Talk about softening the blow

I was pretty disappointed when I heard that Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who in this year’s Christmas special. Not upset — he’s given us what I consider to be the definitive New Who Doctor, and if he wants to take a bow while he’s still in peak form, I can’t blame him. Not to mention that it’s always exciting to anticipate what fresh face we’ll get to see next. But I’m still disappointed. Smith is such a joy to watch, and he’s done such a great job bridging the feel of classic and new Who in his performance that I had been hoping to see him grow with the role for a few more years, especially since he started so young. Though he might pop in here and there in the future, his era is coming to an end, and it’s a bit of a shame that we won’t get another year or two out of him.

But this news, if true, could very well make up for it. I’ve tried listening to the audio recordings of some of those missing episodes. It’s just not the same. Half the reason (possibly the biggest reason) to watch the classic episodes, apart from the imagination and wit of their better scripts, is to relish the performances. The core cast members especially are often doing quite a lot with their roles, and nobody more so than the people playing the Doctors. Finally getting to see such ballyhooed stories as “Evil of the Daleks” would be a real treat. I’ll definitely be keeping an ear to the ground on this rumor. Via io9. ☕

Sinister ☕ d. Scott Derrickson, 2012

 

Morality tales aren’t really about nuance; they’re about getting across a point clearly and forcefully. I’m willing to forgive Sinister its one-dimensionality because it achieves two modest goals requisite for most great horror films: 1) it’s creepy, and 2) it is about evil. The first goal ought not be much of a stretch for someone as well traveled in horror filmmaking as Derrickson or the producers of Blumhouse, which has recently rolled in the dough with other morally-inflected shockers like Insidious and the Paranormal Activity franchise. Sinister is of a piece with those films, relying primarily on atmosphere, suspenseful build-up, and cheap-but-effective jump scares.

“Are you from a defective clone batch?”

Commander Strax at a kids’ Q&A session. Sample quote: “I serve a penance to restore the honor of my clone batch. As a result, The Doctor chose the most fearsome punishment a Sontaran can endure: helping the weak, and sick, and  feeble… or humans, as I like to call them.” Via io9. ☕

Quote of the week: Williams on “the new social world”

The critical demystification has indeed to continue, but always in association with practice: regular practice, as part of a normal education, in this transforming labour process itself: practice in the production of alternative ‘images’ of the ‘same event’; practice in processes of basic editing and the making of sequences; practice, following this in direct autonomous composition.

We shall already have entered a new social world when we have brought the means and systems of the most direct communication under our own direct and general control. We shall have transformed them from their normal contemporary functions as commodities or as elements of a power structure. We shall have recovered these central elements of our social production from the many kinds of expropriator. But socialism is not only about the theoretical and practical ‘recovery’ of those means of production, including the means of communicative production, which has been expropriated by capitalism. In the case of communications, especially, it is not only, though it may certainly include, the recovery of a ‘primitive’ directness and community. Even in the direct modes, it should be institution much more than recovery, for it will have to include the transforming elements of access and extension over an unprecedentedly wide social and inter-cultural range. — Raymond Williams, from “Means of Communication as Means of Production”

If I were ever to teach a class on film, this would probably be a required text. Williams goes a long way toward clarifying the social importance to every level of society of understanding media. ☕

The Winter 2013 anime review

Apart from my reading schedule, the most media I’ve consumed in the last few months has mainly been anime. Since anime has comprised most of my entertainment diet, and since the 2013 winter season ended just a few weeks ago, here’s a set of capsule reviews of the stuff I’ve been consuming…

The sliding scale to movie hell

The last time I ranted peremptorily about Star Trek Into Darkness, the conversation in the comments reminded me that not everyone agrees what Star Trek was or should be. Yet the opening lines in this early review only reinforces my curmudgeonly stance toward the rebooted franchise. See if you can spot where the problem lies:

How quickly a steady starship can veer off-course. JJ Abrams’ brainy, ballsy 2009 reboot of Trek has given way to a shallow, shrill, all-action sequel that reduces the characters to parodies. The camaraderie between Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) now makes no sense: one is a risk-taking, rule-breaking rascal, the other’s a whiny geek; their dynamic brings to mind a socially inept schoolkid who thinks his bully is his friend. Scotty, Chekov and McCoy are just silly voices in uniforms, and beyond demonstrating her fluent Klingon, Zoe Saldana’s Uhura gets little to do except wonder why her pointy-eared boyfriend is bad at discussing his feelings (d’uh!).

If Nick Dent didn’t specifically mention in the second sentence that this is a review of the 2013 sequel, I would’ve thought this to be a near-perfect encapsulation of the first reboot. The fact that he regards Star Trek 2009 as “brainy” and “ballsy” compared to Into Darkness suggests that film critics have had to hire the Army Corps of Engineers to construct a ladder down to Hell to find a place low enough to set the bar for what counts as brainy and ballsy. Perhaps that’s another reason why the love for ST09 pisses me off so much. It’s not that I’m against enjoying big, dumb summer blockbusters. But when a big, dumb summer blockbuster rolls off the Tinseltown assembly line and it’s directed by Michael Bay, it is what it is, and is recognized (and most often derided) as such. When it’s directed by J.J. Abrams, it’s brainy and ballsy, though no smarter or technically more proficient. Apparently J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek is now a golden standard by which we measure summer blockbusters, so much so that even his own sequel can’t measure up. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sliding scale to movie hell. I’m not, by the way, using this review to confirm whether or not Star Trek Into Darkness is really as bad as I’d feared; it may, contra whatever this critic says, be a very good film. That’s the not the point. The point is that I don’t think Dent is alone in his perspective on Abrams’s Star Trek. The point is that we’ve lost our cultural moorings where it comes to establishing benchmarks for taste and accomplishment. When the first film — which itself was a shallow, shrill, all-action reboot of a franchise that was initially intended by its creator to be the opposite — now towers above its successor as a model of depth, restraint, and thrills, it’s pretty clear to me that we expect nothing from our entertainment, and we therefore get nothing in return. Except we call it an embarrassment of riches when the next-worst thing comes out a few years later. No wonder Purgatory looks so enticing if you see it from a subjacent angle.

Via Opus. ☕

In praise of controversy

When Roger Ebert died a couple weeks ago, movie fans around the world mourned. Most eulogies ranged from respectful overviews of his life and work to moving testimonials extolling his prose and insight. I may have been remiss in not commenting immediately on his passing, since his absence does indeed leave a large void in the profession of film criticism, but what I’ll miss most about Ebert has somewhat to do with his accomplishments, and somewhat to do with the particular role he played in pop culture. These two things are related, but not the same. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that when I’ve mentioned Ebert, it has not always been in a flattering way. Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say: I did appreciate his work, and he was a skilled critic. What we’ve lost, however, isn’t a good film critic but rather the only film critic in America (possibly the world) who mattered to the moviegoing public.

Lots of people read reviews. They visit Rotten Tomatoes or perhaps they follow their local paper’s resident critic; maybe there’s a blogger they particularly like, or maybe they just have that one Facebook friend who reliably gives the lowdown on everything s/he’s seen recently. There are still dozens — hundreds — of critics of Ebert’s caliber out there, and there are several that I frankly enjoy more than him. The thing about Ebert is that he came along at exactly the right moment in our culture to carve out a specific kind of persona. For a variety of reasons, not all of them having to do with his actual prose or personality, Ebert became the archetype of the Critic we all imagine when we think of those sitting in a darkened theater with pen and paper a week or two days before the release of a movie, ready to praise or savage it for their public. For the most part, Ebert was perceived as a benevolent sage, as opposed to an Addison de Witt, and this was an image he earned. However, his unique status as America’s preeminent film critic enabled him to attract a great deal of attention whenever he espoused views that weren’t always enlightened or ingratiating with the majority of his readership. Being the only film critic in the world who mattered to Joe Public meant that he was also virtually the only film critic in the world who could generate controversy simply by stating his opinion. (Sorry, Armond. Only haters and intrigued contrarians like me care what you think.)

Thinking back over the last twenty years or so, it’s difficult to think of many mainstream critics who have done anything that drew attention to the substance of their opinions by created anything resembling a controversy. Even if Ebert wasn’t the one to create the controversy, he usually benefitted from it. I recall when David Lynch’s Lost Highway came out, advertisements ran in the newspapers bragging that Siskel and Ebert had given it two thumbs down, which prompted a conversation about the relevance of critics and the way they resonated with various audiences. A popular YouTube video shows the pair debating with John Simon the merits of Return of the Jedi; the fact that this video is making the rounds thirty years after it was broadcast indicates that there’s a certain amount of stock in the fact that critics came to verbal blows over what is now a touchstone film in popular entertainment. Not just any critics; Siskel and Ebert.

There were similar mini-controversies from just the last decade. Remember the kerfuffle over Ebert’s four-star review of Knowing, which prompted not one but two further blog posts defending his opinion? Then there was the incident in which he reviewed a movie without having watched the entire thing, being forced to walk back his scathing review later. How about his not-entirely-unfair tweet about “Jackass” Ryan Dunn’s death? And, of course, there was his dismissal of video games as art. The point isn’t that Ebert was right or wrong in any of this stuff. The point is that when anybody but Ebert says or does stuff like this, the only people who care are probably hardcore cinephiles who thrive on manufacturing topics for debate. But when Ebert says it, it reaches a larger circumference of the public sphere. At least, it did. Now that Ebert is gone, there is nobody who occupies that particular place in American culture.

Much as I often lament the level of vitriol that passes for discourse these days, there is something to be said for having someone who stirs the pot productively — a provocateur who can bring attention to issues and generate actual debate, as opposed to name-calling and fiery denunciations of a truly Puritanical order. Public debate needs controversy to a certain extent. Not a culture war, per se, but issues framed in such a way as to amply demonstrate to the average citizen that s/he has a stake in whichever direction the issue is taken. Ebert did that for the movies. He knew that movies mattered, and he devoted his life to illustrating that as clearly as he was able. In that endeavor, I think his legacy was of success. But the degree to which that legacy remains immediate and relevant to the further evolution of motion pictures within our culture is anything but set in stone. With Ebert around, we always had a focal point around which to orient the larger discussion. With him gone, that responsibility falls to all of us with a vested interest in the subject, but none of us has the cachet he did. It is now incumbent upon the cineastes and cinephiles of the world to uphold Ebert’s legacy. As discourse wanes, so does the memory of his life’s work; let his death be commemorated by the continuing conversation. ☕

Doctor Who Series 7 ☕ “Hide”

“Hide” is probably not going to be remembered as a New Who classic the way “Blink” will be, but it has my vote for the best story of series 7 thus far. While I greatly admired “Asylum of the Daleks,” Moffat tried to pack oodles and oodles of stuff into it, and as a result, it felt a bit overstuffed, even if it did put its finger on a couple key veins running throughout the series and tap them brilliantly. “Hide” is also a bit overstuffed, but it feels complete and satisfying in a way that none of the other episodes has so far. (Kudos to writer Neil Cross for nailing the second time out!)

Charlie Jane Anders complains a bit that “Hide” exemplifies the trend in recent Who that “every story is a love story.” A true enough observation, but in the case of this particular episode, I don’t see it as a weakness. On the contrary, I think it grapples with this theme rather meaningfully while delivering some grand moments. (Spoilers after the jump!)

George Lucas, filmmaker of the millennium?

While I presume that most of you have seen the Star Wars prequels, I expect that many of you have not heard of Camille Paglia, who thinks that Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is the greatest work of art in the last thirty years. My ignorance is great, and therefore I hadn’t heard of Paglia until Sonny Bunch referenced her in a confession of his ten biggest blown judgment calls from the past decade. The interview to which he linked is long on art snobbery and short on art discussion; nerds the world over excerpted Paglia’s comment that asserts quite a place for George Lucas on the Iron Throne of contemporary culture:

Yes, the long finale of Revenge of the Sith has more inherent artistic value, emotional power, and global impact than anything by the artists you name. It’s because the art world has flat-lined and become an echo chamber of received opinion and toxic over-praise. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes—people are too intimidated to admit what they secretly think or what they might think with their blinders off.

The interview was conducted in the wake of Paglia’s book, Glittering Images, which concludes with a chapter aggressively defending and reframing Lucas’s stature as an artist and his life’s work as a cultural touchstone. In reviewing the book, New York Times Sunday Book Review critic John Adams retorted:

There is something deeply depressing about having to argue over the cultural dominance of an immensely successful and beloved filmmaker like George Lucas in the context of art history. In anointing Lucas, Paglia has signed on to a currently popular thesis that blames serious artists who, because of their arrogance, have lost touch with the general public and brought about their own marginalization. This argument claims that the conventional fine arts have diminished in significance, leaving only those innovators who have “embraced technology” as worthy of our attention. This is a thin thread on which to hang the appraisal of a living artist. A “technology” is no more than a way of doing something, a means to an end, and throughout history artists have been stimulated by new technological and conceptual ideas. [...] What matters is not the technology itself (and your 9-year-old will tell you that the original “Star Wars” films look fairly clunky by today’s standards). What speaks to us in a work of art and makes it resistant to the passage of time is the depth of the humanity it expresses. There is entertainment, and then there is something infinitely richer: what we call “the sublime,” the true rec­ord of our spiritual condition that we get from serious and complex artworks. The films of William Kentridge, the serene Land Art of Andy Goldsworthy, the paintings of Anselm Kiefer, “Einstein on the Beach” — all these are sublime. “Star Wars” is not.

At first glance, this entire micro-conflagration threatened to overflow the banks of the River Pretension into the Flood Plain Bullshit. Neither Paglia’s Vice interviewer, Sean Craig, nor Adams bothered to press the case for or against the film itself. It was simply taken for granted by Craig that Paglia must be onto something when she asserts that Episode III is one of the greatest works of art ever made, just as it was taken for granted by Adams that, simply put, it’s not.

I’m fully aware of the stakes within geekdom. On my side are the haters, those who have a myriad of problems with the prequels, much of which is borne of an overattachment to nostalgia (the original trilogy was better because we imprinted on it first), but a lot of it stemming from Lucas’s hackneyed handling of cliches he did so much to inject into the mainstream. A big sticking point with me is that Anakin’s conversion to the Dark Side never feels authentic; it is a plot point shoehorned into by plot necessity, with weak writing undercutting character development at every turn. On the other side are those who either genuinely love the prequels (and many of them are younger, never having grown up with the original trilogy like my generation did, and who are utterly besotted with the digital f/x while being turned off by the dated look of the Episodes four through six) or who forgive their flaws because… well, those battle scenes are freakin’ sweet. Or so they say.

Then, of course, there are those who patrol the murky waters of academic criticism, like Paglia. Opponents in that realm are much more attuned to larger ramifications like Lucas’s famed reliance upon world mythology or the implicit critiques of our various political systems. Generally speaking, Lucas has enough fans across the spectrum — low, middle, and highbrow — to ensure that all six parts of the Star Wars saga will remain ensconced in the minds of at least another generation or two. My side has effectively lost this cultural skirmish in populist terms, even though I suppose the ivory tower set has our back for different reasons.

But even the biggest fans of the prequels would rarely venture to say that Episode III is, like, the best thing EVER (in living memory), which is why Paglia’s comments in interviews (like this one) generated heated discussion. What I needed to know was why the hell such a mediocre film grabbed a famous art critic’s attention and blew her mind. Fortunately, a simple Google search sated my curiosity (as it often does). Paglia published an adapted excerpt of the Episode III chapter from her book in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In it, she states her case that Lucas’s wedding of technical innovation to his artistic imagination is essentially a perfect union of vision and craft; though she doesn’t acknowledge it as such, it is a strikingly auteurist piece of criticism, with all the strengths and drawbacks that entails.

Note that it’s not necessarily the entire film that raptured Paglia to fangirl heaven, but the climactic duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin in particular:

A miniature set (at 1132 scale) of Mustafar’s craggy black landscape was carved out of foam on a massive platform, which was raised so that the 40-foot-long lava river (composed of 15,000 gallons of the translucent food additive methylcellulose, tinted bright yellow) could be under-lighted to glow fiery red and burnt orange. Then the entire platform was tilted so that the river, recycled by a pump system, would flow. Clumps of ground cork simulated floating lava crust, while real smoke was fanned overhead. The result was a collaborative triumph of modern installation art.

The Mustafar duel, which took months of rehearsal, with fencing and saber drills conducted by the sword master Nick Gillard, was executed by Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor at lightning speed. It is virtuosic dance theater, a taut pas de deux between battling brothers, convulsed by attraction and repulsion. Their thrusts, parries, and slashes are like passages of aggressive speech. It is one of the most passionate scenes ever filmed between two men, with McGregor close to weeping. The personal drama is staged against a physical one: Wrangling and wrestling, Anakin and Obi-Wan fall against the control panels of a vast mineral-collection plant, which now starts to malfunction and fall to pieces. As the two men run and leap for their lives, girders, catwalks, and towers melt and collapse into the lava, demonstrating the fragility of civilization confronted with nature’s brute primal power.

We could debate the validity of Paglia’s interpretations of the mise-en-scene. The way she Armonds the production design into a nature/civilization dichotomy is an interesting tangent that she doesn’t bother to justify, as are most of her observations about the film. That said, it’s apparent that she’s given the matter a lot of thought, and as criticism, it’s a great performance. Especially if considered from an auteurist perspective, it’s easy to understand why George Lucas, of all people, emerges for Paglia as the most significant figure in contemporary art. The man’s impact on pop culture has been seismic, and, narratively speaking, the Mustafar battle is arguably the lynchpin of the works for which Lucas will be remembered. Couple that with Paglia’s implication that the industrialist figure is an artist of a peculiarly late-capitalist kind, turning mass production and technological advance into his palette, with postmodern society as his canvas, and you do have a pretty strong (if unintentionally cynical) case that Lucas is the pre-eminent artist of the most pre-eminent art form of the early 21st century. Only a cineaste Tony Stark could have created something like Episode III’s climax, therefore Iron Man is the filmmaker of the century. Or something to that effect.

It’s an incredibly Marxist argument, even if it subverts every conclusion you might expect a Marxist to draw from the success of the Star Wars saga. For Paglia, the pudding’s proof is in the detailed litany of material factors at play. The cameras, the models, the toys, the Lucas family history, the worshipfulness of consumers… Paglia’s essay is a sort of masterpiece of interpretation factual material details as artistically significant in themselves. But she neglects style. For someone whose background is art history, the lack of detail in her discussion of things like composition, the juxtaposition of edits, the significance of the sound design — it’s all a bit vague. It’s like she’s aware that all these things exist, yet what’s most important is her idiosyncratic understanding of what Lucas is “saying” with Revenge of the Sith’s climax. It’s the sort of thing an amateur blogger like me can sort of get away with, provided nobody out there has the energy to call him on it, but it’s not the sort of thing a renowned academic — especially one so assiduously contrarian — can or ought to get away with.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith may very well be a the supreme (or sublime) expression of George Lucas as an artist, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great film or a great work of art. Hundreds of shoddy or meh films have been made by unique artists; the singularity of an artist’s vision doesn’t guarantee greatness or quality, even if it is of interest to those who find such a vision to be appealing or fascinating. It’s telling that Paglia’s apology of Episode III concludes not with a summation of the film’s artistic strengths, but with a biographical gloss on the relationship between the saga and the man who wrought it: “The exquisite tenderness with which strong men handle babies here surely reflects Lucas’s own experience as a single parent who retired for two years to raise the first of his three adopted children. “Expand our universe!” Lucas commands his artists and technicians. He is a man of machines yet a lover of nature, his wily persona of genial blandness masking one of the most powerful and tenacious minds in contemporary culture.”

Absent the protestations of a true believer (who would likely argue for no more or less than for the prequels being solid entertainment), there are two prevailing defenses of the Star Wars prequels offered by thoughtful fans at the moment. One, the auteurist defense, argues that because the films adhere to or explicate Lucas’s grand artistic vision, they achieve greatness. This appears to be Paglia’s quintessential argument. Two, the relativity defense, argues that the prequels may not be masterpieces (especially in relation to the beloved original trilogy), but they’re not as terrible as haters make them out to be, and Episode III is the best of them.

The Star Wars prequels have certainly raked in tons of money, and tons of people enjoyed forking over cash for tickets and rewatching them on DVD. McDonald’s has probably served more cheeseburgers than any other restaurant chain, but any beef connoisseur will tell you that, yes, 22 billion people can be wrong. The success of McD’s is a testament to the shrewdness of Ray Kroc’s business model, not his skill as a gourmet. Just as a chef is not judged on the value of his personality, but the taste of his food, so Lucas’s films are not judged on the basis of his supposed “vision,” but of their quality; and praising Episode III for being the best of the prequels is like praising a bowl of soup for not being served with a fly in it.

Changing your perspective on your own characters

Dan Swensen hasn’t updated Surly Muse much lately — mostly, I suspect, because he’s been busy polishing up his debut novel, Orison, soon to be released by Nine Muses Press. In his most recent piece, he reflects on how flipping the gender of his protagonist helped him grow as a writer and gave added dimension to his story. A central point he emphasizes is that this was done in service of the story, not “to get Magic Feminism Cookies or whatever.” Perhaps the most fascinating part of his post — and the part with which I most closely identify — is that this change was simply a necessary part of the process that helped him get a handle on the story he wanted to tell. That is, despite the external benefits he may derive from having made this particular creative decision, it was inherently an internally-motivated choice that seems to have been more about, well, enhancing his own enjoyment of his work and his creative process. Because Dan is such a gracious and genuinely progressive person, he repeatedly clarifies that there’s nothing inherently wrong with making a conscious effort to be more inclusive or to break out of the often chauvinistic cliches that tend to dominate fantasy; it’s just that, for him, that was not the overriding factor, but more of a natural outcome.

There are a couple of reasons I wanted to highlight his post. First, because I like reading Surly Muse, and I missed it. Second (and more materially), I think a lot of writers forget what a kick they can get out of writing something that challenges them as creators. I don’t mean exclusively fiction authors, either. Even essayists, bloggers, dramatists, poets, you-name-it can find that turning one element of a story (or non-narrative text) completely on its head snaps your perspective into focus in new ways, fresh as a snowball to the kisser. It’s invigorating; an invitation to a game. Playing around can be serious fun, and very good for both the soul and one’s craft. Sometimes this process is a simple thought experiment, or a briefly-entertained notion in a preliminary brainstorming session. If carried through to its fulfillment, though, sometimes it can revolutionize and heighten the work itself. For Orison, the decision to change a character’s gender was necessary, but that doesn’t always have to be the switch that has to be flipped. What’s more, the benefits reaped from being willing to make such a drastic alteration can produce a corollary effect to better craftsmanship: joy. Joy in the work itself. That’s something we can all strive for, and it’s a lesson we often need reminding of from time to time. ☕

2013 reading update

For the last several weeks, I’ve been spending a great deal of time catching up on various things, which hasn’t left a lot of time for blogging. (Hence the paucity of posting.) Directly after Christmas, I caught up a bit on my video gaming, playing through XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which was tremendously fun. This occupied two solid weeks of my leisure time. Then I began catching up on my TV shows, including both live action and anime. I’m almost up to date on Once Upon a Time, and I’m currently following at least seven shows currently simulcasting on Crunchyroll. The other big project for 2013 has been a reading project I’ve dubbed a “primer.” I will be heading back to grad school in the fall as a literary studies major. While I have a background as an English major, my emphasis was on creative writing; this has left quite a few gaps in my literary knowledge (even beyond those previously outlined). To that end, my primer was designed to address specific areas of interest that may develop into specializations once my academic career gets underway. So far, it’s been immensely rewarding. My progress is as follows:

• The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Language of the Night by Ursula K. LeGuin
• White Noise by Don DeLillo
• The Conquering Sword of Conan by Robert E. Howard
• A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
• Gather, Darkness! by Fritz Leiber
• Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

Some of these books I actually read back in the tail end of 2012, and Genji is a white whale I’d been working on since 2011, but didn’t finish until this week. I’m currently chewing on Thomas Pynchon’s V., A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool, Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality #1: An Introduction, and John Dower’s Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.

Coming up I have W. E. B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk, Gene Wolf’s Book of the New Sun, Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, and Kawabata Yasunari’s Snow Country, among others. I’d be interested in discussing any of these in the comment thread. ☕

Playtime: Utopia, in part

I’ve a new article up at Playtime, in which I muse upon Glen Beck’s Independence Park and its relation to utopianism. Check it out. Also, many thanks to my editor, Tracy, who didn’t so much finesse the piece that I originally submitted so much as raise it from a lamb, nurse it to full bloom, personally butcher it, weave its fleece into a snowy white placemat, and serve upon that in a hand-carved bowl an aromatic and bracingly delectable lamb stew.  If you don’t like the taste, it’s probably because she left the seasoning to me. ☕

Who still reads the Watchmen?

“Watchmen is a 13 year old boy’s vision of what maturity in art means.” – Freddie deBoer

Alan Jacobs played devil’s advocate toward Watchmen and stirred up a good conversation over the course of two posts. His prompt was the basic assertion that what has come to be known as the greatest graphic novel of all time… “well, it’s not very good.” His reasoning stems from a dissatisfaction with Alan Moore’s propensity to be a bit too one-note in his tone and characterization — and that his one note is of dour cynicism.

The ensuring debate brought to mind two things. The first was to resurrect the memory of the Playtime Watchmen extravaganza we did back when the film came out. I was not a huge fan of the film, but I did not regard it as a total failure. In many ways, both its strengths and weaknesses were heightened (or exacerbated, if you will) from the source material. Not having read the bulk of Moore’s work, I can’t say with authority how much Watchmen conforms to Moore’s overall style or departs from it. I do know that I’ve read V for Vendetta and several volumes of Moore’s run on Swamp Thing, both of which are from the same era, and both of which I personally like better than Watchmen, even though Watchmen is clearly more ambitious and elegant in almost every formal respect. An exchange I had with the estimable Dan Swensen during the roundtable seems particularly relevant to the issues Jacobs raises:

Matt: I don’t think the film (or book) needed to provide false comfort, but again — it seems very reductive and pessimistic of the film to say, “Compromise. That’s the best we can do.  Screw it.”  I can understand why Anthony Lane thought the whole thing was a bit juvenile.  It doesn’t allow for any real goodness in human nature or the universe, obsessed with how things fall apart, get corrupted, or fail spectacularly to enact positive change.  It’s so engaged with darkness and messed up lives and a screwed up world that, for all its recognition of human flaws and foibles, isn’t recognizably human at all.  That was an impression I had when I first read the book, too, but I can see how the book was more a reaction against the times than a forward-looking, holistic vision.  V for Vendetta has the same set of problems that were exacerbated by the film, although I think Vendetta was even a little more compassionate than Watchmen.

Dan Swensen: I think putting it in those terms might be a bit unfair to the story. I think the text clearly condemns Veidt in the form of the Black Freighter story — Veidt tells himself (and others) this yarn about wanting to save the world and shape the future, but I think the Black Freighter is the story as it actually is — that he has become a monster of the worst kind. The group goes along with his plan not because they believe in it, but because exposing it would cause further damage — in other words, they must accept this evil in order to prevent an even greater evil. That, to me, is the core of the compromise, and in a way, the “new kind of heroism” that Veidt smugly talks about in the end; a heroism that goes beyond punching out criminals or saving babies from house fires. I think that saying it “doesn’t allow for goodness in human nature” is putting blinders on.

Which is not to say that the outcome isn’t dark and potentially depressing, because it surely is. But I think it’s unfair to say that it’s devoid of all hope.

Nearly four years have elapsed since that roundtable, and I still basically see things differently from Dan. The way I understand Moore’s perspective as expressed in Watchmen, even the best of all possible choices is still a horrendous moral compromise. In the world of Watchmen, heroes simply cannot be good. At best, they can only be the least despicable kind of bad. This is one of the main points of the work: to deconstruct the received notions of heroism. It is done quite effectively. So effectively that I honestly don’t understand where Dan (or anyone else) can see anything remotely resembling “hope” in the narrative. Wherever it exists, it is stamped out. Or, even if hope continues to exist, what can it do but beat its impotent fists against the edifices of time (which destroys all things, or brings them round again full circle, including the atrocities) and human frailty? I fully grasp that, from the perspective of the surviving protagonists at the end of Watchmen, they are doing what is necessary to prevent further suffering. The cost of that, though, is a false and doomed peace, which is inevitably accompanied by the corruption and venality of human civilization that necessitated such a terrible “new heroism” to begin with.

Something I’ve been struggling with more recently — the last two or three years, I would guess — is a nearly unchecked expansion of my cynical tendencies. I don’t like being cynical. It is the antithesis of everything I desire to be. Yet it worms its way into nearly every aspect of my worldview, wriggling at the edges of my vision like obsidian flagella, growing and writhing until it seizes upon and begins to strangle objects and ideas until they pallor with lost hope. It sucks. You’d think that with such a jaundiced way of looking at things, stories like Watchmen would appeal to me even more. However, the opposite is the case. The more weary I grow of the nature of things, the more I seek out art and entertainment that offer hope unapologetically.

Now, I don’t mean false hope. Treacle rots the gums and the soul. I’m talking about things that make me feel nourished and refreshed. Even a dystopian action flick like Dredd (quite good, by the way), with all its brutality and pessimism, knows enough to end on a note of hope, acknowledging the costs and losses of a battle fought and won, resolutely setting its jaw to face the battles yet to come. The worlds of Dredd and Watchmen (at least, the cinematic versions) are certainly cut from the same cloth, and they both hail from the same spiritual place in terms of their respective source materials. To be honest, I’d be hard pressed to articulate any more precisely why I felt much safer in the quasi-fascistic hands of Dredd than the hopeless nihilism of Watchmen while still maintaining any moral credibility of my own. Yet I find that the “hard truths” of Watchmen don’t strike me as completely true. Most of the great art hints at the possibility of redemption, be it generations removed or perhaps even beyond the veil of death. In Watchmen, though, redemption is a sadistic illusion bought with blood and psychopathology: “heroism,” in other words.

None of my reservations about Watchmen have much to do with its art; they have to do with where I stand in relation to its moral perspective. V for Vendetta (the comic) ends on a similarly pessimistic note, yet it is a note that problematizes everything that’s come before it in an interesting and morally poignant way. The character, V, spent the entire narrative committing acts of terror and murder in the name of total liberty — largely as a personal reaction against the total tyranny of the fascist government. Moore’s script set up a dichotomy between tyranny and freedom, and encouraged sympathy for V’s cause, even though his methods were little less totalitarian than the government’s against which he fought. The film adaptation embraced V and V’s methods, which made it one of the most repugnant superhero films in recent memory. Moore, though, understood what a dangerous line his antihero had drawn and gamboled across. That’s why he ends his narrative with an acknowledgment that even righteous fury, if misdirected, will breed only more of the same. A pessimistic ending, but morally astute. V’s revolution fails, but then, V was never a hero; he was a revolutionary. And the people who carry on his tainted legacy — the fascists of the future — are the ones making the choice to live by the codes they have received. In Watchmen, the heroes are not revolutionaries; they have the power to offer a choice to people. They refuse to do so or are destroyed. Watchmen condemns this choice, but offers no alternative. At the end of V, a former police inspector walks into the darkness, carrying the knowledge of that choice with him into the future, where perhaps it may flower in more fertile soil. In Watchmen, the choice dies with Rorschach, and the countdown to doomsday begins again.

Maybe it is putting blinders on to suggest that Watchmen doesn’t allow for goodness in human nature, but it certainly indicts its capacity to prevail.

_____

The other thing that the Jacobs posts brought to mind was the notion that Watchmen probably deserves its canonical status. The proof isn’t simply in the pudding; it’s in the people who debate the merits of the recipe. The comic finished its run in 1987; about twenty-six years ago. An entire generation has grown up since then that was not around to read the comic in its original form, yet both young and old readers continue to discuss what it means, how it means it, and whether or not it is still relevant. You’ll notice that it is frequently canonical works whose relevance is continually questioned. Non-canonical works are usually simply forgotten. Nobody discusses them at all, even if it’s just to ask if they should be discussed. As always, I was struck by how intelligent and how passionate the commenters talked about Watchmen and comics in general.  This time, though, it particularly resonated that we are far enough removed from its Cold War context (some of us generationally as well as by time’s passage) that this work really must stand on its own. It is apparent to me that the comic continues to resonate, even with all the caveats that include phrases like “for its time.” It was also refreshing to see so much attention refocused on Dave Gibbons, whose art carries the entire thing, and who tends to be denigrated by comic fans for having the temerity to happily profit from his co-creation, and not to be a cranky lunatic who worships a snake-god pseudo-ironically.

In the last couple years, I’ve seen many college syllabi on the Internet that include Watchmen as part of “great books” courses or which are specifically about comics or pop culture. It is also abundantly obvious that the conceit of problematizing superheroes is a fact of our culture. Most superhero stories still lean more toward the mythological or heroic mode when all is said and done, but in terms of influence, it would seem churlish not to study Watchmen as the tip of the watershed moment when comics finally legitimized themselves in the public sphere as a vehicle for stories of artistic ambition and thematic seriousness. Not that great comics or graphic novels didn’t precede Watchmen, but it was with it that superhero comics arrived. Jacobs may not think that Watchmen isn’t very good; he may well be right that it isn’t that good. What is significant is that an English literature scholar should be familiar enough with Watchmen, its context, and its legacy to feel compelled to comment, “apropos of nothing in particular,” on its merits more than twenty-six years after its initial publication. To me, this signifies that readers of English will continue to read the Watchmen — let alone query who watches them — for years to come. ☕

Whitewatching: up from “underground”

Impish as usual, Armond White’s latest dual review (a common device with him, in which two recent releases are presented as “dueling” for the soul of American pop culture) contrasts Steven Soderbergh’s alleged swan song, Side Effects, with Walter Hill’s latest, Bullet to the Head (which, given Hill’s age and its box office, might turn out to be his big screen swan song as well). What stood out to me in the review was this sentence:

Soderbergh’s Traffic, Erin Brokovich and Magic Mike belong to an era of cynical banality while Hill’s sharp, inventive technique seen in The Warriors, Geronimo and Undisputed went unappreciated (and underground in TV projects like Deadwood and Broken Trail).

Most film critics now pay lip service to the notion that television series have progressed to the point of being on par in quality with the average feature film. White is one of the old school holdouts who frequently peppers his reviews with sleights against TV in the form of pejorative references: if he thinks a film looks like crap, he’ll say it uses “TV aesthetics” or something along those lines. Of anybody working in his field, White is unquestionably the most candid about his prejudices. He thinks cinema is where it’s at, television is not, and that’s that. For this (among many, many other things), he takes a lot of flack. Justifiably so.

Yet I think it’s true that, while most folks would readily acknowledge TV’s ascendancy over the course of the last fifteen years or so, its newfound mantle as a viable medium for sophisticated art is not yet cemented. For one thing, there are very few shows that have attained what you might call canonical status. Even “classic” shows are usually framed in the context of their time, both in terms of the storytelling conventions adopted, but also budgets and available technology. The lexicon of cinema is very well documented by superb critics and widely accepted as a form of high art. The lexicon of TV, while almost as well documented, is not accepted as a form of high art, and there are very few critics who have made their names doing TV criticism. In most respects, TV criticism is from a fan perspective, rather than a critical perspective. There are many shows considered to be “favorites,” but very few considered to be “greats.”

This is evident in the non-presence of TV references in most film criticism up to the present. While shows like The Wire and The Sopranos are oft-cited as examples of shows that created benchmarks of quality — and thus are often represented in reviews of crime stories — it is not apparent precisely why those shows are benchmarks. At least, not in the context of the reviews in which they appear. Ben Affleck’s The Town invited comparisons to The Wire when it came out, but few critics teased those out. The Evening Standard and The Guardian were content simply to name-drop the series. The World Socialist Web Site asserted that the film didn’t have the show’s depth. Not that comparisons to films like The Departed or Heat are less relevant, but apart from both being crime genre and both fuzzing the moral/ethical line between cops and criminals, what are the relevant points of comparison between The Town and The Wire? Are there similar characters? Plotlines? Techniques? Even on a thematic level, do The Town and The Wire even overlap in their perspectives on the whole cop/criminal dichotomy?

This is typical of how film critics grapple with the relationship between TV and cinema. It is as if critics are aware that there is such a thing as TV; they are familiar with some several programs that they watch, or about which they’ve heard from friends, colleagues, or the buzz in the critical ether; they’ve noted the uptick in production values and aesthetic rigor in TV programming. Yet they don’t really know precisely how to merge the two worlds. So you often find TV references dangling just above the surface of film criticism, serving the purpose of telegraphing that the critics are pop culture savvy, without bothering to engage in any meaningful way with that hemisphere of the culture that keeps millions glued to their TV screens every night.

If I may inch out a little further on this limb before a chipmunk’s sneeze knocks me off, allow me to suggest that this is evidence of a prejudice that critics still harbor about television. Not just critics: us, too. I don’t doubt for a minute that most of us, if we’re honest, would acknowledge that the standards we have for TV shows are a bit lower than the standards we hold for cinema. And not just because of the vast differences still intrinsic to the two media. It’s because that’s simply how the culture views them. For all our protestations and bluster, it is my distinct impression that TV is regarded as the lesser medium. To be crude: cinema is for art; TV is for entertainment.

We all know that it isn’t that simple, though; we know it isn’t entirely true. Even a staunch TV-phobe like White is occasionally confronted by the limits of his prejudice. His Zero Dark Thirty review compares the film to ”the bland procedural manner TV viewers favor,” suggesting that it’s not so much a case that there are bland procedurals on TV, but that it is the people who like to watch TV that favor bland procedurals. In his review of Silver Linings, he says, “TV shows like Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and The New Normal turn everyday eccentricity banal.” Skim White’s reviews for yourself. Chances are, every time you find a reference to television, it is in the context of implying its erosion of good taste and standards. Yet when it comes to Walter Hill’s forays into TV Land, all of a sudden TV is “underground.” Banal, bland television gains a potentially subversive edge when the right person uses it. A medium utilized nearly four hours a day by almost all Americans is, by this formulation, veritably avant-garde.

As easy as it is to nitpick the consistency of White’s peccadilloes, in this instance, I think he’s fairly representative of his profession. There are dozens and dozens of TV critics out there who have been doing amazing stuff with their criticism (Alyssa Rosenberg does exceptional TV criticism, for instance), but film still gets the lion’s share of the physical ink, and it still occupies the place of pride in the hierarchy of artistic pop cultural pursuits. Just because this is the way things are does not mean that TV is “underground.” On the contrary. What would be useful, however, would be for film critics to start integrating TV into their discussion a little more proactively. Nobody knows for certain how technology will evolve, but it looks likely that TV and film are going to overlap a lot more in the future, so getting ahead of that curve would be a smart idea for film critics who don’t want to specialize themselves into irrelevance. The first step would be to recognize television’s potential and to start sifting through how much of that potential has been historically realized. Many critics have already begun doing this. I hope White and his kind come in from the cold sooner rather than later. ☕

Reader question: What 2013 movies am I looking forward to?

Another reader question. Rob is pretty straightforward:

[A]ny 2013 movies you’re really looking forward to?

Indeed. My primary go-to guide is this io9 preview, which covers 77 sci-fi/fantasy flicks. Since that kind of stuff is definitely my bag, let me just run down a couple highlights, listed in chronological order.

_____

G.I. Joe: Retaliation – I dug the first one. What else can I say? Bring on the mountaineering ninja battles.

Upstream Color – Shane Carruth has finally made his second movie. Being as how Primer is one of the masterpieces of the 2000s, I couldn’t be more excited for this. I’m especially atwitter over the Kubrickean visual rhymes all over the most recent trailer. I’ll go ahead and say that I hope this will not only be one of the best (if not the best) films of the year, but of the decade.

Oblivion – Cool trailer. Joseph Kosinski did an awesome job with Tron: Legacy, and the biggest misstep with that film was casting Garret Hedlund in the lead role. With Tom Cruise as the headliner, I’m thinking this will rock.

This is the End aka The End of the World – For some reason, I’ve become a huge Seth Rogen fan in the last few years. I still despise Superbad, but I’ve liked most of his other stuff. As much as I bag on raunchy comedy, the redband trailer made me laugh.

The Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim, RIPD – July’s gonna be packed. The first two films already have cool trailers out, and with Gore Verbinski and Guillermo Del Toro directing them, I’m pretty confident I’ll have a good time. Not nearly as confident about RIPD, but when I saw him speak at a convention, James Hong said that he got strong vibes (Blade Runner strength) about its potential. Good enough for me.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters – I dug the first one. What else can I say? Bring on the Fillion.

Riddick – I’m a fan of the first two films. I fully expect much spacefaring badassery.

The Tomb – Arnie and Sly team up to break out of a high-tech prison. Fingers crossed that Dominic Purcell is their man on the outside!

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – I liked the comics. I liked Sin City. I even liked The Spirit. Odds of me liking this? Three to one in favor.

The World’s End – Pegg, Frost, and Wright re-team for genre shenanigans. What better reason for the world to end, if not to have them do a movie about it?

Ender’s Game – Let me clarify that I’m not looking forward to this per se. Gavin Hood is a hack, and my expectation is that he’ll screw this up. But it’s based on one of my very favorite books, so I’ll be seeing it no matter what. The line between fandom and masochism is oh so very thin.

Thor: The Dark World – The first one was surprisingly solid, and this one apparently has Thor versus the Ninth Doctor. Fantastic!

Saving Mr. Banks – A biopic about the making of one of my ten favorite films of all time? Yeah, pretty pumped.

Gravity – The director of Children of Men does hard sci-fi.

Snow Piercer – The director of The Host and Mother does a post-apocalyptic, socially-conscious… something. Really, I don’t know much about this one, other than the people involved make it a must see.

_____

That’s the easy part. Other films I’m hoping will come out in the theater near me this next year are as follows:

Chinese Zodiac – Jackie Chan’s last action picture. Absolutely required viewing.

The Grandmasters – Wong Kar-Wai does period kung-fu epic. Advance word is that it’s incredible.

Amour – This should be out pretty soon near me. To say I’m “excited” to see it wouldn’t be accurate. Let’s just say that I expect it to be an experience I will appreciate having had once I’ve had time to recover from it.

Bullet to the Head, The Last Stand – More Sly and Arnie. Because I’m one of those idiots who went to see Expendables 2 opening day.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters – Probably really bad. Then again, the trailers make it seem like it has some Hong Kong-esque energy to it.

Parker – Statham plays Richard Stark’s (aka Donald Westlake’s) most indelible creation. Pretty jazzed about this, especially as a potential franchise. Parker aged along with the books (more or less), so Statham could conceivably have a lifelong ride with this one.

A Good Day to Die Hard – Duh.

Stoker – An English-language vampire flick by the director of Oldboy. Not enough to get me salivating, but the trailer was pretty sexy.

Dead Man Down, Oz the Great and Powerful – I’ll probably be seeing one of these for my birthday. Not particularly looking forward to either, but you never know.

To the Wonder – Terrence Malick hasn’t made a great film since The Thin Red Line, but everything he does is still worth seeing.

Much Ado About Nothing – I’ve already blogged about this one. Very excited.

Oldboy – I expect the remake to be better than the original. You decide if I’m joking or not.

The Monuments Men – I’m a fan of Clooney as a filmmakers, and this sounds like a cool Oscar-season ensemble piece.

_____

That’s pretty much it for the ones I know I’m hyped about. There are a few big other big ones I know that I’ll see just because, and a few about which I’m on the fence. The biggest maybe-maybe-not film at the moment is probably Iron Man 3. I’m not a particular fan of the first two, though I liked the second one better than the first. I’m also a bit leery of films trying to tap into The Dark Knight in order to grant themselves some legitimacy, and it feels like Iron Man 3 might be going for that vibe. At the same time, it looks visually impressive, it’s gone Shane Black directing, and if there’s one thing the Marvel films have done pretty well, it’s build up the need for heroism, even if the heroes are flawed and human. One of the things I think the trailer did particularly well was have that chest cell behind the logo wink out, then wink back on again. A small gesture, but well-delivered. I know I’ll probably see it within a week or two of its opening; I just hope it tops the disappointing first two films.

All of that said, though, one of the things I most look forward to in any given year is the number of films that I hadn’t previously anticipated, but which completely take me by surprise in the most pleasant way. The above list is by no means exhaustive. I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for me that I haven’t anticipated.

So, dear readers: what are you planning to see in 2013? ☕