CONFLICTED THOUGHTS ON BELLY & VISUALLY STUNNING MOVIES WITH LITTLE TO NO SUBSTANCE

I’m not a filmmaker but even I know it takes effort & hard work to make even a bad film. And not all "bad" films should be dismissed. Some are visually stunning. That counts for something. With the popularity of filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn & picture-heavy outlets like Filmgrabber, there seems to be a surge in appreciation for movies that may be "bad" in terms of the acting & story, but beautiful in terms of their visual presentation (other recent films like Beyond The Black Rainbow, Love & Under The Skin fall in to that same category for me). Take the dystopian science fiction film Hardware (1990). I hadn’t thought about this movie since I was 12 or 13 (and for those of you that remember Hardware, when’s the last time any of you thought about it?). But thanks to a recent post on film grabber, I’ve come to like the images from the movie when taken out of context…

A common criticism of Nicolas Winding Refn’s last two films (Only God Forgives & Neon Demon) is that they’re pretentious, silly, boring, etc.
…But at the same time, those same movies are almost always praised for how they look (say what you want but Refn’s name is still relevant. He’s still talked about so his style over substance approach means something in certain film circles).
And quite frankly, if you like pop art, modern art and/or Stanley Kubrick/Giallo-inspired visuals, I don’t see how you could deny Refn’s eye as director…

(if my memory serves me correctly, a lot of the same criticisms that Refn faces now were the same criticisms Hype Williams faced in the 90’s with Belly long before Refn found his current glossy style).


Again - no matter how bad the plot, performances & editing may be, it still takes talent to make a beautiful looking movie. Case in point: Belly. Now…it’s not that I think Belly is “bad” (although I wouldn’t argue or disagree with someone if they labeled it as such in a constructive way), it’s just that I’ve seen it so many times that I’ve grown sick of it. Belly was very popular on every floor of my freshman college dorm in 1999. Seriously – this movie was on HEAVY rotation my freshman year at Hampton University. Everyone seemed to have the VHS. The sounds of Belly rang from many rooms on my floor and the floors above me. I’ve seen it so many times that I just can’t watch it anymore like someone who was force-fed to the point of vomiting. I’m also not the biggest fan of Belly because in terms of plot and overall execution, it’s incredibly phony. I know that sounds harsh but I’m calling it like I see it.
Belly director Hype Williams is a music video director known for his emphasis on the fish-eye lens effect & shiny suits…

To me, Belly is phony because Hype Williams tried to incorporate his signature flashy/materialistic style in to a film about drug dealing, dirty cops, black pride, black on black crime & conspiracies to commit murder and it just didn’t go together. It’s like…do you want to make a socially conscious film, or do you want to make a two hour long music video? It’s definitely possible to mix both styles, but in the case of Belly there seemed to be more effort put in to the look of the movie and a lot less effort in to the story. Hype Williams definitely took plenty of unnecessary time to show how cool it is to have money from selling drugs, but he never takes 30 seconds to show the negative effects that drugs have on the (Black) community. That’s phony to me. The plot is also kind of a mess. I mean, one minute Belly is the story about two friends/drug dealers (Nas & DMX) who get in way over their heads. Then it turns in to a movie about cops using pawns to assassinate a Black civil rights leader.
And what's most frustrating is that Hype Williams did have the formula for a good movie on his hands with the final 30 minutes concerning the police using DMX to assassinate "Reverend Saviour" (Benjamin Chavis). Had the entire film been based around that story and shot in the same polarizing style, I think he would have had a stronger final product. Seriously, that whole segment between DMX & Chavis is quietly brilliant. The editing, the use of music, the chemistry, etc...

Kind of a powerful scene, right? It could be interpreted in so many ways from Christianity's conflicted relationship with Rap/Hip-Hop (which is mostly a generational conflict) to the (sometimes) layered & complicated relationship between Black men in America.

But instead, the majority of the movie is made up of stuff that had already been explored on film for a large portion of the 90's and I think people were just tired of it (for those that don't remember, there was controversy during the release of Belly as Magic Johnson refused to play it in his chain of theaters. This was a callback to former New Jersey mayor Sharpe James condemning the release of New Jersey Drive). By the mid-late 90's, films like Daughters Of The Dust, Watermelon Woman, Eve's Bayou and countless other "alternative" black films had kind of ushered in a new perspective and the “urban drama” was played out (it should be noted that the aforementioned films were all directed by Black Women).

...But, like Hardware, when you take a lot of the images from Belly out of context it does look pretty amazing (and it should also be noted that you don’t often see Black skin photographed in such a polarizing way in American movies)…

It does take a lot of talent to shoot images like this.

There are a few positive aspects to Belly. It exposed Harmony Korine’s Gummo to an audience that wouldn’t normally come across a film like that (I remember explaining to people in my college dorm that the movie Nas & DMX are watching at the beginning of Belly is in fact a real movie).

It was also went on to inspire & influence good music…

And it also gave Sister Nancy’s career a resurgence due to the use of her classic song in one scene...

and do you think shows like Money & Violence would exist without Belly?

Maybe if Belly came out in the early/mid-90's (an era where "urban crime hip-hop dramas" were at an all-time high and in serious demand) I wouldn't be so critical. It would have fit right in with films like Juice & Strapped (for those that don't remember, Strapped was Forest Whitaker's directorial debut).


Perhaps a lot more visually stunning films that got dismissed upon their initial release for not offering much in terms of substance will gain a little more appreciation (Belly definitely doesn't deserve its current "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes). But at the end of the day no one wants there to be an overflow of movies with little to no substance. I just think there’s a certain specific lane for empty beautiful looking movies.