we are in a totally safe world (Aaltonen, 2011:25). Ugly as an aesthetic quality directly reminds the reality that we live in and keeps us awake by complementary or subtracting elements that it creates; such as shock, astonishment, curiosity, attraction, disgust, rejection, denial, confrontation and denying. Ugly, in that sense, stands before us as an important element that makes awareness (Danto, 2004:57). AESTHETICS OF UGLY IN CINEMA The Function of Ugly The use of ugly in cinema carries quite complicated functions. It is jointed to the structures of sympathy and antipathy as a thematic motive; it supports the ideological viewpoint of the film; it prompts a process of attraction/distraction or identification/alienation by manipulating the viewers against the characters and narrative, and takes a central role within the poetic and rhetoric system of the film (Plantinga, 2009:212). Presenting or making certain subjects, objects or situations ugly in a film, is like making a list of things that will be affirmed and rejected in line according to the discourse of the narrative. Rejection of a thing or a situation that is generally accepted as ugly in a film justifies the negative properties and the exclusivist discourse that is generated over it; however, the affirmation of the same representation will make viewer get closer to the ugly, and will turn the negative discourse into a positive one. The discourse that finds the homosexual intercourse as an ordinary partnership of two men will manifest this intercourse as a stimulating and desire provoking action in line with aesthetics of beauty. On the other hand, the opposite discourse that accepts it as a perversion will ‘play’ with the images of this intercourse in order to convince and disgust the viewer. Playing with images means putting forward the decision of what and how to present: deciding between ‘clean’ images of smooth skins touching each other, kisses of loving lips or rhythmic unity of bodies and ‘dirty’ or ‘ugly’ images of hairy bodies, bare sexual organs and bodily fluids like spit, saliva, sweat or semen. Film will choose it according to what it wants to tell; it will represent the disgusting as if it is not or create disgust against what is not disgusting. The filmic use of ugly which has the power of changing judgments, is based on the boundary between the ugly images or situations that viewer is exposed to and the ugly itself. The viewer differentiates ‘I’ and ‘other’ by distancing herself from the character, object or situation that she finds ugly. This otherization, affecting the relationship of identification, alienation, empathy and sympathy between the viewer and the character, will directly intervene in the processes that serve for viewers’ inclusion. The boundary which ugly draws socially, MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University psychologically or biologically between I and the others, will cause viewer both to involve in the story and decline it as well; but the lack of a certain intellectual background of the ugly representations will be nothing more than an exploitation. As long as this objective attitude instills into sensory experiences, it will become possible to make a cognitive inquiry about film; and film will fulfill its artistic function which is directly related to the purpose of ugly used in it. Since ugliness, by nature, stands on the side of rejection, it is used as an effective element in order to create ethical and ideological antipathy to the characters in cinema. The disturbance created by the physical ugliness of ‘the impure’, prevents viewers to get closer to the film or the character and creates a feeling of alienation between them. Especially in mainstream cinema anti-characters are mostly represented with scars or piercings and tattoos which are accepted as symbols of opposition. As Plantinga (2009:212) states, it is clear that representing bad characters with physical deformation, disability or in other uncommon ways in many James Bond films, is a metaphor of evilness. Similarly, cinematic representations of different races, homosexuals, minorities or people with disabilities are used for negating with the thought that they are physically and ‘ethically ugly’ according to traditional standards. Therefore, according to Plantinga, it is observed that physical ugliness usually intertwines with socio-ethical ugliness in cinema (Plantinga, 2009:213). Cinematographers use ugly not only as an element of alienation but also as an attraction mechanism for identification with the character as well. In this process, different sympathy relations emerge between the character and the viewer. In some films, representations of traditional elements of ugliness serve the function of minimalizing the feeling of it when it is formed. Those films encourage the viewer to look at the spirituality or the general human condition that lie behind the character’s physical deformation (Plantinga, 2009:213). Thereby, the elements of ugliness function as an attraction mechanism, which opens up a way for identification between the character and the viewer. There are many examples of it in cinema history such as Ted Browning’s Freaks (1932), Jean Delannoy’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris, 1956) or Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001). Ugliness, by nature, has a negative attractiveness and an irresistible appeal that forces people to explore it. Even if illness, physical injuries, severed parts of the body, death etc. cause nausea in people, the curiosity towards the ugly and disgusting arouses desire to look at (McGinn, 2011:47,48). This appealing property of ugly causes it to be used too often in art and underground films as well as mainstream cinema. The Use of Ugly in Art Films and Underground Cinema Representations of ugliness in art films and underground cinema can appear as an element of critical discourse or just as an item of query which is only faced in some scenes of the film. In both ways use of ugliness, forming a critical view point, aims to disturb the viewer. Experience of ugly by the viewer throughout the film helps the questioning of the main theme and encourages her to manage with it. As Aaltonen states from Palmer (2011:27) these movies challenge viewer and expect them to leave their traditional passive roles towards an active and experimental participation. Therefore, cinema will be able to provide new techniques and visual forms which can exceed the borders of imagination. According to Kuplen (2011) that is the exact point that makes art more pleasurable, valuable and meaningful or makes it what it is. Starting from some directors of French avant-garde cinema such as Cermaine Dulac, Jean Epstein and Luis Bunuel, ugliness and its sub categories are being used by independent directors like David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Pier Paolo Pasolini and their contemporaries (Beugnet,2007:22,23). Hanich (2009:306) states that ugliness, in the films of these directors, is not used for provocation, exploitation or appeal, instead it has been a tool for guiding viewer towards an intellectual thought. It also seems to be able to make the same definition for trash or camp films, which criticize Hollywood cinema though they are interested in its artificiality. These films, by nature, have the potential of showing the disgusting, inappropriate, bizarre and strange things that contradict to the social norms of society. Ugliness is not only an object, a situation or a scene but a moral structure that the whole film is constructed on. They form a severe critical and politic attitude towards the ruling order which is also called as queer parody. The term, queer parody, refers to an ontological challenge to the dominant ideology (Meyer, 1994:1). Camp aesthetics in cinema can be seen in films of John Waters, David Lynch, Russ Meyer, John Paizs, Lloyd Kaufman and George - Mike Kuchar brothers. These films, which are called ‘trash’ and criticized for their extremely stylized form and deprivation of content, use ugly wholly connected to the structure of the film that cannot be separated from the framework. Especially in the early films of John Waters, according to a conscious choice, there is not a definite theme or scenario; these films are ‘ugly’ in terms of content besides the simple and sloppy cinematic techniques. The ‘ugliness’, ‘contempt’ and ‘perversion’ in its content are reflected to its technique. As Moe Meyer (1994) states the use of aesthetics of ugliness in these kinds of films is primarily an ironic critique of mass culture. The bad taste that they represent challenges the forces that develop social control mechanisms in the name of good taste. The Use of Ugly in Mainstream Cinema Mainstream cinema has some similarities with art films in ways of using ugly as they draw on equally disturbing, outrageous and intolerable representations. In fact there are no exact rules and criteria to distinguish MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University the different uses in between the two orientations, however the first one does not intend to alienate viewer or to provide a critical attitude towards the images, which do not allow ugly to disturb and clear up film's traditional aesthetic ‘beauty’. As Kleinhans (2012) states, ugly or disgusting items used in these films, do not create a larger narrative, do not evoke ethic values or do not serve an aesthetic purpose to intensify the character and the story. Ugly is not required for the view, the scene or the narrative, but it is used just to impress the viewer at that moment. Exploitation movies (especially mondo films), slashers, comedy films (such as gross-out comedies) or horror movies and its derivatives, benefit from ugly as it functions as a curious, funny or attractive element for the person experiencing it. The use of ugly and other ‘negative’ aesthetic elements in American cinema, is not seen outside some exceptional sexual issues or some slang conversations till 1970s; because according to Hollywood production code, ugly, repulsive and disgusting things were opposing with the ethical values of pure, clean and white citizens. Along with the elimination of production code in the 1970s, sex, violence and all kinds of uncomfortable, ugly, shocking, disturbing and disgusting things which were taboo previously, started to be used in a lot of freedom (Plantinga, 2006:85). This period coincided with the widespread use of ‘negative’ aesthetic elements in comedy films, as they did not allow the establishment of deep emotional bond between the characters and the viewer formally (Korsmeyer, 2012:757). As Plantinga (2009:204) states ugly and disgusting presentations used in comedies, provide viewers to found a rebellion against the rules of polite class. From this perspective, it is seen that they share a similar purpose with art films which make mockery of the traditional canon. Although Plantinga’s opinion is reduced much more to slapstick comedies, it can be true for Farrelly brothers films like Dumb & Dumber (1994), There's Something about Mary (1998) and Shallow Hal (2001), or John Hamburg’s Along Came Polly (2004) or serials like American Pay which touch social issues from the edge. A CASE STUDY: CONTENT ANALYSIS OF TAXIDERMIA IN TERMS OF UGLY AESTHETICS In order to understand the role and the importance of ugly aesthetics in cinematic representation, a film analysis is seen necessary; therefore the examination of György Palfi’s film Taxidermia (2006) in content analysis method will be clarifying for this study. Taxidermia is selected for such an analysis because it uses ugly elements not only in its story, characters, decors and accessories featuring in the film; but also as an aesthetic quality based on the narrative structure. Ugly, within the framework of a particular ideological purpose as a critique of the prevailing political and social regimes during 20th century Hungary; melts in the film and spreads to the whole. Three periods of different regimes in Hungary are described by three generations; grandfather, son, and grandchild of a family. The first section of the of film takes place during the Second World War in fascist regime with Nazi collaboration, the second passes in the management of Soviet Union Socialist Party and the last in era of capitalist economy. The first section tells the story of Vendel Morosgovanyi who serves as a soldier during the Second World War. Morosgovanyi, lives in an area away from the city along with Lieutenant, his wife and two adult daughters and fulfills the hard tasks he is ordered like a slave. The only place where he can be free is his sexual fantasies. One night he makes love with the Lieutenant's wife who visits him in his hut and next morning gets killed by a single shot in the head by Lieutenant. The second section of the film tells the story of Morosgovanyi’s son Kalman who is born with a pig tail in his back. Kalman participates to fast eating competitions and is very ambitious about being the best athlete ever seen. He scrambles for being champion with his best friend and later on ruptures his relationship with him because of his greed. He marries with a woman athlete named Gizi, and they have a baby boy who will be the main character of the next part of the film. The third section is related to the life of Lajos, the son of Kalman and Gizi. Lajos works as a taxidermist in his own shop and looks after Kalman who cannot move his body from where he sits because of his weight. Kalman feeds some giant, wild cats in a cage with margarine to prepare them for fast eating competitions one day. He argues with Lajos every time he comes home as he does not understand his sublime effort and respect him. One day he gets killed by one of the cats. After his death Lajos applies taxidermy to his body. Then he applies taxidermy to himself with a special machine he invents. An artist who comes to the shop to take his package finds their bodies and presents them in an exhibition, so at last they get noticed and catch the eternal life they want. Characters All of the main and a large part of the supporting characters which appear in three sections of the film, have disgusting features. Morosgovanyi character had lost his mental balance, he has moral perversions, he is in dirt from top to bottom; his cleanup efforts with water or candle flame are constantly interrupted. There is an ugly scar on his lip up to his nose. His penis looks bruised and disgusting when he is erected. His voice is also pretty ugly. All these features are cleverly combined in order to create a spineless and pathetic character, who obeys Lieutenant’s fascist power without questioning. The relationship between Morosgovanyi and Lieutenant is an example of power relations during Hungary's fascist government period. Morosgovanyi's life and his current situation have been used as a metaphor for MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University the ordinary people subservient to the fascist government after the invasion of Hungary by Nazi Germany in 1944. Lieutenant and his family represent the management of the fascist state. Morosgovanyi's condition as he is pushed off to live alone in dirt and debris; all the dirty work he’s forced to do by Lieutenant and his family; meaningless sanctions imposed on him, are important elements used for encouraging viewer to examine the legitimacy of the fascist government. The relationship established between Morosgovanyi and ugliness symbolizes the Hungarian society where human rights are taken away by the ruling of power. All ugly and disgusting items laid on to Morosgovanyi, act as a symbol of humiliation imposed on society by power, and allow the establishment of empathy between Morosgovanyi and viewer in certain parts of the film. However, due to the sense of ugliness, viewer cannot identify with the character and continue to monitor him from outside; keeping herself awake and conscious. In spite of morally deviant behaviors of Morosgovanyi that discredit viewer's empathy and create a sense of alienation; the outrageous elements installed to the character and surrounding events in the film, represent power relations in political era and direct viewer to criticism. The distance created, allows viewer to witness events from an objective perspective instead of identifying with the character and helps to form an intellectual attitude avoiding the dramatization of social relations. One of the scenes, in which Morosgovanyi and Lieutenant's wife have sex on the shredded pork, contains an example for this. Combination of sexual pleasure, lust and disgust distances viewer to the scene for it repels them against Lieutenant’s wife and supports disgusting features that are installed to Morosgovanyi. These are the indicators which show that Morosgovanyi can’t live his life or his sexuality as a human being though he wants badly. Disgust and empathy, caused from feeling sorry for the character, combine together and consequently draw attention to the brutality that Morosgovanyi has been brought by the order he lives in. Impressive repulsiveness of the scene, leads the viewer once again to question the fascist power relations around Morosgovanyi's life. The sense of identification abolished in the film between the viewer and the characters applies to the main character Kaman in the second section. Kalman is the son of Morosgovanyi; he has a pig tail cut off his ass; he is very fat; he devotes his life to repulsive and pointless fast food eating competitions, and he keeps vomiting after eating disgusting things all the way through the movie. Finally at the third section, he gets incredibly fat which makes him look more ugly and disgusting. Kalman's character trait symbolizes Hungary under the rule of the Soviet Union. The greed of the socialist system for power and growth is displayed by the absurdity of fast eating competitions on the degree of becoming Olympics and queried via disgusting elements. Lajos, encountered in the third part of the film, being the son of excessively fat and disgusting Kalman to come first, is also a repulsive character due to his frail appearance; his enjoyment doing taxidermy and his failure in building healthy relations with people. Lajos’ life coincides with the period in Hungary after communism. Contrast to Kalman, Lajos looks too weak with his sunken cheeks, thin, long hands and big eyes emerging on his disfigured boned face. He is not much seen outside the home, shop and grocery store; he lives a uniform life and he is alienated from society. His accelerated life is a representation of the degenerating human relationships after Hungary opened itself to capitalist economy. The period he lives in has a great relationship with his choice of work. He applies taxidermy to animals to make them immortal in response to the capitalist economy in which every object; subject or value is wasted quickly as consumption good. This is why he applies taxidermy to himself and to his father at the end of the film. The corruption in social relations created by capitalist economic structures and pace of modern life make it difficult to be noticed by someone or to be loved by someone. So he saves himself and his father from being no one. The director seeks to create a sense of alienation during the film between the main characters and the viewer. This attitude is in compliance with the film's critical discourse. The viewer wouldn’t have the chance to identify herself with the characters whom are not feeling disgusted inside the disgusting situations or objects surrounding them; so she will hold on to the feeling of repulsion against them. Until she kept herself away from ugliness and disgust she wouldn’t get into the film and keep herself awake and watchful in any moment. In this case it would result in consolidation of alienation. Thus, it comes out that alienation factor is used as an awareness and disgust tool in the film. Shooting Techniques Choices that are put forward in shooting techniques constitute an essential part in the representation of ugly elements used in Taxidermia according to the aim of the scene. Ugliness which is laid on characters, objects or situations is supported by framing, scales, staging and camera movements. In the scene which Morosgovanyi counts the works to be done during the day in voice over, he throws a shovel of pig shit right in front of the camera. Although there would be many choices of staging this scene, we notice that it is a conscious choice of director to face viewers with the hard work of Morosgovanyi to make them feel empathy with him. Another way to confine the look of the viewers to the ugly or disturbing objects and force them to keep MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University looking is, close shots. Close shots are essential in terms of effects created by the aesthetic disposition of ugliness for they minimize the distance between subject and object; or they bring forth ugly and disgusting object’s possible contamination to the viewer psychologically, and place the unwanted object to the focus of the gaze. In the third part of the film where Lajos applies taxidermy to himself, it is easy to perceive the feeling of discomfort that viewer has, which is created by the close shots. The viewer cannot remain unresponsive to the close-up images in which Lajos cuts himself and puts his internal organs aside. Close-up images dispose the distance between the viewer and Lajos. So the viewer perceives her own body as Lajos' and establishes a physical sympathy with him. Cutting himself while he is conscious means the same thing with experiencing death while living. This situation sounds more outrageous, frightening and disgusting than the appearance of cessation of a dead body to the viewer. Besides framing and scale-up, camera movements are also effective in cinema in terms of creating ugly emotions. Panning movement of the camera in the second part of the movie where Kalman vomits to the pool in Fast Eating Olympics can be given as a good example for this. With the beginning of Kalman’s vomiting, camera starts to make a 360-degree panning movement so that the other athletes who are vomiting are all displayed. Viewers are forced to look at the endless vomiting scene during the whole shooting. The shooting scale used here, eliminates the gaze’s possibility of escape, such as the movement of image provided by the panning of camera causes the eye to follow the flow unconsciously. So the uninterrupted movement of the camera allows the viewer to experience feelings of disgust and ugliness, feeding it throughout the shot. Those of ugly feelings desired to be created in this part of the film, serves to reveal the absurdity of Fast Eating Olympic Games where socialist system legitimizes itself with grandiose celebrations and speeches during the opening. Ugly Objects, Spaces and States The discomfort, insecurity and social criticism that are desired to be created by the disgusting features of characters, are provided by ugly and repulsive objects, spaces or states. Pig is the most effective repulsive object that is used in the first part of the film. In Hungary it is a familiar phenomenon to cut and smoke pigs for winter preparation, but it doesn’t change the fact that pig is identified by impurity and ugliness in many cultures as well as in Hungary. So this allows its usage to create negative aesthetic emotions in the film. The images of pig are all used to support the disgusting attributions loaded to Morosgovanyi, for it is his best friend and the only object that he gets into physical contact. Therefore Morosgovanyi is witnessed having sex with the Lieutenant's wife on the shredded pig and it is seen that woman’s image changes place with pig when he ejaculates on her. Pig shit’s disposal by Morosgovanyi to the camera, all the details shown during the cessation of the pig, the comparison made by Lieutenant between woman's sexual organ and pig, also comprise examples to the use of ugly in the name of nourishing adverse feelings of viewer. They will disturb the viewer and allow her to question power relations between people. The function of the pig performed in the first part, occurs in disgusting food and vomit in the second section of the film. Director and screenwriter exaggerate the fast eating competitions at the level of Olympic Games. The game itself and the content of it, is in agreement with the growth request of communist government to cover everything by arranging ostentatious ceremonies and speeches in the name of protecting legitimacy of the system and the people's faith in it. Therefore Palfi, makes a critique of communist system with disgusting foods and vomit. The ugly object of the third section of the film is, the animals treated taxidermy. Lajos and Kalman will also be added to these objects at the end of the film. Selecting Lajos' work as taxidermy shows a critical attitude towards the postmodern dilemmas, value loss and temporary objects consumed quickly in Hungary after the communist period. Animals treated taxidermy are now immortalized and become resistant to extinction. Most of the places in the film are used to the support objects, characters or situations considering film's narrative structure and emotions to be created by ugliness. It is possible to find an effective instance of this in the spatial similarity established between Morosgovanyi and the pig in the first section, as both live in a dark and dingy place far away from farm. This spatial similarity is a representation of Morosgovanyi’s existential similarity with the pig. In the third section of the film where viewers see Lajos shopping, the grocery store’s cool decor formed by pale colors, white lighting and properly arranged shelves are far from feeling, perplexity and disorder therefore from what is named as real. It's ugly precisely for this reason. The meaning of this cold, ugly and distant place in the feature film is the mirror of postmodern consumer society. There are also many physically or morally ugly, dirty and disgusting situations to be found in the film. In the first part; Morosgovanyi’s scrubbing toilet, smearing toothpaste to the hole in the hut to masturbate while watching girls playing snowballs outside, his molesting the Little Match Girl and wrapping the pig can be counted among these. The second part of the film has also examples of images to this kind of situations. In one of them sweat MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University drips from Gizi's hairy armpit, flows to the face of Kalman and licked by him. In another one Gizi and Bela sneak out during the wedding and have sex in a framing that a quietly grazing ox comes into the image. Editing In order to create a sense of disgust by using disgusting items or conditions in the film, the regulation and editing of these are also of great importance through the fiction. The most effective form of this regulation emerges as the use of the contrasts within each other like clean / dirty, pleasurable/disgusting, beautiful/ugly, life / death and so on. In many parts of the film Palfi, describes ugly in its contrast with ‘not ugly’ to increase the impression created by the feeling of ugliness. This method is used effectively by parallel editing between Lieutenant's daughter's bathroom scene and Morosgovanyi’s wood cutting. Palfi uses close-ups for girls getting washed inside of the bread boat. Smoothness and softness of their bodies, their sensitive nipples, the water flowing from their backs and legs are shown in parallel editing intertwined with Morosgovanyi's dirty fingernails with tor n gloves, hard wood and the sharp ax. Beauty, feelings of softness and cleanliness that are given in the bathroom scene through the girls’ images create a tactile contrast with Morosgovanyi’s dirty hands as well as the texture of wood and ax. This contrast triggers the strangeness felt against Morosgovanyi; so he becomes the symbol of all the things which are not good and beautiful. Characters’ abstraction from everything clean, pleasing and all that is humanly is an expression of people who are humiliated, labor exploited and despised in fascist relationships of power. Sound, Dialogue and Music Director did not hesitate to use sound and dialogue as assistant elements supporting the ugly images and placing them as the main factors that build the meaning of the scene. The sound of pee at the night scene which lay under Morosgovanyi's wait in his hut is an example of such use. There is no act of Morosgovanyi at beginning of the scene where he stands on a board inside the hut. With the sounds of urine heard from the toilet which is located right next to the hut, scene and Morosgovanyi's quiet stance makes a different meaning. The sounds falling on Morosgovanyi's image, redrawing the border between him and the owners of the house alienates him, as the difference between the ones who urinate and the one exposed to the urine becomes a representation of power relations at a time due to disgusting nature of urine. The ugly voice of Morosgovanyi comes out to be a conscious choice as his ugly image. The scene in which he sings a lullaby to the pig, his voice becomes more irritating than the images which he cares and hugs the pig. However, if he had a tougher and nicer tone of voice, neither his performance nor the lyrics of the song would be outrageous. Therefore director shows attention to save the content of the scene formally and assures a harmony a nd ‘ugliness’ in all components of it. Lieutenant’s speech with Morosgovayni in the cutting wood scene emerges like one of the best examples of creation and promoting of disgust through the dialogues in the film. Lieutenant starts to talk looking inside where the girls get washed, ‘... Is there anything more beautiful than a woman’s pussy?’ and ends his speech with a theory that claims the world terminates around pussy. Considering content of Lieutenant’s speech, if the dialogues were dropped and only images remained in the scene, it is clear that the scene wouldn’t be morally ugly. Here the element of ugliness depends entirely on dialogues. Also the music used in the film disturbs ear; it is distant from melody and looks like random sounds consist of metal tools. Disturbing use of music according to the content of the scenes supports the given elements of ugliness or fulfills the same function as those elements. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Everything that modernity has deemed to be good, beautiful and sublime, lost its reality and validity with the collapse of modern ideals. Artistic values are what left from the values that humanity believed after the two world wars; ‘negative’ aesthetic categories has become more effective than the positive categories identifying the reality we live in. Today, art has been the domain of expressions like ugly, disgusting and abject. The elements of ugliness increasingly used especially in photography, painting and performing arts during the postmodern period, changed the direction of art irrevocably from beauty to ugliness. Ugly and all the new values put forward by other negative aesthetic categories, transformed formal structure and content of art. This new aesthetic representations, encountered in plastic arts, were fed from artistic branches and from their philosophical traditions. Cinema emerges at a very late period of time as compared with other branches of art; therefore it does not have a rich and extensive history as they have. From this perspective, the lack of philosophical discussions developed on ‘negative’ aesthetic categories in the field of film studies is understandable; and precisely for this reason it appears to be a larger requirement. MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University Cinema has an undeniable power to change and convert society compared to other art forms with the opportunity to address large communities. Therefore, different perspectives should be developed instead of learned traditional methods enforcing the boundaries of cinematic expression. Researches on the function of different aesthetic categories in cinema can lead to development of systematic ideas and new ways of seeing through narrative possibilities, which will also allow the creation of new values to establish a new reality. New aesthetic viewpoints towards the existing order may also provide development of different parameters in the construction of freedom (Bağlı, 2010:109, 110). As Mey (2007:42) cites from Kristeva, uses of ugly, which threaten individuals, society and ideological institutions that manage them, can result in finding more democratic and different relation alternatives than the dominant system forces on human, nature and society. Therefore disturbing expressions of ugly in cinematic narratives may be crucial to show the dilemmas of society and to form a conscious realization of truth. MOD ART ’13 Beauty and Ugliness Conference Proceedings November 25-27, Mimar Sinan University REFERENCES Aaltonen, M., 2011.Touch, taste & devour: phenomenology of film and the film experiencer in the cinema of sensations. [MPhil(R) thesis] Available through: <http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2666/> [Accessed May 2013] Bağlı, M., 2010. Modernizme Direnen Estetik. İstanbul: Kapı Yayınları. Beech, D., 2007. 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