Could that be the predecessor to Weyland-Yutani, the evil corporation to end all evil corporations?
Either way, it's Ridley Scott with a heaping dose of gothic horror and science fiction. Until Guillermo Del Toro gets to make "At The Mountains Of Madness", this will do nicely.
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Science Fiction
It won't surprise long-time readers to learn that I approve of Justice Scalia's majority opinion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchant's Association, which struck down California's ban on the sale of violent videogames to minors. The opinion is more or less mandated by United States v. Stevens, another case we cheered.
So I won't dwell (other than to applaud it briefly) on the majority's holding that minors do have First Amendment rights, nor on the cynicism of California's attempt to end-run the First Amendment by claiming that all speech may be regulated in the name of protecting children.
I want to dwell on the concurring opinion of Justice Samuel Alito, which shows the danger posed by statutes such as California's Violent Videogame Act, and of judges who believe their opinions as art critics ought to be the law of the land. This passage:
It is certainly true, as the Court notes, that “ ‘[l]iterature, when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.’ ” Ante, at 11 (quoting American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick, 244 F. 3d 572, 577 (CA7 2001)). But only an extraordinarily imaginative reader who reads a description of a killing in a literary work will experience that event as vividly as he might if he played the role of the killer in a video game. To take an example, think of a person who reads thepassage in Crime and Punishment in which Raskolni- kov kills the old pawn broker with an axe. See F. Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 78 (Modern Library ed. 1950). Compare that reader with a video-game player who creates an avatar that bears his own image; who sees a realistic image of the victim and the scene of the killing in high definition and in three dimensions; who is forced to decide whether or not to kill the victim and decides to do so; who then pretends to grasp an axe, to raise it above the head of the victim, and then to bring it down; who hearsthe thud of the axe hitting her head and her cry of pain;who sees her split skull and feels the sensation of blood onhis face and hands. For most people, the two experiences will not be the same.
illustrates the problem perfectly.
For those who haven't read it, spoilers follow:
I have no plans, and no particular desire, to go see "Atlas Shrugged."
I do have plans, however, to read and enjoy the mean-spirited reviews of the movie, the flood of gratuitous, impertinent, and semi-literate swipes at any ideology to the right of Dennis Kucinich, and the mouth-frothing rage of the defensive Randians and Objectivists. No movie can match that.
The movie appears appalling as an expression of filmmaker's art. As for the underlying work — well, I have many small-l libertarian views, but I find Ayn Rand tiresome. Political allegory can be gripping — consider Animal Farm or 1984. No one would say that George Orwell is subtle, but he doesn't have Snowball give a eighty-page speech, because he's not pathologically self-indulgent and self-satisfied. Rand lacks the elements that I require in an entertaining political writer: tolerance of nuance, capacity for self-criticism, and a sense of humor about it all. The folks who are loudest about how awesome she is also seem humorless, in a very humorous way. (Remember how angry the Objectivists got at John Scalizi for a funny throw-away paragraph?)
Dogmatism is dreary.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination: A graphic history of fantasy and science fiction, from the unknown poet behind Beowulf to Vernor Vinge and beyond.
I can't do this justice by describing it, and I won't steal it for reproduction here. Just click the link.
Meaning Popehat.
I can't speak for any of the other authors (remember Brian, our resident Obamican? I don't either), but for myself I've been going through rather grueling work, combined with a worse-than-usual case of seasonal affective disorder, combined with a mid-life crisis, combined with a family medical situation that demands personal attention. Although Popehat is a very fulfilling entertainment, my involvement here is a Thing Of Mood.
It'll get better.
Anyway, I did want to share three things, in no particular order:
John Scalzi's Old Man's War is coming to the silver screen. An entirely derivative tribute to the genius 1970s novel The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (which was itself a perverse love letter to Robert A. Heinlein), Old Man's War was still perhaps the most entertaining science fiction novel of the past decade. Wolfgang Petersen, who directed Das Boot before going on to mediocre American movies, is at the helm. Here's hoping Petersen has one great work left in him, because this story will make a dynamite movie in the right hands.
I've been playing a lot of Vindictus in my free time. Emphasis on "free". Most free-to-play games illustrate the engineer's dictate "Fast, cheap, right: Pick any two." They're either bug-filled nightmares, disguised spyware, or tedious grindfests. You can play Vindictus in twenty minute sessions. It's a mildly persistent world with fully persistent characters. It combines depth of play with an action-packed interactive combat system. It's fun as all get out, and it doesn't leave any unsightly residue on your hard drive.
But my Vindictus time may stall tomorrow, now that I'm getting my life back, and Rift is making its debut. I've messed with the beta for Rift since December, and the game has grown on me. Even in beta I found it more entertaining than World of Warcraft, and I think it has the depth to last me until Guild Wars 2 releases, sometime in the next century.
I'll have a full review of Rift, when I'm in the mood.
Lots of state and local governments offer you tax credits if you film within their borders. Though cynics say that this is just a way for government to favor its friends, some people claim it makes good economic sense. Film productions bring money to town, and employ hotels, caterers, sexually transmitted disease clinics, bail bondsmen, aromatherapists, gerbil veterinarians, and thus and such.
Some states and localities have elaborate requirements to qualify for the tax credit. That's not what distinguishes Texas. What distinguishes Texas, apparently, is that to get a movie tax credit, you have to ensure that your movie doesn't hurt their feelings. And apparently Machete did.
The Texas Film Commission has denied incentives for "Machete," the controversial immigration-related feature film from Robert Rodriguez's Austin-based Troublemaker Studios.
In a brief, formal letter dated Dec. 1 and released Wednesday by Katherine Cesinger , a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, the Texas Film Commission cited part of a state code that says requests for film incentives can be denied "because of inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion."
Big Shiny Robot speculates about what got the Texans' panties in a wad:
s for the offensive part of it, I’m sure you could argue that there are portions people may find offensive. But the offense here seems to be more political rather than content-based. I didn’t hear conservative critics harrumphing about the abundance of boobies, using intestines to rappel out a hospital window, cutting numerous limbs off, or the general pervasive sex and violence of the film.
But because there was a political undercurrent- one which discussed issues surrounding illegal immigration, made a mockery of bigoted politicians and vigalantes, and proudly declared (from the top of a taco truck) “We didn’t cross the border- the border crossed us!!” I can see how that would be threatening to the small minds which inhabit many areas of our state government.
Someone with more energy than I have today ought to do a First Amendment analysis of Texas' rather arbitrary content-based system for granting or denying tax credits.
Now, I understand the inherent goodness of being careful of the feelings and sensibilities of the delicate. I have seven- and four-year-old daughters! But I have to ask this: what "portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion" in a more pronounced way: a silly action movie, or a state government that denies tax credits to movies that fail adequately to congratulate the state and its inhabitants for how awesome they are?
Stay strong down there, Lone Star.
If you didn't see "Inception" in theaters, it's available on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 7.
I didn't write about it while it was big, but "Inception" is the best mainstream movie I've seen in years. A wonderfully satisfying thriller with a mild science / speculative fiction tinge, an intentionally Hitchockian aesthetic, and as much appeal for women as for men (a rarity in techno-thrillers).
And it's as good as Hitchcock at his best. It's as good as "Vertigo," which is to say that it's a nearly perfect film that will be as great fifty years from now as it is today. If you have a special someone, this is the stocking stuffer to get.
Just be careful going through the checkout line. Some of the customers are pretty nasty.
Not parenthetically, at the rate George Romero is achieving mainstream saturation, he's on his way to a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars. Which will be given one day after he dies. As a fan of Romero before it was cool to be a fan of Romero, I like to see him getting his cultural due, but I'd prefer that he got loads of money, or at least had Martin recognized as the weird work of genius that it is.
Hat tip: David.
As Halloween is upon us, I thought I'd share this wisdom, which has kept me alive in a world teeming with serial killers, aliens that aren't interested in bringing peace to mankind, backwoods cannibals, and corpses that hunger for the flesh of the living:
Keep these lessons in mind, and you might live to be as old as I am.
Update: LabRat's list is better than mine: "Avoid cornfields and apple orchards at all costs."
It seems that the latest musician bio pic might be going a little too far. I don't want to know this much about my hero. It will just make me sad.
This weekend I saw two new movies. They were about as divergent as you can get. Big bloated action movie vs. quirky, snarky video game movie. Aging mega stars vs. indy kids. Jokes about therapy & cauliflower ear vs. jokes about Vegans and gay promiscuity. Sadly, it's clear that the bloated and forgetable The Expendables was the victor over the imaginative and resonant (at least with me) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
Scott Pilgrim has a very easy story – he has to beat her 7 evil exes to get with his dream girl. It really doesn't get much more streamlined than that. Each ex is like a boss fight in a game (including one that comes back in a tougher form when you beat them the first time..) and the fights are all cleverly done. Not everyone is straight fisticuffs. One is a very cool battle of the bands, another a Bollywood musical.
The look of the film is amazing. Both the art direction and the effects. It's saying something that Michael Cera looks like he could kick ass in this film.
The film made me think of Amelie or Pan's Labyrinth. A small indie movie with modern graphics and effects. The movie is beautiful, often times looking like the graphic novel come to life. It is also a treasure trove of pop culture and video game references. It is a movie of it's time. In one strange choice, a short section of the movie is literally a Seinfeld reference (complete with trademark music and camera angles) that will be super confusing to viewers in about 20 years.
In contrast, The Expendables is cookie cutter film-making. The screenplay has every beat you would expect from an 80s action movie (except the black sidekick dying, shockingly) and just about nothing surprising (except for Stallone's face. Yikes!) It really fell flat with me, especially when compared to the energy and attitude of Scott Pilgrim.
Sadly, it also made $25 million more than Scott Pilgrim. In fact, people are already writing "what went wrong" pieces about Scott Pilgrim. That's too bad. In my opinion, the biggest issue was our expectations. If the film were treated like an indy, it's modest $10.5 million would be seen as a success. It shouldn't be compared to The Expendables (although that is inevitable) but to something like Kick Ass (which, alas, also tanked).
I know that if you went back in time and showed both films to a kid in the 80s, he would immediately connect with Expendables and be really confused by Scott Pilgrim. Same with someone 20 years from now probably. But I also know that they would immediately recognize the wacky inventiveness of Scott Pilgrim, and the energy and love that reside in the film. The Expendables just can't match that.
On a strange side note, the best acting in either film was (shockingly) from The Expendables, where Mickey Rourke once again proved himself an amazing actor. The few minutes he is on screen are magic, and he brings an inner life and pain to his character that makes you wish he were around longer. Especially compared to the other clowns in the film who think acting is making faces as they punch someone.
I was reading this entertaining Cracked article about six fictional corporations from movies that displayed both evil and incompetence, and noted that Cracked saw the same thing I did years ago: Weyland-Yutani Corp. must have some seriously patient stockholders if they keep losing expensive ships, androids, colonies, dropships, and Tom Skerritts just to capture an alien with acid blood, a mildly amusing birth process, and questionable dentition.
Cracked points out that Weyland-Yutani — which, based on the graphics from the original Alien, is a futuristic spinoff of Purina — has been throwing away resources for two hundred years. That's a lot. Ford's only been trying to make a decent car for a hundred. So why are they doing this? Cracked doesn't know.
But that's because Cracked is politically apathetic. To those of a political bent, it ought be immediately apparent what Weyland-Yutani is doing.
They're running a tax shelter.
The pursuit of aliens is simply an elaborate way to guarantee massive writeoffs to reduce W-Y's tax liability. It's perfect — they get rid of obsolete assets (Ian Holm was so last year's model. The Nostromo? A futuristic Buick.) and irritating personnel, and get to write them off at full (or even inflated) value. "Yeah, revenue was through the roof. But we only wound up paying twenty bucks this year, thanks to all those people getting eaten."
There's something oddly comforting about this. Whatever other terrifying and unknowable things the future holds, we can rest assured that shitty tax policy will continue. Thanks, space-Congress!
In the first post in this series, I discussed ways in which the space around a single figural sculpture becomes a tacit part of the artwork by virtue of the moving viewer's interpretive act. In the second post, I considered how the spatial relationships among multiple figures in a more complex figural sculpture can provide interpretive clues and cues that lead to a rich understanding not only of the fiction's virtual space, but also of its mental, social, and emotional spaces.
Now I would like to consider immersion, which I will treat as a set of visual, spatial, and kinetic opportunities afforded the viewer of an artwork by virtue of its scale, situation, and referential complexity. I will offer two examples, one which invites the interpreter to go around and upon and another which invites the interpreter to go within and beneath.
The first of these is the Great Stupa of Borobudur. The 9th-century Buddhist worshiper approaching a typical stupa might expect from experience to find a large hemispherical or bell-shaped burial mound decorated with a modest array of symbols– abstract, floral, or figural– that stimulate and reinforce his worship by evoking key precepts. What the reverent seeker would find instead, here in the hills northwest of Yogyakarta, is a semi-structured adventure in which the visitor selects his own path, undertakes various physical and mental challenges, and works his self-tailored way upward toward the climactic encounter where ascent gives way to transcendence.
Great Stupa of Borobodur (Wikimedia Commons)
Borobudur, aerial (Wikimedia Commons)
This man-made mountain (actually an augmented natural hill) consists of concentric rectilinear or circular terraces. The lowest tier, three platforms making up a base, symbolizes the world of desires, that earthly and immanent realm through which the pilgrim has traveled to arrive at this destination. The next five tiers represent the world of forms, an abstract and heady domain where concept and percept unite in art and action to induce the purposive wanderer to ponder. Finally, the top three tiers– scarcely visible from the ground– introduce the worshiper into the world of formlessness, a cityscape of smaller stupas, each inhabited by a statue of the teaching Buddha. Here, exploration inculcates the worshiper in the way of transcendence.
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Tonight Katrina and I watched the movie "Adopted," a documentary that depicted two journeys — a family's adoption of a little girl from China, and an adult Korean adoptee's attempt to confront her feelings about being adopted and to get her parents to understand and acknowledge them. We thought it was great — painful, but great — and highly recommend it to anyone interested in international adoption issues, which I write about here occasionally.
The movie's strength lies in comfort with contrasting views of adoption, and ultimately with its comfort with ambiguity. The adult adoptee is deeply troubled, and growing up in an all-white community without any familial understanding of the impact of her ethnicity has wounded her, perhaps irrevocably. But she's also shown to be utterly devoted to her parents and her patient, supportive brother — her alienation does not prevent her from loving them. The adoption of the little girl is depicted as joyous, and she's clearly immediately well-attached to her parents — and yet her mother is openly tormented with the idea that her joy comes at the inevitable expense of a long-term sense of loss in her daughter. Barb Lee — who I learned is a first-time director, much to my surprise — does not attempt to tell an easy story; she offers neither the popular view that international adoption is an unqualified good, nor the criticism that it is intrinsically bad. She clearly thinks that, like people, it's messy and complicated — which it is.
I also liked how Lee used cinematic techniques to convey feelings and messages with a level of facility I don't often see in documentaries. The scene in which the young couple meets their little girl for the first time in a drab government building in China is brilliant precisely because Lee used such a sparing touch in editing it. Her choice to leave in the chaotic camera movements, the nearly unendurable echoing din of babies crying and new parents anxiously trying to soothe them, and the raw chaos of the moment was uncannily familiar to us and evocative of the dislocation and loss that moment represents.
It's a good movie, but not an easy movie, for adoptive parents to watch. Lee shows powerfully how the adult adoptee's parents lack the language to respond to their daughter's feelings and questions. But she doesn't let the daughter off the hook, either. It's ultimately a very human story, showing fallible people trying with love and the best of intentions to connect, and not always succeeding.
In the previous post in this series, I considered how the pose and three-dimensionality of a figural sculpture support its interpretation. I noted that representational sculptures reside at the intersection of what is actual and what is virtual. Because it is there and we can regard it in many ways, a statue shows us part of a projected fictional world and implies or suggests even more, unrealized in the sculpture, about that world. The artist leaves its underdetermined fictional details to the viewer's imagination.
I described how different vantages on Michelangelo's David yield somewhat different understandings of the figure, and I explained how Bernini later carried vantage-based variations to an energetic extreme in his own David. From these observations and others, I drew a conclusion: although we typically think of movies in relation to photography and painting, film (like its cousin, theater) is more akin to sculpture.
Asserting a close kinship among sculpture, theater, and film raises issues of technology, so I would like to recommend a way of thinking about technology and to illustrate how it can inform the interpretation of art.
In 1346, King Edward III Plantagenet crossed the English Channel to assert his claims on France. After startling victories in Caen and Crécy, he laid siege to Calais. Caen had fallen in a day; Calais, at the urging of King Philip VI Valois, held out for nearly a year.
Resisting a siege is a nasty business, and under the persuasive weight of disease, starvation, and want, the people of Calais finally decided to negotiate. Edward offered terms: he would show mercy and not sack the city in exchange for the lives of half a dozen of its most important citizens– an offer generous to the many but harsh to the few. After months of deprivation, they could scarcely reject the terms. But who would rise to give his life?
A leader did step up, and then another and another until six had offered themselves: Eustache de Saint-Pierre, Jean d'Aire, Jacques de Wiessant, Pierre de Wiessant, Jean de Fiennes, and Andrieu d'Andres. Several were among the city's wealthiest and most influential figures, and all understood in some measure that the privileges of reputation presuppose honor and civic duty. They would pay the price for the survival of Calais.
Dressed in simple robes, draped in nooses, and bearing the keys to the keep and gates– all in accord with Edward's instructions– they marched forth from their city in the hope that by sacrificing their lives, they would save their people. (The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Remember.) Did they hesitate, think twice, reconsider? Did they waver in resolve or press stolidly onward? Were they enraged at the enemy, at humankind, at God? Did faith and faithful action steel them against encroaching fear and doubt?
As a matter of historical record, the six heroes were eventually spared in a display of magnanimity. However, at the moment when they rose to the occasion and walked off toward the enemy's camp to face their doom, the six had no reason to suppose their lives were anything but forfeit. And it is that moment of bittersweet hope and despair that Auguste Rodin chose to depict in his masterful bronze of 1889, The Burghers of Calais.
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais
This work rather obviously participates in the same multi-perspectival dynamic that gave life to the statues mentioned above. Here, however, two differences appear, one physical and one thematic. The physical difference is that this is a sculptural group rather than a single figure; the somatic complexity is much richer. The viewer walking around this sculpture, moving toward it, or drawing away from it, will have the opportunity to notice many more changes in surface, shadow, and shape than even Bernini's David affords.
The idea of having multiple figures in a sculptural group is no novelty, though Rodin deploys the idea with sophistication. What is perhaps more novel, or at least more typical of Rodin's culture and era than of earlier times, is the statue's exploration of psychology and emotion. The thematic difference between Rodin's group and earlier sculptures is that the complexities of pose and spatial extension serve not so much to project an unsculpted fictional world around the figures, but rather to project a plurality of virtual mental worlds within or among the figures.
The statue does not imply or suggest what it might be like to depart besieged Calais and to march toward the encamped English. Instead, it whispers, declares, and bellows what it might be like to ponder one's impending death and the seeming pointlessness of so many great, petty, proud, or pious achievements as one now prepares to march toward the moment of capitulation, humiliation, and negation. Bernini invoked our imagination by showing us body and intentionality; Rodin invokes our imagination and empathy by showing us conflicted or decided minds, stable or wavering intentions, the threshold where prior dreams are dashed and a desperate hope in behalf of others takes their place.
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, Jacques de Wiessant
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, Jean d'Aire
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, Andrieu d'Andres
The work invites empathy, analysis, and introspection by presenting unexpected or evocative details and juxtapositions to the exploratory viewer. From one vantage, it appears as if the six, as a cluster, are ambling toward their fate. From another, the group breaks into two as a leader in the front turns to encourage his companions in the back.
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais
Still another vantage reveals that half of the group is headed in the wrong direction, one clutching his head in despair or disbelief, and two moving as one in rhymed poses as they retreat to his aid or exhortation.
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais
The more a viewer explores and ponders the information this sculpture offers, the more the physical gives way to the mental. Historical imagination gives way to the presentation of concepts, assertions about human character, portrayals of vulnerability or resilience, considerations of individuality and community, and a host of other themes that speak to what it is to be fragile humans in a fragmented, fractious world.
Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, Pierre de Wiessant
To put it in a more useful way, The Burghers of Calais is a technology that amplifies our powers of inspection, introspection, empathy, and intention by providing a rich occasion for their exercise.
What, after all, is a technology? What is the etymological "logic of art"? As a matter of cultural and linguistic habit, we use the term "technology" to refer to certain classes of gadgets, machinery, or manipulation. Turn to the "tech" section of any newsfeed, and it will be replete with discussions of 4G cell phones or particle accelerators or biomodification. But this way of using the term "technology" elides the point worth emphasizing.
I prefer to emphasize that technology always stands in a certain relation to the people who use it: technology is anything that amplifies what the human body can already do. A club amplifies the ability to punch. A gun amplifies the ability to throw. A telephone amplifies the ability to shout. A motor vehicle amplifies the ability to run. Clothing amplifies the protective and insulating qualities of skin. Architecture, oddly enough, is large, static, communal clothing. Telecast media amplify vision or audition. The hard drive and RAM of a computer amplify the ability to remember and to calculate. And so on.
Any technology may be understood this way, and therefore anything that acts as a force multiplier on what humans in general can already do may be construed as a technology. What's more (and setting aside the mind/body problem), technologies may amplify not only the physical but also the mental. Formal logic is a conceptual technology that amplifies the ability to think systematically, to argue cogently, and to relate premises to inferences in a way that yields foreseeable material results from abstract plans. Language, one might say, is a distributive technology that amplifies the ability to define and organize human experience by engaging and uniting many people in ordered pursuit of those tasks.
So then, what of art? The fictional projection of possible worlds in text, paint, stone, metal, or light is a material technology that amplifies our ability to entertain and evaluate conditional counterfactuals. This, of course, is just a jargon-laden way of saying that representational books, movies, and art propose imaginary scenarios– in some respects like the actual world and in some respects different– and thereby provide a means for us to safely explore alternate paths of choice and action without the burden of non-fictional consequences. Vicarious experience, fantasy, imagination, escape– these are the crux, but they're complex notions best left for another post.
The key point is that we use technologies such as chiseling and bronze casting to make artworks, but an artwork is itself a technology by means of which we do something else. (Of course, it is a staple of aesthetics and art theory that a work becomes "art" at precisely the point where we abandon any notion of its utility. For reasons best deferred, I find that understanding of art inadequate, a historical curiosity of that stream of modernism that has its source in the Enlightenment.) But if the key question is how we are using art, then it is always already the case that the maker and the consumer of art are both embroiled in the creation and valuation of its meanings: active in some ways and passive in others, now resolute and now conflicted, egoistic but altruistic, insular or communal, in a grand negotiation of the terms of surrender and victory.
And if the consumer is always already as much a factor as the producer, then it just won't do to maintain that art is something that artists do for (or to) willing but passive recipients. It's not a question of whether the audience actively contributes to the art it finds enriching, but of how much, how well, and how.
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