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Eve Tushnet
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
HALFLIFE (now, with links!): When I walked out of Watchmen the first time I saw it--“First We Take Manhattan” still ringing in my ears, and thank you, movie!--I was on a high. They did it, I was thinking. They filmed “Watchmen.”
On the way home, I started questioning. My most immediate problem--the lack of existentialist detective-story--is addressed in the NRO review, so I won’t rehash. But when I got home, I started reading reviews of the movie, via Sean Collins’s incredibly helpful round-ups. EDITED TO ADD LINKS: here and here.
And my emotional trajectory became clear. Every review defending the movie rang a bit hollow to me, even when I agreed with individual points (Sean is totally right about that My Chemical Romance cover! And yes, I’m saying that out loud!). But almost every criticism of the movie seemed accurate to me. You’ll notice that my review borrowed heavily from those criticisms, EDITED: e.g. the stuff about depiction of violence in the movie vs. the comic here and here.
So I know my NRO review is ultimately pretty negative. But keep in mind that the initial reaction is also real. The review is about the elements I thought it was most important to highlight; but there are important things the movie got right, too.
On the way home, I started questioning. My most immediate problem--the lack of existentialist detective-story--is addressed in the NRO review, so I won’t rehash. But when I got home, I started reading reviews of the movie, via Sean Collins’s incredibly helpful round-ups. EDITED TO ADD LINKS: here and here.
And my emotional trajectory became clear. Every review defending the movie rang a bit hollow to me, even when I agreed with individual points (Sean is totally right about that My Chemical Romance cover! And yes, I’m saying that out loud!). But almost every criticism of the movie seemed accurate to me. You’ll notice that my review borrowed heavily from those criticisms, EDITED: e.g. the stuff about depiction of violence in the movie vs. the comic here and here.
So I know my NRO review is ultimately pretty negative. But keep in mind that the initial reaction is also real. The review is about the elements I thought it was most important to highlight; but there are important things the movie got right, too.
SILENT RUNNING: If you complain about everything left out of an almost three-hour movie, as I did, I think it’s obvious to ask what on earth you would have cut! So here are my candidates--which include some scenes I really liked.
#1. Cheesecore. So Dan and Laurie have costumed softcore music-video sex--and yes, the “music video” aspect is at least as dumb to me as the “softcore” aspect. I’ve read a few defenses of this scene which argue that it’s intentionally cheesy.
What I want to know is, Why is that a defense? I already know, because of every single other scene between Dan and Laurie already, that they can only connect with one another and be intimate and vulnerable within the disclaimers of their costumes. What does this scene actually add to the movie, besides fifteen minutes (ok, it only felt that long) and Malin Akerman’s nipple? The humor is cheap (Owlship ejaculating fire) and this movie is already very long.
(I’ll also say, while we’re here, that I’m unimpressed by any film-crit arguments which rely on calling one’s interlocutors sex-hating Puritans. This is a charge which neither can be refuted [because it is really about the internal mental states you perceive in/project onto me] nor should be--I shouldn’t have to trot out all the cinematic sex scenes I did appreciate in order for you to give me a hearing about this one.)
There’s an equally music-video, and equally stupid, shot toward the very end, where Dan and Laurie look toward the camera in synch before heading out into the Antarctic wastes. It’s hilarious in a bad way, and makes me wonder what Mozart ever did to superhero directors, that they so persistently abuse his Requiem Mass.
...Actually I think you can differentiate three types of “obvious” shots in this movie. There are the genuinely dumb obvious shots, which make the movie stupider. I’d also add the “Last Supper” shot from the opening credits, literally the only moment of those credits I found anything other than perfect--what is the parallel here? How is Sally Jupiter’s retirement anything like the Last Supper? What is added to the movie by doing this, other than a cheap recognition-of-image gag?
There’s the Apocalypse Now quickie parody scene with Doctor Manhattan and Richard Wagner. I think this is the only “in-between” scene for me, where I get what they were doing with the pop-culture parallel but still found it cheap for reasons I find hard to articulate. ...Possibly the use of the staticky radio playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” when Adrian confronts the execs would also fall into this category--I really got a kick out of that, but I accept that it might be a misstep.
And then there’s the awesome, Alan-Moore-ish on-the-nose stuff, like “99 Luftballons” and “All Along the Watchtower” and Silhouette kissing the nurse. Those elements not only fit completely with the comic’s aesthetic--they also added a depth of atmosphere, a pop-realism of place and time, a cultural sensibility. Plus they were fun.
#2. The alley fight. Making Dan and Laurie just as bats crazy as Rorschach is a valid directorial choice. It's a pretty obvious take on the comic’s interrogation of vigilantism. So my real problems with the alley fight are a) if you do the alley fight this way, the prison riot has to be a lot more bloody than it is in the movie; b) I don’t think you can do the alley fight this way and keep the fun dialogue about how Rorschach dropped the masochist pseudo-villain down an elevator shaft, since that joke requires you to believe that he is ultra-bats and they are less-bats; and c) I think if you want to make the “even sweet little Laurie is driven into cruelty because that’s what violent response to crime does to people” you can do it by intensifying the prison riot, so this scene isn’t really necessary if we have to cut things.
#3. The Comedian’s funeral. I liked this scene. But all it actually needs is Moloch and Kovacs--it’s important for Moloch’s character and for the plot, but those moments take up about 1/15 of the actual screentime of this scene. And “Sounds of Silence” isn’t an insightful enough score choice to justify the time it takes.
...That’s all I can think of. After that, I can only suggest, helplessly, perhaps an intermission?
#1. Cheesecore. So Dan and Laurie have costumed softcore music-video sex--and yes, the “music video” aspect is at least as dumb to me as the “softcore” aspect. I’ve read a few defenses of this scene which argue that it’s intentionally cheesy.
What I want to know is, Why is that a defense? I already know, because of every single other scene between Dan and Laurie already, that they can only connect with one another and be intimate and vulnerable within the disclaimers of their costumes. What does this scene actually add to the movie, besides fifteen minutes (ok, it only felt that long) and Malin Akerman’s nipple? The humor is cheap (Owlship ejaculating fire) and this movie is already very long.
(I’ll also say, while we’re here, that I’m unimpressed by any film-crit arguments which rely on calling one’s interlocutors sex-hating Puritans. This is a charge which neither can be refuted [because it is really about the internal mental states you perceive in/project onto me] nor should be--I shouldn’t have to trot out all the cinematic sex scenes I did appreciate in order for you to give me a hearing about this one.)
There’s an equally music-video, and equally stupid, shot toward the very end, where Dan and Laurie look toward the camera in synch before heading out into the Antarctic wastes. It’s hilarious in a bad way, and makes me wonder what Mozart ever did to superhero directors, that they so persistently abuse his Requiem Mass.
...Actually I think you can differentiate three types of “obvious” shots in this movie. There are the genuinely dumb obvious shots, which make the movie stupider. I’d also add the “Last Supper” shot from the opening credits, literally the only moment of those credits I found anything other than perfect--what is the parallel here? How is Sally Jupiter’s retirement anything like the Last Supper? What is added to the movie by doing this, other than a cheap recognition-of-image gag?
There’s the Apocalypse Now quickie parody scene with Doctor Manhattan and Richard Wagner. I think this is the only “in-between” scene for me, where I get what they were doing with the pop-culture parallel but still found it cheap for reasons I find hard to articulate. ...Possibly the use of the staticky radio playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” when Adrian confronts the execs would also fall into this category--I really got a kick out of that, but I accept that it might be a misstep.
And then there’s the awesome, Alan-Moore-ish on-the-nose stuff, like “99 Luftballons” and “All Along the Watchtower” and Silhouette kissing the nurse. Those elements not only fit completely with the comic’s aesthetic--they also added a depth of atmosphere, a pop-realism of place and time, a cultural sensibility. Plus they were fun.
#2. The alley fight. Making Dan and Laurie just as bats crazy as Rorschach is a valid directorial choice. It's a pretty obvious take on the comic’s interrogation of vigilantism. So my real problems with the alley fight are a) if you do the alley fight this way, the prison riot has to be a lot more bloody than it is in the movie; b) I don’t think you can do the alley fight this way and keep the fun dialogue about how Rorschach dropped the masochist pseudo-villain down an elevator shaft, since that joke requires you to believe that he is ultra-bats and they are less-bats; and c) I think if you want to make the “even sweet little Laurie is driven into cruelty because that’s what violent response to crime does to people” you can do it by intensifying the prison riot, so this scene isn’t really necessary if we have to cut things.
#3. The Comedian’s funeral. I liked this scene. But all it actually needs is Moloch and Kovacs--it’s important for Moloch’s character and for the plot, but those moments take up about 1/15 of the actual screentime of this scene. And “Sounds of Silence” isn’t an insightful enough score choice to justify the time it takes.
...That’s all I can think of. After that, I can only suggest, helplessly, perhaps an intermission?
AN ANGEL WITH A FLAMING SWORD--AND AN INKBLOT MASK: Barbara Nicolosi at Church of the Masses really hated this movie, and walked out. In her comments box, she explained that the scene where she decided she couldn’t take it anymore and shouldn’t have to was the moment when Rorschach discovers the child-killer’s dogs tugging at a little girl’s shattered leg.
Let me try to explain why this isn’t my reaction to that scene--and why I think the Watchmen story, in comics or on film, really needs that moment.
First, I am not arguing that Barbara’s reaction is wrong. If you can't film Watchmen without that scene, maybe it's just unfilmable. I am pretty well convinced that Barbara is aware of the scope of human evil, you know? I see her point that the scene could be viewed as what she’s sometimes called “assaultive” of the audience--rubbing our noses in it, a kind of sadomasochist experience in which wallowing in gore is confused with real repentance, real existential questioning and horror, or some other lasting shift in the audience’s soul.
Also, for me, the most horrifying moment in that scene is Rorschach’s discovery of the girl’s bloodied underwear. The specificity of that moment--the bunching of the elastic waistband--that’s basically unbearable. I’m not sure I can explain why that moment hits me so much harder than the gore, but even now, I can picture the scene with the dogs and view it clinically in the mind’s eye, whereas the underwear still makes my throat clench. I don’t argue that this response is “better,” and I get why it might make you more skeptical of my defense of the dog scene--maybe I just don’t get why this scene is assaultive because I respond more strongly to other kinds of horror.
But here’s why I think the dogs are important. The dogs show that the killer has corrupted every element of his world. He has not solely destroyed the life of an innocent child; that would be more than bad enough. But he’s also taken (presumably) “innocent,” amoral animals--the natural world--and turned them into horrific weapons. He has broken the natural world.
This makes his corruption more thorough. His ability to distort and destroy now extends not just to his immediate victim but to every element of our world. (Cf. my Inside Catholic piece on torture.)
I hope you guys see how this horrific transformation of the natural world a) resonates with my take on Watchmen the comic, and b) resonates with me as a Catholic, a person who believes that human sin is what turned our world against us. When we fell we pulled the whole world down on top of us; and this perspective engages directly with the comic’s anguished question of whether the world’s chaos hides some real pattern, some real meaning, or whether all apparent patterns are simply the projections of the devastatingly violent human will.
Let me try to explain why this isn’t my reaction to that scene--and why I think the Watchmen story, in comics or on film, really needs that moment.
First, I am not arguing that Barbara’s reaction is wrong. If you can't film Watchmen without that scene, maybe it's just unfilmable. I am pretty well convinced that Barbara is aware of the scope of human evil, you know? I see her point that the scene could be viewed as what she’s sometimes called “assaultive” of the audience--rubbing our noses in it, a kind of sadomasochist experience in which wallowing in gore is confused with real repentance, real existential questioning and horror, or some other lasting shift in the audience’s soul.
Also, for me, the most horrifying moment in that scene is Rorschach’s discovery of the girl’s bloodied underwear. The specificity of that moment--the bunching of the elastic waistband--that’s basically unbearable. I’m not sure I can explain why that moment hits me so much harder than the gore, but even now, I can picture the scene with the dogs and view it clinically in the mind’s eye, whereas the underwear still makes my throat clench. I don’t argue that this response is “better,” and I get why it might make you more skeptical of my defense of the dog scene--maybe I just don’t get why this scene is assaultive because I respond more strongly to other kinds of horror.
But here’s why I think the dogs are important. The dogs show that the killer has corrupted every element of his world. He has not solely destroyed the life of an innocent child; that would be more than bad enough. But he’s also taken (presumably) “innocent,” amoral animals--the natural world--and turned them into horrific weapons. He has broken the natural world.
This makes his corruption more thorough. His ability to distort and destroy now extends not just to his immediate victim but to every element of our world. (Cf. my Inside Catholic piece on torture.)
I hope you guys see how this horrific transformation of the natural world a) resonates with my take on Watchmen the comic, and b) resonates with me as a Catholic, a person who believes that human sin is what turned our world against us. When we fell we pulled the whole world down on top of us; and this perspective engages directly with the comic’s anguished question of whether the world’s chaos hides some real pattern, some real meaning, or whether all apparent patterns are simply the projections of the devastatingly violent human will.
SO LONG MOM, I’M OFF TO DROP THE BOMB: Completely random notes.
• Actually, Laurie is “Laurie Juspeczyk” for approximately .23 seconds in the movie: That’s the name shown when she looks at her own hand through Nite Owl II’s goggles.
• Although the acting and dialogue are both subpar, every moment Laurie and Doctor Manhattan were on Mars I found myself thinking, “This is the kind of movie I thought people would watch in the future.” Like, when you see Soylent Green, or Logan’s Run--aren’t those colors and shapes and humanity-as-alien images what you thought the characters would watch at the movies?
• Related: I thought about opening my NRO review with the line, “Zack Snyder has made the very best movie of 1986.” I decided that was unnecessarily snarky; but the point does remain that the sensibility of this movie is intensely ‘80s. It’s a movie from the decade that brought you Liquid Sky and “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables,” Jim Bakker and “Land of Confusion” and Gran Fury.
• Does that make Watchmen irrelevant now? Its justice-vs.-peace, or law vs. necessity, plots might be Toons for Our Torturing Times; but the Cold War context is so heavy that even those elements feel really remote from contemporary discourse. (This isn’t helped by the Nixon caricature. In the comic, I seem to recall Nixon being oddly restrained--am I misremembering? You could possibly push that even further to get a Nixon-as-Obama, someone who accepts the horrific context into which he has been elected while still trying to extend peaceful gestures and avoid nuclear war. The movie chose the opposite path, and failed even to make it funny--any Nixon-related humor exists solely in the Strangelove references--so I found all those scenes painfully dated, even though I’d been absolutely thrilled when I heard we’d get lots of Nixon in this. I want the politics, you guys. I just don’t want the politics to be dumb.)
• Anyway, I think Watchmen’s existential and theological themes make it the kind of thing that never goes out of style--who now recalls the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, when reading Dante? But yeah, Snyder didn’t exactly make the argument for Watchmen’s relevance.
• Actually, Laurie is “Laurie Juspeczyk” for approximately .23 seconds in the movie: That’s the name shown when she looks at her own hand through Nite Owl II’s goggles.
• Although the acting and dialogue are both subpar, every moment Laurie and Doctor Manhattan were on Mars I found myself thinking, “This is the kind of movie I thought people would watch in the future.” Like, when you see Soylent Green, or Logan’s Run--aren’t those colors and shapes and humanity-as-alien images what you thought the characters would watch at the movies?
• Related: I thought about opening my NRO review with the line, “Zack Snyder has made the very best movie of 1986.” I decided that was unnecessarily snarky; but the point does remain that the sensibility of this movie is intensely ‘80s. It’s a movie from the decade that brought you Liquid Sky and “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables,” Jim Bakker and “Land of Confusion” and Gran Fury.
• Does that make Watchmen irrelevant now? Its justice-vs.-peace, or law vs. necessity, plots might be Toons for Our Torturing Times; but the Cold War context is so heavy that even those elements feel really remote from contemporary discourse. (This isn’t helped by the Nixon caricature. In the comic, I seem to recall Nixon being oddly restrained--am I misremembering? You could possibly push that even further to get a Nixon-as-Obama, someone who accepts the horrific context into which he has been elected while still trying to extend peaceful gestures and avoid nuclear war. The movie chose the opposite path, and failed even to make it funny--any Nixon-related humor exists solely in the Strangelove references--so I found all those scenes painfully dated, even though I’d been absolutely thrilled when I heard we’d get lots of Nixon in this. I want the politics, you guys. I just don’t want the politics to be dumb.)
• Anyway, I think Watchmen’s existential and theological themes make it the kind of thing that never goes out of style--who now recalls the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, when reading Dante? But yeah, Snyder didn’t exactly make the argument for Watchmen’s relevance.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
THE INNER LIFE OF VERUCA SALT: This is a post about the Harry Potter series and genre. It isn't especially spoilery for the final book, but yeah, I've read it and that'll show in this post. So if you're avoiding specific spoilers, you should be able to read this post, though not the intensely spoilerific one below. If you're avoiding even very general spoilers, oh for pity's sake close the window now!
One of the most confusing things for me about the Harry Potter series has been the way it doesn't cross genres--it just switches. A genre-cross is easy to identify. Take the Veronica Mars tv series. It's noir crossed with teen drama. So okay, once you buy the basic premise that a teenager would ever be an effective p.i., the world (...mostly) works. The world can be judged on consistent standards based on how well the noir and teen-scene elements combine.
The Harry Potter world can't be judged that way--at least not in books two through five. Book one is a classic genre cross: quest fantasy plus school story. It ends with the bad guys defeated and a big feast!
After that, things start getting weird. I mean, imagine if Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were written as if you were supposed to feel genuine pity for Violet Beauregarde, who didn't know what she was doing and had never been taught better, but Augustus Gloop was still a hilarious cartoon character! It would be disorienting, I think, that moral switchback. (I should note that I have absolutely nothing against cartoon-fantasy, and think it can be awesome--I picked Roald Dahl for its exemplar because I love his stuff--but if you try to import or half-import its assumptions into realist-fantasy you end up with something really creepy.)
That's how the middle Potter books feel to me. Dudley Dursley's pig tail isn't so funny once Muggle-baiting is introduced as a real problem; it starts to be harder to discern which people's pain we need to take seriously as readers. It starts seeming like good people's pain is important but bad people's is not.
And that's... a little too realistic, you know? Because we always have such an easy time, anyway, only believing in the pain of people we already like, and dismissing or excusing the pain of people we don't.
I was initially convinced that book seven had finally become an entirely realist-fantasy book, rather than a cartoon-fantasy one: a book in which everyone's pain matters. After finishing it, I'm no longer convinced of that, though I do think it was trying to be that, and the series was trying to move from cartoony to realist-fantasy.
One of the most confusing things for me about the Harry Potter series has been the way it doesn't cross genres--it just switches. A genre-cross is easy to identify. Take the Veronica Mars tv series. It's noir crossed with teen drama. So okay, once you buy the basic premise that a teenager would ever be an effective p.i., the world (...mostly) works. The world can be judged on consistent standards based on how well the noir and teen-scene elements combine.
The Harry Potter world can't be judged that way--at least not in books two through five. Book one is a classic genre cross: quest fantasy plus school story. It ends with the bad guys defeated and a big feast!
After that, things start getting weird. I mean, imagine if Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were written as if you were supposed to feel genuine pity for Violet Beauregarde, who didn't know what she was doing and had never been taught better, but Augustus Gloop was still a hilarious cartoon character! It would be disorienting, I think, that moral switchback. (I should note that I have absolutely nothing against cartoon-fantasy, and think it can be awesome--I picked Roald Dahl for its exemplar because I love his stuff--but if you try to import or half-import its assumptions into realist-fantasy you end up with something really creepy.)
That's how the middle Potter books feel to me. Dudley Dursley's pig tail isn't so funny once Muggle-baiting is introduced as a real problem; it starts to be harder to discern which people's pain we need to take seriously as readers. It starts seeming like good people's pain is important but bad people's is not.
And that's... a little too realistic, you know? Because we always have such an easy time, anyway, only believing in the pain of people we already like, and dismissing or excusing the pain of people we don't.
I was initially convinced that book seven had finally become an entirely realist-fantasy book, rather than a cartoon-fantasy one: a book in which everyone's pain matters. After finishing it, I'm no longer convinced of that, though I do think it was trying to be that, and the series was trying to move from cartoony to realist-fantasy.
HALO MADE OF SNAKE: This is the really spoilery Deathly Hallows post. If you don't want that, close this window, because this post is more spoilt than year-old milk.
I've had a couple hours now to think about the thing, and trawl about the vast Intertubes looking at others' thoughts. And I'm still about as ambivalent as I was when I finished the thing. The parts of this post where I talk about what I didn't like are longer because I think they need more explaining, not because they took up the bulk of the book. So this will be two excellent things, one awful thing, and one medium-sized irritation. There were other great moments (the Ravenclaw pass-question!) and other more minor problems, but these are the ones that leaped out at me.
ZOMG so awesome: The friendships. This is the first book since Harry Potter and the Stop Condescending to Americans Stone where I really liked watching Harry, Ron, and Hermione interact. Even when they were fighting, I got the reasons and was willing to watch the fallout. I think the two moments where my hands made embarrassing involuntary-pompoms were the conversation between Harry and Ron after the silver doe/sword episode, and... heh, I can't even remember, but I know it was one of the later moments with these three, e.g. "Are you a wizard or what?" Oh, or maybe Hermione killing the cup!
And although I have a medium-sized problem with the Snape/Lily thing--see below--I loved, loved, loved that they were best friends, and that their friendship felt real. It wasn't solely romance for him; it was some unfortunate combination of eros, projection, philia, and need (as much his need to love as to be loved, I think), and... yeah.
I'll also say that the image that gave this post its title is amazing. Like the Gryffindor hourglass spilling its rubies, it's an image I'll remember.
Sitting in her U-bend, thinking about death: I'm pretty sure I love the deathiness, and the emphasis on acceptance of death. This was Rowling's main theme, and I love her for making this her theme, seriously. I don't agree with all of her ethics, but the big non-negotiables here are that death must be faced, death is real, death is not the very last thing, and death is not the worst thing that can happen. All of that is three thousand percent true, and I'm so, so glad a popular author is saying it, no joke.
Yeah, but I really can't get past: Who would Jesus torture?
Yeah. I really, absolutely can't get past the fact that our possible Jesus-figure and, if nothing else, hero uses all but one of the Unforgivable Curses. And... rargh. Let me try to untangle my problems with this storyline.
Thing One: "Unforgivable." I don't think a Christian can throw this word around lightly. You put this word out there and you're already setting off all my theological Sneakoscopes.
But having thrown in this word, if you later show Unforgivable Curses being tossed around in a way that's glamorized ("That was very gallant of you," or whatever McGonagall's creepy line is), made to seem both righteous and cool, I think it has to be because you've decided to delve more deeply into what is really unforgivable, why these curses are called that, etc. Instead, it just seems like the curses are unforgivable when they're used for bad reasons--the acts of mind-control, torture, and killing are neutral in themselves.
Thing Two: The rise and fall and rise of the Dark Arts. I never bought that destroying someone's memories was somehow more forgivable than controlling their actions, or even torturing them. I would at least hope that I would go through a lot of physical pain to keep my memories of those who are important to me. I don't get the hierarchy here at all, and it creeped the flesh offa me that Hermione stole her own parents' memories, did an end run around their free will, and... got absolutely no textual or subtextual hints that this was wrong to do.
Thing Three: So, Harry Potter can cast the mind-control curse and the torture curse, and still gets told by Dumbledore (and everyone else, Lord how I tired of this!) what a wonderful and selfless person he is?
This isn't the complex morality of wartime. This is easy "it's okay when our side does it."
I feel for you, you little horror: Also, I find it weird and unsatisfying that Rowling is clearly drawn to the conversion narrative--in this book alone, we get more on Regulus, Snape, and Dumbledore himself--but has such a hard time conveying the actual reasons behind or process of conversion.
Am I wrong about this? Am I missing stuff? This is the place where I most worry that my overidentification with characters is getting in the way of my lit-crit.
But for me... I find it bizarre that we get no hint of what made Regulus switch sides. Did he find that he lacked the stomach for it, like Draco? Did he decide it was wrong (which is a different thing), and if so, why? Did he decide Voldemort's success would ultimately damage the pureblood world he loved?? We just don't know. (And I loved Kreacher's tale a lot, but the disadvantage of getting the story that way is that Regulus remains opaque.) I think we got a bit more on Dumbledore--he woke up to the fact that he was neglecting his responsibilities, and I think we can assume that his family tragedy moved him from "for the greater good" to that Koestler line about two and two not adding up to four when the numerals are human lives. It's still a bit odd that his change of heart is so offscreen, but okay.
And then, of course, Snape. We see his friendship with Lily, his love shading into romance, and her disagreement with his friends' political allegiances. In other words, we see the "no duh, huh?" stuff.
What we don't see is why he chose those friends, nor to what extent he adopted their views. We don't see anything, other than raw romantic love, that pushed him into Dumbledore's service--not even a moment of realizing that if it wasn't Lily's child it might have been someone else's, and feeling empathy.
And this is pretty much the only interesting question, to me: Why does someone reject his family, his friends, his community, to take on new commitments and a new belief system?
If the answer is "romantic love and nothing else," that's unrealistic. I know that my own views have changed or shifted on a lot of things due in part to romance. (Not, mostly, my religion--despite the way I tend to talk about it!) But the process was always more like, romance--> taking the beloved's views seriously for once--> thinking about them --> either adopting them or (most often) becoming more sympathetic to them while still holding some variant of the views I held before. I know we're all supposed to think that no one ever thinks in this country anymore, that we all just emote at one another, but I'm fairly sure that if you get three intelligent people who undergo major shifts in philosophy, one of them should have something interesting to say about it.
And, maybe more important than the preceding paragraph of rampant overidentification, there's this: If romantic love is what propels political/ethical conversion, we are well and truly screwed. It's hopeless. Don't try persuading them. This is the After Virtue argument gone feral: We lack shared premises, so reason is doomed, and all we can do is shove beautiful potential victims in potential victimizers' faces until they realize just how wrong they are.
(That's worked so well for women, amirite?)
So... it isn't that I needed Snape to discourse on the imago Dei. It isn't that I needed Regulus to delineate the foundations of human rights. It's that I needed somebody to say something about how you come to know that what you're doing--what you're deeply enmeshed in--is wrong, and how you change.
And while we're here: Blah blah blah did the magical mechanics make no sense or is it just me? and also Narcissa saved his life! -cakes.
I've had a couple hours now to think about the thing, and trawl about the vast Intertubes looking at others' thoughts. And I'm still about as ambivalent as I was when I finished the thing. The parts of this post where I talk about what I didn't like are longer because I think they need more explaining, not because they took up the bulk of the book. So this will be two excellent things, one awful thing, and one medium-sized irritation. There were other great moments (the Ravenclaw pass-question!) and other more minor problems, but these are the ones that leaped out at me.
ZOMG so awesome: The friendships. This is the first book since Harry Potter and the Stop Condescending to Americans Stone where I really liked watching Harry, Ron, and Hermione interact. Even when they were fighting, I got the reasons and was willing to watch the fallout. I think the two moments where my hands made embarrassing involuntary-pompoms were the conversation between Harry and Ron after the silver doe/sword episode, and... heh, I can't even remember, but I know it was one of the later moments with these three, e.g. "Are you a wizard or what?" Oh, or maybe Hermione killing the cup!
And although I have a medium-sized problem with the Snape/Lily thing--see below--I loved, loved, loved that they were best friends, and that their friendship felt real. It wasn't solely romance for him; it was some unfortunate combination of eros, projection, philia, and need (as much his need to love as to be loved, I think), and... yeah.
I'll also say that the image that gave this post its title is amazing. Like the Gryffindor hourglass spilling its rubies, it's an image I'll remember.
Sitting in her U-bend, thinking about death: I'm pretty sure I love the deathiness, and the emphasis on acceptance of death. This was Rowling's main theme, and I love her for making this her theme, seriously. I don't agree with all of her ethics, but the big non-negotiables here are that death must be faced, death is real, death is not the very last thing, and death is not the worst thing that can happen. All of that is three thousand percent true, and I'm so, so glad a popular author is saying it, no joke.
Yeah, but I really can't get past: Who would Jesus torture?
Yeah. I really, absolutely can't get past the fact that our possible Jesus-figure and, if nothing else, hero uses all but one of the Unforgivable Curses. And... rargh. Let me try to untangle my problems with this storyline.
Thing One: "Unforgivable." I don't think a Christian can throw this word around lightly. You put this word out there and you're already setting off all my theological Sneakoscopes.
But having thrown in this word, if you later show Unforgivable Curses being tossed around in a way that's glamorized ("That was very gallant of you," or whatever McGonagall's creepy line is), made to seem both righteous and cool, I think it has to be because you've decided to delve more deeply into what is really unforgivable, why these curses are called that, etc. Instead, it just seems like the curses are unforgivable when they're used for bad reasons--the acts of mind-control, torture, and killing are neutral in themselves.
Thing Two: The rise and fall and rise of the Dark Arts. I never bought that destroying someone's memories was somehow more forgivable than controlling their actions, or even torturing them. I would at least hope that I would go through a lot of physical pain to keep my memories of those who are important to me. I don't get the hierarchy here at all, and it creeped the flesh offa me that Hermione stole her own parents' memories, did an end run around their free will, and... got absolutely no textual or subtextual hints that this was wrong to do.
Thing Three: So, Harry Potter can cast the mind-control curse and the torture curse, and still gets told by Dumbledore (and everyone else, Lord how I tired of this!) what a wonderful and selfless person he is?
This isn't the complex morality of wartime. This is easy "it's okay when our side does it."
I feel for you, you little horror: Also, I find it weird and unsatisfying that Rowling is clearly drawn to the conversion narrative--in this book alone, we get more on Regulus, Snape, and Dumbledore himself--but has such a hard time conveying the actual reasons behind or process of conversion.
Am I wrong about this? Am I missing stuff? This is the place where I most worry that my overidentification with characters is getting in the way of my lit-crit.
But for me... I find it bizarre that we get no hint of what made Regulus switch sides. Did he find that he lacked the stomach for it, like Draco? Did he decide it was wrong (which is a different thing), and if so, why? Did he decide Voldemort's success would ultimately damage the pureblood world he loved?? We just don't know. (And I loved Kreacher's tale a lot, but the disadvantage of getting the story that way is that Regulus remains opaque.) I think we got a bit more on Dumbledore--he woke up to the fact that he was neglecting his responsibilities, and I think we can assume that his family tragedy moved him from "for the greater good" to that Koestler line about two and two not adding up to four when the numerals are human lives. It's still a bit odd that his change of heart is so offscreen, but okay.
And then, of course, Snape. We see his friendship with Lily, his love shading into romance, and her disagreement with his friends' political allegiances. In other words, we see the "no duh, huh?" stuff.
What we don't see is why he chose those friends, nor to what extent he adopted their views. We don't see anything, other than raw romantic love, that pushed him into Dumbledore's service--not even a moment of realizing that if it wasn't Lily's child it might have been someone else's, and feeling empathy.
And this is pretty much the only interesting question, to me: Why does someone reject his family, his friends, his community, to take on new commitments and a new belief system?
If the answer is "romantic love and nothing else," that's unrealistic. I know that my own views have changed or shifted on a lot of things due in part to romance. (Not, mostly, my religion--despite the way I tend to talk about it!) But the process was always more like, romance--> taking the beloved's views seriously for once--> thinking about them --> either adopting them or (most often) becoming more sympathetic to them while still holding some variant of the views I held before. I know we're all supposed to think that no one ever thinks in this country anymore, that we all just emote at one another, but I'm fairly sure that if you get three intelligent people who undergo major shifts in philosophy, one of them should have something interesting to say about it.
And, maybe more important than the preceding paragraph of rampant overidentification, there's this: If romantic love is what propels political/ethical conversion, we are well and truly screwed. It's hopeless. Don't try persuading them. This is the After Virtue argument gone feral: We lack shared premises, so reason is doomed, and all we can do is shove beautiful potential victims in potential victimizers' faces until they realize just how wrong they are.
(That's worked so well for women, amirite?)
So... it isn't that I needed Snape to discourse on the imago Dei. It isn't that I needed Regulus to delineate the foundations of human rights. It's that I needed somebody to say something about how you come to know that what you're doing--what you're deeply enmeshed in--is wrong, and how you change.
And while we're here: Blah blah blah did the magical mechanics make no sense or is it just me? and also Narcissa saved his life! -cakes.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
SUPERIORITY COMPLEX: For me, the most powerful image or concept in X-Men 3: The Last Stand was something the movie could not possibly be expected to flesh out. So I don't blame the movie for avoiding it. It probably would have been a worse movie if it had delved into the thing I found most fascinating. Because what got to me was: the line of mutants outside Worthington Labs.
A line of mutants, seeking a "cure" for their mutation, faced by a screaming mob saying basically, "There's nothing wrong with you, you idiot evil self-hating morons!"
Which... might be expected to provoke some cognitive dissonance.
Let me get this out of the way right quick: A bunch of critics have suggested that the "cure for mutation" is a metaphor for "ex-gay" ministries. And I seriously disagree. Yes--the "cure" plot has very strong cultural markers for "ex-gay" ideology (man, I cringed at that first scene with Angel, I tell you what). But really, "mutation" as such doesn't work very well as a metaphor for anything. Particular, specific mutations can serve beautifully as metaphors for particular situations; but what, symbolically, do Scott Summers, Rogue/Marie, Charles Xavier, Jamie Madrox (yay!!!), Storm, and John/Pyro actually have in common? If you say "difference," then you're just avoiding all the interesting questions about what difference "difference" should make.
(This, by the way, is one of the many many things I love about FA MacNeil's X-Men fanfiction: Both Joel's and [less flamboyantly] Paul's mutations are brilliant metaphors for specific features of their characters. Go! read!)
But there is a real parallel between the line outside Worthington Labs and the (botched, but don't get me started) Dark Phoenix plotline. In both cases, mutants voluntarily submit to vulnerability. For some reason, they choose weakness over what the series' rhetoric constantly describes as "power."
Oh my gosh, I want to know about those reasons so badly.
I can't write fanfiction. If I could, I think I would already have started writing about the line:
* a gay man who came of age in the 1960s, terrified that he's yet again missing out on liberation;
* someone who's never wanted to "fit in," furious and ashamed that the protesting mutants think that's what she wants;
* someone who wants to give up his "powers" as an egalitarian political act and/or spiritual witness;
* someone whose mutation appears somehow linked to a deep-rooted emotional problem or mental illness, who hopes that if the mutation goes away the emotional or psychological problem will dissipate too;
* someone whose powers seem only useful for destruction, who can't see how those powers might be turned toward creation instead.
Yeargh. So many stories--so many ordinary, everyday variants on the issues of power and responsibility that (IMO) ultimately push the Dark Phoenix plot. I really do think linking the "cure"/DP plots was a brilliant decision; I just wish the DP plot had been better executed.
[eta: I just can't stop coming up with these!!! A telepath who believes using her powers is just wrong; a telepath whose powers have made him hate and fear everyone around him; a misanthropic empath; a criminal who doesn't trust himself to use his powers responsibly (or who is giving them up as a penance); a crime victim who doesn't want to turn into the people who hurt him.
[Imagine the conversations between some of these people--the halting, aggressive/ashamed conversations, the attempts to find community in the line. The anguished justifications and self-protective silences. Oh man.
[And I'd also love to see a depowered mutant living at the Mansion (which seems very much in accordance with Xavier's dream), dealing with the consequences of that decision, maybe as part of the X-Men. (I seem to recall that a non-mutant cop was part of the bedraggled team that went up against Magneto in New X-Men, so there's even comics precedent....)]
A line of mutants, seeking a "cure" for their mutation, faced by a screaming mob saying basically, "There's nothing wrong with you, you idiot evil self-hating morons!"
Which... might be expected to provoke some cognitive dissonance.
Let me get this out of the way right quick: A bunch of critics have suggested that the "cure for mutation" is a metaphor for "ex-gay" ministries. And I seriously disagree. Yes--the "cure" plot has very strong cultural markers for "ex-gay" ideology (man, I cringed at that first scene with Angel, I tell you what). But really, "mutation" as such doesn't work very well as a metaphor for anything. Particular, specific mutations can serve beautifully as metaphors for particular situations; but what, symbolically, do Scott Summers, Rogue/Marie, Charles Xavier, Jamie Madrox (yay!!!), Storm, and John/Pyro actually have in common? If you say "difference," then you're just avoiding all the interesting questions about what difference "difference" should make.
(This, by the way, is one of the many many things I love about FA MacNeil's X-Men fanfiction: Both Joel's and [less flamboyantly] Paul's mutations are brilliant metaphors for specific features of their characters. Go! read!)
But there is a real parallel between the line outside Worthington Labs and the (botched, but don't get me started) Dark Phoenix plotline. In both cases, mutants voluntarily submit to vulnerability. For some reason, they choose weakness over what the series' rhetoric constantly describes as "power."
Oh my gosh, I want to know about those reasons so badly.
I can't write fanfiction. If I could, I think I would already have started writing about the line:
* a gay man who came of age in the 1960s, terrified that he's yet again missing out on liberation;
* someone who's never wanted to "fit in," furious and ashamed that the protesting mutants think that's what she wants;
* someone who wants to give up his "powers" as an egalitarian political act and/or spiritual witness;
* someone whose mutation appears somehow linked to a deep-rooted emotional problem or mental illness, who hopes that if the mutation goes away the emotional or psychological problem will dissipate too;
* someone whose powers seem only useful for destruction, who can't see how those powers might be turned toward creation instead.
Yeargh. So many stories--so many ordinary, everyday variants on the issues of power and responsibility that (IMO) ultimately push the Dark Phoenix plot. I really do think linking the "cure"/DP plots was a brilliant decision; I just wish the DP plot had been better executed.
[eta: I just can't stop coming up with these!!! A telepath who believes using her powers is just wrong; a telepath whose powers have made him hate and fear everyone around him; a misanthropic empath; a criminal who doesn't trust himself to use his powers responsibly (or who is giving them up as a penance); a crime victim who doesn't want to turn into the people who hurt him.
[Imagine the conversations between some of these people--the halting, aggressive/ashamed conversations, the attempts to find community in the line. The anguished justifications and self-protective silences. Oh man.
[And I'd also love to see a depowered mutant living at the Mansion (which seems very much in accordance with Xavier's dream), dealing with the consequences of that decision, maybe as part of the X-Men. (I seem to recall that a non-mutant cop was part of the bedraggled team that went up against Magneto in New X-Men, so there's even comics precedent....)]
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
GOBLET OF FIRE: So yeah, I saw it. Quick verdict: worst of the four. (My list, for the movies, is POA, SS, COS, GOF. For the books, HBP, POA, tie between PS/SS and COS, OOTP, GOF.) Longer verdict:
I. What I loved:
The opening. Scary and spooky and wonderful. And we get Barty Crouch Jr. in the very beginning, so the later revelation isn't quite so "...and that came from where?!"
The Dark Mark. Utterly perfect.
Neville. Adorable in every scene. So much love!
In the books, by the way, I cordially loathe Neville. In his scenes with Snape, I have to remind myself in Very Firm Tones that my religion says even morons don't deserve humiliation. (A maxim from which I have frequently benefited.) But in the movies, and most especially GOF, I love him and I see what his fans are talking about.
Rita's Quill: I'm only "heh" about Rita herself--fun, but not quite fun enough--but her salacious quill is hilarious. (Oh, and yes, I picked up on her cheek-stroking with Fleur. Rita, you scamp!)
Lucius vs. Voldemort: Fun!
II. Eh, I guess:
Chaos at the Quidditch World Cup: Well done, and very "life in wartime." But we lost the entire political angle of Muggle-baiting, the ethical questions of Levicorpus by Death Eaters vs. Obliviate by Ministry goons, the fact that the Dark Mark scared the faux-Eaters away, and pretty much everything else that made this scene psychologically interesting in the book.
The Hungarian Horntail: Yes, it was awesome. But 1) not necessary. Seriously. I'll get to this later, but we wasted a lot of time here, and this segment really contributed to the feeling that the movie was one set-piece after another, rather than a coherent story.
2) That's a lot of damage to the school. Is Harry's performance, as shown in the movie, really admirable? The other champions managed not to destroy half the towers and roofs around them.
The Horntail sequence was suspenseful and fun while it lasted. But almost immediately afterwards it began to feel like too much cotton candy: cloying and disorienting and pointless.
The Mystery was too obvious for those who had read the books. I don't entirely blame the filmmakers for this, but I did feel a little bit like, "OK, Polyjuice, I get it! Move on!" Still, much better than the POA movie's utter lack of explaining anything.
III. Strong dislike:
Beauxbatons: What'n Ah say What'n was up with their idiotic swoony entrance?
And while we're on the subject: It makes no sense for BB to be a girls' school while DS is a boys' school. I don't know what the function of BB is in the text, but DS is quite clearly the Dark Arts school. It has a real narrative function that isn't (as Bellatrix will tell you!) confined to the male of the species.
Cute Krum. In the book, he's described as sallow-skinned, hook-nosed, and generally Snapeish. I really hope this description foreshadows an interesting Krum character arc. Regardless, I would have loved another Snapey heartthrob.
More importantly, we get no sense of why Hermione gives him the time of day. In the book, he was bookish (I think? at least he spent lots of time in the library, though I can't remember if that was merely a ploy to woo Hermione--even so, good on him for recognizing this aspect of her character) and seemed somewhat distant from a Durmstrang that came across as manipulative and unpleasant. In the movie, it's all very He Saw Her Across A Crowded Room; which... ick.
Shrill Hermione: So I love Hermione in PS/SS, and even in COS and the book of POA. She's believably awful ("You've got dirt, on your nose. Just there. Did you know?") and believably adorable. In the movie of POA she started getting kinda generic action-heroine, which is just not who Hermione is. And in GOF she plays almost the entire movie in Fishwife mode. I didn't sense her love of the boys (especially Ron) and I really missed the text's understanding of her ruthlessness (captive Rita).
Moaning Myrtle: I love Myrtle. She's hilarious and fun, and serves as an effectively spooky guide to the characters' maturation. But in this movie she basically assaults a 14-year-old, and it was just gross. Like, she gives Harry Potter an unwanted lap dance. Seriously icky.
Daniel Radcliffe Can't Cry. Sorry. Loved the setup of that scene--everyone cheering the victory until they realize what's happened--but loathed the execution.
The ending: Anticlimax defined.
IV. Lacunae: It was obvious from the start that a lot would have to be left out in the translation from book to screen. But this is where I thought GOF truly failed. I am pretty sure I speak here as a reader and writer, not solely as a fan.
Thank goodness they left out: SPEW.
I wish I'd seen this, but I can live without it: Percy wading into the Lake, distraught to think Ron might be in danger. I... I don't love Percy (I think he'd hate me!), but I respect him, because he does work hard and seems genuinely hard-hit by the way all of his family members except Molly seem to loathe him. I feel for Percy.
Bellatrix "Crazy Like an AK'd Fox!" Lestrange. So much love!
Plot-crucial scenes we didn't see: "The Egg and the Eye" a.k.a. Snape's confrontation with fake-Moody.
The infirmary scene with Snape's revelation of his Dark Mark.
Snape and Sirius shake hands; "if you are prepared...."
And okay: I started reading the books because I read people talking about Snape. In fact, I may have read the books specifically because of discussions of Snape's role in Goblet of Fire. Watching the movies also made me a thoroughgoing Alan Rickman fangirl. So I understand that I'm biased.
But still--if you've read the series, ask yourself: Are these three scenes crucial to the next three books? Are they incidental, or do they strike at major themes of the series? I just can't see how it makes any sense at all to cut these scenes in favor of, e.g., fifteen minutes of Horntail.
So yeah: overall, not a fan. And yes, Voldemort's plan doesn't get any less stupid in the movie. Sigh.
A random note of interest: The movie keeps the scene where faux-Moody hammers home a connection between Weasleys and the Imperius Curse. Innnnteresting, no? Foreshadowing, or just "backshadowing" of the Ginny/diary plot from Book Two?
I. What I loved:
The opening. Scary and spooky and wonderful. And we get Barty Crouch Jr. in the very beginning, so the later revelation isn't quite so "...and that came from where?!"
The Dark Mark. Utterly perfect.
Neville. Adorable in every scene. So much love!
In the books, by the way, I cordially loathe Neville. In his scenes with Snape, I have to remind myself in Very Firm Tones that my religion says even morons don't deserve humiliation. (A maxim from which I have frequently benefited.) But in the movies, and most especially GOF, I love him and I see what his fans are talking about.
Rita's Quill: I'm only "heh" about Rita herself--fun, but not quite fun enough--but her salacious quill is hilarious. (Oh, and yes, I picked up on her cheek-stroking with Fleur. Rita, you scamp!)
Lucius vs. Voldemort: Fun!
II. Eh, I guess:
Chaos at the Quidditch World Cup: Well done, and very "life in wartime." But we lost the entire political angle of Muggle-baiting, the ethical questions of Levicorpus by Death Eaters vs. Obliviate by Ministry goons, the fact that the Dark Mark scared the faux-Eaters away, and pretty much everything else that made this scene psychologically interesting in the book.
The Hungarian Horntail: Yes, it was awesome. But 1) not necessary. Seriously. I'll get to this later, but we wasted a lot of time here, and this segment really contributed to the feeling that the movie was one set-piece after another, rather than a coherent story.
2) That's a lot of damage to the school. Is Harry's performance, as shown in the movie, really admirable? The other champions managed not to destroy half the towers and roofs around them.
The Horntail sequence was suspenseful and fun while it lasted. But almost immediately afterwards it began to feel like too much cotton candy: cloying and disorienting and pointless.
The Mystery was too obvious for those who had read the books. I don't entirely blame the filmmakers for this, but I did feel a little bit like, "OK, Polyjuice, I get it! Move on!" Still, much better than the POA movie's utter lack of explaining anything.
III. Strong dislike:
Beauxbatons: What'n Ah say What'n was up with their idiotic swoony entrance?
And while we're on the subject: It makes no sense for BB to be a girls' school while DS is a boys' school. I don't know what the function of BB is in the text, but DS is quite clearly the Dark Arts school. It has a real narrative function that isn't (as Bellatrix will tell you!) confined to the male of the species.
Cute Krum. In the book, he's described as sallow-skinned, hook-nosed, and generally Snapeish. I really hope this description foreshadows an interesting Krum character arc. Regardless, I would have loved another Snapey heartthrob.
More importantly, we get no sense of why Hermione gives him the time of day. In the book, he was bookish (I think? at least he spent lots of time in the library, though I can't remember if that was merely a ploy to woo Hermione--even so, good on him for recognizing this aspect of her character) and seemed somewhat distant from a Durmstrang that came across as manipulative and unpleasant. In the movie, it's all very He Saw Her Across A Crowded Room; which... ick.
Shrill Hermione: So I love Hermione in PS/SS, and even in COS and the book of POA. She's believably awful ("You've got dirt, on your nose. Just there. Did you know?") and believably adorable. In the movie of POA she started getting kinda generic action-heroine, which is just not who Hermione is. And in GOF she plays almost the entire movie in Fishwife mode. I didn't sense her love of the boys (especially Ron) and I really missed the text's understanding of her ruthlessness (captive Rita).
Moaning Myrtle: I love Myrtle. She's hilarious and fun, and serves as an effectively spooky guide to the characters' maturation. But in this movie she basically assaults a 14-year-old, and it was just gross. Like, she gives Harry Potter an unwanted lap dance. Seriously icky.
Daniel Radcliffe Can't Cry. Sorry. Loved the setup of that scene--everyone cheering the victory until they realize what's happened--but loathed the execution.
The ending: Anticlimax defined.
IV. Lacunae: It was obvious from the start that a lot would have to be left out in the translation from book to screen. But this is where I thought GOF truly failed. I am pretty sure I speak here as a reader and writer, not solely as a fan.
Thank goodness they left out: SPEW.
I wish I'd seen this, but I can live without it: Percy wading into the Lake, distraught to think Ron might be in danger. I... I don't love Percy (I think he'd hate me!), but I respect him, because he does work hard and seems genuinely hard-hit by the way all of his family members except Molly seem to loathe him. I feel for Percy.
Bellatrix "Crazy Like an AK'd Fox!" Lestrange. So much love!
Plot-crucial scenes we didn't see: "The Egg and the Eye" a.k.a. Snape's confrontation with fake-Moody.
The infirmary scene with Snape's revelation of his Dark Mark.
Snape and Sirius shake hands; "if you are prepared...."
And okay: I started reading the books because I read people talking about Snape. In fact, I may have read the books specifically because of discussions of Snape's role in Goblet of Fire. Watching the movies also made me a thoroughgoing Alan Rickman fangirl. So I understand that I'm biased.
But still--if you've read the series, ask yourself: Are these three scenes crucial to the next three books? Are they incidental, or do they strike at major themes of the series? I just can't see how it makes any sense at all to cut these scenes in favor of, e.g., fifteen minutes of Horntail.
So yeah: overall, not a fan. And yes, Voldemort's plan doesn't get any less stupid in the movie. Sigh.
A random note of interest: The movie keeps the scene where faux-Moody hammers home a connection between Weasleys and the Imperius Curse. Innnnteresting, no? Foreshadowing, or just "backshadowing" of the Ginny/diary plot from Book Two?
Thursday, June 02, 2005
For Certain Values Of
the past and the future are both gayer than the present
romans-a-clef are gayer than bildungsromans
envy is the only deadly sin that might not be gay
irony is gayer than sincerity
implicit is gayer than explicit
complicit is also gayer than explicit
illicit is, of course, gayer than licit
liberation is never gay
of the five senses, sight is the least gay
(but watching and looking are very gay indeed)
wanting what you get is gayer than getting what you want
creation is (obviously) gayer than procreation
destruction is the second-gayest act, after creation
women are gayer than men
(because they're both faster
and subtler)
which is gayer: the telephone, or email?
Measure for Measure is gayer than Love's Labour's Lost
(see above re wrath, irony)
surrealism is gayer than impressionism (?)
the desert is gayer than the jungle
the 1980s were gayer than the 1970s
were gayer than the 1960s
which is gayer: guns or knives?
cats are gayer than dogs
ice is gayer than fire
blue is gayer than red
evening is gayer than night is gayer than day
Schrodinger's Cat is the gayest cat
accidents are gayer than substance
purgatory is gayer than heaven
anachronism is gay
synesthesia is too
hangovers are always gay
movies are gayer than paintings
"the movies" are much gayer than any particular movie could ever be
theft is gayer than murder
spying is gayer than war is gayer than peace
interpretation is gayer than text
the past and the future are both gayer than the present
romans-a-clef are gayer than bildungsromans
envy is the only deadly sin that might not be gay
irony is gayer than sincerity
implicit is gayer than explicit
complicit is also gayer than explicit
illicit is, of course, gayer than licit
liberation is never gay
of the five senses, sight is the least gay
(but watching and looking are very gay indeed)
wanting what you get is gayer than getting what you want
creation is (obviously) gayer than procreation
destruction is the second-gayest act, after creation
women are gayer than men
(because they're both faster
and subtler)
which is gayer: the telephone, or email?
Measure for Measure is gayer than Love's Labour's Lost
(see above re wrath, irony)
surrealism is gayer than impressionism (?)
the desert is gayer than the jungle
the 1980s were gayer than the 1970s
were gayer than the 1960s
which is gayer: guns or knives?
cats are gayer than dogs
ice is gayer than fire
blue is gayer than red
evening is gayer than night is gayer than day
Schrodinger's Cat is the gayest cat
accidents are gayer than substance
purgatory is gayer than heaven
anachronism is gay
synesthesia is too
hangovers are always gay
movies are gayer than paintings
"the movies" are much gayer than any particular movie could ever be
theft is gayer than murder
spying is gayer than war is gayer than peace
interpretation is gayer than text
Sunday, May 01, 2005
YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY MAKES ME MAD? THEY CLEAN ME WITH A BRILLO PAD!: So, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
I loved the look of it. Everything looks perfect. The Brazil influence is used to brilliant effect for all the Vogon scenes (which is a lot of them, as Vogons are much more integral to the movie's plot than the book's)--rusty, clunky, stringy, crapped-out futuristic technology. The Guide snippets are hilarious, with kind of iPod-ad/clip-art animation. The natural-wonder scenes are indeed wonderful. Zaphod's second head works (although his wardrobe could maybe be even further out there). This really is state-of-the-art moviemaking.
I loved the main actors: Martin Freeman's Arthur Dent, Mos Def's Ford Prefect (I am not making that up!), and Sam Rockwell's Zaphod Beeblebrox were awesome. Ford and Arthur, and Ford and Zaphod, had terrific screen chemistry--they were a hoot and a half. I hadn't been looking forward to Trillian at all; Zooey Deschanel was an okayish, fairly generic actress, but not as bad as I'd expected. (More on Trillian in a moment.) I also loved some of the tertiary actors: Helen Mirren as Deep Thought, the mice!, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast.
Most of the humor really worked. The only off-note I caught was the horrible mutilation of the opening bulldozer scene (they cut the bit about BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD!!! what is the point of doing that???). I also cordially loathed the opening (I'm sure I'm in the minority there), and the bits of the voice-over that weren't explicitly framed as quotes from the Guide. But in general, the humor and the general tone of the script felt like Douglas Adams. In Don't Panic, if I'm remembering correctly, Adams says each time he rewrote the HHGTTG story (book, radio play, musical, computer game) he tried to do it slightly differently, and this time is no exception. I thought all the additions worked beautifully: the ideaslappers, the Point of View Gun, Zaphod's political rival, the various crazy stuff the Improbability Drive did, etc.
Now, the other things. One minor snag: I'd really been looking forward to Alan Rickman's Marvin the Paranoid Android. And he was good. But he played it more sobby than I'd like--I was hoping he'd bring a more resentful and slightly menacing (or at least Faintly Macabre) edge to Marvin.
Three medium snags: There's a brief sequence of very standard-issue pisstake of religion/Catholicism/C of E. Could've been done much better. If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like.
There are also brief bits of Luv Momma Earth preachiness. The plot already tells you this, people! Earth gets BLOWN UP! You do not need to TELL me to appreciate it when it gets BLOWN UP! ...Yes, dialing down, give me a moment.
OK, better. The third minor problem was a dumb, cliched female-jealousy subplot. (Wow--none of the HHGTTG iterations have good female roles, do they? I suppose I should be glad we didn't see Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Whatever!)
Now the two big problems: I didn't notice the strong anti-questioning theme in the books, whereas the movie hammers it in. Maybe that's because in the books it's "merely" an integral part of the plot (42), whereas in the movie people talk about it a lot. But yes: The movie is deeply anti-philosophical and pro-satisfaction. I prefer dissatisfaction and struggle; I don't think The Question is "What's six times seven?" (I did really like one example of the anti-philosophical dialogue, though, between Arthur and Slartibartfast:
SLARTIBARTFAST, with the self-satisfied air people always have when they say this: I'd rather be happy than right.
ARTHUR: ...And are you happy?
SLARTIBARTFAST: No--that's the bit where it breaks down.
That exchange is nicely ambiguous in a way that the rest of the "questioning"-themed moments in the movie aren't.)
And... oh God, this is a movie about Twoo Wuv. Thus, I am filled with Twoo Hate. I cannot express strongly enough how much I loathe a) the Twoo Wuv plot in general, and b) Trillian as Arthur's twoo wuv in particular. As presented in the books, Trillian is just kinda bland. As presented in this movie, Trillian does actually change, from shallow pseudo-adventurous idiot to someone who can appreciate and reward loyalty and courage. That's cool. What's not cool is that Arthur falls for the crap Trillian! Arthur has no character arc. He starts out loving crap-Trillian, and beating himself up for not fulfilling her stupid idiot fake-ass adventure-hero fantasy. Then he wins the heart of better-Trillian (which in itself seems to miss the point of Arthur Dent: he wears a bathrobe, he just wants some tea, he doesn't get the girl) but he doesn't even seem to notice that she has changed. Oh, I hated every second of the Arthur Loves Trillian plot.
So, in closing: I'm glad I saw it. It definitely entertained me. I don't think I really want to see it again anytime soon. I'll probably Netflix it when it comes out on DVD, so I can watch more Mos Def and ooh and aah at the pretty pictures. It didn't leave me retroactively annoyed with the books, or replace my book-images with movie-images, which are always the big worries in these adaptations. It didn't win my fannish heart (and it's sort of depressing to realize that even with a movie this geeky I'm still not the target audience!), but it also was a fun time at the movie palace.
ETA: And you can buy the knitted versions of the Heart of Gold crew. Hee.
I loved the look of it. Everything looks perfect. The Brazil influence is used to brilliant effect for all the Vogon scenes (which is a lot of them, as Vogons are much more integral to the movie's plot than the book's)--rusty, clunky, stringy, crapped-out futuristic technology. The Guide snippets are hilarious, with kind of iPod-ad/clip-art animation. The natural-wonder scenes are indeed wonderful. Zaphod's second head works (although his wardrobe could maybe be even further out there). This really is state-of-the-art moviemaking.
I loved the main actors: Martin Freeman's Arthur Dent, Mos Def's Ford Prefect (I am not making that up!), and Sam Rockwell's Zaphod Beeblebrox were awesome. Ford and Arthur, and Ford and Zaphod, had terrific screen chemistry--they were a hoot and a half. I hadn't been looking forward to Trillian at all; Zooey Deschanel was an okayish, fairly generic actress, but not as bad as I'd expected. (More on Trillian in a moment.) I also loved some of the tertiary actors: Helen Mirren as Deep Thought, the mice!, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast.
Most of the humor really worked. The only off-note I caught was the horrible mutilation of the opening bulldozer scene (they cut the bit about BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD!!! what is the point of doing that???). I also cordially loathed the opening (I'm sure I'm in the minority there), and the bits of the voice-over that weren't explicitly framed as quotes from the Guide. But in general, the humor and the general tone of the script felt like Douglas Adams. In Don't Panic, if I'm remembering correctly, Adams says each time he rewrote the HHGTTG story (book, radio play, musical, computer game) he tried to do it slightly differently, and this time is no exception. I thought all the additions worked beautifully: the ideaslappers, the Point of View Gun, Zaphod's political rival, the various crazy stuff the Improbability Drive did, etc.
Now, the other things. One minor snag: I'd really been looking forward to Alan Rickman's Marvin the Paranoid Android. And he was good. But he played it more sobby than I'd like--I was hoping he'd bring a more resentful and slightly menacing (or at least Faintly Macabre) edge to Marvin.
Three medium snags: There's a brief sequence of very standard-issue pisstake of religion/Catholicism/C of E. Could've been done much better. If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like.
There are also brief bits of Luv Momma Earth preachiness. The plot already tells you this, people! Earth gets BLOWN UP! You do not need to TELL me to appreciate it when it gets BLOWN UP! ...Yes, dialing down, give me a moment.
OK, better. The third minor problem was a dumb, cliched female-jealousy subplot. (Wow--none of the HHGTTG iterations have good female roles, do they? I suppose I should be glad we didn't see Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Whatever!)
Now the two big problems: I didn't notice the strong anti-questioning theme in the books, whereas the movie hammers it in. Maybe that's because in the books it's "merely" an integral part of the plot (42), whereas in the movie people talk about it a lot. But yes: The movie is deeply anti-philosophical and pro-satisfaction. I prefer dissatisfaction and struggle; I don't think The Question is "What's six times seven?" (I did really like one example of the anti-philosophical dialogue, though, between Arthur and Slartibartfast:
SLARTIBARTFAST, with the self-satisfied air people always have when they say this: I'd rather be happy than right.
ARTHUR: ...And are you happy?
SLARTIBARTFAST: No--that's the bit where it breaks down.
That exchange is nicely ambiguous in a way that the rest of the "questioning"-themed moments in the movie aren't.)
And... oh God, this is a movie about Twoo Wuv. Thus, I am filled with Twoo Hate. I cannot express strongly enough how much I loathe a) the Twoo Wuv plot in general, and b) Trillian as Arthur's twoo wuv in particular. As presented in the books, Trillian is just kinda bland. As presented in this movie, Trillian does actually change, from shallow pseudo-adventurous idiot to someone who can appreciate and reward loyalty and courage. That's cool. What's not cool is that Arthur falls for the crap Trillian! Arthur has no character arc. He starts out loving crap-Trillian, and beating himself up for not fulfilling her stupid idiot fake-ass adventure-hero fantasy. Then he wins the heart of better-Trillian (which in itself seems to miss the point of Arthur Dent: he wears a bathrobe, he just wants some tea, he doesn't get the girl) but he doesn't even seem to notice that she has changed. Oh, I hated every second of the Arthur Loves Trillian plot.
So, in closing: I'm glad I saw it. It definitely entertained me. I don't think I really want to see it again anytime soon. I'll probably Netflix it when it comes out on DVD, so I can watch more Mos Def and ooh and aah at the pretty pictures. It didn't leave me retroactively annoyed with the books, or replace my book-images with movie-images, which are always the big worries in these adaptations. It didn't win my fannish heart (and it's sort of depressing to realize that even with a movie this geeky I'm still not the target audience!), but it also was a fun time at the movie palace.
ETA: And you can buy the knitted versions of the Heart of Gold crew. Hee.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
YOU/SHE: Mandatory Minimum Sentence
That first time, when we met in the green-marbled anteroom of the Social Ministry, she was standing just behind you (heeling, I thought--I was full of myself then and have had ample time to reassess her), blond on blonde, watching as I struggled through courteous conversation with my social betters, watching, as I slid much too fast into something I didn't fully understand, while I didn't know where to look, down and then into your eyes and then very quickly away, while her thin pale lips pressed together and then slowly shaped into a smile as she tilted her head; I guessed even then that she would marry you (though she will never be as close to you as I was once), and I still wonder whether she guessed even then that I would come to betray all the beneficial calculations of the Social Ministry, because really, you know, I should have been grateful--poor boy made good--but instead I spent nights pacing your house, where you'd so generously let me stay, hating my job and looking in mirrors to see if my skull had begun to show beneath my skin--because oh, I know, even my repentance is vanity, so that even now what I remember and what I regret or resent (variably depending on the weather) is not the murders or the children taken from their parents but the vision I see when I close my eyes: your hands, my friend, against her skin and tangled in her white-blonde hair.
That first time, when we met in the green-marbled anteroom of the Social Ministry, she was standing just behind you (heeling, I thought--I was full of myself then and have had ample time to reassess her), blond on blonde, watching as I struggled through courteous conversation with my social betters, watching, as I slid much too fast into something I didn't fully understand, while I didn't know where to look, down and then into your eyes and then very quickly away, while her thin pale lips pressed together and then slowly shaped into a smile as she tilted her head; I guessed even then that she would marry you (though she will never be as close to you as I was once), and I still wonder whether she guessed even then that I would come to betray all the beneficial calculations of the Social Ministry, because really, you know, I should have been grateful--poor boy made good--but instead I spent nights pacing your house, where you'd so generously let me stay, hating my job and looking in mirrors to see if my skull had begun to show beneath my skin--because oh, I know, even my repentance is vanity, so that even now what I remember and what I regret or resent (variably depending on the weather) is not the murders or the children taken from their parents but the vision I see when I close my eyes: your hands, my friend, against her skin and tangled in her white-blonde hair.
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