Just continuing on with the weird project of connecting 2 films that seem impossible to connect... The only thing that connects these films is the fact that I saw both this week.
Connecting some thinking on these two films is going to be hard, but here goes:The Strong Do As They Do - 'The Incredible Hulk' and 'Mongol'
If you had to think of one thing that connects the incredible Hulk and Genghis Khan, it has to be violence and display of strength. After all, it was very difficult to reason with the Mongol Hordes that streamed out of the steppes in the 13th century, as it is probably difficult to reason with a main character who gets two words of coherent dialogue in a movie: "Hulk!" "SMASH!"Gone are the meditation on such topics as "with great strength comes great responsibility", or "Truth, Justice and the American Way." It's just a smash-fest in The Incredible Hulk, so much so that you think the violence of being a medieval Mongol is entirely acceptable.
It's a tough sell, selling the Hulk, I think. At its best the story of the Hulk has its strongest antecedent in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", yet the profound origins of the story are always given short shrift. Once the Hulk manifests out of the Bruce Banner rage, he is such a pure expression of infantile rage that any hope of articulating something falls out of the picture pretty quickly. The character of Bruce Banner and the Hulk are only in theory two aspects of the same persona. So the comic book and old TV stories simply concentrate on the action - and th action is always destruction.
This problem in story-telling continues into The Hulk's movie excursion. The funniest moment in the new Hulk movie comes early. Ed Norton's Bruce Banner futilely tries to tell his Brazillian tormentors to back off, in a badly executed Portuguese. He tells them not to make him hungry because they won't like him when he's hungry. It's a cute moment that reference the old TV series with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno.
In contrast, Temujin (who later becomes Genghis Khan) is by comparison quite garrulous compared to the Hulk. In a film with little dialogue but each and every line weighted with meaning, Temujin as played by Tadanobu Asano seems like a hard-boiled stoic character. Nobody really says much, which lands the film in line with the fine tradition of Russian Cinema where characters rarely are talkative. Neither film is interested in smart dialogue, although in the case of 'The Incredible Hulk' it is severely limited by the character.
What is fascinating about 'Mongol' is that Temujin is shown to lose and lose again, but he keeps coming back. The film is relatively disinterested in mechanical details such as locks or chains or horse-riding equipment, instead it is deeply interested in how emotionally stark the existence of a young Mongol warrior might have been. As an exploration of the nature of strength it is quite incredibly I might add, a compelling re-telling of Conan the Barbarian. Indeed, the plot points are very similar. Both Conan and Temujin are made to become men early when their fathers are slain before their eyes. They are both then sent into servitude, bot have stocks placed around their necks, both go on to become strong warriors, both then go on to become great kings, but that story is not told within the film.Instead, both The Incredible Hulk and Mongol are deeply concerned with what characters do in tests of strengths instead of what they say. The Hulk protects a woman, but he smashes everything else. Temujin protects the woman he loves, but he comes to rewrite Mongol customs. Strength itself becomes a cipher for understanding something else.
Making And Remaking
The Incredible Hulk comes to the screen in the footsteps of the 2003 Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee, starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly. While the Hulk afficianados dis-endorsed the earlier film, I have to say it has a lot going for it as a film. Ang Lee's study of family relationships casting a long shadow which turns into repressed anger, is a fine, Freudian interpretation of the Dr. Jekyll story.
While I always find the first film in Super Hero film series tedious because they have to go through the problem of telling how the hero comes into being, the 2003 Hulk movie deftly navigates through the emotional curves of that story. While the core fans of the Hulk may dislike its explorations of the family, it's actually a well-crafted movie about people which happens to feature the Hulk.
The reboot remake of the current Hulk movie actually rushes through the origin story as a montage at the start, which is nice - I'm actually a little sick of Act 1 action where the main character waits to get bitten or irradiated or discovers he's from another planet, or whatever else creates the hero; so that is refreshing.
The problem is the rest of the script. The current Hulk must be one of the least articulate, least emotionally considered films I've seen in some time. the dialogue is flat out awful. It's like a 12 year old directed something written by a ten year old. The scenes between Liv Tyler and Ed Norton ring false, and leave you feeling very embarrassed for the actors. William Hurt is unrecognisable as the fine actor that he is, as he tumbles through the film with bombastic line after bombastic line. yes, it's a comic book movie, but why would you cast William Hurt for this dross? If iron Man was over-cast and worked because of it, this film fails to deliver the same effect simply because the script is too awful.
'Mongol' too is like a hero movie that dwells on the making of the hero. Genghis Khan wasn't always Genghis Khan. When he was Temujin, he was just a vulnerable little squirt who is every bit a victim of circumstance as the next Mongolian. The whole movie seems to show us that Genghis Khan was a four time loser before he even found his feet as a minor chieftain, and the only explanation the Mongols had for his ascent was that it was destiny.Oddly enough, there was a huge Genghis Khan movie made by the Japanese only last year. A lot could be said about comparing the two Genghis Khan movies. Both 'Mongol' and 'The Blue Wolf' derive their sources from 'The Secret Histories of the Mongols', but 'Mongol takes a great deal of license with what happened to Temujin between when he was 25 and 35. It's in this part that the film takes on a sword and sorcery feel. In any case, Genghis Khan who is a cultural hero to the Mongols and Chinese and a feared conqueror to most other nations, is shown not to have been autochthonus. He was a product of his time and place.
What is surprising is that there have only ever been about 5 movie renditions of Genghis Khan, including the immensely awful John Wayne vehicle 'The Conqueror' I touched upon the other day when discussing 'Indy Jones 4'. There is also a 'Genghis Khan' starring Omar Sharif. I have an ever-so-vague recollection of this film, and a memory of it being oddly misshapen, thank to a largely English-Lawrence-of-Arabia kind of casting. In that sense 'Mongol' is a huge breakthrough in that at least the Russians cast Asians in these roles.The Monster In the Imagination, The Monster In History
Both the Hulk and Temujin, while being the eponymous heroes of their respective films, are ironically seen as monsters. The rage of the Hulk is every bit as monstrous as the sacking of a city by the Mongols that we read about. Even in the Marvel Comic universe, it's actually quite hard to put a straight up 'good' or 'evil' label on the Hulk. Here's the Wikipedia write-up:The HulkAll that is in a way illustrative of the ambivalence that exists around the Hulk as a character. Contrast this with this writeup of Genghis Khan in wikipedia:
During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, scientist Bruce Banner rushes to save a teenager who has driven onto the testing field. Pushing the teen, Rick Jones, into a trench, Banner himself is caught in the blast, absorbing massive amounts of radiation. He awakens later in an infirmary, seeming relatively unscathed, but that night transforms into a lumbering grey form that breaks through the wall and escapes. A soldier in the ensuing search party dubs the otherwise unidentified creature a "hulk".[16]
The original version of the Hulk was often shown as simple and quick to anger. His first transformations were triggered by sundown, and his return to Banner by dawn. However, in Incredible Hulk #4, Banner started using a Gamma ray device to transform at will.[17] In more recent Hulk stories, emotions trigger the change. Although grey in his debut, difficulties for the printer led to a change in his color to green. In the origin tale, the Hulk divorces his identity from Banner’s, decrying Banner as "that puny weakling in the picture".[16] From his earliest stories, the Hulk has been concerned with finding sanctuary and quiet,[3] and often is shown reacting emotionally to situations quickly. Grest and Weinberg call Hulk the "...dark, primordial side of [Banner's] psyche."[18]. Even in the earliest appearances, Hulk spoke in the third person. The Hulk retains a modest intelligence, thinking and talking in full sentences, and Lee even gives the Hulk expository dialogue in issue six, allowing readers to learn just what capabilities the Hulk has, when the Hulk says, “But these muscles ain't just for show! All I gotta do is spring up and just keep goin'!" In Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Les Daniels addresses the Hulk as an embodiment of cultural fears of radiation and nuclear science. He quotes Jack Kirby thus: "As long as we're experimenting with radioactivity there's no telling what may happen, or how much our advancements may cost us." Daniels continues "The Hulk became Marvel's most disturbing embodiment of the perils inherent in the atomic age."[19]
Though usually a loner, the Hulk helped to form both the Avengers[20] and the Defenders.[21] He was able to determine that the changes were now triggered by emotional stress.[22]
Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), featured the Hulk's first battle with the Thing. Although many early Hulk stories involve General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross trying to capture or destroy the Hulk, the main villain is often, like Hulk, a radiation based character, like the Gargoyle or the Leader, along with other foes such as the Toad Men, or Asian warlord General Fang. Ross' daughter, Betty, loves Banner and criticizes her father for pursuing the Hulk. General Ross' right-hand man, Major Glenn Talbot, also loves Betty and is torn between pursuing the Hulk and trying to gain Betty's love more honorably. Rick Jones serves as the Hulk's friend and sidekick in these early tales.
Stan Lee and others have compared The Hulk in these early tales to the misunderstood creature Frankenstein's Monster[3], a concept Lee had wanted to explore. Lee also compared Hulk to the Golem of Jewish myth. [3] In The Science of Superheroes, Gresh and Weinberg see the Hulk as a reaction to the Cold War [18] and the threat of nuclear attack, an interpretation shared by Weinstein in Up, Up, and Oy Vey.[3] Kaplan calls Hulk ‘schizophrenic’.[15] Jack Kirby has also commented upon his influences in drawing the character, recalling as inspiration the tale of a mother who rescues her child who is trapped beneath a car. [23]
In the 1970s, Hulk was shown as more prone to anger and rage, and less talkative. Writers played with the nature of his transformations,[24] briefly giving Banner control over the change, and the ability to maintain control of his Hulk form.
Hulk stories began to involve other dimensions, and in one, Hulk met the empress Jarella. Jarella used magic to bring Banner’s intelligence to Hulk, and came to love him, asking him to become her mate. Though Hulk returned to Earth before he could become her king, he would return to Jarella's kingdom of K'ai again.
When Bill Mantlo took on writing duties, he led the character into the arena of political commentary when Hulk traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel, encountering both the violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Jewish Israeli heroine Sabra. Soon after, Hulk encountered the Arabian Knight, a Bedouin superhero.[3]
Under Mantlo's writing, a mindless Hulk was sent to the "Crossroads of Eternity", where Banner was revealed to have suffered childhood traumas which engendered Bruce's repressed rage.[25]
Negative views of Genghis Khan are very persistent within histories written by many different cultures, from various different geographical regions. They often cite the cruelties and destructions brought upon by Mongol armies. However, other authors cite positive aspects of Genghis Khan's conquests. Genghis Khan is credited with bringing the Silk Road under one cohesive political environment. This allowed increased communication and trade between the West, Middle East and Asia, thus expanding the horizons of all three cultural areas. Some historians have noted that Genghis Khan instituted certain levels of meritocracy in his rule, and was tolerant of different religions.[citations needed] In much of modern-day Turkey, Genghis Khan is looked on as a great military leader, and it is popular for male children to carry his title as name.[17]So there you have it. I think the relative difficulty both characters are having in the marketplace is a result of these ambivalences. On the one hand, there is the fascination with the total destruction channeled through anger that we see in the Hulk, but also the abjection towards the loss of reason. Then there is the legacy of Genghis Khan who is at once a great builder of nation as well as destroyer. If it's impossible to make a film about Adolf Hitler casting him in a positive light today, then it is not surprising that it is hard to pitch the character of Genghis Khan as a positive protagonist today, 800 years later.
Traditionally Genghis Khan had been revered for centuries among the Mongols, and also among other ethnic groups like the Turks, largely because of his association with Mongol statehood, political and military organization, and his historic victories in war. He eventually evolved into a larger-than-life figure chiefly among the Mongols.
During the communist period, Genghis Khan was often described as reactionary, and positive statements about him were generally avoided.[18] In 1962, the erection of a monument at his birthplace and a conference held in commemoration of his 800th birthday led to criticism from the Soviet Union, and resulted in the dismissal of Tömör-Ochir, a secretary of the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee. In the early 1990s, when democracy was established in Mongolia, the memory of Genghis Khan with the Mongolian traditional national identity has had a powerful revival. Genghis Khan became the central figure of the national identity. He is now a source of pride for Mongolians with ties to their historic roots. For example, it is not uncommon for Mongolians to refer to Mongolia as "Genghis Khan's Mongolia," to themselves as "Genghis Khan's children," and to Genghis Khan as the "father of the Mongols" especially among the younger generation. His name and likeness are endorsed on products, streets, buildings, and other places. His face can be found on everyday commodities, from liquors to the largest denominations of 500, 1000, 5000 and 10,000 Mongolian tögrög (₮). Mongolia's main international airport has been renamed Chinggis Khaan International Airport, and major Genghis Khan statues have been erected before the parliament[19] and near Ulaanbaatar. There have been repeated discussions about regulating the use of his name and image to avoid trivialization.[20] In summary, Mongolians see him as the fundamental figure in the founding of the Mongol Empire, and therefore the basis for Mongolia as a country.
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In Iraq and Iran, he is looked on as a destructive and genocidal warlord who caused enormous damage and destruction.[24] Similarly, in Afghanistan (along with other non-Turkic Muslim countries) he is generally viewed unfavorably though some groups display ambivalency as it is believed that the Hazara of Afghanistan are descendants of a large Mongol garrison stationed therein.[25][26] The invasions of Baghdad and Samarkand caused mass murders, such as when portions of southern Khuzestan were completely destroyed. His descendant Hulagu Khan destroyed much of Iran's northern part. Among the Iranian peoples he is regarded as one of the most despised conquerors of Iran, along with Alexander and Tamerlane.[27][28] In much of Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Hungary, Genghis Khan and his regime are credited with considerable damage and destruction. Presently Genghis Khan, his descendants, his generals, and the Mongol people are remembered for their ferocious and destructive conquests by the region's history books.
In some ways, it can be argued that no matter how well you could make a Hulk Movie or a Genghis Khan movie, there's an upper limit as to just how much acceptance there will be for it in the marketplace. That doesn't invalidate these ventures as films - just contextualises them in a rather shallow, unreflective marketplace.
Violence Fetishism
As meditations on violence go, neither film offers any terribly rewarding insight. It has to be noted that in both films we see directors who are intrinsically interested in violence as both films dwell on the moment of impact or moment of slashing in a way that is totally in line with action cinema since the advent of 'first-person-shooter computer games. While I do like a bit of biffo on the screen, I sort of wonder when we're going to move out of this current fetishising-of-violence phase and go back to a more stripped down portrayal. There's too much glamour in the destruction in both films, and not enough weight to just who is getting killed. An extreme version of this film was '300', but it's actually quite widespread.
If the Hulk smashes something, should we really be feeling an aesthetic delight in how things disintegrate? if the Mongols hack and slay in slow motion and we see th spurts of blood, should the director really be dwelling on those moments than say, the moment when he is given a key to unlock his shackles? It's really not a moral question or even an ethical one - it's an aesthetic one, and therefore more poignant to ask than if it were moral or ethical. Do we really like our violence portrayed this way?
In my next installment, I'm going tackle the fourth Rambo movie, so stay tuned. :)
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