Picasso's Picasso
As best as I can tell, the current show touring Australia from Paris is based on the collection Pablo Picasso owned of his own work at the time of his death. In other words, these are the works he liked so much, with which he would not part. As such, it offers an entirely different sort of entry point to most collections of Picasso works that are extant. I've seen the Guggenheim collection and the Norton Simon Museum collection and over the years there have been some others that have come through town so even if I can't claim to understand Picasso's work, I have a good level of prior experience of seeing his work.
In one sense, it's a Picasso exhibition that's mostly curated by Picasso himself.
What's Good About It
The outstanding thing about this collection is that it covers a great deal of his career, so there's almost something from just about every period of his career. Each room is contextualised around a part of Picasso's life, and so you get a better feel for how he developed his style and vision through his life. In that sense, this is a fine collection that allows you into the mindset of the creator, much more than other collections of Picasso, although I must admit I have not seen the big collection in Spain.
There is a wide range of works, covering small sketches and paintings through to larger canvases and sculptures. I'd seen the book of the exhibition about a month ago when I got drawn into an argument about the greatness of Picasso, but when I saw the whole exhibition it made more sense than the book.
What's Bad About It
Some of the rooms are dark. You don't really get a good sense of colours in some instances and in with some sketches, you're squinting to get a sense of contrast. You get a little booklet where they explain the rooms and the period of Picasso's life, but it still feels somewhat under-explained. I don't know if the onus is on the curator for something like this, but it did seem sparse in parts.
What's Interesting About It
When you see this series of works, some of his favorite objects and motifs begin to leap out at you. For instance, he really liked guitars, and other fretted instruments like mandolins and lutes. There are two sculptures that ostensibly are representations of guitars and it is actually quite interesting how he deconstructs the guitar into abstract art. You get the feeling that Picasso spent a lifetime tangling with the guitar - possibly because he was a Spaniard to the end - and he kept trying to capture something about the guitar that drew him in.
He also liked animals, for they make frequent appearances in his works. Bulls and Minotaurs are famous; as is the dove of peace he designed for the United Nations; but in this exhibit we're introduced to goats and goat's heads and goat's skulls quite a bit. Clearly he liked women a lot, but it's surprising just how much he liked abstracting the lines of animals.
As for the women, this is perhaps the only Picasso exhibition that offers insight into who these women were to Picasso. He kept paintings of these women long after they were out his life. He'd managed to abstract them as well as capture them and perhaps he didn't need them any more. There's clearly something predatory and unrelenting about Picasso's pursuit of these women and on to the canvas. And no matter how much he abstracted their faces, he really liked lining up the pair of nipples and breasts properly. he wasn't about to start abstracting "tits and arse".
"The Greatness of Picasso" Arguments
We've all been there. Confronted with the mass of Picasso's work, somebody always pipes up and says they don't think Picasso is that great. You can even hear that person as you walk through the exhibit, and they bloody well mean it because they say in a whisper that is inevitably heard by everybody in the room. We get int these arguments any time somebody decides the abstracted lines are simply crap, and not good descriptive art. You hear the argument that if Picasso could draw and paint as well as he could, then why didn't he go off the rails so much? And why do critics think this is so great.
My humble opinion is simply this: Picasso got bored easily. And to the extent that he got bored, he decided he was only going to paint or sculpt or draw what interested him and kept his interest. There is one particular back-to-the-classicism painting of Olga, with the background unfinished. Clearly he was interested in Olga, and painting her with sufficient fidelity, but when it came to filling in the background, he couldn't bring himself to do it, but kept the unfinished canvas. It's obvious - without ascribing motive, hopefully - that he simply chose not to fill in the background, and moved right along to the next thing. While the reason is unknown, my best guess is that he got bored.
All these developments he made such as cubism appear to be a desire to abstract shadow from form, form from subject, lines from outlines and image from perspective. The reason Picasso painted these funny mixed up faces was because he wanted to paint lines that he liked from the face at certain angles, but for them to all be there at once. To me, this is self-evident; but I have no hope of convincing you of this insight if you disagreed.
In as much as there is so much of Picasso's work in this world, I imagine there is a powerful legion of critics who still question whether Picasso was a genius or not. The thing about going through the gallery looking at this exhibition is that in the very least, Picasso was an inventive artist, forever trying a new way to express something. He did not fear failure the way a perfectionist does; and to that extent he was a lot more free than most people would imagine.
I for one do not think Picasso's works is for everybody. It's not going to convince everybody, unlike say, the voice of Pavarotti or Shakespeare's plays. It's probably sacrilege to say this but I don't think everything he did has a wide appeal. Yet, if you look at a lot his works in one spot and spend the time to carefully observe the lines and shapes he painted and sculpted, you begin to get a sense for what defines his style, as well as why that might be so. I can't - and won't - claim to understand all of his work but I will venture that based on this exhibition, there's something of Picasso that I do grok.
A Gen-X View of the Universe.
"The Issue Isn't Pussy, It's Monkey" - from The Right Stuff
Film, Cinema, Movies, TV, Music, Rock
2011/12/30
Picasso At The AGNSW
2011/12/28
Memento Mori Theory Of Art
Depictions of Death Make For Important Art
Over the break I wanted to briefly write down some observations about the power of memento mori, but then I lost my post; then I tried to reconstruct it and lost my train of thought. Here is what remains of the wreck.
Memento Mori is of course the reminder of our mortality that is woven into themes and paintings. There's a theory going around that the purpose of artistic endeavor itself is a kind of memento mori, and what makes art truly important is how powerful this reminder can be. This would explain the persistent popularity of such genres as Gothic Horror in literature or Goth as a style, and even heavy metal music. What struck me about this is that it is actually difficult to make something lasting without memento mori. In turn, the most popular works of any artist picked at random probably deals with death.
Shakespeare's most famous play is 'Hamlet', and it has the famous "alas poor Yorrick" scene with skull in hand as well as the soliloquy about living and dying. If that is too literal, then at least it is worth considering that memento mori in literature marks most of the great books in any list. In the Iliad, there's Achilles' lament for Patroclus mirrored with Priam's lament for Hector. In the Odyssey, there is the episode where Odysseus talks to the dead in Hades; The epic of Gilgamesh is about Gilgamesh's search for immortality because deep down he fears death. It's everywhere in classical literature. This is a tradition in narratives that flows through to modern texts.
So it seems to work for the importance stakes by just inserting death. For instance, if Madame Bovary or Anna Karenin didn't die in those books, would they have been revered less or more? What makes every photo taken during the US Civil War so artistic but the intrinsic knowledge that all he people in it are dead, and that if they were soldiers, some of them likely died not long after the photo was taken. Doesn't Ken Burns' Civil War documentary series milk this for all its worth? This suggests you can have a pretty good work of art and add death and it probably adds profundity - and what else is this profundity but the sentiment that is provoked by the memento mori?
Try this for an example: Hans Christian Andersen's 'Little Mermaid' has a sad ending. When Disney gets its hands on it, it has a happy ending, and a spin off TV series to boot. Which is more profound? We know it's the original version with the death. I'm not really going anywhere special with all this except to say that it is a lot more ingrained in the arts than we might think at first glance. Is important Art then good art? The sizable audience to the Disney 'Little Mermaid' franchise might suggest otherwise. Critics always pick the less popular, but death-wedded original.
Modern Substitutions
I know I've mentioned this before that if you stick the Holocaust reference in to your film somewhere, it doubles your chances for an Oscar. This is suggested by some to be because the Academy is filled with Jewish people, but the more direct reason is that the Holocaust has placed itself as the ultimate memento mori that substitutes for all the massive death and destruction wrought in World War II. A film increases in importance simply because you have the Holocaust as part of the story; like a talisman it activates our awareness of death. Considering that Stalin's regime killed more of its own people than the Nazis did to their own and others, and the demonisation of Communism through the twentieth century, it's interesting to note that communism, gulags and the GRU don't have quite the memento mori effect of Nazis, death camps and the SS. By comparison, the dull utility of comunism and communist design has far less weight in fiction and the arts in general.
Of course, it is easier to understand Nazism in light of memento mori because in most part it was an attempt to aestheticise ethics. Thus, Hitler and Himmler adorned the SS uniforms with mystical symbols and a deaths head. It's an instant fetishisation of death that is familiar to us. It is a familiar move because we've seen it before and since. But the allure of aesthetising death itself as a political act couldn't possibly have so much meaning without the power of death in art itself.
The modern world of media and pop culture is filled with more references to death than you can poke a stick at.
Here are some examples worth pondering. My favorite Pink Floyd album is 'Animals'; The best-selling work by Pink Floyd is 'Dark Side of The Moon' which in survey of ideas such as time and money, deals with death with the song 'The Great Gig In The Sky' (which I covered, by the way, here).
For all its celebration of sex, a lot of rock is a kind of memento mori, what with all the heroes who have died young. The list of dead rock musicians who didn't make it to a ripe old age is a significant list of names starting with say, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.You only have to write the names of dead rock stars and it suddenly evokes the body of work in rock. Try these names: John Lennon, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Bonham, Marc Bolan, Keith Moon, Syd Vicious, Kurt Cobain. When you watch the Foo Fighters live, David Grohl himself becomes a kind of living memento mori in the memory of Kurt Cobain, which explains the morbid fascination surrounding the Foo Fighters.
Yet, of all the sub-genres of rock, the most enduring branches are in fact Metal and Goth because their visual motifs remain largely unchanged. Death features prominently in the oeuvre of metal and goth. Album after album by Iron Maiden is filled with ironic images of death. Death is central thematic unity of Metal. One could argue the excesses are a kind of kitsch but if you judge the sales of Iron Maiden albums to their die-hard fans, you'd have to conclude it is doing its job.
Recently I put together an electric guitar from Warmoth parts for a friend. It had one knob - a volume knob and it was important that it had a death skull on it. The meaning of it was simply to imbue the guitar with a memento mori. "all shred axes should have a memento mori," he proclaimed. It makes some sort of intrinsic and extrinsic sense, not only because it is to play heavy metal, but because deeper down playing music makes you count down time; and thoughts of time inevitably lead to thoughts of death, vis a vis 'Dark Side of the Moon'.
The main character in the Star Wars cycle turns out to be Anakin, who is Darth Vader, and Vader's helmet is like a skull with a helmet. In the original three movies, Darth Vader is like the big memento mori character - who of course dies at the end of 'Return of the Jedi'; and in the more recent prequel trilogy, the audience grapples with Anakin's descent into being Darth Vader. It's part of existentialism that the prior acknowledgment of one's one mortality enables one to take on the challenge that the remaining time in our lives present, and yet it actually has artistic roots in things that go back to pre-history.
The point of all this is to say, it is everywhere, if you simply choose to look.
Over the break I wanted to briefly write down some observations about the power of memento mori, but then I lost my post; then I tried to reconstruct it and lost my train of thought. Here is what remains of the wreck.
Memento Mori is of course the reminder of our mortality that is woven into themes and paintings. There's a theory going around that the purpose of artistic endeavor itself is a kind of memento mori, and what makes art truly important is how powerful this reminder can be. This would explain the persistent popularity of such genres as Gothic Horror in literature or Goth as a style, and even heavy metal music. What struck me about this is that it is actually difficult to make something lasting without memento mori. In turn, the most popular works of any artist picked at random probably deals with death.
Shakespeare's most famous play is 'Hamlet', and it has the famous "alas poor Yorrick" scene with skull in hand as well as the soliloquy about living and dying. If that is too literal, then at least it is worth considering that memento mori in literature marks most of the great books in any list. In the Iliad, there's Achilles' lament for Patroclus mirrored with Priam's lament for Hector. In the Odyssey, there is the episode where Odysseus talks to the dead in Hades; The epic of Gilgamesh is about Gilgamesh's search for immortality because deep down he fears death. It's everywhere in classical literature. This is a tradition in narratives that flows through to modern texts.
So it seems to work for the importance stakes by just inserting death. For instance, if Madame Bovary or Anna Karenin didn't die in those books, would they have been revered less or more? What makes every photo taken during the US Civil War so artistic but the intrinsic knowledge that all he people in it are dead, and that if they were soldiers, some of them likely died not long after the photo was taken. Doesn't Ken Burns' Civil War documentary series milk this for all its worth? This suggests you can have a pretty good work of art and add death and it probably adds profundity - and what else is this profundity but the sentiment that is provoked by the memento mori?
Try this for an example: Hans Christian Andersen's 'Little Mermaid' has a sad ending. When Disney gets its hands on it, it has a happy ending, and a spin off TV series to boot. Which is more profound? We know it's the original version with the death. I'm not really going anywhere special with all this except to say that it is a lot more ingrained in the arts than we might think at first glance. Is important Art then good art? The sizable audience to the Disney 'Little Mermaid' franchise might suggest otherwise. Critics always pick the less popular, but death-wedded original.
Modern Substitutions
I know I've mentioned this before that if you stick the Holocaust reference in to your film somewhere, it doubles your chances for an Oscar. This is suggested by some to be because the Academy is filled with Jewish people, but the more direct reason is that the Holocaust has placed itself as the ultimate memento mori that substitutes for all the massive death and destruction wrought in World War II. A film increases in importance simply because you have the Holocaust as part of the story; like a talisman it activates our awareness of death. Considering that Stalin's regime killed more of its own people than the Nazis did to their own and others, and the demonisation of Communism through the twentieth century, it's interesting to note that communism, gulags and the GRU don't have quite the memento mori effect of Nazis, death camps and the SS. By comparison, the dull utility of comunism and communist design has far less weight in fiction and the arts in general.
Of course, it is easier to understand Nazism in light of memento mori because in most part it was an attempt to aestheticise ethics. Thus, Hitler and Himmler adorned the SS uniforms with mystical symbols and a deaths head. It's an instant fetishisation of death that is familiar to us. It is a familiar move because we've seen it before and since. But the allure of aesthetising death itself as a political act couldn't possibly have so much meaning without the power of death in art itself.
The modern world of media and pop culture is filled with more references to death than you can poke a stick at.
Here are some examples worth pondering. My favorite Pink Floyd album is 'Animals'; The best-selling work by Pink Floyd is 'Dark Side of The Moon' which in survey of ideas such as time and money, deals with death with the song 'The Great Gig In The Sky' (which I covered, by the way, here).
For all its celebration of sex, a lot of rock is a kind of memento mori, what with all the heroes who have died young. The list of dead rock musicians who didn't make it to a ripe old age is a significant list of names starting with say, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.You only have to write the names of dead rock stars and it suddenly evokes the body of work in rock. Try these names: John Lennon, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Bonham, Marc Bolan, Keith Moon, Syd Vicious, Kurt Cobain. When you watch the Foo Fighters live, David Grohl himself becomes a kind of living memento mori in the memory of Kurt Cobain, which explains the morbid fascination surrounding the Foo Fighters.
Yet, of all the sub-genres of rock, the most enduring branches are in fact Metal and Goth because their visual motifs remain largely unchanged. Death features prominently in the oeuvre of metal and goth. Album after album by Iron Maiden is filled with ironic images of death. Death is central thematic unity of Metal. One could argue the excesses are a kind of kitsch but if you judge the sales of Iron Maiden albums to their die-hard fans, you'd have to conclude it is doing its job.
Recently I put together an electric guitar from Warmoth parts for a friend. It had one knob - a volume knob and it was important that it had a death skull on it. The meaning of it was simply to imbue the guitar with a memento mori. "all shred axes should have a memento mori," he proclaimed. It makes some sort of intrinsic and extrinsic sense, not only because it is to play heavy metal, but because deeper down playing music makes you count down time; and thoughts of time inevitably lead to thoughts of death, vis a vis 'Dark Side of the Moon'.
The main character in the Star Wars cycle turns out to be Anakin, who is Darth Vader, and Vader's helmet is like a skull with a helmet. In the original three movies, Darth Vader is like the big memento mori character - who of course dies at the end of 'Return of the Jedi'; and in the more recent prequel trilogy, the audience grapples with Anakin's descent into being Darth Vader. It's part of existentialism that the prior acknowledgment of one's one mortality enables one to take on the challenge that the remaining time in our lives present, and yet it actually has artistic roots in things that go back to pre-history.
The point of all this is to say, it is everywhere, if you simply choose to look.
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2011/12/27
Easy Virtue
It's Elliot, ...But It's Coward!
I didn't want to watch this because it was directed by Stephan Elliot. But it is 'Easy Virtue' by Noel Coward. It's been rewritten heavily, but it does seem to preserve the spirit of the play.
What's Good About It
The performances are very strong in this film. Even Jessica Biel who one might suspect does not have enough chop to be in this company puts in the best thing I've seen from her. Kristen Scott Thomas is a standout as the angry, put upon Veronica and Colin Firth adds a tremendous centrifugal force with his wry presence, keeping it all together. Ben Barnes is not as solid but he does a nice job.
Begrudgingly (because I never found Stephan Elliot to be terribly profound), I have to say the directing is very good, if a little loose. This is not a taut film. It's more meandering, and has moments that build tension that go nowhere and then surprise you; but it is a good viewing. You could do worse, like watch another comic book hero movie and ponder the decline of thought.
What's Bad About It
I don't know if the problems of the story really translate as well to the present day as they should. It's fun to watch but at the same time you feel like the fundamental problems of the play are culture, but the problem in the film is money. Money always has a solution in movies while culture is the tougher battleground.
The film goes a long way to explore the cultural differences that would have been perceived in the 1930s, but then turns on the revelation that the real bugbear that is bothering Veronica Whittaker is money. it's actually disappointing because the film works so hard at setting up the problem and you wonder how it's going to work itself out, given the characters.
Also, the tone of Kristen Scott Thomas's Veronica Whittaker is bitchy, but it's the wrong kind of bitchy. That' probably more in the directing than the performance because we know Kristen Scott Thomas is capable of greater subtlety.
What's Interesting About It
The film actually echoes 'Brideshead Revisited' more than Coward's play. It's not as anatomical as 'Brideshead Revisited', and Coward was more condemnatory of the landed gentry in England but there's something of a kindred spirit there. There are moments that also echo 'Vile Bodies' by Evelyn Waugh as well, what with the sports car driving woman.
It must be some kind of revisionist nostalgia that makes the 1930s England almost interesting for its remnant class snobbery falling apart as the money runs out in the Great Depression. It's quaint to watch but you know if you encountered it in real life it would give you nothing but revulsion. Which makes you wonder why they keep going back to this well of intemperate prejudice for our dramatic fodder. Perhaps we are blind to the similarly intemperate prejudices of our own time.
Weird Casting of Jessica Biel Here
I don't think Jessica Biel's face looked good in this period's hair. She's got an odd looking face and the hair made her look stupid. Okay, there are plenty of other things to be watching in this film, but the most distracting thing was how the period hair really didn't suit Biel. Which I guess goes to show there isn't that much wrong with it. The tango she dances with Colin Firth is actually quite nice. It's not meant to be a professional dancer strutting her stuff, it's meant to be an expression of her profound sadness and that comes across very nicely in the performance of the dance. It's good enough to sell the moment when Colin Firth's Jim jumps in her car to escape the manse at the end. There is no rational explanation, you intuitively understand why, and it makes sense because of the tango. Pretty good cinema if you ask me.
The Motor Car
In history, motorised transport essentially liberates the distance a person can move. We come to realise that possession of horses by the gentry allows the gentry a kind of monopoly over people who do not, and so allows them to travel. This is why travel is enshrined in the upper classes' entitlements even today. Going on vacations to places where *ordinary* people cannot go is the privelidge of the wealthy. In that context, a woman with a motor car alone smashes the immobility of that society. This alone should present more drama in the story but it doesn't.
The story seems to elliptically spin around the fact that Larita loves John so much, she cannot leave the nightmare manse, and the drama is played out in the space of this old manor house. Perhaps it is my own personal tastes as a writer that made me keep thinking, when is this woman going to just get in her car and drive away? Of course it turns out to be the denouement, but it seemed really odd that the gleaming, modern, almost anachronistic machine kept inviting and she - as a car racer from Detroit no less - kept ignoring its invitation to just drive away. It's just as hard to fathom as veronica's obsessive demands that Larita ride in the fox hunt.
The Fox Hunt
It's going to be a perennial sticking point for animal lovers but it's hard to imagine the fox hunt disappearing completely in the UK. It's a bit like the Japanese and the whaling fleet. They "just can't give it up because they just can't give it because they just can't okay?" is the illogic behind it. It's not a good one because it applies to things like honour-killings under Sharia law and clubbing seals in Canada and any number of violent, cruel cultural practices. They're objectionable if one applies a universal eye to them but the people who do them will invariably claim a cultural practice defense, and those attacking will always demand the universal to apply by dint of it being universal. It's a sticky point.
In this film, we see the hunt subverted by the acting of riding a motor bike alongside the horses and hounds, which I guess represents the smashing of the cultural practice defense by positing that modernity should supersede cultural practice. I get that but I wonder how many people who mount the cultural practice defense would bother to understand it; that is to say, if you said the whalers "modernity demands you cease" or said to these Islamists, modernity demands you not do honour-killings", or even Canadian furs-seal clubbers "modernity says you shouldn't club baby fur seals", just how much traction that would have. Maybe we modernists are merely imagining that modernity itself is a kind of cipher to stop being barbaric. Maybe it is possible to be modern and barbaric, or worse still, be modern and savage, as the Nazis were. To that extent, the fox hunt scene does make you wonder just how far Europe and Europeans think they have come - It's interesting that way.
I didn't want to watch this because it was directed by Stephan Elliot. But it is 'Easy Virtue' by Noel Coward. It's been rewritten heavily, but it does seem to preserve the spirit of the play.
What's Good About It
The performances are very strong in this film. Even Jessica Biel who one might suspect does not have enough chop to be in this company puts in the best thing I've seen from her. Kristen Scott Thomas is a standout as the angry, put upon Veronica and Colin Firth adds a tremendous centrifugal force with his wry presence, keeping it all together. Ben Barnes is not as solid but he does a nice job.
Begrudgingly (because I never found Stephan Elliot to be terribly profound), I have to say the directing is very good, if a little loose. This is not a taut film. It's more meandering, and has moments that build tension that go nowhere and then surprise you; but it is a good viewing. You could do worse, like watch another comic book hero movie and ponder the decline of thought.
What's Bad About It
I don't know if the problems of the story really translate as well to the present day as they should. It's fun to watch but at the same time you feel like the fundamental problems of the play are culture, but the problem in the film is money. Money always has a solution in movies while culture is the tougher battleground.
The film goes a long way to explore the cultural differences that would have been perceived in the 1930s, but then turns on the revelation that the real bugbear that is bothering Veronica Whittaker is money. it's actually disappointing because the film works so hard at setting up the problem and you wonder how it's going to work itself out, given the characters.
Also, the tone of Kristen Scott Thomas's Veronica Whittaker is bitchy, but it's the wrong kind of bitchy. That' probably more in the directing than the performance because we know Kristen Scott Thomas is capable of greater subtlety.
What's Interesting About It
The film actually echoes 'Brideshead Revisited' more than Coward's play. It's not as anatomical as 'Brideshead Revisited', and Coward was more condemnatory of the landed gentry in England but there's something of a kindred spirit there. There are moments that also echo 'Vile Bodies' by Evelyn Waugh as well, what with the sports car driving woman.
It must be some kind of revisionist nostalgia that makes the 1930s England almost interesting for its remnant class snobbery falling apart as the money runs out in the Great Depression. It's quaint to watch but you know if you encountered it in real life it would give you nothing but revulsion. Which makes you wonder why they keep going back to this well of intemperate prejudice for our dramatic fodder. Perhaps we are blind to the similarly intemperate prejudices of our own time.
Weird Casting of Jessica Biel Here
I don't think Jessica Biel's face looked good in this period's hair. She's got an odd looking face and the hair made her look stupid. Okay, there are plenty of other things to be watching in this film, but the most distracting thing was how the period hair really didn't suit Biel. Which I guess goes to show there isn't that much wrong with it. The tango she dances with Colin Firth is actually quite nice. It's not meant to be a professional dancer strutting her stuff, it's meant to be an expression of her profound sadness and that comes across very nicely in the performance of the dance. It's good enough to sell the moment when Colin Firth's Jim jumps in her car to escape the manse at the end. There is no rational explanation, you intuitively understand why, and it makes sense because of the tango. Pretty good cinema if you ask me.
The Motor Car
In history, motorised transport essentially liberates the distance a person can move. We come to realise that possession of horses by the gentry allows the gentry a kind of monopoly over people who do not, and so allows them to travel. This is why travel is enshrined in the upper classes' entitlements even today. Going on vacations to places where *ordinary* people cannot go is the privelidge of the wealthy. In that context, a woman with a motor car alone smashes the immobility of that society. This alone should present more drama in the story but it doesn't.
The story seems to elliptically spin around the fact that Larita loves John so much, she cannot leave the nightmare manse, and the drama is played out in the space of this old manor house. Perhaps it is my own personal tastes as a writer that made me keep thinking, when is this woman going to just get in her car and drive away? Of course it turns out to be the denouement, but it seemed really odd that the gleaming, modern, almost anachronistic machine kept inviting and she - as a car racer from Detroit no less - kept ignoring its invitation to just drive away. It's just as hard to fathom as veronica's obsessive demands that Larita ride in the fox hunt.
The Fox Hunt
It's going to be a perennial sticking point for animal lovers but it's hard to imagine the fox hunt disappearing completely in the UK. It's a bit like the Japanese and the whaling fleet. They "just can't give it up because they just can't give it because they just can't okay?" is the illogic behind it. It's not a good one because it applies to things like honour-killings under Sharia law and clubbing seals in Canada and any number of violent, cruel cultural practices. They're objectionable if one applies a universal eye to them but the people who do them will invariably claim a cultural practice defense, and those attacking will always demand the universal to apply by dint of it being universal. It's a sticky point.
In this film, we see the hunt subverted by the acting of riding a motor bike alongside the horses and hounds, which I guess represents the smashing of the cultural practice defense by positing that modernity should supersede cultural practice. I get that but I wonder how many people who mount the cultural practice defense would bother to understand it; that is to say, if you said the whalers "modernity demands you cease" or said to these Islamists, modernity demands you not do honour-killings", or even Canadian furs-seal clubbers "modernity says you shouldn't club baby fur seals", just how much traction that would have. Maybe we modernists are merely imagining that modernity itself is a kind of cipher to stop being barbaric. Maybe it is possible to be modern and barbaric, or worse still, be modern and savage, as the Nazis were. To that extent, the fox hunt scene does make you wonder just how far Europe and Europeans think they have come - It's interesting that way.
Labels:
Cinema,
Easy Virtue,
Film,
Jessica Biel,
Movies
2011/12/26
The Beaver
Rude Name, Rude Actor
Good heavens it's hard to defend 'our' Mel Gibson after he blew up his marriage and slagged off the Jews and got into a messy situation with some Russian harlot. It's really hard to take him back into our hearts after all the news and PR disasters - most of which were self-inflicted - and try and take him seriously as an actor. How can we not see the guy on the screen and not think of the chaos? How can we ever see any star without the baggage of their public life?
He's here in this movie, with a rude name.
It comes as a shock that the poster-girl for the politically correct, Jodie Foster of all people would team up with Mel Gibson, and then defend him in public. It didn't work. People stayed well away from watching 'The Beaver' but they might have missed an interesting movie as a result. I know, Mel Gibson is insufferable in some ways, even for his fans and the only person more insufferable than Mel is of course Russell Crowe. In ten years' time it may well be Sam Worthington. You can see the trend developing.
What's Good About It
I was thinking when the last time was that Mel just had to act. Of course it was the ill-starred 'Edge of Darkness' remake, but before that feels like it's been a while. it's actually nice to see Mel Gibson do his acting thing. There's still the actor who did lethal Hamlet in there and he's still got some chops without being over the top or self-referential or heaven-forbid boring. The directing is adequate if a little oblique, and the script is interesting enough. It has a few nice laughs, if you're inclined for some black humour.
Frankly, I'm shocked Jodie Foster has such a black sense of humour, even though she brings in the film with a touching end, reminiscent of 'American Beauty'. The Beaver character is most excellent in bringing to sharp relief, the drama inherent in the story. It would have been easy enough to make a movie about a depressed guy and how his depression is ruining his life, but this isn't quite that film. This film is about the persona of the Beaver that comes out of crisis and ends in (SPOILER ALERT!) blood sacrifice. It's arresting and intriguing, and that makes it good.
What's Bad About It
The American high school bildungsroman 'B'-story running against the 'A' story of the beaver seems overwrought. It's a good story on its own, but it detracts a fair chunk of energy from the black comedy of the Beaver himself. The other thing that bothers me is that I don't think the psychosis of Gibson's character has any realism to it, so the realism with which the film is shot runs quite counter to the tone of the script.
What's Interesting About It
It's never clear what kind of craziness is afflicting Walter, as played by Mel Gibson. So we're never really sure about the status of the beaver as a character. After all, we see Mel Gibson mouthing the lines every time it speaks, but the Beaver has an English accent, largely reminiscent of Ray Winstone, which adds an alienating effect to the character. Also, the eyes of the beaver puppet are strangely real looking, so when the Beaver get s a close up, he looks a lot more serious than a muppet. The Beaver, as voiced by Gibson, is a fantastic character.
Mel Gibson's Self Loathing
I don't know why Mel Gibson of all people should have so much self-loathing, but based on his characterisation of Walter as well as the Beaver, it seems quite apparent that he draws greatly on his self-loathing to energise his characters. It's either that, or his temperament is naturally an angry depressive that wants to kick the world in the balls; but the thing is, he's freaking Mel Fucking Gibson. He's a star actor who made a good fortune out of playing leading men, and then went on to direct movies and won Oscars. He builds his own version of a Catholic Church. He makes his own bible epics for his own pleasure. Most people would be pleased as punch. But not Mel. He's out there binge-drinking, drink-driving, and telling traffic cops how he hates the Jews in Hollywood. I'm trying to wrap my head around that.
I kept wondering as I watched the film, just how awful were his experiences growing up - in Australia no less - for him to be so angry? And, you know me, I'm an angry dude, so I know what anger is, and even then I can't fathom the depth of Mel Gibson's self-loathing. What makes the film so funny is just how much he can bring this self-loathing to his characters, Walter and the Beaver. In some ways, this is his maddest performance yet, beyond Mad Max and Thunderdome, way beyond even Hamlet.
Maybe Mel Gibson is like a medieval despot, who is constantly in fear for his life, and this is why he keeps searching for the inner shithead, and expresses it to the world. I just can't fathom it, but when he can point it at the screen, he sure is capable of capturing folly and madness. One of these years, he'll be able to play the best King Lear on screen, ever.
Jodie Foster As Middle Aged Mom
I'm a little freaked out that I can remember Jodie Foster from 'Bugsy Malone' and 'Taxi Driver' through 'The Accused' and 'Silence of the Lambs' through to 'The Brave One'. Now she's this taut-faced, rather sour-looking woman. I don't know if it was the acting that made her role like that, but it was notably sour to watch. She was always a cold fish on the screen but I think she has now become a seasoned pickled herring of a woman. She's harder to warm to on the screen than ever before.
It's not that she's playing an unsympathetic character; it's that she herself presents with the wrong nuances for the character, and that leaves you cold. Back in the day when she was winning Oscars, she was better at showing this as an edginess, but it's interesting that she comes across more alienating these days. It's understandable just looking at her on screen, why her husband character Walter would be so depressed. The fury of the Beaver is totally understandable because Jodie Foster is playing the wife. Maybe this is excellent casting. you sure as heck wouldn't hire Jodie Foster to play a mom in any conventional Disney film, for instance.
What's really interesting, I guess, is that this is the film she wanted to direct, but then I'm always surprised by some of the films that get made when I shouldn't be.
The Beaver Persona As Tyler Durden
I think Mel Gibson must have got the persona of the Beaver from working with Ray Winstone in 'Edge of Darkness' because that is exactly who he sounds like. The Beaver is a bellicose and belligerent bastard of a beaver puppet (and it must be asked, what kind of toy manufacturer makes a puppet like that?). If we are to see him as an independent character and not Walter's projection, then he's also a bit of a pervert who enjoys the vicarious pleasures of a threesome. It's funny, but also creepy and that is exactly the zone where the black humour lies. The Beaver arrives at Walter's moment of moral crisis as he is about to commit suicide and like a hostile personal trainer, goads and threatens and humiliates Walter into being the picture of some kind of success.
The closest character I can think of is in fact, Tyler Durden from 'Fight Club', so it is no mean feat that this film got made and also, the meme of the violently hostile alter ego is getting another run. Is the Beaver Mr. Hyde? Would the Beaver perhaps house all of Walter's hidden anger and negativity? - and if so, are they not possibly Mel Gibson's own? One is left wondering at the strange bravura of the Beaver character.
Certainly, given that the film is called 'The Beaver', there probably should have been more development of the character instead of playing a two-way bet and pretending it was all an extension of Walter's insanity.
Good heavens it's hard to defend 'our' Mel Gibson after he blew up his marriage and slagged off the Jews and got into a messy situation with some Russian harlot. It's really hard to take him back into our hearts after all the news and PR disasters - most of which were self-inflicted - and try and take him seriously as an actor. How can we not see the guy on the screen and not think of the chaos? How can we ever see any star without the baggage of their public life?
He's here in this movie, with a rude name.
It comes as a shock that the poster-girl for the politically correct, Jodie Foster of all people would team up with Mel Gibson, and then defend him in public. It didn't work. People stayed well away from watching 'The Beaver' but they might have missed an interesting movie as a result. I know, Mel Gibson is insufferable in some ways, even for his fans and the only person more insufferable than Mel is of course Russell Crowe. In ten years' time it may well be Sam Worthington. You can see the trend developing.
What's Good About It
I was thinking when the last time was that Mel just had to act. Of course it was the ill-starred 'Edge of Darkness' remake, but before that feels like it's been a while. it's actually nice to see Mel Gibson do his acting thing. There's still the actor who did lethal Hamlet in there and he's still got some chops without being over the top or self-referential or heaven-forbid boring. The directing is adequate if a little oblique, and the script is interesting enough. It has a few nice laughs, if you're inclined for some black humour.
Frankly, I'm shocked Jodie Foster has such a black sense of humour, even though she brings in the film with a touching end, reminiscent of 'American Beauty'. The Beaver character is most excellent in bringing to sharp relief, the drama inherent in the story. It would have been easy enough to make a movie about a depressed guy and how his depression is ruining his life, but this isn't quite that film. This film is about the persona of the Beaver that comes out of crisis and ends in (SPOILER ALERT!) blood sacrifice. It's arresting and intriguing, and that makes it good.
What's Bad About It
The American high school bildungsroman 'B'-story running against the 'A' story of the beaver seems overwrought. It's a good story on its own, but it detracts a fair chunk of energy from the black comedy of the Beaver himself. The other thing that bothers me is that I don't think the psychosis of Gibson's character has any realism to it, so the realism with which the film is shot runs quite counter to the tone of the script.
What's Interesting About It
It's never clear what kind of craziness is afflicting Walter, as played by Mel Gibson. So we're never really sure about the status of the beaver as a character. After all, we see Mel Gibson mouthing the lines every time it speaks, but the Beaver has an English accent, largely reminiscent of Ray Winstone, which adds an alienating effect to the character. Also, the eyes of the beaver puppet are strangely real looking, so when the Beaver get s a close up, he looks a lot more serious than a muppet. The Beaver, as voiced by Gibson, is a fantastic character.
Mel Gibson's Self Loathing
I don't know why Mel Gibson of all people should have so much self-loathing, but based on his characterisation of Walter as well as the Beaver, it seems quite apparent that he draws greatly on his self-loathing to energise his characters. It's either that, or his temperament is naturally an angry depressive that wants to kick the world in the balls; but the thing is, he's freaking Mel Fucking Gibson. He's a star actor who made a good fortune out of playing leading men, and then went on to direct movies and won Oscars. He builds his own version of a Catholic Church. He makes his own bible epics for his own pleasure. Most people would be pleased as punch. But not Mel. He's out there binge-drinking, drink-driving, and telling traffic cops how he hates the Jews in Hollywood. I'm trying to wrap my head around that.
I kept wondering as I watched the film, just how awful were his experiences growing up - in Australia no less - for him to be so angry? And, you know me, I'm an angry dude, so I know what anger is, and even then I can't fathom the depth of Mel Gibson's self-loathing. What makes the film so funny is just how much he can bring this self-loathing to his characters, Walter and the Beaver. In some ways, this is his maddest performance yet, beyond Mad Max and Thunderdome, way beyond even Hamlet.
Maybe Mel Gibson is like a medieval despot, who is constantly in fear for his life, and this is why he keeps searching for the inner shithead, and expresses it to the world. I just can't fathom it, but when he can point it at the screen, he sure is capable of capturing folly and madness. One of these years, he'll be able to play the best King Lear on screen, ever.
Jodie Foster As Middle Aged Mom
I'm a little freaked out that I can remember Jodie Foster from 'Bugsy Malone' and 'Taxi Driver' through 'The Accused' and 'Silence of the Lambs' through to 'The Brave One'. Now she's this taut-faced, rather sour-looking woman. I don't know if it was the acting that made her role like that, but it was notably sour to watch. She was always a cold fish on the screen but I think she has now become a seasoned pickled herring of a woman. She's harder to warm to on the screen than ever before.
It's not that she's playing an unsympathetic character; it's that she herself presents with the wrong nuances for the character, and that leaves you cold. Back in the day when she was winning Oscars, she was better at showing this as an edginess, but it's interesting that she comes across more alienating these days. It's understandable just looking at her on screen, why her husband character Walter would be so depressed. The fury of the Beaver is totally understandable because Jodie Foster is playing the wife. Maybe this is excellent casting. you sure as heck wouldn't hire Jodie Foster to play a mom in any conventional Disney film, for instance.
What's really interesting, I guess, is that this is the film she wanted to direct, but then I'm always surprised by some of the films that get made when I shouldn't be.
The Beaver Persona As Tyler Durden
I think Mel Gibson must have got the persona of the Beaver from working with Ray Winstone in 'Edge of Darkness' because that is exactly who he sounds like. The Beaver is a bellicose and belligerent bastard of a beaver puppet (and it must be asked, what kind of toy manufacturer makes a puppet like that?). If we are to see him as an independent character and not Walter's projection, then he's also a bit of a pervert who enjoys the vicarious pleasures of a threesome. It's funny, but also creepy and that is exactly the zone where the black humour lies. The Beaver arrives at Walter's moment of moral crisis as he is about to commit suicide and like a hostile personal trainer, goads and threatens and humiliates Walter into being the picture of some kind of success.
The closest character I can think of is in fact, Tyler Durden from 'Fight Club', so it is no mean feat that this film got made and also, the meme of the violently hostile alter ego is getting another run. Is the Beaver Mr. Hyde? Would the Beaver perhaps house all of Walter's hidden anger and negativity? - and if so, are they not possibly Mel Gibson's own? One is left wondering at the strange bravura of the Beaver character.
Certainly, given that the film is called 'The Beaver', there probably should have been more development of the character instead of playing a two-way bet and pretending it was all an extension of Walter's insanity.
Labels:
Cinema,
Film,
Jodie Foster,
Mel Gibson,
Movies,
The Beaver
2011/12/18
'The Tree of Life'
Here's Trouble
Terence Malick making a film is one of those events in cinemas these days. After languishing in obscurity for a good many years, he emerged from a two decade hibernation with 'Thin Red Line', which was in many respects a much better war movie than the oft feted 'Saving Private Ryan' that year. I know 'Saving Private Ryan' will always have its die-hard fans but what made 'Thin Red Line' so much better was how he kept bringing the affairs of men to contrast with the landscape and nature that surrounded them.
His films are filled with odd shots and odd cutaways that build a misc en scen like a quilt work, rather than the continuity cutting and standard shots that bolster narratives we're used to seeing. Dialgoue flows obliquely and voice overs are like fragments of inner monologues. In short, they're nothing like your standard Hollywood fare.
What's Good About It
This film has many, many beautiful shots of beautiful things as well as evocative shots of evocative things, poignant shots of poignant things. In short, Malick has mastered the notion of an objective correlative and perfectly matches his observational style to the mood he is trying to create or convey. Despair and grief segue into tired memories and straining guilt. Every shot has a kind of tension that leads into the next so masterfully, you cease to question the absence of context or foreshadowing or the abruptness of the change of scenes.
This is a film by a stylist at work, putting his entire sensibility about time and space and people and objects to the fore, and in most part it is a fascinating, beautiful thing to watch.
What's Bad About It
Sometimes the film meanders into a narrative space that can only be described as oblique and fragmented. I doubt one could do a straight narrative film with Malick's style, but even allowing for it, this film really meanders into the incomprehensible. It just doesn't make much logical sense in parts, but you're drawn in all the same by the power of the images.
I don't think the script would pass muster in a modern screen-writing class, but that's the point. Modern screenwriters are not capable of conceiving of films like this. This one, is an auteur boldly going where he wants to go, come hell or high water. There are moments in the fanciful flights, where you simply cannot keep up with the director; unfortunately they're the moments the film fails abjectly.
What's Interesting About It
I'm amazed Brad Pitt wanted to do this film badly enough he stuck his name on as producer. I'm amazed Sean Penn wanted to do this film too. He seems to walk around with a pained expression and the look of the most miserable person on the planet, and then he has a dream sequence where he continues to look forlorn and dejected. I wonder if he bit Malick's head off.
Grace
The film kicks off by talking about grace, after flashing up a quote from The Book of Job. So I feel unqualified to talk about any religious aspect of this film - to be frank I doubt I understand it in any metaphysical way. In that sense I am the wrong audience for it. The weirdest moment in the film might be the dinosaur moment when some herbivore that is lying on the riverbed encounters a carnivore that steps on its head, but for some bizarre reason chooses not to kill it and eat it. It's a touching moment, though I couldn't say for certain if this was because it fits in with the Job quote or the notion of Grace, though it seems that God might love his dinosaurs equally as he loves mankind.
The amazing thing about the film is that it tries to reconcile the grandness of the universe with the travails and the inner turmoil of individuals. It is as if Malick is saying "get some perspective", but at the same time how could anything be meaningless in all of this universe, any more than it could be meaningful? With all due respect to Christians and theologians, it's a pretty damn big universe out there that God's created; and that's if you even buy into the notion that he did.
Transformation of Consciousness
I was wondering what this film reminded me of, and I have say it was '2001: A Space Odyssey'. In the last section of '2001', we have the sequence in the room where Dave Bowman witnesses a whole life cycle of himself, in the room. It occurred to me as I was watching the film that the whole of 'The Tree of Life' was something like watching the life cycle of Terence Malick, as if we were somehow made into Dave Bowman.
Of course, the film plots out - in a very sketchy way - that there is a great distance of feeling and understanding that separates father and son. The distance is made up by the vastly different states of consciousness possessed by father and son, and then the son as a grown man. So while we are all a product of our time, our consciousness shifts during a life time so that we come to a different understanding about ourselves and the universe. By watching this film, our consciousness about time is altered slightly. It's a bewildering film that way.
So What Exactly Happens?
This is the weird thing about this film. You see a bunch of sequences that build some scenes and others are just off-hand images of flowers or shadows of kids. You are never certain about the time relationship of anything in the film. For all we know the whole film is one long reminiscence and fantasy by Sean Penn's character, but we never get a full grip on the narrative standing point. We have no idea who's story this is, or if it is anybody's story. The facts of the story seem to be far less important than the emotional truths of the film's characters. And that makes this a fascinating film to watch.
The film is like a puzzle where you piece things together as Malick presents them, but you're also left with the feeling that not everything is being told, and not everything is open for discussion. Maybe the film invites us to a second viewing, simply by being so obscure. But by no means is this a bad film. Amazingly, it's a 'good' film - you just have to open your mind to its unorthodox wonders.
Terence Malick making a film is one of those events in cinemas these days. After languishing in obscurity for a good many years, he emerged from a two decade hibernation with 'Thin Red Line', which was in many respects a much better war movie than the oft feted 'Saving Private Ryan' that year. I know 'Saving Private Ryan' will always have its die-hard fans but what made 'Thin Red Line' so much better was how he kept bringing the affairs of men to contrast with the landscape and nature that surrounded them.
His films are filled with odd shots and odd cutaways that build a misc en scen like a quilt work, rather than the continuity cutting and standard shots that bolster narratives we're used to seeing. Dialgoue flows obliquely and voice overs are like fragments of inner monologues. In short, they're nothing like your standard Hollywood fare.
What's Good About It
This film has many, many beautiful shots of beautiful things as well as evocative shots of evocative things, poignant shots of poignant things. In short, Malick has mastered the notion of an objective correlative and perfectly matches his observational style to the mood he is trying to create or convey. Despair and grief segue into tired memories and straining guilt. Every shot has a kind of tension that leads into the next so masterfully, you cease to question the absence of context or foreshadowing or the abruptness of the change of scenes.
This is a film by a stylist at work, putting his entire sensibility about time and space and people and objects to the fore, and in most part it is a fascinating, beautiful thing to watch.
What's Bad About It
Sometimes the film meanders into a narrative space that can only be described as oblique and fragmented. I doubt one could do a straight narrative film with Malick's style, but even allowing for it, this film really meanders into the incomprehensible. It just doesn't make much logical sense in parts, but you're drawn in all the same by the power of the images.
I don't think the script would pass muster in a modern screen-writing class, but that's the point. Modern screenwriters are not capable of conceiving of films like this. This one, is an auteur boldly going where he wants to go, come hell or high water. There are moments in the fanciful flights, where you simply cannot keep up with the director; unfortunately they're the moments the film fails abjectly.
What's Interesting About It
I'm amazed Brad Pitt wanted to do this film badly enough he stuck his name on as producer. I'm amazed Sean Penn wanted to do this film too. He seems to walk around with a pained expression and the look of the most miserable person on the planet, and then he has a dream sequence where he continues to look forlorn and dejected. I wonder if he bit Malick's head off.
Grace
The film kicks off by talking about grace, after flashing up a quote from The Book of Job. So I feel unqualified to talk about any religious aspect of this film - to be frank I doubt I understand it in any metaphysical way. In that sense I am the wrong audience for it. The weirdest moment in the film might be the dinosaur moment when some herbivore that is lying on the riverbed encounters a carnivore that steps on its head, but for some bizarre reason chooses not to kill it and eat it. It's a touching moment, though I couldn't say for certain if this was because it fits in with the Job quote or the notion of Grace, though it seems that God might love his dinosaurs equally as he loves mankind.
The amazing thing about the film is that it tries to reconcile the grandness of the universe with the travails and the inner turmoil of individuals. It is as if Malick is saying "get some perspective", but at the same time how could anything be meaningless in all of this universe, any more than it could be meaningful? With all due respect to Christians and theologians, it's a pretty damn big universe out there that God's created; and that's if you even buy into the notion that he did.
Transformation of Consciousness
I was wondering what this film reminded me of, and I have say it was '2001: A Space Odyssey'. In the last section of '2001', we have the sequence in the room where Dave Bowman witnesses a whole life cycle of himself, in the room. It occurred to me as I was watching the film that the whole of 'The Tree of Life' was something like watching the life cycle of Terence Malick, as if we were somehow made into Dave Bowman.
Of course, the film plots out - in a very sketchy way - that there is a great distance of feeling and understanding that separates father and son. The distance is made up by the vastly different states of consciousness possessed by father and son, and then the son as a grown man. So while we are all a product of our time, our consciousness shifts during a life time so that we come to a different understanding about ourselves and the universe. By watching this film, our consciousness about time is altered slightly. It's a bewildering film that way.
So What Exactly Happens?
This is the weird thing about this film. You see a bunch of sequences that build some scenes and others are just off-hand images of flowers or shadows of kids. You are never certain about the time relationship of anything in the film. For all we know the whole film is one long reminiscence and fantasy by Sean Penn's character, but we never get a full grip on the narrative standing point. We have no idea who's story this is, or if it is anybody's story. The facts of the story seem to be far less important than the emotional truths of the film's characters. And that makes this a fascinating film to watch.
The film is like a puzzle where you piece things together as Malick presents them, but you're also left with the feeling that not everything is being told, and not everything is open for discussion. Maybe the film invites us to a second viewing, simply by being so obscure. But by no means is this a bad film. Amazingly, it's a 'good' film - you just have to open your mind to its unorthodox wonders.
2011/12/13
'Everything Must Go'
Down And Out In Arizona
I should have done a movie double of this film with 'Company Men', or perhaps even 'Changing Lanes'. You can link this film to the former with the subtext of corporate America while you could link it to the latter through a discussion of alcoholism and alcoholics anonymous. It's getting to the point where losing a job and the destructive consequence that has on a life is becoming a sub-genre of American movies all on its own, and there's also a trend of films about support groups that is emerging and could be bundled together.
In any case, I missed my boat. I'll have to talk about this film on its own merits now.
What's Good About It
Will Ferrell with restraint. It's a sight to behold. Also, it is based on a Raymond Carver short story, so there's something poignant waiting to happen at every moment. It does happen more often than not. Also the 1978 Yankees get a mention. That's always good in my books.
What's Bad About it
I'm not sure that it makes any sense at a basic level of people's modus operandi. Usually when the wife kicks out your stuff and changes the locks, it means she goes into siege to keep the house. Not go away and stay with somebody else. I don't think husbands send their pregnant wives across the nation on their own to set up house by themselves. I don't believe people form strong relationships at the drop of the hat. These things in the setup strain credulity.
In some ways it is like 'Greenberg' starring Ben Stiller. the film is an unrelenting study of a certain kind of mid-life misery and loss of self-esteem. I don't know if these things make for 'good' films, but they do make for interesting viewing, mostly in the details and marginalia.
What's Interesting About It
The 1978 Yankees is an oblique reference to the year the story was written by Raymond Carver - I think, but can't be sure - and forms one spiritual corner of the film. Baseball is meant to bring together the characters of Nick and Kenny. Kenny, is what high school kids refer to as "Unco". Kenny can't catch a ball to save his life. It is clear he has no future in baseball, just by the way he throws.
As baseball-bonding moments in movies go, it is short and lame but has ironic humour. There are worse baseball moments in cinema; this isn't one of the best, but it's far from the worst. Still, it points to a problem in the tone of the film.
The film's mode of humour is quite blurred. You can't figure out if it's a slapstick comedy or a character piece. The only thing that really holds it together is the fact that we assume we know Will Ferrell's character from all the crazy antics he's done in other films. The most notable comparison would be the character Frank the Tank in 'Old School'. In that sense, the casting of Ferrell was a superb choice that glosses over a lot of ills with the script.
Attachment As The Root Of Suffering
One of the implicit assumptions of the film is that attachment to objects makes you suffer. it's a fine Buddhist idea, but it hardly seems appropriate in this film. The main problem is that Ferrell's character Nick is a drunk, and not that he is trapped by his possessions. In fact there's a case to be made that he needs his possession to remind him of his identity. In the brief side plot where he looks up an old school mate, he is told of something he did as a high school kid but he cannot remember. If he is drowning his sorrow and pain in alcohol, then it's working,
If indeed the film's argument is that possessions do make us suffer with the weight on our consciousness, then it seems rather odd that nobody else is afflicted the way Nick is by his possessions cast out on the front lawn. You get the feeling the film makers didn't really work through the rational polemic of their script. But then you suspect that if they did, they wouldn't have made this film, they would have made something about the Occupy Wall Street movement or something like it.
Hating On Corporate America
If there's one thing all these films agree on, from this film through 'Changing Lanes' and 'Company Men' and 'Old School' (and by association 'Fight Club') and 'Greenberg' is that they all hate corporate America. Not that it doesn't deserve the loathing, but you have to wonder about how corporate a film studio is to finance a film like this one. It's not that the hate isn't justified, it's just that it seems rather ironic coming from corporate entertainment that they work up so much loathing for corporate life.
Mind you, I'd be the first to do the same so I'm not above it. I'm just saying it is rather interesting that this hatred is widespread in cinema. Then again maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. There's not much to love there unless we're talking Apple and Steve Jobs.
Sales As A Skill, Sales As A Talent
One of the shibboleths in the world that gets a bit of observation is sales and salesmanship. We are led to believe by the characters in this film that salesmanship is a skill that can be taught and applied to the sale of anything. At the same time we're also meant to believe it is the big talent of our main character Nick; that sales is what makes him exceptional in the world. selling is a funny thing because you essentially have to court a buyer and provide them with the information that might make them want to buy while depriving them of negative information that might make them not buy.
My father was a trader so I grew up hearing all sorts of things about sales but it came down to the fact that there was no special skill that could make you sell something to somebody who didn't want it, and there was no point in making a one-off sale like that. In his experience, the backbone of capitalism and the market was trust and trust enough that you would have repeat sales. This trust in turn fed into the flow of goods in a economy.
Judging by that yardstick, a guy selling stuff on his lawn is the least likely to need or want repeat sales so trust is going to be low to begin with. Yet because he's the main character of the film we're supposed to feel like he's made great sales selling his stuff at a discount, just to get rid of them. It's a weird slope of one-man's-garbage-is-another-man's-treasure. I guess it could be seen as a negative critique of consumerism, but in the end he hands over his treasures to his friends for gratis. The collection of collector's edition 'Playboy' mags go to his erotomaniac neighbour, and the signed 1978 Yankees baseball goes to Kenny. The film's relation to worth is actually quite complicated as a result of its own choices.
I should have done a movie double of this film with 'Company Men', or perhaps even 'Changing Lanes'. You can link this film to the former with the subtext of corporate America while you could link it to the latter through a discussion of alcoholism and alcoholics anonymous. It's getting to the point where losing a job and the destructive consequence that has on a life is becoming a sub-genre of American movies all on its own, and there's also a trend of films about support groups that is emerging and could be bundled together.
In any case, I missed my boat. I'll have to talk about this film on its own merits now.
What's Good About It
Will Ferrell with restraint. It's a sight to behold. Also, it is based on a Raymond Carver short story, so there's something poignant waiting to happen at every moment. It does happen more often than not. Also the 1978 Yankees get a mention. That's always good in my books.
What's Bad About it
I'm not sure that it makes any sense at a basic level of people's modus operandi. Usually when the wife kicks out your stuff and changes the locks, it means she goes into siege to keep the house. Not go away and stay with somebody else. I don't think husbands send their pregnant wives across the nation on their own to set up house by themselves. I don't believe people form strong relationships at the drop of the hat. These things in the setup strain credulity.
In some ways it is like 'Greenberg' starring Ben Stiller. the film is an unrelenting study of a certain kind of mid-life misery and loss of self-esteem. I don't know if these things make for 'good' films, but they do make for interesting viewing, mostly in the details and marginalia.
What's Interesting About It
The 1978 Yankees is an oblique reference to the year the story was written by Raymond Carver - I think, but can't be sure - and forms one spiritual corner of the film. Baseball is meant to bring together the characters of Nick and Kenny. Kenny, is what high school kids refer to as "Unco". Kenny can't catch a ball to save his life. It is clear he has no future in baseball, just by the way he throws.
As baseball-bonding moments in movies go, it is short and lame but has ironic humour. There are worse baseball moments in cinema; this isn't one of the best, but it's far from the worst. Still, it points to a problem in the tone of the film.
The film's mode of humour is quite blurred. You can't figure out if it's a slapstick comedy or a character piece. The only thing that really holds it together is the fact that we assume we know Will Ferrell's character from all the crazy antics he's done in other films. The most notable comparison would be the character Frank the Tank in 'Old School'. In that sense, the casting of Ferrell was a superb choice that glosses over a lot of ills with the script.
Attachment As The Root Of Suffering
One of the implicit assumptions of the film is that attachment to objects makes you suffer. it's a fine Buddhist idea, but it hardly seems appropriate in this film. The main problem is that Ferrell's character Nick is a drunk, and not that he is trapped by his possessions. In fact there's a case to be made that he needs his possession to remind him of his identity. In the brief side plot where he looks up an old school mate, he is told of something he did as a high school kid but he cannot remember. If he is drowning his sorrow and pain in alcohol, then it's working,
If indeed the film's argument is that possessions do make us suffer with the weight on our consciousness, then it seems rather odd that nobody else is afflicted the way Nick is by his possessions cast out on the front lawn. You get the feeling the film makers didn't really work through the rational polemic of their script. But then you suspect that if they did, they wouldn't have made this film, they would have made something about the Occupy Wall Street movement or something like it.
Hating On Corporate America
If there's one thing all these films agree on, from this film through 'Changing Lanes' and 'Company Men' and 'Old School' (and by association 'Fight Club') and 'Greenberg' is that they all hate corporate America. Not that it doesn't deserve the loathing, but you have to wonder about how corporate a film studio is to finance a film like this one. It's not that the hate isn't justified, it's just that it seems rather ironic coming from corporate entertainment that they work up so much loathing for corporate life.
Mind you, I'd be the first to do the same so I'm not above it. I'm just saying it is rather interesting that this hatred is widespread in cinema. Then again maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. There's not much to love there unless we're talking Apple and Steve Jobs.
Sales As A Skill, Sales As A Talent
One of the shibboleths in the world that gets a bit of observation is sales and salesmanship. We are led to believe by the characters in this film that salesmanship is a skill that can be taught and applied to the sale of anything. At the same time we're also meant to believe it is the big talent of our main character Nick; that sales is what makes him exceptional in the world. selling is a funny thing because you essentially have to court a buyer and provide them with the information that might make them want to buy while depriving them of negative information that might make them not buy.
My father was a trader so I grew up hearing all sorts of things about sales but it came down to the fact that there was no special skill that could make you sell something to somebody who didn't want it, and there was no point in making a one-off sale like that. In his experience, the backbone of capitalism and the market was trust and trust enough that you would have repeat sales. This trust in turn fed into the flow of goods in a economy.
Judging by that yardstick, a guy selling stuff on his lawn is the least likely to need or want repeat sales so trust is going to be low to begin with. Yet because he's the main character of the film we're supposed to feel like he's made great sales selling his stuff at a discount, just to get rid of them. It's a weird slope of one-man's-garbage-is-another-man's-treasure. I guess it could be seen as a negative critique of consumerism, but in the end he hands over his treasures to his friends for gratis. The collection of collector's edition 'Playboy' mags go to his erotomaniac neighbour, and the signed 1978 Yankees baseball goes to Kenny. The film's relation to worth is actually quite complicated as a result of its own choices.
Labels:
'Everything Must Go',
Cinema,
Film,
Literature,
Movies
2011/12/11
'Conan The Barbarian' (2011)
Back To The Hyborean Age
This may come as a surprise but I was looking forward to this new reboot and somehow managed to miss it at the cinemas. I guess deep down I am a sword-and-sorcery genre fan. Double cheese isn't cheesy enough for this piece of roadkill bush meat shoved between two sides of a split burger bun. And I like it that way.
I know I complain about the dumbing down of cinema and the endless parade of comic book characters, but let's get one thing straight. Conan the Barbarian was written, not drawn. To that extent any adaptations of Conan should at least be put on the same footing as say, Sherlock Holmes or James Bond. The appeal of Conan the barbarian is pretty simple - muscle-bound sword wielding dude who famously "cuts a bloody swath through the Hyborean age" ("Crom! I cut my bloody swath" wrote one wit). Yet, the archetypal figure of Conan actually opens up all sorts of polemics about strength, kingship, justice and vengeance. The biggest of these polemics might be what is known in the original Conan movie with Arnie as 'The Riddle of Steel'.
What's Good About It
Lots of blood-splattering effects and solidly athletic action sequences. Lots of homages to art found in old role playing games. There were more than 4 or 5 scenes that included shots that were lifts from 'Dungeons and Dragons' and 'Role Master' art work. In a weird twist, the cheesier the action got, the more authentic the film got.
Jason Momoa's Conan is less wry and ironic, more gravelly and glaring. It's hard to watch Arnie's Conan movies without a smile these days because we know who he is and what became of the man. It's great to watch a new actor do his thing as Conan, and for Conant to come alive as a new kind of character. The best thing about a reboot of a Conan movie is that it allows the character of Conan to be divorced from Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's a little like divorcing James Bond from Sean Connery, but it has been done. It's no insult to Connery that many Bonds have followed, and the many Bonds played by various actors has filled out the character of James Bond in so many ways. With a little luck, there will be many more Conan films with many different actors playing the muscle-bound barbarian. Indeed it is a little sad they didn't get The Rock to play Conan at some point.
What's Bad About It
I know it's only a sword-and-sorcery film, but sometimes the film is too much like a hundred action sequences in search of a meaningful plot. It's a bit like complaining there's too much sugar in the icing, but they could have spent a bit more time developing the characters on screen. The high priestess ends up in bed with Conan way too simply with apparently very little convincing needed. I know it's fantasy but, come on.
What's Interesting About It
Let's start with 'the question of steel', as it is presented in this film. Back in 1982, Arnie's Conan is told by arch-nemesis and slayer of his father Thulsa Doom played by James Earl Jones that the answer to the 'riddle of steel' is flesh. It made for a chilling moment when somebody committed suicide by leaping off a tall structure at Thulsa's command. The point being, swords don't kill people, people kill people. In this film, the question of steel has a cryptic answer that it is both fire and ice. The issue is not re-visited ever again. It left me a little bemused because from memory, that's how Derek Smalls describes his role in Spinal Tap, between the fire and ice of David and Nigel, something like luke-warm water.
Surely luke warm water (or Derek Smalls) can't be the answer to the question of steel. Plus, I preferred the 'riddle of steel' to 'question of steel'. I guess the way to understand the question of steel is that perfect swordsmanship resides in a ying-yang-like balance that is metaphorically represented in the fire and ice required to temper a blade. It's a lot less vexing than the 'riddle of steel' which tells us that the essentially violent nature of man necessitates the sword. Of course, the 1982 film was written by the likes of John Milius and Oliver Stone so it's not surprising, but all the same, the new one isn't as scary as the old one because of this misinterpretation of the core polemic. There are any number of samurai movies that say essentially the same thing, and they're invariably not as cool as the ones that posit that man's capacity of violence is what necessitates the sword.
Conan's Talent For Violence
In the old film, it is not clear that Conan is born a violent being. The part of the story where his village is ruined and his family killed segues into his life as a slave, and through it he finds he is strong and capable of great feats as a result. This iteration of Conan has it that even as a child, Conan is capable of great violence and murder; in fact it is his special talent to kill people. I'm not sure that this is as interesting as the former because in the Arnie text, we come to realise it is about the Darwinian survival of the fittest and of course we see echoes of fascism through Arnie's Austrian accent. In this version we come to understand that Conan's prowess isn't because he's born to a barbarian family, but because he's just born that way. I'm not sure this was the right choice, because it sort of means the title is wrong; it should be Conan the Murderous Psychopath.
Anyway, such subtle distinctions don't register in Hollywood land. Clearly, they like the story about talent.
In the previous Arnie version, Conan comes to understand that it is not strength but will that guides his destiny - his totally unbending determination to exact vengeance finds its answer at the climax as he confronts Thulsa Doom. At that point, it's not quite about swordplay. In this version, Conan simply must solve the where and when issue of how he exacts vengeance; when he faces off against Khalar Zym, it's basically about acrobatic swordplay against another adept. The action is good and spectacular, but somehow it means a lot less.
Villains Come Smaller These Days
Which brings me to the bad guy Khalar Zym. Khalar Zym's quest to re-form some artefact and bring back his witch wife from the dead makes for a great motivation, but it actually betrays something very human. We all grieve, we all mourn, and we all find it hard to let go of our loved ones. This grief has turned Khalar Zym into a marauding monster, but to be honest this is not as scary as the inexplicable snake-god incarnate of Thulsa Doom. I don't say this to say the earlier film is better - it's not in many ways - but it has to be said Thulsa Doom as the villain is more insurmountable than Khalar Zym. For that, the scriptwriters have to take a hit. For the sake of drama, Conan's great adversary can't be a bloke who's mourning for his wife and working on this nutty project. It has to be an inexplicable evil that comes out of nowhere.
Now that we've seen 'Lord of the Rings' in the years since the Arnie Conan movies, Conan's foes should be at least as scary as Sauron. Working up astounding super villains should be the writers' job.
Is There A Future For Conan On Screen?
As much as I found this iteration wanting, I do hold out hope there will be more. This was on the whole a fun film and it was good to see another actor take on the role, freeing the figure of Conan from Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know if it made enough money to warrant another film, and early indications on rotten tomatoes is that critics and audiences alike panned it.
I actually see lots of scope for more adventures in Hyoborea, but clearly nobody's asking me. :)
It would be a real shame if this were to be the last Conan movie; but seeing how bereft of good ideas Hollywood is these days something tells me there will be more.
This may come as a surprise but I was looking forward to this new reboot and somehow managed to miss it at the cinemas. I guess deep down I am a sword-and-sorcery genre fan. Double cheese isn't cheesy enough for this piece of roadkill bush meat shoved between two sides of a split burger bun. And I like it that way.
I know I complain about the dumbing down of cinema and the endless parade of comic book characters, but let's get one thing straight. Conan the Barbarian was written, not drawn. To that extent any adaptations of Conan should at least be put on the same footing as say, Sherlock Holmes or James Bond. The appeal of Conan the barbarian is pretty simple - muscle-bound sword wielding dude who famously "cuts a bloody swath through the Hyborean age" ("Crom! I cut my bloody swath" wrote one wit). Yet, the archetypal figure of Conan actually opens up all sorts of polemics about strength, kingship, justice and vengeance. The biggest of these polemics might be what is known in the original Conan movie with Arnie as 'The Riddle of Steel'.
What's Good About It
Lots of blood-splattering effects and solidly athletic action sequences. Lots of homages to art found in old role playing games. There were more than 4 or 5 scenes that included shots that were lifts from 'Dungeons and Dragons' and 'Role Master' art work. In a weird twist, the cheesier the action got, the more authentic the film got.
Jason Momoa's Conan is less wry and ironic, more gravelly and glaring. It's hard to watch Arnie's Conan movies without a smile these days because we know who he is and what became of the man. It's great to watch a new actor do his thing as Conan, and for Conant to come alive as a new kind of character. The best thing about a reboot of a Conan movie is that it allows the character of Conan to be divorced from Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's a little like divorcing James Bond from Sean Connery, but it has been done. It's no insult to Connery that many Bonds have followed, and the many Bonds played by various actors has filled out the character of James Bond in so many ways. With a little luck, there will be many more Conan films with many different actors playing the muscle-bound barbarian. Indeed it is a little sad they didn't get The Rock to play Conan at some point.
What's Bad About It
I know it's only a sword-and-sorcery film, but sometimes the film is too much like a hundred action sequences in search of a meaningful plot. It's a bit like complaining there's too much sugar in the icing, but they could have spent a bit more time developing the characters on screen. The high priestess ends up in bed with Conan way too simply with apparently very little convincing needed. I know it's fantasy but, come on.
What's Interesting About It
Let's start with 'the question of steel', as it is presented in this film. Back in 1982, Arnie's Conan is told by arch-nemesis and slayer of his father Thulsa Doom played by James Earl Jones that the answer to the 'riddle of steel' is flesh. It made for a chilling moment when somebody committed suicide by leaping off a tall structure at Thulsa's command. The point being, swords don't kill people, people kill people. In this film, the question of steel has a cryptic answer that it is both fire and ice. The issue is not re-visited ever again. It left me a little bemused because from memory, that's how Derek Smalls describes his role in Spinal Tap, between the fire and ice of David and Nigel, something like luke-warm water.
Surely luke warm water (or Derek Smalls) can't be the answer to the question of steel. Plus, I preferred the 'riddle of steel' to 'question of steel'. I guess the way to understand the question of steel is that perfect swordsmanship resides in a ying-yang-like balance that is metaphorically represented in the fire and ice required to temper a blade. It's a lot less vexing than the 'riddle of steel' which tells us that the essentially violent nature of man necessitates the sword. Of course, the 1982 film was written by the likes of John Milius and Oliver Stone so it's not surprising, but all the same, the new one isn't as scary as the old one because of this misinterpretation of the core polemic. There are any number of samurai movies that say essentially the same thing, and they're invariably not as cool as the ones that posit that man's capacity of violence is what necessitates the sword.
Conan's Talent For Violence
In the old film, it is not clear that Conan is born a violent being. The part of the story where his village is ruined and his family killed segues into his life as a slave, and through it he finds he is strong and capable of great feats as a result. This iteration of Conan has it that even as a child, Conan is capable of great violence and murder; in fact it is his special talent to kill people. I'm not sure that this is as interesting as the former because in the Arnie text, we come to realise it is about the Darwinian survival of the fittest and of course we see echoes of fascism through Arnie's Austrian accent. In this version we come to understand that Conan's prowess isn't because he's born to a barbarian family, but because he's just born that way. I'm not sure this was the right choice, because it sort of means the title is wrong; it should be Conan the Murderous Psychopath.
Anyway, such subtle distinctions don't register in Hollywood land. Clearly, they like the story about talent.
In the previous Arnie version, Conan comes to understand that it is not strength but will that guides his destiny - his totally unbending determination to exact vengeance finds its answer at the climax as he confronts Thulsa Doom. At that point, it's not quite about swordplay. In this version, Conan simply must solve the where and when issue of how he exacts vengeance; when he faces off against Khalar Zym, it's basically about acrobatic swordplay against another adept. The action is good and spectacular, but somehow it means a lot less.
Villains Come Smaller These Days
Which brings me to the bad guy Khalar Zym. Khalar Zym's quest to re-form some artefact and bring back his witch wife from the dead makes for a great motivation, but it actually betrays something very human. We all grieve, we all mourn, and we all find it hard to let go of our loved ones. This grief has turned Khalar Zym into a marauding monster, but to be honest this is not as scary as the inexplicable snake-god incarnate of Thulsa Doom. I don't say this to say the earlier film is better - it's not in many ways - but it has to be said Thulsa Doom as the villain is more insurmountable than Khalar Zym. For that, the scriptwriters have to take a hit. For the sake of drama, Conan's great adversary can't be a bloke who's mourning for his wife and working on this nutty project. It has to be an inexplicable evil that comes out of nowhere.
Now that we've seen 'Lord of the Rings' in the years since the Arnie Conan movies, Conan's foes should be at least as scary as Sauron. Working up astounding super villains should be the writers' job.
Is There A Future For Conan On Screen?
As much as I found this iteration wanting, I do hold out hope there will be more. This was on the whole a fun film and it was good to see another actor take on the role, freeing the figure of Conan from Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know if it made enough money to warrant another film, and early indications on rotten tomatoes is that critics and audiences alike panned it.
I actually see lots of scope for more adventures in Hyoborea, but clearly nobody's asking me. :)
It would be a real shame if this were to be the last Conan movie; but seeing how bereft of good ideas Hollywood is these days something tells me there will be more.
Labels:
Cinema,
Conan The Barbarian,
Film,
Literature,
Movies
2011/12/10
UK As Defiant Problem Child
Hello Dave Cameron, Eurosceptic
I have to say movies are a lot less interesting than what's been going on in the world since the GFC first reared its head in August 2007, a full year before the credit crunch that brought about things like TARP and stimulus packages. Since then the chaos has moved on from banks to sovereign states that paid money to buy out these bad debts, with the PIIGS nations getting a hammering the bond trading markets.
This week saw some extraordinary developments whereby some of the EU nations moved for greater union as the UK chose to sit it out. It's a tricky thing, but basically David Cameron might have been the right man at the wrong place or the wrong man at the right place. Given the choice of wanting more of an input or less into the affairs of Europe, he chose to opt for less.
That section is quite telling. Even prior to these meetings, it wasn't entirely clear what possible input the UK might have had given its history of not joining the monetary union. While that choice looks like a great choice in hindsight, it's also looking like the UK never really joined Europe in the way it was supposed to, so it now stands quite isolated.
As an Australian, the irony is rich, for the UK essentially had to abandon its preferred trade with Commonwealth nations in order to have access to the European markets and joining the EC, way back in the 1970s. That was one of the major changes that essentially push Australia towards embracing its Asian trade partners because it simply had no choice. In a sense the UK had to give up the baby to join the special club, only to find it didn't want to be a member of that club because it was more a cult, but now it has no baby.
As it turns out, giving up the portion of sovereignty that controls money is probably the least possible thing to do for the UK when you think about it. France, and Germany have lost their kings, and other royal families of Europe have long ceased to have any political or even significant economic power. This is in stark contrast to the United Kingdom that successfully (I wish I had a better word for it than successfully, but... you know what I mean) preserved its positively medieval monarchy with significant reserve powers. no Conservative government in the UK is going to hand over the controls to the treasury to a bunch of Republican Frogs and Gerries. And God save the Queen and all that.
So given these kinds of historic reasons, is it any surprise that Cameron chose to stay out of the room where important decisions will be made?
Sort of amusing, that. Not surprisingly the moment been likened to Neville Chamberlain's moment in history waving a piece of paper saying "peace in our time". Europe's suddenly been over run by the threat of sovereign collapses with 'Merkozy' emerging as a kind of force for further unification. I have a hunch that says even if I don't like Cameron's side of politics, he may have made the right call for the UK. He would have come to rue the day if he had laid down the burning spears of desire and given over to 'Merkozy'. I mean, what would Winston Churchill have done? Blood Sweat and Tears, right? So while Cameron is likely to cop a walloping for his defiance, I suspect history will prove to be kinder to him.
I have to say movies are a lot less interesting than what's been going on in the world since the GFC first reared its head in August 2007, a full year before the credit crunch that brought about things like TARP and stimulus packages. Since then the chaos has moved on from banks to sovereign states that paid money to buy out these bad debts, with the PIIGS nations getting a hammering the bond trading markets.
This week saw some extraordinary developments whereby some of the EU nations moved for greater union as the UK chose to sit it out. It's a tricky thing, but basically David Cameron might have been the right man at the wrong place or the wrong man at the right place. Given the choice of wanting more of an input or less into the affairs of Europe, he chose to opt for less.
For Britain the benefit of the bargain in Brussels is far from clear. It took a good half-hour after the end of Mr Sarkozy's appearance for Mr Cameron to emerge and explain his action. The prime minister claimed he had taken a “tough decision but the right one” for British interests—particularly for its financial-services industry. In return for his agreement to change the EU treaties, Mr Cameron had wanted a number of safeguards for Britain. When he did not get them, he used his veto.
After much studied vagueness on his part about Britain's objectives, Mr Cameron's demand came down to a protocol that would ensure Britain would be given a veto on financial-services regulation (see PDF copy here). The British government has become convinced that the European Commission, usually a bastion of liberalism in Europe, has been issuing regulations hostile to the City of London under the influence of its French single-market commissioner, Michel Barnier. And yet strangely, given the accusation that Brussels was taking aim at the heart of the British economy, almost all of the new rules issued so far have been passed with British approval (albeit after much bitter backroom fighting). Tactically, too, it seemed odd to make a stand in defence of the financiers that politicians, both in Britain and across the rest of European, prefer to denounce.
Mr Cameron said he is “relaxed” about the separation. The EU has always been about multiple speeds; he was glad Britain had stayed out of the euro and out of the passport-free Schengen area. He said that life in the EU, particularly the single market, will continue as normal. “We wish them well as we want the euro zone to sort out its problems, to achieve stability and growth that all of Europe needs.” The drawn faces of senior officials seemed to say otherwise.
That section is quite telling. Even prior to these meetings, it wasn't entirely clear what possible input the UK might have had given its history of not joining the monetary union. While that choice looks like a great choice in hindsight, it's also looking like the UK never really joined Europe in the way it was supposed to, so it now stands quite isolated.
As an Australian, the irony is rich, for the UK essentially had to abandon its preferred trade with Commonwealth nations in order to have access to the European markets and joining the EC, way back in the 1970s. That was one of the major changes that essentially push Australia towards embracing its Asian trade partners because it simply had no choice. In a sense the UK had to give up the baby to join the special club, only to find it didn't want to be a member of that club because it was more a cult, but now it has no baby.
As it turns out, giving up the portion of sovereignty that controls money is probably the least possible thing to do for the UK when you think about it. France, and Germany have lost their kings, and other royal families of Europe have long ceased to have any political or even significant economic power. This is in stark contrast to the United Kingdom that successfully (I wish I had a better word for it than successfully, but... you know what I mean) preserved its positively medieval monarchy with significant reserve powers. no Conservative government in the UK is going to hand over the controls to the treasury to a bunch of Republican Frogs and Gerries. And God save the Queen and all that.
So given these kinds of historic reasons, is it any surprise that Cameron chose to stay out of the room where important decisions will be made?
"He's thrown some meat to the eurosceptics who like to see the British PM wielding the veto. (But) it is going to make it harder to defend British interests," said Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform, a think tank in London.
"Cameron has played a bad hand poorly. He's been stung by the mounting rebellion here."
In Brussels, Germany failed in its campaign to persuade all 27 EU countries to write the tougher rules into the bloc's treaty, with just Britain and Hungary refusing to go along.
"Worried that Britain is starting to drift away from Europe in a serious way. To where? In a strong alliance with Hungary," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a tweet on Friday. By lunchtime, even Hungary had changed its mind.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague played down London's isolation and tried to put a positive spin on the treaty clash, noting that different groups of EU nations had long worked together on various issues like defence and border controls.
"Decisions about the European single market, the thing that matters most to us for jobs and businesses in the UK, still have to be made by the 27 countries together," he told Sky News from Brussels. "We will be very vigilant about any threat to that."
Sort of amusing, that. Not surprisingly the moment been likened to Neville Chamberlain's moment in history waving a piece of paper saying "peace in our time". Europe's suddenly been over run by the threat of sovereign collapses with 'Merkozy' emerging as a kind of force for further unification. I have a hunch that says even if I don't like Cameron's side of politics, he may have made the right call for the UK. He would have come to rue the day if he had laid down the burning spears of desire and given over to 'Merkozy'. I mean, what would Winston Churchill have done? Blood Sweat and Tears, right? So while Cameron is likely to cop a walloping for his defiance, I suspect history will prove to be kinder to him.
Labels:
Euro,
Europe,
General,
Global Financial Crisis,
Sovereign Debt,
United Kingdom
2011/12/08
'The Company Men'
Social Realism In American Cinema?
It's quite the surprise when an American film comes along and the climax doesn't involve gun shots and car crashes. It's also surprising when the tenor of the whole film is about limitations of people within the society they live. Back in the day of the Soviet Republics, the Russians used to specialise in this terrain dubbed 'Social Realism', which happened to be Stalin's favourite genre of film making. More pointedly, Stalin didn't like escapist fantasies because he didn't want anybody to escape from the reality where he was the dictator of the Soviet Republics. Such ideological thinking might seem quaint through the haze of history looking back, but I can assure you many a film maker suffered for the institutionalised love of realism and socialist realism at that. And if I might extend it a little bit, the modern day inheritor of thinking happens to be alive and well in Australian film bureaucracies, thanks to our institutions being modeled on things like MosFilm.
Anyway... 'Company Men' is the first film to attempt to explore the effects of the Global Financial Crisis in some social sense. By casting the GFC as the first mover the story manages to cover the lives of people who work for a company that fires them.
What's Good About It
The film is understated and not terribly stylish. It eschews the kind of style that has become the staple of comic book movies and the story remains decidedly man-size. There are no supermen or people with a special gift who can save the day. The reality inhabited by the character is a great approximation of the kind of thing we have seen around us in the wake of the GFC. There are some aspects that ring hollow, only because it comes from a movie full of stars, but the problems that are wrestled with in the film are genuine problems. And weirdly enough, this is refreshing - mainly because the recent escapist fare has been much too much.
Yet it doesn't matter for a moment that the film mostly meanders through the lives of these mundane characters. The drama inherent in the situation lends itself to pretty good viewing. It's a film for adults - not that there's anything wrong with kids' films - but this film isn't interested in titillation or adrenal excitement. It just wants to tell a story that makes you think.
What's Bad About It
The performances are good. There just seems to be one too many star in there. Kevin Costner as the brother in law with the blue collar house renovation business is just too much in the casting department. I'm also not a big fan of how simplistic the moral framework is about work itself. The film never arrives at the point to question the inherent value placed in work when it works quite hard to establish that maybe the top echelon don't deserve their big paychecks.
Also, this leads to the principle at stake being rather blurry. If Tommy Lee Jones' character has such reservations about how the firm is run, he actually has the option to start his own company given that he has the money to do it. This gets glossed over until towards the end.
What's Interesting About It
First off, I think it's interesting it got made at all. I thought Hollywood had lost its testicular fortitude when it came to making adult-oriented-cinema (for want of a better phrase). Obviously the GFC is impacting on the lives of even the most cosetted film exec. It reminds one of 'Sullivan's Travels', but without the humour. It feels like Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper really wanted to make a film that meant something rather than any old entertainment fare. It has such noble intentions, and it's dripping with it from the script through to the performances. One can forgive its humourless-ness.
I know I bagged out Kevin Costner being cast in it, but even he provides a performance that's busily working towards a message. The film isn't moving; ironically, the fact these big names are in it, trying to prop it up is more moving.
Anatomy Of Debt-Fueled Prosperity
One of the stranger aspects of the story is actually the finances of the household in the movie. At the start, Ben Affleck's character Bobby is earning 120k p.a. He's been the head of sales for 3 years, so presumably he's been paid something like that for 3 years. He drives a Porsche Spider, which turns out to be leased. His wife drives a Volvo station wagon, which is presumably owned outright. He lives in a big house in the suburbs with his wife and 2 kids, paying off the mortgage. His wife, has no job, but goes back to nursing, just to keep the cash flowing. The redundancy Bobby gets covers him for 3months of his 120k plus 4months support at an employment agency.
What I don't get is how he doesn't panic when he unexpectedly gets the redundancy. He gets angry, and then belligerent and insists he will find employment soon; but he simply doesn't panic about his money situation. instead he resists selling the house and giving up the Porsche all the way, and complains about not having his golf club membership paid. I found that really weird. It's like watching the finances of a crazy person until I realised that it captured the kind of sensibility about finance that was pervasive at the time the subprime mortgage crisis broke. Bobby isn't subprime, but he's in debt to his eyeballs and has stopped feeling it. the film gives you a unique insight into what that's like.
Myth Of American Manufacturing
The sting of post-modernity, as it were in both America and over here in Australia is that we lament the loss of manufacturing jobs. This film is right in line with the line of reasoning that the greatness of a country can only be shown to be true by the strength of the manufacturing sector it has. All the while analysis has shown that companies that outsource the manufacturing part still retain a great deal of wealth in America or Australia by and large, by doing so. The most poignant argument is that the skills lost would be hard to recover, but you sort of wonder if they were such great skills if they were so easily exported.
None of this aspect of the polemic is explored in the film - it's simply taken as a given that the hollowing out of industry is a sure sign of decay in industrial America when in fact the loss of low-skilled jobs has not been the real problem of the American economy of the last 30 years. Even 20years ago, Bill Clinton was on the campaign trail, talking to unions on his side of politics saying those low skilled jobs weren't coming back. America still prospered greatly in the 1990s.
The film does proceed on the assumption that if they could rebuild factories, then the prosperity due to Americans would return, but this makes the ending a lot more empty. Can there really be a future in putting back together the American manufacturing machine, using the reject workers that have been shed? It seems the solution is a lot more simplistic than the complexity of the problem. For every industry that goes into decline, there are things like Apple and Google and Facebook that come out of nowhere and become worth billions. One cannot help but feel there's something missing from the film makers' thinking on the subject - but hey, it's not often a movie allows you to ponder such problems deeply.
The Lies CEOs Tell
Tommy Lee Jones' character reports to his friend and co-founder of the company, who repeats that the share price is everything if they are to avoid a hostile takeover bid. To this end, the company engages in two rounds of restructuring to appease the investors. Interestingly enough, we see a scene where Tommy Lee Jones' character Gene has to field questions from fund managers, in a moment of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Of course he is damned for it, but that makes you wonder about CEOs of publicly listed firms.
These guys make a lot of money. If you want to know about the 1% that the occupy Wall Street movement is talking about, these guys are it. And yet, in the context of management speak, they freely present the fund managers and share holders and financial types who hold the corporate bonds as the bullies. They also tell you that if the company doesn't pay the absurd amounts of moneys, the company won't be able to attract the best talent to be CEOs, which is a dubious claim. I mention this because in light of the recent spates of shareholder activism, it seems that fund managers are finally being able to exercise the proper power that their shares represent. I mean, really, was Sir Ralph Norris really worth $16m a year? That's C.C. Sabathia money.
We can always see CC Sabathia's value in his stat line. How can anybody ever know if Ralph Norris's work is worth a star Major League Baseball player's annual salary? Babe Ruth was once asked about his pay being higher than the US President. He responded, "I had a better year didn't I?"
If you asked Ralph Norris and all these other CEOs with insane millions per annum in salary, they'd tell you they had a good year. But how would you know for sure?
Why People Go Into Business
This was the most interesting question that was half-raised and quickly abandoned by the film. Part of a company's function is to provide a service or good for society. Why is it then that we feel that none of the big established firms would ever do something for the greater good unless it was out of blatant self-interest or self-preservation? The film comes close to talking about it, but instead of going deeper, the characters stop talking. I dare say they stop talking because the writer runs out of ideas or things for these characters to say, but the film is full of pregnant pauses that then cut to the next seemingly disconnected scene. It clearly isn't about just the money, but we're left wondering if that is all there is that makes American society. The film is interesting that way.
If the solution is to build a new company, then why are all these people struggling? Surely you need capital to make things work under capitalism. The disconnect is kind of interesting in this film. Somebody has to take the risk, but the negative results that come from taking the risks don't seem to land on the people who take the risks. Then again, that is the perfect description of the GFC. In any case it's an interesting film that way.
It's quite the surprise when an American film comes along and the climax doesn't involve gun shots and car crashes. It's also surprising when the tenor of the whole film is about limitations of people within the society they live. Back in the day of the Soviet Republics, the Russians used to specialise in this terrain dubbed 'Social Realism', which happened to be Stalin's favourite genre of film making. More pointedly, Stalin didn't like escapist fantasies because he didn't want anybody to escape from the reality where he was the dictator of the Soviet Republics. Such ideological thinking might seem quaint through the haze of history looking back, but I can assure you many a film maker suffered for the institutionalised love of realism and socialist realism at that. And if I might extend it a little bit, the modern day inheritor of thinking happens to be alive and well in Australian film bureaucracies, thanks to our institutions being modeled on things like MosFilm.
Anyway... 'Company Men' is the first film to attempt to explore the effects of the Global Financial Crisis in some social sense. By casting the GFC as the first mover the story manages to cover the lives of people who work for a company that fires them.
What's Good About It
The film is understated and not terribly stylish. It eschews the kind of style that has become the staple of comic book movies and the story remains decidedly man-size. There are no supermen or people with a special gift who can save the day. The reality inhabited by the character is a great approximation of the kind of thing we have seen around us in the wake of the GFC. There are some aspects that ring hollow, only because it comes from a movie full of stars, but the problems that are wrestled with in the film are genuine problems. And weirdly enough, this is refreshing - mainly because the recent escapist fare has been much too much.
Yet it doesn't matter for a moment that the film mostly meanders through the lives of these mundane characters. The drama inherent in the situation lends itself to pretty good viewing. It's a film for adults - not that there's anything wrong with kids' films - but this film isn't interested in titillation or adrenal excitement. It just wants to tell a story that makes you think.
What's Bad About It
The performances are good. There just seems to be one too many star in there. Kevin Costner as the brother in law with the blue collar house renovation business is just too much in the casting department. I'm also not a big fan of how simplistic the moral framework is about work itself. The film never arrives at the point to question the inherent value placed in work when it works quite hard to establish that maybe the top echelon don't deserve their big paychecks.
Also, this leads to the principle at stake being rather blurry. If Tommy Lee Jones' character has such reservations about how the firm is run, he actually has the option to start his own company given that he has the money to do it. This gets glossed over until towards the end.
What's Interesting About It
First off, I think it's interesting it got made at all. I thought Hollywood had lost its testicular fortitude when it came to making adult-oriented-cinema (for want of a better phrase). Obviously the GFC is impacting on the lives of even the most cosetted film exec. It reminds one of 'Sullivan's Travels', but without the humour. It feels like Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper really wanted to make a film that meant something rather than any old entertainment fare. It has such noble intentions, and it's dripping with it from the script through to the performances. One can forgive its humourless-ness.
I know I bagged out Kevin Costner being cast in it, but even he provides a performance that's busily working towards a message. The film isn't moving; ironically, the fact these big names are in it, trying to prop it up is more moving.
Anatomy Of Debt-Fueled Prosperity
One of the stranger aspects of the story is actually the finances of the household in the movie. At the start, Ben Affleck's character Bobby is earning 120k p.a. He's been the head of sales for 3 years, so presumably he's been paid something like that for 3 years. He drives a Porsche Spider, which turns out to be leased. His wife drives a Volvo station wagon, which is presumably owned outright. He lives in a big house in the suburbs with his wife and 2 kids, paying off the mortgage. His wife, has no job, but goes back to nursing, just to keep the cash flowing. The redundancy Bobby gets covers him for 3months of his 120k plus 4months support at an employment agency.
What I don't get is how he doesn't panic when he unexpectedly gets the redundancy. He gets angry, and then belligerent and insists he will find employment soon; but he simply doesn't panic about his money situation. instead he resists selling the house and giving up the Porsche all the way, and complains about not having his golf club membership paid. I found that really weird. It's like watching the finances of a crazy person until I realised that it captured the kind of sensibility about finance that was pervasive at the time the subprime mortgage crisis broke. Bobby isn't subprime, but he's in debt to his eyeballs and has stopped feeling it. the film gives you a unique insight into what that's like.
Myth Of American Manufacturing
The sting of post-modernity, as it were in both America and over here in Australia is that we lament the loss of manufacturing jobs. This film is right in line with the line of reasoning that the greatness of a country can only be shown to be true by the strength of the manufacturing sector it has. All the while analysis has shown that companies that outsource the manufacturing part still retain a great deal of wealth in America or Australia by and large, by doing so. The most poignant argument is that the skills lost would be hard to recover, but you sort of wonder if they were such great skills if they were so easily exported.
None of this aspect of the polemic is explored in the film - it's simply taken as a given that the hollowing out of industry is a sure sign of decay in industrial America when in fact the loss of low-skilled jobs has not been the real problem of the American economy of the last 30 years. Even 20years ago, Bill Clinton was on the campaign trail, talking to unions on his side of politics saying those low skilled jobs weren't coming back. America still prospered greatly in the 1990s.
The film does proceed on the assumption that if they could rebuild factories, then the prosperity due to Americans would return, but this makes the ending a lot more empty. Can there really be a future in putting back together the American manufacturing machine, using the reject workers that have been shed? It seems the solution is a lot more simplistic than the complexity of the problem. For every industry that goes into decline, there are things like Apple and Google and Facebook that come out of nowhere and become worth billions. One cannot help but feel there's something missing from the film makers' thinking on the subject - but hey, it's not often a movie allows you to ponder such problems deeply.
The Lies CEOs Tell
Tommy Lee Jones' character reports to his friend and co-founder of the company, who repeats that the share price is everything if they are to avoid a hostile takeover bid. To this end, the company engages in two rounds of restructuring to appease the investors. Interestingly enough, we see a scene where Tommy Lee Jones' character Gene has to field questions from fund managers, in a moment of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Of course he is damned for it, but that makes you wonder about CEOs of publicly listed firms.
These guys make a lot of money. If you want to know about the 1% that the occupy Wall Street movement is talking about, these guys are it. And yet, in the context of management speak, they freely present the fund managers and share holders and financial types who hold the corporate bonds as the bullies. They also tell you that if the company doesn't pay the absurd amounts of moneys, the company won't be able to attract the best talent to be CEOs, which is a dubious claim. I mention this because in light of the recent spates of shareholder activism, it seems that fund managers are finally being able to exercise the proper power that their shares represent. I mean, really, was Sir Ralph Norris really worth $16m a year? That's C.C. Sabathia money.
We can always see CC Sabathia's value in his stat line. How can anybody ever know if Ralph Norris's work is worth a star Major League Baseball player's annual salary? Babe Ruth was once asked about his pay being higher than the US President. He responded, "I had a better year didn't I?"
If you asked Ralph Norris and all these other CEOs with insane millions per annum in salary, they'd tell you they had a good year. But how would you know for sure?
Why People Go Into Business
This was the most interesting question that was half-raised and quickly abandoned by the film. Part of a company's function is to provide a service or good for society. Why is it then that we feel that none of the big established firms would ever do something for the greater good unless it was out of blatant self-interest or self-preservation? The film comes close to talking about it, but instead of going deeper, the characters stop talking. I dare say they stop talking because the writer runs out of ideas or things for these characters to say, but the film is full of pregnant pauses that then cut to the next seemingly disconnected scene. It clearly isn't about just the money, but we're left wondering if that is all there is that makes American society. The film is interesting that way.
If the solution is to build a new company, then why are all these people struggling? Surely you need capital to make things work under capitalism. The disconnect is kind of interesting in this film. Somebody has to take the risk, but the negative results that come from taking the risks don't seem to land on the people who take the risks. Then again, that is the perfect description of the GFC. In any case it's an interesting film that way.
2011/12/06
Movie Doubles - 'The Eagle' & 'Tucker & Dale Vs Evil'
The Heart of Darkness As Broken Metaphor
Today's movie double is an accidental doubleheader thanks to the fine machine from Fetch TV. A little word on IP-TV in Australia - it's still way slow in parts but it's only going to get better. When the NBN is everywhere, IP-TV is going to rock. Anyway. Free plug for Fetch TV out of the way, it's time to wrestle with two movies that go up the river in the heart of darkness.
'The Eagle' is a sword and sandal epic about a young Roman officer who goes deep under cover into the land of the Picts, north of Hadrian's Wall to recover a lost symbol of the Eagle. It's classic adventure movie fare but it does have the advantage of working off the question at the end of 'Heart of Darkness' by Conrad, who rhetorically asks whether the Romans traveling to Britain were the civilised, traveling up the river in the heart of darkness. 'The Eagle' in all its post-modernity brings to forth the symmetry of that question. For, in the Eagle, the Roman officer and his slave reverse roles as a Briton and his slave in the land of the Picts.
'Tucker and Dave Vs Evil' is about a bunch of college kids who go deep into the Appalachian mountains for a holiday, only to encounter two hillbillies they think are psychotic axe-murdering chainsaw-massacre-ing serial killers - except told from the point of view of the hillbillies who are innocent bumpkin yokels. Hilarity ensues when the college kids start killing themselves by accident in one bizarre twist after another. There's no mistaking it - it's the heart of darkness text again, but turned on its head for comedic effect.
The Denizens Of The Dark
Who are these people living in the dark? In the Post-Colonial era we're trying to identify and identify with them all at once. The process of colonisation brings Romans to Britain, just as it brought Europeans to the Americas. The people who are invaded in these movies are lumped with the legacies of this process as much as the real cultures are lumped with the tremendous historic losses. Yet, it seems really pertinent to point out that the indigenous Picts in 'The Eagle' may look weird with their woad coating, but they're white boys and gals; just as the Hillbillies who are the invaded 'Other' in 'Tucker and and Dale Vs Evil' are as white boy as they come.
'The Eagle' presents us with a text that tries to synthesise a position out of the antithetical Roman heirarchy and indigenous Briton that is at once uncomfortable in the light of history as it is uncomfortable as a plot device. The film persists with the presentation because the project is to turn Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', rather bleak views about European civilisation into a positive. One suspects that to tell that version of history - and it must be said it is amazing how people on the British Isles are painfully aware of the successive waves of migration - they preferred to do it all white white boys. You wonder if the ark really is all that dark in 'The Eagle'
'Tucker and Dale' milk the best laughs from the plight of the invaded hillbilly. Suddenly it is the hillbillies who are beset by an aggressive outsider who seeks to frame them in the preconceptions they bring about hillbillies. The derogatory prejudice breeds paranoia to the point that the college kids panic and stumble and kill themselves in one freakish accident after another. True to the tradition of psychopath-in-the-cabin, a sheriff comes to the rescue and he too dies haplessly. The plot devices are all too familiar but they are all turned on their heads to make the point that hillbillies in the American imagination have garnered way too much negative prejudice, thanks to such wonderful films such as 'Deliverance' (Squeal like a pig!") and 'Southern Comfort'.
The Asymmetry Of Colonisation
At this point in history, we understand the process of colonisation which took place this side of Columbus had devastating consequences for indigenous populations around the world, but what gets overlooked is that great population migrations are a staple of human history. The Chinese pushed west who sent the Turks to the west, who pushed other peoples who eventually pushed against Ostrogoths and Visigoths. The Huns and Vandals come into history like marauding plagues but only because they flooded into the parts of the world that kept written records - and that world had regularly made expeditions to the edges of its known world.
In 'Tucker and Dale Vs Evil', the central joke lies in the fact that because both parties are culturally equivalent contemporary Americans, the difference in sub-cultural zones gets exaggerated into a kind of uncomprehending paranoia for both sides. At one, the fear of the other is projected outward onto fellow Americans which makes for great laughs. In 'The Eagle', we get to see the village of the Picts and it is strangely reminiscent of the village at the end of the river in 'Apocalypse Now'. In both films, what is asymmetrical in history is brought into symmetry by making equivalents out of 'the other'.
What's interesting is that it can only do this by positing the other as equally 'white' as the protagonists. This is notable in that in trying to slip away from imperialism, it has to accept the other as like 'us' - and this is much easier when they're white folk. In that sense these films are at the polar opposite of 'The Last Samurai' or 'Memoirs of a Geisha' which are attempts to re-colonise the colonised. (It's particularly bad in 'Memoirs of a Geisha' where they couldn't even cast real Japanese people to play Japanese people)
Why Go There?
This is a curious thing. Why does Alexander the Great go to Afghanistan and India? Why does Columbus set sail for America really? Or Cook for Australia or Armstrong for the Moon? The unknown has a way of filling the imagination and beckons adventurers. So, just as the West Indies failed to turn out to be the golden Japan of Columbus' dreams, equally, the Moon turned out to be a rocky, airless, hostile landscape. The places adventurers go are only interesting in as much as the imagination can project onto those places.
In that sense, the space in which Tucker and Dale exist is like a caricature of a certain kind of Americana, with forests, rivers, cabins and gas stands selling oddities. It looks more promising than the story can provide. There are echoes of 'Deliverance' but the space is a lot less textured. Equally, the college kids have no great ambition in going into that space. They just end up there for a holiday. The prosaic quality of this misadventure underscores the low mimetic comedy.
'The Eagle' spends a good deal of time on the Scottish Highlands, what with their wind-swept hills and craggy rock outcroppings. The landscape is made to look far more hostile that it might have been in its day. There were more trees in the British Isles at the time of the Romans, but that seems to not have crossed the minds of the film makers much. The space the characters travel in is a highly abstracted kind of Scotland. Again, the landscape helps to lend perspective to the small-ness of the human endeavor, which underscores a high mimetic tone, but only because it is not comedy. It could easily be the college kids or Tucker and Dale looking for the lost Roman Eagle.
Going Insane In The Darkness
There is a moment when the roles of the Roman Marcus and the Briton Esca reverse, and Marcus mus now play the role of the slave to survive. It is as if the paradigm is overturned upside down - a bit like the Prince and the Pauper. Then, there is a drunken party where the Picts all drink themselves stupid. The sequence of events is quite metaphorical, like an initiation rite. Equally, when Alison falls into the water and bumps her head, only to wake up with the hillbillies is a moment of transformation. Yet, the beautifiul twist in the film is that she seems to gain sanity through the transformation, for we find out it is the leader of the college kids who is genuinely psychotic.
People have to go insane in the darkness - like Kurtz - in order for the narrative to make sense.
Today's movie double is an accidental doubleheader thanks to the fine machine from Fetch TV. A little word on IP-TV in Australia - it's still way slow in parts but it's only going to get better. When the NBN is everywhere, IP-TV is going to rock. Anyway. Free plug for Fetch TV out of the way, it's time to wrestle with two movies that go up the river in the heart of darkness.
'The Eagle' is a sword and sandal epic about a young Roman officer who goes deep under cover into the land of the Picts, north of Hadrian's Wall to recover a lost symbol of the Eagle. It's classic adventure movie fare but it does have the advantage of working off the question at the end of 'Heart of Darkness' by Conrad, who rhetorically asks whether the Romans traveling to Britain were the civilised, traveling up the river in the heart of darkness. 'The Eagle' in all its post-modernity brings to forth the symmetry of that question. For, in the Eagle, the Roman officer and his slave reverse roles as a Briton and his slave in the land of the Picts.
'Tucker and Dave Vs Evil' is about a bunch of college kids who go deep into the Appalachian mountains for a holiday, only to encounter two hillbillies they think are psychotic axe-murdering chainsaw-massacre-ing serial killers - except told from the point of view of the hillbillies who are innocent bumpkin yokels. Hilarity ensues when the college kids start killing themselves by accident in one bizarre twist after another. There's no mistaking it - it's the heart of darkness text again, but turned on its head for comedic effect.
The Denizens Of The Dark
Who are these people living in the dark? In the Post-Colonial era we're trying to identify and identify with them all at once. The process of colonisation brings Romans to Britain, just as it brought Europeans to the Americas. The people who are invaded in these movies are lumped with the legacies of this process as much as the real cultures are lumped with the tremendous historic losses. Yet, it seems really pertinent to point out that the indigenous Picts in 'The Eagle' may look weird with their woad coating, but they're white boys and gals; just as the Hillbillies who are the invaded 'Other' in 'Tucker and and Dale Vs Evil' are as white boy as they come.
'The Eagle' presents us with a text that tries to synthesise a position out of the antithetical Roman heirarchy and indigenous Briton that is at once uncomfortable in the light of history as it is uncomfortable as a plot device. The film persists with the presentation because the project is to turn Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', rather bleak views about European civilisation into a positive. One suspects that to tell that version of history - and it must be said it is amazing how people on the British Isles are painfully aware of the successive waves of migration - they preferred to do it all white white boys. You wonder if the ark really is all that dark in 'The Eagle'
'Tucker and Dale' milk the best laughs from the plight of the invaded hillbilly. Suddenly it is the hillbillies who are beset by an aggressive outsider who seeks to frame them in the preconceptions they bring about hillbillies. The derogatory prejudice breeds paranoia to the point that the college kids panic and stumble and kill themselves in one freakish accident after another. True to the tradition of psychopath-in-the-cabin, a sheriff comes to the rescue and he too dies haplessly. The plot devices are all too familiar but they are all turned on their heads to make the point that hillbillies in the American imagination have garnered way too much negative prejudice, thanks to such wonderful films such as 'Deliverance' (Squeal like a pig!") and 'Southern Comfort'.
The Asymmetry Of Colonisation
At this point in history, we understand the process of colonisation which took place this side of Columbus had devastating consequences for indigenous populations around the world, but what gets overlooked is that great population migrations are a staple of human history. The Chinese pushed west who sent the Turks to the west, who pushed other peoples who eventually pushed against Ostrogoths and Visigoths. The Huns and Vandals come into history like marauding plagues but only because they flooded into the parts of the world that kept written records - and that world had regularly made expeditions to the edges of its known world.
In 'Tucker and Dale Vs Evil', the central joke lies in the fact that because both parties are culturally equivalent contemporary Americans, the difference in sub-cultural zones gets exaggerated into a kind of uncomprehending paranoia for both sides. At one, the fear of the other is projected outward onto fellow Americans which makes for great laughs. In 'The Eagle', we get to see the village of the Picts and it is strangely reminiscent of the village at the end of the river in 'Apocalypse Now'. In both films, what is asymmetrical in history is brought into symmetry by making equivalents out of 'the other'.
What's interesting is that it can only do this by positing the other as equally 'white' as the protagonists. This is notable in that in trying to slip away from imperialism, it has to accept the other as like 'us' - and this is much easier when they're white folk. In that sense these films are at the polar opposite of 'The Last Samurai' or 'Memoirs of a Geisha' which are attempts to re-colonise the colonised. (It's particularly bad in 'Memoirs of a Geisha' where they couldn't even cast real Japanese people to play Japanese people)
Why Go There?
This is a curious thing. Why does Alexander the Great go to Afghanistan and India? Why does Columbus set sail for America really? Or Cook for Australia or Armstrong for the Moon? The unknown has a way of filling the imagination and beckons adventurers. So, just as the West Indies failed to turn out to be the golden Japan of Columbus' dreams, equally, the Moon turned out to be a rocky, airless, hostile landscape. The places adventurers go are only interesting in as much as the imagination can project onto those places.
In that sense, the space in which Tucker and Dale exist is like a caricature of a certain kind of Americana, with forests, rivers, cabins and gas stands selling oddities. It looks more promising than the story can provide. There are echoes of 'Deliverance' but the space is a lot less textured. Equally, the college kids have no great ambition in going into that space. They just end up there for a holiday. The prosaic quality of this misadventure underscores the low mimetic comedy.
'The Eagle' spends a good deal of time on the Scottish Highlands, what with their wind-swept hills and craggy rock outcroppings. The landscape is made to look far more hostile that it might have been in its day. There were more trees in the British Isles at the time of the Romans, but that seems to not have crossed the minds of the film makers much. The space the characters travel in is a highly abstracted kind of Scotland. Again, the landscape helps to lend perspective to the small-ness of the human endeavor, which underscores a high mimetic tone, but only because it is not comedy. It could easily be the college kids or Tucker and Dale looking for the lost Roman Eagle.
Going Insane In The Darkness
There is a moment when the roles of the Roman Marcus and the Briton Esca reverse, and Marcus mus now play the role of the slave to survive. It is as if the paradigm is overturned upside down - a bit like the Prince and the Pauper. Then, there is a drunken party where the Picts all drink themselves stupid. The sequence of events is quite metaphorical, like an initiation rite. Equally, when Alison falls into the water and bumps her head, only to wake up with the hillbillies is a moment of transformation. Yet, the beautifiul twist in the film is that she seems to gain sanity through the transformation, for we find out it is the leader of the college kids who is genuinely psychotic.
People have to go insane in the darkness - like Kurtz - in order for the narrative to make sense.
Labels:
'The Eagle',
'Tucker amp; Dale Vs. Evil',
Cinema,
Film,
Literature,
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