Category Archives: Film

Journeys

Garden State, I think, should be added to our examples of the journey. A weak and cliched ending, but still worthy of study in this context.

Nicely paced (much like Lost in Translation), solid character writing, visually interesting. But could we please redefine and reimagine “happy ending”?

Compass Achievements

I’ve nearly completed my British Literature I finals and have been looking at journals and revisions of earlier writing by students. I think the final, a series of short answer questions, pin-pointed pretty well what I want students to know at the end (after lots of writing and reading), given the expectations and requirements of this mode of demonstration. The students pretty much got the prosody elements, showed more confidence in their responses, and knew where cited support was necessary.

But I’m thinking about something else: the knowledge structure of our British Literature sequence in relation to the college as a whole. Ideally, a student will enter the intro surveys with background in Composition and an additional semester of writing work in Composition II or Literature and Composition. Ideally, a student will have a pretty good grasp of textual analysis and critique, the fundamentals of argumentation, documentation styles for academic work, essay organizational structures, and the modern library. Ideally, the student will have followed this course of north to south/south to north study semester to semester so that the knowledge and practice is fresh upon entering the survey.

But what other elements form an ideal if we see the entrance into the course as a circle rather than a line of knowledge. A student might enter the survey with some degree of knowledge of historical analysis and some coverage of western history. Other elements could be mathematics and quantitative anlysis, an understanding of the analysis of instructions in a social, human context, psychology frameworks.

Case in point. Students in Brit Lit may also be enjoying Professor Timmons’ film course. In that course John covers elements of the hero’s journey and does so through viewings and lots of written analyses. These objectives compliment the study of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; they also compliment a student’s practice with styles of writing. Likewise, the study of the journey elements in British Literature compliment the study of film. In both courses, the journey constitutes a study of morphology, narrative, genre, character, history, social dynamics, and human culture and cognition. Beyond specific courses and their objectives, students in both courses should come out with a good sense of the journey as a big idea across the spectrum of human experience and in doing so learn something about film and literature.

It takes a lot of practice amd much thinking about it just to grasp the connections and significance of similar morphological elements in Star Wars and Sir Gawain. Mucho time spanned between the synoptics and Milton, and time can be deceptive. Milton had no ‘lectricity, right. If we are different and distinct from those who came before, then what could the similarities possibly be? Other discipline connections help to bust down this powerful barrier to creativity.

Another Blockbuster Hits the Dust

It’s time for another blockbuster-bust movie post, unfortunately. K and I hit the big screen today for the matinee showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire. I must say that I’m not a fan of the Rowling novels. I found them incidental and wonderfully upholstered mildness.

This is the second Potter film I’ve seen, and I can’t even remember the first. Anyway, if I hadn’t been there today with my daughter, I would have quit the place after the first thirty minutes. I actually look forward to these big-movie drives to the theater just to be with K, who makes it all worth it.

But to it all.

The Goblet of Fire should have used the storytelling technique of irrevocable decision as the driving force behind the conflict. The problem is that the bad guy, Voldemort, wants back into the world to continue doing his evil (part of which has do with killing Potter), yet this inevitability plays practically no explicit role in the story, even though it should’ve been written as the inevitable conclusion of several irrevocable decisions, traps, and setups that actually compel this unlucky ending. The plot is driven by a contest made up of three parts. Harry Potter must participate in this contest between three rival schools (will he survive them–even the novel never leaves this in doubt) and it is the outcome of this contest and the other conflicts in the film that should lead to Voldemort’s return in full presence and form. Problem is, I couldn’t tell how they were connected (despite the motif of 3s in the film) until the end when the new professor of the Defence against the Dark Arts is revealed as an evil agent and rounds up the connections for us. My reaction: I just didn’t care enough to care.

Why not? Many heroes must make the ethical choice on the journey to proving themselves. But in this story, Harry isn’t given the opportunity to make any. Potter is entered into the Triwizard Tournament unknowingly by Alastor Moody. This entrance is against the rules, but the “absolute” rules also prevent Potter from bowing out. His heroism is therefore mechanical, routine, and without ethical problem.

I must say that I left the film wondering why Voldemort’s presence is such a bad thing (there’s a difference between bad and supposed to be bad) and how all the tendrils of the story actually matter to the core story which I couldn’t really describe. As Ebert puts it

Hogwarts School and indeed the entire structure of Harry’s world is threatened by Voldemort’s return to something approaching his potential powers, and the film becomes a struggle between the civilized traditions of the school and the dark void of Voldemortism.

The film depends on a lot of backend for consistency, but I didn’t feel this conflict between civilized tradition and Voldemortism. First of all, this Voldemortism has very little shape in the Potter series as a whole and is hard to grasp in this film as something looming or sinister. I never feel that anyone is ever really in danger. What is the threat?

Rowling’s world is made for digital manipulation, from the talking school interiors and dizzy steeples to the mirked woods inhabited by dragons and giants, and the digital work was certainly splendid. But it made for a film where appearence and tricks dominate. Characters and story fall flat and I’m left wanting something else. Maybe characters who experience danger and are humbled by it, who despair at their limitations yet learn to live with them. Maybe a story that confronts lifeworld thresholds with real consequence.

Otherwise the question stays: so what?

Redundant aesthetics

Welcome easywriter.

But now to this comment by Mark A on my post on Sin City the film. Mark writes

This films’ ability to capture the look of Millers’ books makes it a valid cinematic effort. It is a series of comic panels set in motion. Perhaps it’s greatest reason for being a film is to build a larger audience for graphic novels. This film made people question thier notion of what a comic book is. The world needs to know it’s not all spandex and heroism in these pages. There’s bullets, decapitations and caniabism too.

Comic book pages are the last battlefields of true freedom of speech, it’s nice to see one of them presented to the masses uncensored, without being “adapted” to protect the innocent.

My response is why, if the “look” of the comic is expressed in the film , does this make Sin City a valid “cinematic effort”? Perhaps Mark is pushing a valid criteria for judging the film. The film should be judged for its ability to express a comic’s aesthetic climate and feel. This may indeed be my problem: I don’t think the film came at all close to expressing the panels in the graphic novels. I saw that the film expressed the mood, color, and texture of the world. But I got that from the comic.

Why do I need a filmic version of Kevin’s hacking?

Mark?

Sin City and Posture

I read Frank Miller’s Sin City recently and while I found the art and graphic quality of the works interesting, I was never really grabbed by the stories. I found the film adaptation just odd.

The writing and acting aspire to classic noir. The visuals aspire to Miller’s rhythmic, psychologically jagged and electric blackness. But Sin City the film is all posture and no drama, all look and bored actors. It captures the look but goes flat from first to last gun shot. It takes a special kind of writing and image-making to pull off The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep. There’s also a form problem here. While the filmic League of Extraordinary Gentlemen suffered from an authenticity crisis, Sin City never really finds a good reason for being a film.

A few Congratulations

Here’s a link to June Noble’s story recently published in Vitality Magazine. In the article she details a powerful struggle against Lupus. June is a member of the Narratives group and an all around good kid. We value her contributions and have enjoyed her in class. A snip

As if on rebound from withdrawal, I awoke one morning and noticed a large red mark on one cheek. Assuming it was from sleeping on that side, I thought no more about it, but by the time I arrived at work there was a matching redness on the other cheek. The dreaded butterfly mask of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus had suddenly appeared. The mystery of my red nose was solved and the mystery of my illness was finally becoming clear.

In addition, Patrice Hamilton’s short film The Long Weekend will be among the showings at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival. TLW was hard work for lots of good people and the product is a real gem. The date is November 12th at 2PM at Village East Cinemas.

A Few More Things Firefly

Thud! and Wash is dead. I think I understand how this works. Wash dies at a moment you wouldn’t expect. The hard ride through the beast’s belly is over and the next phase of the journey is about to commence: the final battle. Wash utters something about keen pilotry. The flying shook the theater. Then he’s shot through the chest with what looks like a massive whale bone or giant’s darning needle. Thud. Zip! Zoe’s response is shock, as is ours. Just like that, her love is dead. Wash is stripped of TV-series-character protection. The big arc takes him.

Serenity and other things Firefly

Mark Bernstein on Serenity

A good movie. See it. Probably the best science fiction movie since The Matrix. And, while you could still make a case for the original Star Wars if you wanted, this is probably the best space opera to date.

S and I went for the show on Friday and we enjoyed a pretty much empty theater. I sensed that Serenity, a closer on the Joss Whedon series Firefly (which I was sort of sad to see drop off the air: if it’s good, it’s doomed on SciFi), was the result of a top-notch editing job, taking lots of episodes pipelined for story development, and truncating the whole into a tight narrative built for filmspace. I suspect also though that those unfamiliar with the series may find the characters and narrative complications perplexing.

Monsters and Others

Perhaps you all have seen the proliferation of monster/alien shows on television, a noticable trend away from the superhero amidst us, to the alien amidst us, which is not unique but going through revival. From Buffy and Smallville to the 4400 and Alien Invasion. The idea of the monster and the alien are related in many ways. In Beowulf, the decendant of Cain is a foul creature who can eat you whole and rip you apart. In The Invasion of the Body Snatchers you are “eaten whole,” likewise in The Thing, but the attack is subtle, infiltrative, and creepy (with lots ooze and gell), unlike the War of the Worlds where the attack has marked borders. Either way, the alien is a monster. In both Beowulf and Invasion, the monster or the alien is NOT US.

The monster always surprises. It approaches from the periphery, from inside us even. The monster is that “other” who is always unexpected, sneaky or not. The world outside the circle of order teems with the agents of chance and aggression. Such is the devil in The Exorcist and the terror agents who killed us and knocked down our buildings. Such is the Green Knight who penetrates from without. Such is Sauron, who sneaks back into Mordor until openly challenging the heros of the day.

Who are the others, what is the other, and how to deal with them, or it, is still a fundamental question. It can be a complicated question of masks, identity, affiliation, affinity, or the design of barriers meant to keep the storm waters out. The clubs children form. The institutions governments make. The images of the artists.

In Battlestar Galactica there are no overt aliens as “aliens.” But the program still confronts the question in that the identity of the enemy is unsure. Who among us, the program asks, will open themselves up as the sudden and unlikely enemy: in a card game, a firefight, a computer system. The robotic army is obviously monstrous, but they are the easy target–openly antagonistic. However, the beautiful but passionate clones are the real danger behind them and the question goes even deeper because there must be a cause behind them as well–guess who? The problem is to flesh the immediate enemy out. As in Gawain and the implications of the pentangle, the skill comes in seeing past the mirage and the agents of bewilderment.