I want to post an obit for him, but I have no words and I have next to no video. This youtube video edits down his "Samadhi" and accompanies it with the (pretty interesting) music that is the video poster's main purpose--it gives you a hint of what Belson was capable of, but not enough. Here is his "Epilogue," his latest work that I'm aware of, which, incredibly beautiful as it is, is not his best work. Watch it and remember that it's not his best work.
He was a great artist and he's dead now. If you can find more of his work (there is an excellent five movie disc that is worth whatever extremely high price you can find it for), try to encounter it.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Remakes, sequels, canon, supremacy
It always kind of bores me when people complain, as it is so popular to do, about the abundance of remakes and reboots and sequels in movie theaters and on television. Because, you know, the forces behind the movies and tv shows are very nasty capitalists and make their decisions for anything but artistic reasons, let's take that for granted, but at the same time there is nothing either new or intrinsically capitalist about redoing and reworking and reinterpreting works of art. It's just something we do; one word for it is "dialogue."* Complain all you want about the remakes and reboots and sequels not being any good, and I'll agree with you about most (but not all) of them, but then you can say that about just about any movie or tv show or anything, really, so it's not particularly valuable as a critique if you ask me. Complain about how there's more of them now than there used to be and, well, maybe you're right, I haven't done a statistical survey, but on the other hand, try searching IMDB for "Wizard of Oz" and count up the results that come up from before the Judy Garland version, for example.
*Not that "it's always been that way" is a valid defense of anything (see below), but for one thing I wouldn't want art to stop responding to other art, and for another thing the supposed newness of the phenomenon is usually part of the complaint, as in, "today's creative bankruptcy..." etc.
But there's a different issue about the contemporary crop that I've been thinking about recently, and that's the convenient way that it allows for a continuity of white male supremacy in our popular culture. You know, if you're casting a brand-new show about people in space, or even a bridge crew for a new addition to the Star Trek franchise, the wacky kids these days might expect you to throw in non-white, non-male characters in decent proportions. But if you're rebooting KirkandSpock, there will be little objection to there only being two nonwhite characters and only one woman (or to these three tokens being spread miserly across two relatively minor characters), because that's the way it's always been. Not only that, but people will get upset if you try to change anything, because Spock's white! It's canon! I mean, me, I think Spock has been and always shall be Leonard Nimoy, but if you're going to throw an ill-fitting Halloween costume on Zachary Quinto and call it Spock with a straight face, I see no reason why the race and gender of these characters must be eternally fixed. Or my god, you should see, if you haven't, the outrage any time it's suggested that The Doctor could regenerate into something other than a white man, as if race and gender were discrete, unalterable genetic categories for an alien whose entire physical body changes and comes back to life every time he dies. For an even more instructive experience, try googling Idris Elba Thor.
*Not that "it's always been that way" is a valid defense of anything (see below), but for one thing I wouldn't want art to stop responding to other art, and for another thing the supposed newness of the phenomenon is usually part of the complaint, as in, "today's creative bankruptcy..." etc.
But there's a different issue about the contemporary crop that I've been thinking about recently, and that's the convenient way that it allows for a continuity of white male supremacy in our popular culture. You know, if you're casting a brand-new show about people in space, or even a bridge crew for a new addition to the Star Trek franchise, the wacky kids these days might expect you to throw in non-white, non-male characters in decent proportions. But if you're rebooting KirkandSpock, there will be little objection to there only being two nonwhite characters and only one woman (or to these three tokens being spread miserly across two relatively minor characters), because that's the way it's always been. Not only that, but people will get upset if you try to change anything, because Spock's white! It's canon! I mean, me, I think Spock has been and always shall be Leonard Nimoy, but if you're going to throw an ill-fitting Halloween costume on Zachary Quinto and call it Spock with a straight face, I see no reason why the race and gender of these characters must be eternally fixed. Or my god, you should see, if you haven't, the outrage any time it's suggested that The Doctor could regenerate into something other than a white man, as if race and gender were discrete, unalterable genetic categories for an alien whose entire physical body changes and comes back to life every time he dies. For an even more instructive experience, try googling Idris Elba Thor.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Thursday, August 26, 2010
William Gibson, Spook Country, several excerpts
(Cross-posted from Commonplace)
You are, she told herself, crazy. But that seemed for the moment abundantly okay, even though she knew that this was not a salubrious stretch for any woman, particularly alone. Nor for any pedestrian, this time of the morning. Yet this weather, this moment of anomalous L.A. climate, seemed to have swept any usual sense of threat aside. The street was as empty as that moment in the film just prior to Godzilla's first footfall.
-page 4
...Bobby was himself a musician, though not in the old plays-a-physical-instrument-and/or-sings modality. He took things apart, sampled them, mashed them up. This was fine with her, though like General Bosquet watching the charge of the Light Brigade, she was inclined to think it wasn't war. Inchmale understood it, though, and indeed had championed it, as soon as it was digitally possible pulling guitar lines out of obscure garage chestnuts and stretching them, like a mad jeweler elongating sturdy Victorian tableware into something insectile, post-functionally fragile, and neurologically dangerous.
-page 71
She afforded herself a quick scan of the rest of the clientele. Were a cruise missile just then to impact the corrugated roof of Skybar, she decided, there would be no great need for People to change its next cover.
-page 83
You are, she told herself, crazy. But that seemed for the moment abundantly okay, even though she knew that this was not a salubrious stretch for any woman, particularly alone. Nor for any pedestrian, this time of the morning. Yet this weather, this moment of anomalous L.A. climate, seemed to have swept any usual sense of threat aside. The street was as empty as that moment in the film just prior to Godzilla's first footfall.
-page 4
...Bobby was himself a musician, though not in the old plays-a-physical-instrument-and/or-sings modality. He took things apart, sampled them, mashed them up. This was fine with her, though like General Bosquet watching the charge of the Light Brigade, she was inclined to think it wasn't war. Inchmale understood it, though, and indeed had championed it, as soon as it was digitally possible pulling guitar lines out of obscure garage chestnuts and stretching them, like a mad jeweler elongating sturdy Victorian tableware into something insectile, post-functionally fragile, and neurologically dangerous.
-page 71
She afforded herself a quick scan of the rest of the clientele. Were a cruise missile just then to impact the corrugated roof of Skybar, she decided, there would be no great need for People to change its next cover.
-page 83
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Marry me
So, whatever, until just now I would have said that Dark Knight cosplay is silly and was well overdone by May of 2009, but that was before I learned that this wonderful man dressed up like The Joker on the tenth of that month* and burned down his high school "because it is run by hypocrites and [he] didn't like the way they treated [his] friends."
My god, I think I'm in love. OK, there's an age difference of about a decade, and an ocean in between us, and I hear he's in some legal trouble, and I'll be wanting to talk the costume-thing out of him (or vice versa), and I'm guessing he's probably a bit more lady-oriented than I would prefer, but I think we can make it work.
A million euros of damage. "I am glad I did it because the people will realise they can't treat students as sub-human." I'm swooning here.
In all seriousness, if they take away his life (in terms of imprisonment, that is) because of this, which it looks like they might not thank god, it will be such an immense waste of such immense promise.
*He missed my birthday by three days, but I'm sure he had a good reason for that.
via io9
My god, I think I'm in love. OK, there's an age difference of about a decade, and an ocean in between us, and I hear he's in some legal trouble, and I'll be wanting to talk the costume-thing out of him (or vice versa), and I'm guessing he's probably a bit more lady-oriented than I would prefer, but I think we can make it work.
A million euros of damage. "I am glad I did it because the people will realise they can't treat students as sub-human." I'm swooning here.
In all seriousness, if they take away his life (in terms of imprisonment, that is) because of this, which it looks like they might not thank god, it will be such an immense waste of such immense promise.
*He missed my birthday by three days, but I'm sure he had a good reason for that.
via io9
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Fairly trivial post alert
I want to say happy birthday! to Ringo Starr, probably the single most underrated drummer in the world (and Yoko Ono's favorite that she's ever worked with), and also to Shelley Duvall, who is one of the charmingest people who has ever lived. What a great day for celebrity birthings.
Friday, June 4, 2010
RIP Rue McClanahan
I feel bad being a day late on this, but I wanted to get this video uploaded and that shit takes forever.
The Golden Girls continues to be one of my all-time favorite entertainments; the quality of its specific combination of a writing team, four actors, and a spectacularly useful formula has rarely been equaled. You could say this equally of Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, or Betty White, but: it never would have worked without Rue McClanahan.
Everyone knows Blanche, or if they don't, it's easy to find her (and they should). I'd like to leave you with something else, though. It's her brief appearance in Starship Troopers, which I have been known to describe as my favorite movie of the 1990s (this isn't always true, depending on my mood, but it's definitely up there). The scene is sadly under a minute and a half long (you can tell it was edited down from a longer take, I'd love to see those deleted scenes) and largely taken up by Denise Richards' antics, but McClanahan's blind weirdo biology teacher is worth it. I love her face in the background of the Denise Richards barf shot.
The Golden Girls continues to be one of my all-time favorite entertainments; the quality of its specific combination of a writing team, four actors, and a spectacularly useful formula has rarely been equaled. You could say this equally of Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, or Betty White, but: it never would have worked without Rue McClanahan.
Everyone knows Blanche, or if they don't, it's easy to find her (and they should). I'd like to leave you with something else, though. It's her brief appearance in Starship Troopers, which I have been known to describe as my favorite movie of the 1990s (this isn't always true, depending on my mood, but it's definitely up there). The scene is sadly under a minute and a half long (you can tell it was edited down from a longer take, I'd love to see those deleted scenes) and largely taken up by Denise Richards' antics, but McClanahan's blind weirdo biology teacher is worth it. I love her face in the background of the Denise Richards barf shot.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
More on Playtime
Following up on the Baronette's typically brief post on Tati's Playtime, I wanted to be wordier about it.
When people talk about Jacques Tati, they usually just talk kind of vaguely about the alienation of modern life and technology. Which, you know, sure. But Playtime is much much more than that. Most of the running time is, to be sure, about alienation in modern surroundings. And before I even get to my big but about that I want to point out the smaller but that even this alienation is presented with such a degree of playfulness and exhilaration that tells you that Tati's not wandering through this alienation anywhere near as helplessly as his Monsieur Hulot is. The characters in the movie might have emotions ranging from not-unhappy downwards, but the movie itself is filled with joy.
Towards the end of the film we find out explicitly where it comes from, and it's my big but. In an extended sequence, a brand-new ultra-modern nightclub starts getting customers before it's even done being constructed, and then people keep piling in in larger and larger numbers and before long they've literally torn the place to pieces. And as they destroy and remake the modern world they're in, they suddenly become absolutely, uproariously joyous, and dance and drink and laugh into the morning.
And then, here's the great part: the rest of the movie keeps that mood. They're back out into surroundings they haven't remade for themselves, surroundings that just yesterday (just about fifteen minutes ago in screen time) were harsh and alien, but the joy remains. These people have figured out how to take the surroundings they're given and use them for their own purposes, rather than how the places signal them to use them.
Or, as Jonathan Rosenbaum put it (as I see him quoted by Roger Ebert), Playtime
When people talk about Jacques Tati, they usually just talk kind of vaguely about the alienation of modern life and technology. Which, you know, sure. But Playtime is much much more than that. Most of the running time is, to be sure, about alienation in modern surroundings. And before I even get to my big but about that I want to point out the smaller but that even this alienation is presented with such a degree of playfulness and exhilaration that tells you that Tati's not wandering through this alienation anywhere near as helplessly as his Monsieur Hulot is. The characters in the movie might have emotions ranging from not-unhappy downwards, but the movie itself is filled with joy.
Towards the end of the film we find out explicitly where it comes from, and it's my big but. In an extended sequence, a brand-new ultra-modern nightclub starts getting customers before it's even done being constructed, and then people keep piling in in larger and larger numbers and before long they've literally torn the place to pieces. And as they destroy and remake the modern world they're in, they suddenly become absolutely, uproariously joyous, and dance and drink and laugh into the morning.
And then, here's the great part: the rest of the movie keeps that mood. They're back out into surroundings they haven't remade for themselves, surroundings that just yesterday (just about fifteen minutes ago in screen time) were harsh and alien, but the joy remains. These people have figured out how to take the surroundings they're given and use them for their own purposes, rather than how the places signal them to use them.
Or, as Jonathan Rosenbaum put it (as I see him quoted by Roger Ebert), Playtime
directs us to look around at the world we live in (the one we keep building), then at each other, and to see how funny that relationship is and how many brilliant possibilities we still have in a shopping-mall world that perpetually suggests otherwise; to look and see that there are many possibilities and that the play between them, activated by the dance of our gaze, can become a kind of comic ballet, one that we both observe and perform.This is why the Baronette says it's nice to learn that Debord loved the movie. It could just as well have been called Psychogeography: The Movie. Except of course that that would take probably the single most wonderfully joyful movie I've ever seen and make it sound kind of dry and intellectual. Which it completely is not. I've seriously never had so much fun watching a movie, nor have I ever been so inspired to face the world differently by a movie.
you know it
good to know that guy debord was a fan of jacques tati's "Play Time". that would have been downright silly of him to think otherwise.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Recommendation
If you're interested in any of these things:
-guilt, both as an emotion and as a fact
-imperialism and its effect on both the colonized and the colonizer
-how the failings of the society express themselves as the failings of the individual
-privilege and the insecurity it breeds
-long stretches of silence
-ambiguity
-movies
and you haven't seen Michael Haneke's brilliant Caché, I suggest you remedy that.
-guilt, both as an emotion and as a fact
-imperialism and its effect on both the colonized and the colonizer
-how the failings of the society express themselves as the failings of the individual
-privilege and the insecurity it breeds
-long stretches of silence
-ambiguity
-movies
and you haven't seen Michael Haneke's brilliant Caché, I suggest you remedy that.
Monday, March 8, 2010
In which I pretend that the Oscars are actually relevant to anything
Kathryn Bigelow just won the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker, making her the first woman ever to do so. I hate Kathryn Bigelow: Strange Days is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and Near Dark ain't much better. I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, but it seems to be one of those Platoon-style "makes you feel what it's like to be there" war movies that are so good at making Americans feel better about their imperial adventures by feeling guilty about them, so, yeah, no thanks.
Looking at the credits, I see that there is one high-billed woman in the movie, Evangeline Lilly, who is quite famous indeed but who is still only billed seventh, after six men. Other than her, the women in the movie are Nibras Quassem, who is credited empoweringly as "Nabil's Wife", and Kate Mines, who is actually uncredited but whom imdb lists as "Soldier." Like I said, I haven't seen the movie, but what do you want to bet it doesn't come close to passing the Bechdel test?
What a victory! I think it's safe to say that we are now living in a truly post-feminist society.
Looking at the credits, I see that there is one high-billed woman in the movie, Evangeline Lilly, who is quite famous indeed but who is still only billed seventh, after six men. Other than her, the women in the movie are Nibras Quassem, who is credited empoweringly as "Nabil's Wife", and Kate Mines, who is actually uncredited but whom imdb lists as "Soldier." Like I said, I haven't seen the movie, but what do you want to bet it doesn't come close to passing the Bechdel test?
What a victory! I think it's safe to say that we are now living in a truly post-feminist society.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Realism is unrealistic, part two
OK, so that good point I mentioned at the end of the first part comes in sections three and four of Ted Gioia's essay, in which he contrasts the stylistic experimentation of Joyce and Pound and Faulkner with the subject-matter experimentation of (unnamed) sci-fi and fantasy writers of the same period. Though he makes the somewhat questionable assertion that the latter were significantly more commercially successful than the former, the point is interesting, and one I hadn't particularly considered before; namely, that the sci-fi writers are just as experimental as the stylistic innovators, but that, as Gioia puts it, "they did not experiment with sentences, but rather with the possible worlds that these sentences described." He also seems correct that the sci-fi (I feel no need to use "conceptual fiction") mold of experimentation won out over the formerly literary type, as he points to examples like McCarthey and Saramago and Rushdie and Chabon and so forth (mentioning Paul Auster, incidentally, before trashing the mystery genre, which is inexplicable to me) as the new literary elite, inspired more by sci-fi's innovations than Joyce's.
I'm not sure I understand, though, why these two strains need to be placed in opposition. For one thing, not everyone falls firmly on one side or the other: Pynchon comes to mind; Saramago and Auster are other examples Gioia himself mentions but seems to unwittingly discount in these terms. For another thing, stylistic experimentation in "realistic" narrative is every bit as much a Houellebecqian rejection of the terms of the actual real world as is reality experimentation in traditionally styled narrative. The two are complementary.
The works of art I tend to respond to most strongly are those that in one way or another reject the world-as-it-is. Because the world-as-it-is is, to me, unacceptable, and by rejecting it we demand that it change (regardless of whether that change is possible or even definable). I can't exactly define the general form of this rejection, but I recognize it when I see it, and it's why I tend to lump a lot of non-sci-fi works in with sci-fi in my mind's conception of the genre, works like (and these are the first examples that pop into my head, from different media) Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Celine's Journey to the End of the Night and Arrested Development and the early music of Iggy Pop and the paintings of Egon Schiele.
These are works that, though they may "take place" in the real world, are not content to, and so are of a piece with works that don't take place in the real world, not solely for escapist reasons, but out of necessity. This rejection is I think key in formulating a meaningful reaction to the world, in expressing anything of value. And any method that allows us to express such a disavowal of reality is one we should welcome and take advantage of, rather than partitioning off into competing marketing categories.
I'm not sure I understand, though, why these two strains need to be placed in opposition. For one thing, not everyone falls firmly on one side or the other: Pynchon comes to mind; Saramago and Auster are other examples Gioia himself mentions but seems to unwittingly discount in these terms. For another thing, stylistic experimentation in "realistic" narrative is every bit as much a Houellebecqian rejection of the terms of the actual real world as is reality experimentation in traditionally styled narrative. The two are complementary.
The works of art I tend to respond to most strongly are those that in one way or another reject the world-as-it-is. Because the world-as-it-is is, to me, unacceptable, and by rejecting it we demand that it change (regardless of whether that change is possible or even definable). I can't exactly define the general form of this rejection, but I recognize it when I see it, and it's why I tend to lump a lot of non-sci-fi works in with sci-fi in my mind's conception of the genre, works like (and these are the first examples that pop into my head, from different media) Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Celine's Journey to the End of the Night and Arrested Development and the early music of Iggy Pop and the paintings of Egon Schiele.
These are works that, though they may "take place" in the real world, are not content to, and so are of a piece with works that don't take place in the real world, not solely for escapist reasons, but out of necessity. This rejection is I think key in formulating a meaningful reaction to the world, in expressing anything of value. And any method that allows us to express such a disavowal of reality is one we should welcome and take advantage of, rather than partitioning off into competing marketing categories.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Realism is unrealistic
Ted Gioia, Notes on Conceptual Fiction:
Another thing it reminds me of is Michel Houellebecq's beautiful introduction to his book on Lovecraft (which he gave the excellent title H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life), which I quoted back in this blog's early, awkward days, and will quote again now:
What particularly bugs me, especially after such a fantastic opening, is section six, in which Gioia arbitrarily brings up genres other than sci-fi and fantasy (mystery, romance, etc.) in order to put them down. Unlike those formulaic genres ("formula must be followed at all costs"), Gioia says, sounding just like the mainstream critics he's dissenting from, sci-fi and fantasy are unfettered and free to explore the outer reaches of imagination. If he can describe to me a formula that binds (for example) both Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler more than the one that binds (again, for example) both Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, I will be very impressed indeed.
Lest I sound too negative, there is a good point that Gioia makes, and in fact responding to it was my entire point in writing all this. But I'm so goddamn wordy that I'm breaking it into two parts, because this shit is too long. Second part tomorrow.
Is it possible that the idea of "realism" as a guiding principle for fiction is itself unrealistic? After all, there are no Newtonian laws in stories—an apple can just as easily fly upward from a tree as drop to the ground. Characters can ride a magic carpet as easily as walk. Any restrictions are imposed by the author, not by any external "reality," however defined.This I like, quite a bit, and is something I've long thought. It reminds me a bit of what I've always said about David Lynch fans (including myself), which is that all the focus on developing "theories" of "what really happened" in his movies is entertaining and intellectually stimulating but ultimately a bit perplexing; am I really to believe that there is some kind of reality beyond the image on the screen (and the sound from the speakers)? What "really happened" is that I watched a movie. And because I watched a movie, rather than having a real-world experience, anything was possible. And as a viewer, or in the case Gioia discusses, a reader, we should be excited and (though it sounds odd) grateful that the artist has chosen to acknowledge and take advantage of this.
Another thing it reminds me of is Michel Houellebecq's beautiful introduction to his book on Lovecraft (which he gave the excellent title H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life), which I quoted back in this blog's early, awkward days, and will quote again now:
Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don't care to know any more. Humanity, such as it is, inspires only an attenuated curiosity in us. All those prodigiously refined "notations", "situations", anecdotes... All they do, once a book has been set aside, is reinforce the slight revulsion that is already adequately nourished by any one of our "real life" days.Gioia, unfortunately, follows up with an essay that is most likely useful only to himself, or perhaps to those unfamiliar with the standard SF fandom grousing about the mainstream's view of genre (or, I guess, to those odd souls who seem content to endlessly restate the same things about this discussion over and over again). If Gioia really intends his essay to add anything new to sci-fi scholarship, he reminds me unfortunately of the eternally dense Philip Roth and his apparent belief that his Plot Against America was the first ever alternate history novel. He also tends towards an unpleasant snobbery, even as he says he's countering snobbery. In general, I hate to see the whole literary vs. genre quarrel brought up again, because honestly I don't think that quarrel particularly exists anymore, except in the minds of genre partisans (on both "sides," if we must) who refuse to let it die. Philip K. Dick is being published in editions with sewn-in silk bookmarks, for christ sake. Get over it, it's not that serious.
Now, here is Howard Phillips Lovecraft: "I am so beastly tired of mankind and the world that nothing can interest me unless it contains a couple of murders on each page or deals with the horrors unnameable and unaccountable that leer down from the external universes."
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937). We need a supreme antidote against all forms of realism.
What particularly bugs me, especially after such a fantastic opening, is section six, in which Gioia arbitrarily brings up genres other than sci-fi and fantasy (mystery, romance, etc.) in order to put them down. Unlike those formulaic genres ("formula must be followed at all costs"), Gioia says, sounding just like the mainstream critics he's dissenting from, sci-fi and fantasy are unfettered and free to explore the outer reaches of imagination. If he can describe to me a formula that binds (for example) both Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler more than the one that binds (again, for example) both Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, I will be very impressed indeed.
Lest I sound too negative, there is a good point that Gioia makes, and in fact responding to it was my entire point in writing all this. But I'm so goddamn wordy that I'm breaking it into two parts, because this shit is too long. Second part tomorrow.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
It's a dastardly act
in viewing pornography, which is more alienating: being placed within the role of the voyeur or that of a participant? i believe it is the second option.
voyeurism leaves the viewer with no control over the situation, but it does not duplicate and then cleave the viewer's mind. the only severe frustration caused by the medium is not being able to change the camera's perspective. the voyeur is only an eye.
on the other hand, being placed in the role of the participant makes for a more convincing illusion - an illusion that aims to consume the viewer's identity.
the mechanics: as the viewer surrenders to the film, both the sense of immersion and paralysis increase. each gesture and movement is less and less one's own. and with the general dynamic of the format, the most urgent and captivating moments belong to someone else. the viewer kills to be something they are not and cannot be!
as i see it, it is the spectacle conquering the realm of sexual desire. situations are crafted that appeal in part to the viewer, but end up just constricting the spectrum of action and thought. this mechanic is not limited to pornography. i see a similiar type of fascism in the behavior of damien hirst. and all creators who can't seem to get over themselves and what they do.
now, i do not have a lot of background in media studies. and i think that many people probably consider the Situationist International (wiki) to be lost to the past. so, if...
voyeurism leaves the viewer with no control over the situation, but it does not duplicate and then cleave the viewer's mind. the only severe frustration caused by the medium is not being able to change the camera's perspective. the voyeur is only an eye.
on the other hand, being placed in the role of the participant makes for a more convincing illusion - an illusion that aims to consume the viewer's identity.
the mechanics: as the viewer surrenders to the film, both the sense of immersion and paralysis increase. each gesture and movement is less and less one's own. and with the general dynamic of the format, the most urgent and captivating moments belong to someone else. the viewer kills to be something they are not and cannot be!
as i see it, it is the spectacle conquering the realm of sexual desire. situations are crafted that appeal in part to the viewer, but end up just constricting the spectrum of action and thought. this mechanic is not limited to pornography. i see a similiar type of fascism in the behavior of damien hirst. and all creators who can't seem to get over themselves and what they do.
now, i do not have a lot of background in media studies. and i think that many people probably consider the Situationist International (wiki) to be lost to the past. so, if...
- you know any works about this stuff
- or find that what i've said is amateurish (it is) and ill-informed
- or just want to say whatcha gonna say
Friday, December 18, 2009
R.I.P. Dan O'Bannon
The effects in Dark Star are pretty amazing, even if half the movie isn't, and the other half of the movie is pretty great at times, too. He also did Alien and Total Recall, without which I would not want to live. Rest in peace.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Polanski
The people at Shakesville occasionally say good things, but for the most part they're pretty dumb. Is my experience, anyway. So I'm not surprised by their approach to the whole Polanski thing, but I am infuriated by it, as is my duty as a person on the internet.
First, there's Melissa McEwan's repeated posting of the names of celebrities who have become "disappoinments" to her by signing the "Free Polanski" petition. No mention of the fact that she doesn't actually know these people (they're celebrities, not acquaintances), so having a preconceived notion of their feelings about these issues is a bit silly. No mention either of the fact that there is no relationship between, say, Harrison Ford's feelings on Roman Polanski and Harrison Ford's usefulness as an actor (when it's a director or a writer I could see there being more of a link, fine, but PETA were still idiots for protesting Chicken Run because the creators of it eat chicken, if you get what I'm saying*). No mention that if all of these people that she once respected feel this way, perhaps there might be a least a little room for argument? I'm not necessarily saying that Polanski is innocent, or that he deserves to be freed (any more, I should specify, than any other imprisoned person, all of whom deserve to be freed, but that's too much to be getting into right now). All I'm saying is that if a whole bunch of people you respect are suddenly behaving in a way that you find objectionable, you could at least consider that you could be wrong. Not saying you have to come to the final conclusion that you're wrong. Just consider it.
And now, far more objectionable: co-blogger Deeky's post titled "Taking Her Side".
What's disgusting about Deeky's post is that people are not taking Ms. Gailey's side by denouncing Polanski. What she wants, as she has said repeatedly, is for everyone to drop it so she can move on. By talking about it, endlessly, the Shakesville bloggers are emphatically not taking her side. Regardless of their reasons for thinking they're in the right (some of which are convincing, some of which are not), they are not on her side. Claiming that people like themselves and Smith and Grunberg are is extremely presumptuous, and denies Ms. Gailey's right as a human being to choose for herself how to feel.
I find it extremely ironic that a bunch of self-righteous ninnies are denying Ms. Gailey her humanity in their overeager attempts to denounce someone else for denying her her humanity. Obviously there is a huge difference in degree in not respecting her wishes and (allegedly**) drugging and raping her, but both actions are efforts to strip her of her human agency in order to achieve what you want. There's also the fact that the bloggers (myself included, unfortunately) are doing it now, whereas Roman Polanski, if he did it, did it thirty years ago. He and she are different people now than they were then, and the people they are now are not in a relationship of victimizer and victim. But the people who are refusing to just fucking drop it like she wants are, in their presumably*** smaller way, victimizing her now.
The silence is, as they say, what she fucking asked for, you arrogant asshole.
Oh, and incidentally? It's possible to be a feminist and not automatically think that Polanski should be locked away forever (especially if like me you think no one should be locked away). It's also possible to be a feminist and like directors you don't. Or to find worth in works that have elements of misogyny. If it upsets you that I say that as a man (and therefore someone not directly impacted by misogyny), I'll add that I feel the same way about works that are homophobic or antisemitic. The world is a complicated place that includes bad things mixed in with good things. The ability to recognize the good things in spite of the bad does not necessarily make someone your enemy.
*Among other reasons that PETA are idiots.
**Not in legal terms, perhaps, but in human moral terms, the accusations have by no means been proven.
***Of course I have no idea if Ms. Gailey would agree with my assessment.
UPDATE: While I was writing this, the following exchange took place in comments. Commenter clauclauclaudia said "The difficult thing about speaking up to support the victim, is that the victim has publicly said [that she feels] victimized all over again every time the case gets lots of media focus. How do you support her by saying *anything*, given her feelings on the subject?" To which Melissa McEwan, the owner of the blog but not the writer of the post, responded,
UPDATE II: I guess I should mention that I'm using the name "Gailey" partly because it's the one Shakesville used and partly as an attempt to be as respectful to her as I can be while, you know, disrespecting her wishes and continuing to talk about it. She uses a different name now, possibly (I don't know for sure if this is actually why, but my impression is that it is) to help disassociate herself from all this, and by not using it I am, I hope, at least not harming that effort. I just don't want to come off as disrespecting her in another way by using a name she has abandoned. I think and hope my reasons for doing so are sound.
First, there's Melissa McEwan's repeated posting of the names of celebrities who have become "disappoinments" to her by signing the "Free Polanski" petition. No mention of the fact that she doesn't actually know these people (they're celebrities, not acquaintances), so having a preconceived notion of their feelings about these issues is a bit silly. No mention either of the fact that there is no relationship between, say, Harrison Ford's feelings on Roman Polanski and Harrison Ford's usefulness as an actor (when it's a director or a writer I could see there being more of a link, fine, but PETA were still idiots for protesting Chicken Run because the creators of it eat chicken, if you get what I'm saying*). No mention that if all of these people that she once respected feel this way, perhaps there might be a least a little room for argument? I'm not necessarily saying that Polanski is innocent, or that he deserves to be freed (any more, I should specify, than any other imprisoned person, all of whom deserve to be freed, but that's too much to be getting into right now). All I'm saying is that if a whole bunch of people you respect are suddenly behaving in a way that you find objectionable, you could at least consider that you could be wrong. Not saying you have to come to the final conclusion that you're wrong. Just consider it.
And now, far more objectionable: co-blogger Deeky's post titled "Taking Her Side".
Aside from Kevin Smith (who tweeted this out yesterday) and Greg Grunberg (who posted this) I've not seen any other celebrities siding with Samantha Gailey, Roman Polanski's victim.Leave aside for the moment that Kevin Smith's "Do the crime, do the time" is a reflexive, thoughtless repetition of someone else's reflexive, thoughtless repetition of a horrible, horrible cliché that reinforces the disgustingly punitive aspects of our culture. Leave aside the fact that Greg Grunberg seems to be posting in utter ignorance of the details of the case (Polanski pled guilty because the judge agreed to a lenient plea bargain, and fled because the judge changed his mind after Polanski made his plea--which, incidentally, is not illegal but sure as hell should be).
The silence is, as they say, deafening.
What's disgusting about Deeky's post is that people are not taking Ms. Gailey's side by denouncing Polanski. What she wants, as she has said repeatedly, is for everyone to drop it so she can move on. By talking about it, endlessly, the Shakesville bloggers are emphatically not taking her side. Regardless of their reasons for thinking they're in the right (some of which are convincing, some of which are not), they are not on her side. Claiming that people like themselves and Smith and Grunberg are is extremely presumptuous, and denies Ms. Gailey's right as a human being to choose for herself how to feel.
I find it extremely ironic that a bunch of self-righteous ninnies are denying Ms. Gailey her humanity in their overeager attempts to denounce someone else for denying her her humanity. Obviously there is a huge difference in degree in not respecting her wishes and (allegedly**) drugging and raping her, but both actions are efforts to strip her of her human agency in order to achieve what you want. There's also the fact that the bloggers (myself included, unfortunately) are doing it now, whereas Roman Polanski, if he did it, did it thirty years ago. He and she are different people now than they were then, and the people they are now are not in a relationship of victimizer and victim. But the people who are refusing to just fucking drop it like she wants are, in their presumably*** smaller way, victimizing her now.
The silence is, as they say, what she fucking asked for, you arrogant asshole.
Oh, and incidentally? It's possible to be a feminist and not automatically think that Polanski should be locked away forever (especially if like me you think no one should be locked away). It's also possible to be a feminist and like directors you don't. Or to find worth in works that have elements of misogyny. If it upsets you that I say that as a man (and therefore someone not directly impacted by misogyny), I'll add that I feel the same way about works that are homophobic or antisemitic. The world is a complicated place that includes bad things mixed in with good things. The ability to recognize the good things in spite of the bad does not necessarily make someone your enemy.
*Among other reasons that PETA are idiots.
**Not in legal terms, perhaps, but in human moral terms, the accusations have by no means been proven.
***Of course I have no idea if Ms. Gailey would agree with my assessment.
UPDATE: While I was writing this, the following exchange took place in comments. Commenter clauclauclaudia said "The difficult thing about speaking up to support the victim, is that the victim has publicly said [that she feels] victimized all over again every time the case gets lots of media focus. How do you support her by saying *anything*, given her feelings on the subject?" To which Melissa McEwan, the owner of the blog but not the writer of the post, responded,
Just a point: It does say "her" and not "Samantha."Which is such a steaming load of bull. For one thing, if that was Deeky's intent, he should have said "women's" instead of "her", considering that the specific case he was referring to was about one specific person, so naturally "her" would seem to refer to, well, her. For another thing, he explicitly says "I've not seen any other celebrities siding with Samantha Gailey." So unless McEwan is trying to say that Samantha Gailey is some kind of new collective noun indicating every woman on Earth, she's full of shit. For clarity's sake, when I say "she's full of shit," the word she refers specifically to McEwan, not all women.
Given the sex of most rape victims, and the fact that this case is indeed about justice and about rape narratives generally, like the ever-popular "he said-she said" and so forth, maybe it's relevant that it's "her" side.
Just sayin'.
UPDATE II: I guess I should mention that I'm using the name "Gailey" partly because it's the one Shakesville used and partly as an attempt to be as respectful to her as I can be while, you know, disrespecting her wishes and continuing to talk about it. She uses a different name now, possibly (I don't know for sure if this is actually why, but my impression is that it is) to help disassociate herself from all this, and by not using it I am, I hope, at least not harming that effort. I just don't want to come off as disrespecting her in another way by using a name she has abandoned. I think and hope my reasons for doing so are sound.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Come on, Switzerland
1978 was thirty-one years ago. Polanski's alleged victim wants the charges dropped. The case is damn muddy at best. And my god, Switzerland, I thought you were supposed to be a neutral country? Like, OK, I don't know the specifics of your laws about that stuff, but surely arresting Polanski and considering shipping him off to the US so that a mishandled weak case the plaintiff doesn't want pursued can be continued three decades later violates the spirit of neutrality?
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Two interesting things about 2001
There's obviously a lot more to talk about, but two quick things.
1. We see four Russians. All of them are scientists, three of them--the majority--women. We see a hell of a lot more Americans and British. Of them, the only women are secretaries, flight attendants, and two women who I guess are scientists (sitting at the table at the Clavius debriefing) who have no speaking parts or names. I don't think this was unconscious on Kubrick's part.
2. I really like the way that for at least the first half of the movie, many really startlingly exceptional, wondrous things (the discovery of an alien artifact, artificial intelligence) are rendered everyday and banal by being surrounded by small talk, while things that would actually be banal for the characters (eating in space, moving from one part of a commercial spacecraft to another, throwing away garbage, docking with a space station) are filled with more sci-fi sensawunda than you can easily deal with.
1. We see four Russians. All of them are scientists, three of them--the majority--women. We see a hell of a lot more Americans and British. Of them, the only women are secretaries, flight attendants, and two women who I guess are scientists (sitting at the table at the Clavius debriefing) who have no speaking parts or names. I don't think this was unconscious on Kubrick's part.
2. I really like the way that for at least the first half of the movie, many really startlingly exceptional, wondrous things (the discovery of an alien artifact, artificial intelligence) are rendered everyday and banal by being surrounded by small talk, while things that would actually be banal for the characters (eating in space, moving from one part of a commercial spacecraft to another, throwing away garbage, docking with a space station) are filled with more sci-fi sensawunda than you can easily deal with.
Monday, August 31, 2009
My second favorite invention of the new millennium...
...is Wikipedia.
(My first favorite is TV shows on DVD.)
I was reading about the band Love on there, and first of all came across this crazy fact: "Bryan MacLean died in Los Angeles of a massive heart attack at age 52 on December 25, 1998, while having dinner with a young fan who was researching a book about the band." Must have been insane for the dinner partner.
More importantly, I came across the hilarious pairing of article and image that we find here. In the event that someone makes the mistake of changing it, a description of it follows in hidden text so as not to spoil the surprise. Highlight (or maybe copy and paste) to read: it's an article about a Love tribute album but the image with the article is the cover of Toni Morrison's novel Love.
More funny: "By this stage, Love were far more popular in the UK, where the album reached #24, than in their home country, where it could only reach #154. Love, did, however, have a strong following in the U.S. at the time among cognoscenti of the cutting edge." Cognoscenti of the cutting edge. It cracks me up whenever Wikipedia suddenly bursts into exceptionally purple prose.
Then I was curious to see what Wikipedia had to say about purple prose, but then as I entered it into the search field I saw "Purple People Eater" suggested, and I had forgotten about that song, so I went there instead, where I learned that Thora Birch was in the 1988 movie named after it. How the hell old could she have been in 1988, I wondered, so I went to her page (she was six--she's my age!), where I learned, craziness: both of her parents were in Deep Throat. Her mother is Carol Connors. Weird!
And, for final hilarity, this sentence from the introduction to her article, emphasis mine: "Since the 1990s she has moved on to more mature roles, in films such as American Beauty (1999), Dungeons & Dragons (2000), and Ghost World (2001).
(My first favorite is TV shows on DVD.)
I was reading about the band Love on there, and first of all came across this crazy fact: "Bryan MacLean died in Los Angeles of a massive heart attack at age 52 on December 25, 1998, while having dinner with a young fan who was researching a book about the band." Must have been insane for the dinner partner.
More importantly, I came across the hilarious pairing of article and image that we find here. In the event that someone makes the mistake of changing it, a description of it follows in hidden text so as not to spoil the surprise. Highlight (or maybe copy and paste) to read: it's an article about a Love tribute album but the image with the article is the cover of Toni Morrison's novel Love.
More funny: "By this stage, Love were far more popular in the UK, where the album reached #24, than in their home country, where it could only reach #154. Love, did, however, have a strong following in the U.S. at the time among cognoscenti of the cutting edge." Cognoscenti of the cutting edge. It cracks me up whenever Wikipedia suddenly bursts into exceptionally purple prose.
Then I was curious to see what Wikipedia had to say about purple prose, but then as I entered it into the search field I saw "Purple People Eater" suggested, and I had forgotten about that song, so I went there instead, where I learned that Thora Birch was in the 1988 movie named after it. How the hell old could she have been in 1988, I wondered, so I went to her page (she was six--she's my age!), where I learned, craziness: both of her parents were in Deep Throat. Her mother is Carol Connors. Weird!
And, for final hilarity, this sentence from the introduction to her article, emphasis mine: "Since the 1990s she has moved on to more mature roles, in films such as American Beauty (1999), Dungeons & Dragons (2000), and Ghost World (2001).
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