Continuity

Holy Grail Movies: Carmen

2009-11-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

Holy Grail Movies is a series wherein I watch movies I should've watched years ago and reflect upon them in a stylistically inconsistent manner.

Here's the backstory about me and this flick: in High School, my friend Liz told me that she had seen a film about a dance troupe rehearsing for the opera Carmen. Her descriptions were vivid: flamenco dancing apparently played a primary role, and the plot was a confusing meta-narrative, deceptively hiding or outright lying to the audience until the very end, when the opera folds itself on top of the people rehearsing it and consumes them.

I'm pretty sure Liz told me this story in 2003, or earlier. She didn't know the name of the director or any pertinent details. I did some searches online over the next year or so and figured that it was probably Carlos Saura's version, unavailable on DVD in this country. Criterion, of course, came to my rescue and released the film on its Eclipse line with two other Carlos Saura films. After seeing the film last month, I e-mailed Liz and sent her some screencaps of the DVD to ensure that I had seen the correct film. She excitedly confirmed. The six-year wait to see this flick is rivaled only by my wait-time to see Playtime.

The film is wondrously low-key at times, depicting a dance troupe in Spain who are adapting Bizet's Carmen into a flamenco infused operatic dance piece, sometimes using Bizet's music and other times using guitar and other flamenco-y instruments. On one level this is a straightforward backstage story, showing the evolution of a theatre piece. These parts of the film (like in the screencap above) are semi-naturalistic alternating between the impression of tightly-controlled documentary and laid-back fiction. Once the director/star hires an inexperienced dancer named Carmen to play the lead role opposite himself, things begin to unravel.

The film tells one story using these two strands; the rehearsal backdrop and the meaty Carmen story intertwine and layer upon each other as the movie progresses. The rehearsal portions are mostly setup for the characters to emote in dance, and when they do they are not just dancers pretending to be characters in the opera Carmen; they are caught in a dual-existence where they are dancers and the characters they are "pretending" to be. During a tense rehearsal scene between the two leads, the director demands that the woman playing Carmen channel her fury into her dancing, fusing the two personalities.

Saura uses this two-strand approach to deliberately withhold information from the audience, so on at least one occasion we cannot tell whether the scene we are watching is a rehearsal or merely the final step in the transition from "rehearsing Carmen" to "living Carmen through dance." In one such sequence, a poker game between several of the actors evolves into a dance-fight between ten-foot shadows, and through some tricky manipulation of lighting and perspective, Saura leaves us wondering if the characters have finally been absorbed by Bizet's Carmen and, hypnotically, flamenco.

The film reminded me of another flamenco-infused meta-narrative, a play by Nilo Cruz called "Lorca in a Green Dress," which I saw perhaps seven years ago at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The play begins at the moment of Federico Garcia Lorca's death, whereupon he is placed in a room and confronted with five people, all of whom are different iterations of him (Lorca in Bicycle Pants, Lorca as a Woman, Lorca in a Green Dress, etc). With them he replays major scenes in his life and, in a typically existential way, must figure out how to move on from this afterlife. As if this wasn't dreamy enough, a professional flamenco dancer peppered the unfolding events with a thunderous, passionate noise that I can still hear today. The play has not been published, as this performance was its world premiere. Hopefully one day it will be published, or at the very least a production will head into your neck of the woods. In the meantime, rent Carlos Saura's Carmen.

Side note: another film that uses flamenco in a mostly humorous way, but that I thoroughly recommend anyways, is Happy-Go-Lucky.

Ligon Duncan and Camille Paglia

2009-10-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

This blog was written in June, the day after Ligon Duncan posted his own blog that I attempt to criticize below. I avoided posting it when I wrote it, unsure if what I said below was correct or if it was worth the energy. I am now posting it mostly unchanged, with the important caveat that as angry as I may sound, I am much less concerned with Duncan's politics (or theology) than I am with the political peek-a-boo he and other Reformed thinkers regularly engage in. As such, please note that this blog isn't intended as a commentary on Duncan's theology in any way, about which I cannot comment in full and am likely in agreement with.

As a political commentator (whether he wants that title or not), Ligon Duncan leaves a lot to be desired. Firstly, he doesn't often post blogs on politics. Perhaps that's a blessing, as many of us don't want chocolate in our peanut butter anyways. Yet Duncan has posted a political comment over at Reformation 21 that I consider inappropriate and dishonest. He begins by referring to Sonia Sotomayor's (then-famous, now-old news) comments on race as "bloviating" (a word that strategically sounds harsher than its meaning). To demonstrate that he is not alone in his belief, Mr. Duncan quotes from Camille Paglia's Salon column that regularly engages in a highly nuanced political critique, today of Obama's foreign policy. Paglia's quote is about her perspective of Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment, but extends into an offhand excoriation of certain aspects of Feminism. Here's the full quote:

But Sotomayor's vainglorious lecture bromide about herself as "a wise Latina" trumping white men is a vulgar embarrassment -- a vestige of the bad old days of male-bashing feminism when even the doughty Ann Richards was saying to the 1988 Democratic National Convention: "After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels." What flatulent canards mainstream feminism used to traffic in! Astaire, idolized even by Mikhail Baryshnikov, was one of the most brilliant and peerless dancers and choreographers of the 20th century. The agile but limited Ginger Rogers, a spunky, smart-mouthed comedian, is only a footnote. Get real, girls! This is the kind of mushy balderdash I doggedly had to plow through for five years in trying to find a good feminist poem for my collection, "Break, Blow, Burn." I never found one. Rule of art: Cant kills creativity!

Duncan then says "You just have to love Paglia."

Duncan's love of Paglia may not surprise those who don't know either Duncan or Paglia. Duncan is one of the leading conservative theologians in the Reformed Church and the Chairman of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (from this point on abbreviated to the much more nefarious sounding "The Council.") Paglia, on the other hand, is a pansexual pop-culture critic who idolizes Madonna, and no, not the virgin one. By letting Paglia's words speak, as they too often appear to do, as a Conservative diatribe but nowhere acknowledging Paglia's status as a feminist (or post-feminist) icon, a liberal pundit, or a bisexual, Duncan appears to either totally not get it, or to conveniently forget the details in favor of scoring a few punches.

This isn't to say that Paglia's sexuality or history determine whether her words are true or not; rather, her history is what gives her words power. Her criticisms of feminism have not gained clout in society through their sheer force, but by the pedigree of the person giving them (whether her criticisms are actually valid or not is up for debate). Paglia is engaged in a deconstruction of "established wisdom," but from the perspective of someone inside the movement. When the Chairman of The Council quotes her as if they're on the same page, he is deviously taking her context and replacing it with his own. (And don't get me started on The Council.)

Duncan links to Paglia's full article, though this does nothing to absolve his error. He proudly endorses the whole thing, and judging by the material I have to wonder if he actually read the whole thing, or is merely assuming that his readers won't bother to read past the dividing line between Paglia's political critiques and her pop reviews. Here's a quote from late in the article:

My No. 1 favorite Depeche Mode song, however, is "Never Let Me Down Again," whose whimsical 1987 video does not do justice to its hypnotic power. It never really sank in until I bought this collection that the lyrics of "Never Let Me Down Again," which seem ambiguously gay, can also be read as a scenario of impotence and masturbation. Is this song actually a guy's ode to his penis? Fly, baby, fly!

Thanks, Pastor! Similarly, the Paglia quote Duncan includes in his blog ends with the statement "Cant kills creativity!" which seems odd, since Duncan's opinion of didacticism in art has hardly been mentioned before, nor does it seem apropos of Duncan's critique of Sotomayor's bloviations.

Perhaps I underestimated Mr. Duncan's appreciation for sexual critiques of pop music. Many of the guys on Ref21 have read Paglia's books, so it is possible that Duncan loves or at least appreciates everything she has to say, not just the political bits (maybe he's a closet Depeche Mode fan). Yet one has to only skim a book endorsed by The Council to see that this is likely not the case (The Council being, for the most part, a collection of Baptist Traditionalists masquerading as Reformed Complementarians). No, Mr. Duncan seems more interested in pointing out someone else's potshots against things he doesn't like, in this case a liberal Supreme Court Nominee, a liberal President, and I guess anyone who likes Ginger Rogers. He does this regardless of the speaker's other comments or opinions. Or perhaps Paglia's liberal cred is what is driving Duncan's move to canonize her. In her opening paragraph, she proclaims just how happy she is with Obama, and his speech, before launching into her criticisms. Again, does Duncan agree with Paglia and just LURV Obama and his speech? Paglia was an Obama supporter which (again) gives her critiques of Obama's speech to the Arab world an extra bite (valid or not). Even acknowledging that, one would be foolish to forget that the Left's opinion of Paglia has existed somewhere on the continuum between "acceptable nuisance" and "heretic defector." By using Paglia as the proto-Feminist/Leftist/Woman, Duncan is falling into the same trap many did during the primaries when they used her attacks on Hillary Clinton or her promotion of Sarah Palin as debate fodder. Oh wait, both Duncan and Carl Trueman at Ref21 did that very thing! Seems that some of the guys on Reformation 21 enjoy using Paglia as "THE feminist" while never quoting any other feminist; she's essentially the backup dancer, the token female whose voice is called upon to reinforce a male's opinion, discarded when she strays from Conservative doxology (at least Trueman's comments were marginally tongue-in-cheek; more on him later).

By contrast, Duncan's political statements have been mercifully reserved throughout the last two years, though his comments on how to pray for President Obama, like a lot of other Reformed guys on the web, made sure to point out that Obama "must change his mind" on certain things (guess which ones). More recently, Duncan posted a blog titled Issues at Erskine, about a Christian university being challenged by its students to "keep the faith." I'll try not to judge too harshly Duncan's interest in the peaceful revolt; let me just say that the letters from students begging their faculty to "keep Christ at the center" reflect an idealized view of a college that I would never ever want to attend (equal treatment for Intelligent Design? Puh-lease). Of course, that opens a whole debate about Christian schools v. secular schools that I'm not really willing to engage in at this time.

It hasn't been easy to be a Reformed Christian and a liberal (or an evolutionist) during the last two years, and that has held true on the Reformation 21 blog. Almost everyone there holds to fairly identical political views as regards abortion and gay marriage, which meant for some uneasy reading pre-November 2008. The Europeans bowed out of the debate by claiming they "didn't have the vote," like some poor suffragettes, but one of them, Carl Trueman, wasn't afraid of at least naming himself "center-left." When he recently visited our church to give four lectures on the Reformation, I asked him about his views. He claims that he is a typical European when it comes to politics, which he phrased apologetically, as if to excuse himself for holding an unpopular opinion. He told me that his politics focuses on issues of economic injustice, unlike American liberalism which, in his view, is focusing on cultural issues that he sees as unrelated to injustice. I greatly respect the man, and enjoyed talking to him, even if his blog posts sometimes drive me up a wall (as do Paglia's). Perhaps his comments bother me so much because I know he is "center-left" but also Reformed (like me, but without the center), and his blasts against certain Liberal strongholds hold more weight based on his background - quite a bit like Paglia herself.

Left or Right: the Case of Sonia Sotomayor

2009-05-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

Please note that I am simply a layman Supreme Court enthusiast, trying to dissect these issues using the Internet and the books at my disposal. I am not an expert. Read everything with a grain of salt.

Today President Obama announced his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, and already both sides have begun taking potshots at each other. The Democrats and liberal special interest groups are hailing her as a progressive wonder, sensitive to a woman's right to choose and the rights of homosexuals; the Republicans are claiming (in oddly identical phrasing) that she is guided by her "personal politics, feelings, and preferences," which means that, since she is the daughter of (legal) immigrants, a member of a minority, and a woman, she'll be too empathetic and therefore have bad judgment. (The sexism, racism, and hypocrisy on display here is pretty disgusting, but I'll have to leave that for another day.)

Both sides are guilty of making this up as they go along, retreating to "Left v. Right" dogmas which feed the undying (but perhaps not undue) characterization of the Supreme Court as a political, and therefore either conservative or liberal, institution. In order to be analyzed by the press and Congress, Sotomayor must fit into the box created for her, despite any nuances that may exist in her career. And yet, despite 400 opinions on the Court of Appeals, Sotomayor's judicial philosophy is not completely formed in the minds of the public or the press, and if history has told us anything, it's possible that her philosophy isn't entirely formed in her own mind. Furthermore, Supreme Court appointments rarely behave exactly as expected, as is demonstrated by James F. Simon in his book, The Antagonists.

Unexpected Justice

The subtitle of Simon's book is Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, and Civil Liberties in America. The book is billed as a tale of a historical feud between two powerful men, in this case Supreme Court Justices, and how their feud determined the course of American life. It doesn't really succeed on that point, but it is nonetheless a fine book for those looking for biographical information on either of the two Justices in the title, both pre- and post-appointment to the court. ^[1] It is in this area, biography, where we find some revealing details about the judicial system in America, and perhaps can apply some of this to Sonia Sotomayor.

Simon's best explicated thesis is the aforementioned truth, that judicial appointments rarely perform as expected: Hugo Black beat the more qualified Frankfurter to the bench, and though both were appointed by FDR, neither lived up to their pedigree. Frankfurter helped found the ACLU and stood publicly in support of Sacco and Vanzetti when doing so was very unpopular. (It is especially moving when Simon describes Frankfurter's emotional reaction upon hearing that the two immigrants were executed.) ^[2] Lawyer Frankfurter's liberal pedigree seemed to some impeccable, but Justice Frankfurter went on to promote "judicial restraint" on the bench, which put him in league with the conservative and moderate voices on the court who did not want the Judicial branch of the government to be in charge of regulating the relationship between civil rights, states rights, and federal law.

Hugo Black, on the other hand, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Though it is documented that his membership was a political expedient and shrewd business decision, everyone thought it was a political problem for FDR, who just shrugged it off and told Black to go get 'em. (Simon points out as an interesting side note that the Klan, while advocating prohibition and racial purity, also "exalted the role of the common laborer too often victimized by manipulative corporate powers." Black's single speech to the KKK was forthrightly populist, interspersed with subtle racist messages). Despite or maybe because of this taint, Black went on to be one of the most ferocious liberal voices on the bench, advocating for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights, and for the rights of American Communists in the midst of the Red Scare. ^[3]

This apparent flip-flopping has become a sort of joke for the Court: Earl Warren as Republican Governor of California allowed the internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans, but as Chief Justice during the 50s and 60s led the liberal wing to decisive victories in school desegregation (Brown v. Board of Education), the rights of prisoners (Miranda v. Arizona), and the right to receive counsel (Gideon v. Wainwright). The effect of each of these decisions was felt immediately in the nation, and Richard Nixon implicitly and explicitly ran against each one in 1968. He then appointed Warren Burger as Chief Justice in an attempt to reverse the court's direction, and though Burger had some success in stemming the tide, he also oversaw and concurred with the result in many liberal landmarks, Roe v. Wade being just one.

Other examples include Sandra Day O'Connor, a Goldwater Republican who says she saw her party "move to the right" without her and became the court's key swing-vote; Anthony Kennedy, currently a swing-vote who often sides with the conservative bloc on issues like gun control, but has also been the important fifth vote on issues like the death penalty for minors, gay rights, abortion rights, and the trio of habeus corpus/Gitmo cases during the Bush years; Nixon appointees Lewis Powell, a moderate for his tenure, and Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe but also a moderate; and John Paul Stevens, appointed by Gerald Ford, an idiosyncratic judge whose opinions always defy categorization but have caused him to be classified a liberal. ^[4]

STOP SOUTER

Most significant to the Sotomayer nomination is the case of David Souter. With only five months experience on the Federal bench, Souter was a Washington outsider. President George H. W. Bush considered this fact to be a positive attribute in his favor, as he had few written opinions that could be held against him (Sotomayor in contrast has many). Souter had been recommended to the position by some prominent Republicans that had the President's ear; he was involved in conservative politics in New Hampshire, registered as a Republican, and was subsequently demonized by a reactionary left-wing of the country. Jeffrey Toobin reports in his book The Nine that the National Organization for Women created a pamphlet titled STOP SOUTER OR WOMEN WILL DIE. Senators Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and seven others voted against his appointment.

During Souter's first year as a justice, he behaved about as everyone expected, siding with Scalia and Rhenquist on most cases. However, during his first Summer off (the Supreme Court takes a yearly Summer break), Souter devoted himself to study, trying to join his judicial philosophy with the realities of the heightened Supreme Court atmosphere. By the next year, the court was faced with re-affirming or completely rejecting Roe v. Wade, and it was Souter who spearheaded the secret insurgency that retained the essence of Roe while drastically redefining it. Souter, according to Toobin, "was appointed to overturn Roe v. Wade." Instead, he ended up saving it. Many women's groups contend that the opinion that resulted, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, greatly neutered women's rights, even if it was nonetheless a preferable outcome to the total abolition of abortion. In just one year, Souter became a villain to the right-wing, while suddenly becoming a feeble, unexpected, imperfect hero to a wary left-wing.

Left or Right

I'm not saying that liberals have to worry about Sotomayor, but rather that there's a serious problem with characterizing a justice as either liberal or conservative, especially during the nomination process. First and foremost, the words don't mean quite what we think when applied to the realm of law. People still use these words partly because many of the court's decisions can be immediately interpreted as favoring one side of the political divide or the other; further, these decisions cannot be reversed by elections, as judges have lifetime appointment and "precedent" is a guiding principle of common-law interpretation. As such, those in power whose political beliefs are contradicted by the court often attack the court as "activist" or "politically motivated," and far be it from me to deny that this has been true in the past. What is important, however, is not to judge the court's decisions as "conservative" or "liberal" but instead to judge the principles on which the court is making those decisions.

The two sides mainly disagree as to whether the Constitution is a vehicle for expanding civil rights; in fact, that was the very argument justices Frankfurter and Black had for several decades in the past. For instance, the conservative Federalist Society contends that the original meaning of the Constitution is the only way to interpret it (I give a quick overview of this view here). This view has been used to justify judicious capital punishment, legislation of sex acts, expanded Executive power in wartime, diminished Federal power over domestic issues (aka States Rights), second amendment rights, etc., all considered conservative issues. The opposing view seeks to apply the Constitution's principles to our time, in ways the framers could not have envisioned but would likely approve of, for instance gay rights (equal protection under laws) or the abolition of the death penalty (cruel and unusual punishment).

The New York Times has supplied us with an overview of many of Sotomayer's mountain of opinions for the Court of Appeals, and it is possible that some or many of her judicial philosophies could be discovered within that pile. Yet she has never had to contend with the issue of gay marriage or gay rights, nor has she dealt in depth with the issue of abortion (her one opinion on that topic sided with the anti-abortion side; see the New York Times link for details). Based on my limited exploration, she doesn't seem like the radical the right is painting her as, or the progressive the left contends she is. The White House is maintaining that she's a moderate (I expect her to vote with the court's liberal bloc). Their talking points say this: "In cases where Sotomayor and at least one judge appointed by a Republican president were on the three-judge panel, Sotomayor and the Republican appointee(s) agreed on the outcome 95% of the time." But I don't think anyone is listening.

Sean Hannity and Barack Obama may agree on one thing: they both probably believe that Sonia Sotomayor has been made in Obama's image. However, as evidenced by history, that may not mean much, especially to her. She, and she alone, is the person who will shape her judicial future, and she doesn't have to start thinking like a Supreme Court Justice until she puts on the robe.

Notes

^[1] I say the book is not about the supposed feud between Frankfurter and Black because Simon doesn't convince me that there ever was one: Frankfurter had a negative opinion of Black, William O. Douglas, and anyone else that sided with their powerful coalition of liberal thought, but it seems like Douglas (among others) was the one who actually hated Frankfurter back. Based on Simon's well-researched but anecdotal evidence, Black never really returned Frankfurter's ire, and instead was happy to win the battles he won (and very angrily lose those he lost).

^[2] Lest I mischaracterize Felix Frankfurter's reputation, here's one example of his liberal gusto while on the bench. He was trying to compel his brethren to hear argument on the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, saying: "I am...concerned about men and women as high-minded as any of us, though with less understanding of law and its workings, who feel as I do that it is a concession to Communism, not a safeguard against it, to retreat from reason and to compromise those cherished traditions which one likes to think of as the peculiar characteristics of an Anglo-American justice."

^[3] One major example was when Hugo Black dissented the ruling in Dennis v. U.S. "Public opinion being what it is now, few will protest the conviction of these Communist petitioners. There is hope, however, that in calmer times, when present pressures, passions and fears subside, this or some later Court will restore the First Amendment liberties to the high preferred place where they belong in a free society."

^[4] It gets even thicker when the President himself is involved in the case before the court. The Nixon appointees all voted against his Presidential claim to Executive Privilege in United States v. Nixon (though the path that opinion took was a winding road; see Bob Woodward's The Brethren); both Clinton nominees voted against him when he claimed the President could not be sued in a civil court while holding office (Clinton v. Jones); and President Obama's waffling on Abu Ghraib photos could wind its way up to the Supreme Court where some expect that his decision to keep the photos classified will be overturned.

On the other hand, both George W. Bush nominees sided with his justice department's claims in two key Gitmo cases. This is likely the result of the Bush White House's paranoia about flip-flopping justices: O'Connor was a closet-liberal, Kennedy was too moderate, and Souter was practically a socialist (in their minds at least). The level of suspicion White House aides showed to Roberts, Harriet Miers, and Alito is amusingly documented in Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine. So far, their suspicions seem unwarranted.

Things I Read Today: Pro-America, Anti-Government

2009-05-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today, listening to Rush Limbaugh while packaging cookies into small cardboard boxes, I was struck by the fact that I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and not getting angry. I disagreed with everything he said, certainly, and sometimes I laughed out loud at his vagueness, his detail-lacking reports of President Obama's "thuggery" (he actually used that word). His powers of misdirection are great; sometimes it feels like he's about to criticize someone with a "hard R" behind their name, but it's always "the libs," "the left" who are at fault (and if not them, the moderates). It kinda feels nice to belong to a group that is so comprehensively and systematically disenfranchising America.

Limbaugh's art is primarily in pumping himself up, and secondarily in doing the same for his audience. Today, for a half hour, these two compulsions seemed at odds when Rush was defending his latest criticism of the GOP's (nominal) moderates: Eric Cantor, Jeb Bush, and Mitt Romney are going on a "listening tour" of the country, and the CNN report that described to me their words and purpose made me, a bleeding heart lib and card-carrying member of the left, interested in their future come 2012 (prior to joining the Democratic party, I was interested in moderate Republican John McCain and his prospects for the Presidency; that obviously didn't work out, and I doubt any "compassionate conservatism" from these three is anything more than electioneering for 2012, but I'm willing to listen). Rush, like the crowd that gathered outside of the pizzeria where these three "listened" to other Republicans, finds this listening tour to be a sign of weakness amongst Conservatives who don't actually believe in their principles. Yesterday, Rush suggested that the only proper course of action for a Conservative living in Obama's America is to go on a "teaching tour." Today he played several clips of the media dismissing his anti-tour as "arrogant," and Rush then spent ten minutes explaining why it wasn't. I suppose in Rush's world, telling your call-in audience that you don't need or listen to their opinions doesn't qualify as arrogant, but in my world it does. Later he said that if he listened to his audience, he'd be in a straitjacket.

Perhaps realizing how counter-intuitive this was, Rush decided to compliment his listeners and call them smart. The proof of their smartness? Why, they listen to Rush. They understood the evils of cap-and-trade, the values of supply-side economics, the holy presidency of Ronald Reagan and the pure principles of Reaganomics. Real conservatism is hunkering down on your ideals and never letting go - the American people will one day again vote truth and honor into office, so long as true Conservatives wait it out and ignore new ideas. In all of this, Rush's overriding principles were that bigger government suppresses freedom; freedom is best expressed by lower taxes for higher-earners; Obama's principles are big-government, therefore anti-freedom and anti-American. He then called Obama an "ideological demagogue."

And why wasn't I getting angry at all of this? Beats me. For some reason, Rush is eminently listenable, and one need not agree with him to find the show, its familiar music, its surplus of commercials, the host's tics like long pauses between rants, all somewhat...comforting? I felt weird, but I couldn't change the station.

...

Rush's comments dove-tailed nicely with a book I picked up over the weekend about President Clinton. Called The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, it is anything but an apology for the eight-year reign of the moderate/liberal/conservative. Author Joe Klein points out a great many flaws in Clinton's leadership, organizational skills, and policy, while trying to highlight the reasons for these flaws and how he often turned lemons, like an ideologically rigid opposition Congress, into lemonade, like small-scale policy victories in healthcare, college education tax credits, etc.

Klein notes a problematic scenario that seems frighteningly familiar in our current political season: a Republican regime has racked up huge budget deficits through military buildup, and now that the Democratic leadership desires to enact the public policy they were elected for, the deficit is standing in their way.

Robert Reich, who led the economic team through the transition process...called the debilitating impact of the Republican budget deficits, first imagined by Reagan budget director David Stockman, "the law of intended consequences"—in other words, the Reagan tax cut was intended to produce budget deficits that would prevent new federal programs. - p. 50

So Bush was really following Reagan's footprint: leave any future administration's hands tied regarding federal programs by leaving them a messy deficit. Clinton's solution was to take small steps with new spending until he had balanced the budget, then enact everything he really wanted. This plan was obstructed by his second-term hiatus from governing thanks to the Lewinsky scandal. Obama's solution is a bit less "disciplined," you may say, because he has no problem increasing the size of the deficit short-term if it means stimulus long-term. I leave it to history and the economists to judge that decision, but for at least the next couple of years, the declamations of Obama's team that they "inherited this deficit" is mostly true. If President Obama does not take steps to balance the budget once the economy is on-track, then he is truly the "undisciplined liberal" that many claim; for now, he is merely following his principles (Keynesian economics) with the hand he was dealt.

Klein later showcases a speech from Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing, which he describes as the work of "right-wing extremists, a Patriot's Day rejoinder to the lethal federal assault on the David Koresh cult in Waco, Texas, two years earlier."

I say this to the militias and all others who believe that the greatest threat to freedom comes from the government instead of from those who would take away our freedom: If you say violence is an acceptable way to make change, you are wrong. If you say government is a conspiracy to take your freedom away you are just plain wrong...

How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on earth live in a tyranny? How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes?

I say to you, all of you...there is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government.

These words ring very true post-tea parties and post-Republicanism (heh, I wish). There is a difference between those who believe government should be limited and those who denounce its every form - I believe we are seeing that transition right now, conveniently during the first months of a new Democratic President; if Bush was able to be elected for a third term, I greatly doubt the tea parties would have ever happened, for anti-government crusaders tend to forget that government is evil so long as their taxes are low. I got in trouble for publicly (via Twitter and Facebook) calling the protesters in Medford "rich"; one of my friends said he was very poor and that he was out there all day. Perhaps I'm simplistic, but I find it ironic that someone who just got a tax-cut comparable to the one Bush gave him eight years ago is protesting the President who gave it to him.

When considering this quote from Clinton, remember that this is the President that declared that the era of big government was over (he didn't know about Bush 43 yet). Klein says, "Clinton later told me that the House Republicans were as much the target of this speech as were the right-wing militias: The Gingrich movement had been built on government-bashing in the name of patriotism." - (p. 144) If this seems like political opportunism, consider Klein's analysis of Bush's vocabulary on 9/11:

...and it was no accident that on the day of the terror attacks, George W. Bush and members of his administration suddenly began referring to "your" federal government, a formulation that would have horrified many conservatives in the late twentieth century. - p. 214

When responding to terror, as Clinton was in 1995, it is understandable that we sould take ownership of "our" federal government. In fact, its what we ought to do every day. The problem with anti-government rhetoric, from the April 15th protests, from Rush's show, or from a government leader, is that it presupposes that the Government and the People are separate entities. We're not living in a perfect democratic republic, but if we wanted to live in a "more perfect union," we would involve ourselves more. In this way, a peaceful protest (of the right kind) has a function, as does petitioning our representatives, and in every way doing more than just voting. Our government, Lincoln said, is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Once that construct becomes our enemy, then we've lost the dream of the founding fathers.

Things I Read Today: Raunch Feminism

2009-03-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick blurb from the book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, about women who perform for Girls Gone Wild, pose nude for Playboy, or become porn stars, claiming that such activities are part of their "female liberation," that "being sexy" on their own terms is the fulfillment of radical feminism:

"That women are now doing this to ourselves isn't some kind of triumph, it's depressing. Sexuality is inherent, it is a fundamental part of being human, and it is a lot more complicated than we seem to be willing to admit. Different things are attractive to different people and sexual tastes run wide and wild. Yet somehow, we have accepted as fact the myth that sexiness needs to be something divorced from the every-day experience of being ourselves."

The book is by Ariel Levy, and she spends a lot of her time in the book going to sex parties, following Girls Gone Wild cameramen, and interviewing the (very often female) leaders of the smut empire that has, in her opinion, changed the standard of "sexy" in our culture. She interviews a participant in the first ever "bra-burning" (in fact just a trash-canning, no burning allowed), asking her what the female liberation and feminist/women's movement was all about. The answer: "Women in our society are forced daily to compete for male approval, enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards that we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously and to accept!"

The picture at the top of this post shows the Statue of Liberty with a banner advertising a mass "Women's Strike" on the 50th anniversary of suffrage in 1970. I think it's clear that a lot has changed since then.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Adapts Kurosawa

2009-03-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced its season lineup for 2010, and the biggest surprise is Throne of Blood, an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film, which is itself an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The film is notably faithful to Shakespeare's play; the play was originally performed for Elizabethan audiences and set in Scotland, whereas Kurosawa's movie is set in Fuedal Japan and was made for a Japanese audience in the late 50s. I don't know what's going to happen when writer and director Ping Chong presumably translates Kurosawa's words back into English and delivers it to the generally affluent audiences of OSF.

Chong is a Chinese-American, but despite his adaptations of Japanese-themed literary works, there's no indication that he knows Japanese. That throws an extra kink in the machine, as there are two English subtitle translations of Throne of Blood, one by the controversial Linda Hoaglund, and the other by academic Donald Richie (both available on the Criterion DVD). Perhaps Chong will simply revert back to Shakespeare's English?

All of this is speculation, of course; I'll have to wait to see the production. The film itself has a brutally violent finale, and based on images of Chong's previous work, I expect the whole play, including the violence, to be highly stylized. My suggestions to Chong:

1) Follow Kurosawa's emphasis on weather. Rain, fog, wind, etc. are all part of Kurosawa's aesthetic, and they were always deliberately placed for dramatic effect. OSF is the most capable theatre on the West Coast for that kind of complicated theatrecraft.

2) Follow Kurosawa's contrast between spare and ornate design. The rooms and outdoor locations of Kurosawa's film are often bare and empty, but that can quickly change, as when two characters ride into a tangled forest, or during the finale when Lord Washizu ("Macbeth") is killed by an hundred archers. Things quickly become messy in this film, despite the appearance of sterility.

3) Stay true to Kurosawa's Noh theatre inspiration. This shot is an example:

Isuzu Yamada's performance as Lady Washizu is astounding; in this scene she stares in one direction while Toshiro Mifune thrashes about. The contrast between their performances is critical. Kurosawa and Yamada gave Lady Washizu an otherworldly manner, simultaneously delicate and savage, and straight out of Noh theatre.

4) Make it bloody. Just for fun.

...

On a side note, OSF is also performing the musical She Loves Me which is based on a Hungarian play (Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo) that was adapted by Ernst Lubistch into the film The Shop Around the Corner, which was adapted into Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail. So I guess I have to see that too.

Duplicity

2009-03-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed Tony Gilroy's last film, Michael Clayton, which was also his first film as "director." He wrote all three Bourne films, plus a really weird assortment of 90s' flicks: Dolores Claiborne, The Devil's Advocate, and The Cutting Edge. Even odder, according to IMDB, he was responsible for the "adaptation" of Armageddon, which is one of Michael Bay's best and worst films. None of these flicks is as good as Michael Clayton, which is a look at scheming corporate America through the disillusioned eyes of George Clooney, corporate lawyer. Tom Wilkinson's "crazed prophet" routine is heavily inspired by Network, and the lawyerly conversations between Clooney and Sydney Pollack reminded me a lot of Changing Lanes, which featured Pollack in a nearly identical role.

Clayton's best attribute is its respect for the audience, or maybe I should say its deliberate challenging of the audience. Each moment of the film is packed with plot details, whether its about Clooney's private life or the relationship between his law firm and the chemical company they represent, but this necessary information is not given freely to the audience. The most important plot details are often thrown away or go unstated; the audience must interpret visual clues and vague dialogue. As the audience, we may feel like we're the last to know what's going on, but really we're being given a birds-eye view that doesn't really coalesce until the final scene.

Duplicity shares with Michael Clayton Gilroy's taut slow-reveal storytelling method, but it uses the genre of romance-caper-comedy in the vein of Stanley Donen's Charade, and to a lesser extent Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief and both versions of Ocean's 11. (The score by James Newton Howard seems to be channeling The Third Man's zither score for foreign flavor.) Both of Gilroy's films engage corporate America with a negative eye, (in Duplicity the companies involved make soap and lotion), but Duplicity's scorn is tempered by parody and farce, mostly by way of soap CEO Paul Giamatti's big grins and bigger grimaces.

The light tone allows Gilroy to form a much heavier and much less subtle structure than the restrained plotting in Michael Clayton. He withholds reams of information, letting a half-hour tick by before the film even hints at who we ought to be rooting for (attentive and willing audience members will guess big chunks of the plot as it unfolds, which is half of the fun; I won't spoil anything important in this blog). Gilroy withholds these plot details through a progressive flashback structure that alternates the events of "now" with those of "five years ago" then "three years ago" then two, then 18 months, then one month, until we're caught up to present day.

The flashback structure gives force to the cat-and-mouse banter between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, as we try to figure out who is gaming who and which one actually loves the other. As each character tries to stay ahead of the other, we are trying to stay ahead of them both. The conclusion of the film pulls all the pieces together and leaves us little doubt about "the truth," but some jumps in logic and an unfortunately over-explained ending mar the fun in the last ten minutes. The final scene, and the final shot, just barely redeem those mistakes.

Gilroy is already creating a bit of a pattern with his films, despite the genre-hopping; the big reckless corporations in his first two films have replaced the CIA's role in the Bourne trilogy, where his intricately layered plots had their germination as well. If he decides to keep hopping, and keep directing, I hope he doesn't lose his high level of respect for the audience. Based on Duplicity's poor box-office, Gilroy's style may not be a big money-maker, but most of his films are fun even when they're intelligent. In that sense, Gilroy represents an old-Hollywood sensibility that I'd like to keep around.

Borges and Tolkien: Fiction and Myth

2009-01-02T00:21:00.000-08:00

"Ancient of Days (God as an Architect)" by William Blake

Jorge Luis Borges's short fiction titled Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is a first person account of Borges stumbling upon a great conspiracy to alter the history of the world. A secret society has apparently been creating several volumes of Encyclopedias about a fake planet (Tlön) and all its countries. At first Borges reflects on how the undertaking is so vast and provocative; then it becomes apparent that the secret society (Orbis Tertius) has been planting these Encyclopedias in Libraries and introducing artifacts from this fake world into the real one. The world catches Tlön Fever, and even though it is known that Tlön is not a real place, its languages, rites, and history are endlessly studied, enter the modern lexicon, and are even taught in school. Slowly the fiction that is Tlön begins to replace the truth of the real world. Borges ends by saying that one day we won't live on Earth anymore: we'll live on Tlön.

A False Document

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is presented in the form of what Wikipedia (and, therefore, at least one person somewhere) calls a false document. The majority of the story is a fake magazine article written by Borges himself. Borges uses real people as characters and introduces unnecessary details to give the whole thing weight. He never breaks character, except for the three page postscript where the most absurd details come out; if not for that it all seems semi-believable.

Borges explains how the world could have fallen for this scheme:

"Ten years ago, any symmetry, any system with an appearance of order—dialectical materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism—could spellbind and hypnotize mankind." ^[1]

Because of this reference to Nazism, some have assumed that Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is about totalitarianism, but I think that's a bit easy. Borges doesn't care what the idea is.

"How could the world not fall under the sway of Tlön, how could it not yield to the vast and minutely detailed evidence of an ordered planet? It would be futile to reply that reality is also orderly. Perhaps it is, but orderly in accordance with divine laws (read: "inhuman laws") that we can never quite manage to penetrate. Tlön may well be a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth forged by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men." ^[2]

In this we can see Borges summoning the realms of religion, society, fiction, politics, etc. all into one category: "manmade labyrinths." They're easier to understand than the real world, which is why it is with similar ease that we can be seduced by them. At the very end of the story, Borges expresses his dissatisfaction with the fake world that is replacing his "real" one by announcing that instead of fooling around with Tlön, he is spending his time translating a "real" text into a "real" language. Pointedly, he is translating the work Hydriotophia, Urn Burial by Sir Thomas Browne, the fifth chapter of which is a rumination on the smallness of man next to history (full text available here). Here's just one of many searing quotes from that work: "We cannot hope to live so long in our names as some have done in their persons. One face of Janus holds no proportion unto the other. 'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs." Browne wonders whether a gravestone can truly perpetuate the history of a person; can a life last beyond the monuments of one's death? Borges adds, in a merely parenthetical aside, that he never intends to publish his translation.

Mythopoeia

Yet for all his mustered lament about the death of the real Earth, Borges's story is itself guilty of creating a false history through its fake first-person perspective and its detailed accounts of untrue events. Borges creates a story that is at once a false document, and about false documents as well. This is, I think, the point.

Each man lives in fiction each day, choosing to believe what is not true for as long as the book is open, the movie is playing, or the actors are onstage. In Ingmar Bergman's highly theatrical film Fanny and Alexander, Oscar Ekdahl says that theatre is "a little world"; later his brother Gustav Adolf uses the same phrase to describe their giant family. Bergman's film, just like Borges's story, makes a connection between the two "little worlds," questioning the division between real and fake. In this sense, both works are existential and both are concerned with the idea of creation, be that of a family, a play, a translation, or a fake Encyclopedia.

Because of this, I do not believe that Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is entirely a pessimistic view of mankind, or of man's desire for order. Many a modern novel seems vibrantly "real" while its plot is utterly fantastic; a future archeologist can't be blamed for reading The Lord of the Rings as ancient mythology instead of art. Tolkien's novel even uses the "false document" trick, claiming to be a translation of the Redbook of Westmarch. ^[3] This is a necessary pretense, for Tolkien's work is what he called a mythopoeia. Wikipedia defines Tolkien's term succinctly: "[Mythopoeia] is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional mythology was created by the author or screenwriter...It is invented mythology that, rather than arising out of centuries of oral tradition, are penned over a short period of time by a single author or small group of collaborators." Sound a bit like Orbis Tertius and their plans for Tlön?

"No imaginary world has been projected which is at once as multifarious and as true to its own inner laws," says C.S. Lewis on the back of my copy of The Two Towers, though the quote continues: "none so seemingly objective, so disinfected from the taint of an author's merely individual psychology..." ^[4]

Lewis lays down a miniature view of Mythopoeia in this quote. He seems to view it as the creation of a vast world consistent with itself, and therefore totally believable, but without the "taint of an author's merely individual psychology." Borges claims that any ordered system can capture our attention, but surely each of these systems has to be in some way related to an individual's psychology: the socio-political impetuses for Nazism were not its only causes, nor are socio-political issues without psychological drive. Borges allows for individuality in his concept of "ordered systems" by directly referencing George Berkeley, whose philosophical fingerprints are all over Tlön. Furthermore, if Lewis truly believes that Middle-Earth had nothing to do with Tolkien's "individual psychology" he must not have really known his friend. Tolkien's friend George Sayer said that Tolkien

"lived the book as we walked, sometimes comparing parts of the hills with, for instance, the White Mountains of Gondor. We drove to the Black Mountains on the borders of Wales, picked bilberries and climbed through the heather there. We picnicked on bread and cheese and apples, and washed them down with perry, beer or cider. When we saw signs of industrial pollution, he talked of orcs and orcery. At home he helped me to garden." ^[5]

A Single Plot

In his story, Borges takes a crack at creating his own minor mythopoeia, albeit one that was created by characters in his story. He describes Tlön as a world where individuality and objectivity don't exist. Objects may exist at any given moment, but none of those moments are considered connected, nor is any object at one moment the same when it is in a different moment. A whole section of the story is devoted to the philosophical conundrum of nine coins which are left lying in the road and whether they exist between the moment they are left on the road and the moment they are picked up – a playful inversion of George Berkeley's tree falling in the forest (in fact, Borges claims that Berkeley was the inventor of the world of Tlön and as such Borges's story is more a rumination on Berkelian philosophy than anything else).

The most interesting statement from Borges about Tlön, in my opinion, is this:

"Books are rarely signed, nor does the concept of plagiarism exist: It has been decided that all books are the work of a single author who is timeless and anonymous. Literary criticism often invents authors: It will take two dissimilar works—the Tao Te Ching and the 1001 Nights, for example—attribute them to a single author, and then in all good conscience determine the psychology of that most interesting hommes de lettres." ^[6]

How fascinating is it, then, that Tlön should have some marked similarities to Middle-Earth?

For instance, Borges describes the Southern Hemispheric language of "Ursprache" which has no nouns. "...there are impersonal verbs, modified by mono-syllabic suffixes (or prefixes) functioning as adverbs." The word for "moon" in Usprache can be translated as "to moonate" or "to enmoon." Borges translates the phrase "The moon rose above the river" into Ursprache as "hlör u fang axaxaxas mlö," which translates back into English as "Upward, behind the onstreaming it mooned." ^[7]

Now, in the Northern Hemisphere of Tlön, there is still an absence of nouns, but instead of verbs there are strings of adjectives. "One does not say 'moon'; one says 'aerial-bright above dark-round.' or 'soft-amberish-celestial' or any other string." Later Borges says that "There are famous poems composed of a single enormous word." ^[8]

How similar this is to "New" Entish in The Lord of the Rings: in that language adjectives predominate, though there are nouns which are used sparingly. Tolkien gives us the phrase "there is a black shadow in the deep dales of the forest," which becomes "Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor" in New Entish, which translates back as "Forestmanyshadowed-deepvalleyblack Deepvalleyforested Gloomyland." ^[9] Another example is when Treebeard the Ent tries to say the word "Orc" in the Common Speech but with an Entish style: "For there was a great inrush of those burárum, those evileyed-blackhanded-bow-legged-flint-hearted-clawfingered-foulbellied-bloodthirsty, morimaite-sincahonda, hoom, well, since you are hasty folk and their full name is as long as years of torment, those vermin of orcs..." at which point he cuts himself off. ^[10]

Stretching a bit further, Borges's story connects to The Lord of the Rings by way of Sir Thomas Browne as well. In the aforementioned Hydriotophia, Urn Burial Browne says that many men live in such a way that even their gravestones are defiled by those who hate them. By contrast: "Happy are they whom privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men in this world, that they are not afraid to meet them in the next; who, when they die, make no commotion among the dead, and are not touched with that poetical taunt of Isaiah."

That poetical taunt is found in Isaiah 14. It was directed towards Babylon, and I have included an excerpt below (English Standard Version). Note that the "Day Star" refers to Venus, which is a poetical representation of Babylon in ancient times, and that "sheol" is the common grave of all people.

"How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
'I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.'
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
Those who see you will stare at you
and ponder over you:
'Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
who made the world like a desert
and overthrew its cities,
who did not let his prisoners go home?'
All the kings of the nations lie in glory,
each in his own tomb;
but you are cast out, away from your grave,
like a loathed branch,
clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword,
who go down to the stones of the pit,
like a dead body trampled underfoot.
You will not be joined with them in burial,
because you have destroyed your land,
you have slain your people.

"May the offspring of evildoers
nevermore be named!
Prepare slaughter for his sons
because of the guilt of their fathers,
lest they rise and possess the earth,
and fill the face of the world with cities."

Is it not possible to see shades of Tolkien in this Biblical poetry? Replace "Day Star" with "Sauron" and you have a lost song from the chapter "The Field of Cormallen." Not only are the lines a summary of the at-times-Biblical plot of The Lord of the Rings, but even more specifically the line "May the offspring of evildoers nevermore be named!" reminds one of both Treebeard's lament about Orcs above and the many instances where neither Mordor, Sauron, the black speech, nor any other thing relating to darkness should be spoken aloud unless necessary (a conceit used by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter books). Two quick examples of this can be found in The Two Towers, one when Gimli asks Gandalf "tell us how you fared with the Balrog!" to which Gandalf says "Name him not!" ^[11] and another where Faramir refers to Sauron as "He whom we do not name." ^[12]

Postscript—1947

Perhaps I have gone too far afield, focusing on minutiae instead of broad-strokes. Yet I believe that is part of our job. Finding endless connections between Tolkien, Borges, and the Bible (by way of Browne) is not just a fun mental exercise, for when Borges describes the literature of Tlön, he describes it thus:

"Their fiction has but a single plot, with every imaginable permutation."

That's an apt description of myth in particular and fiction in general.

Special thanks to Daniel Szczesniak, who is the only reason this blog is written. Daniel: read the fifth chapter of Hydriotophia, Urn Burial if you haven't already.

Notes

^[1] Borges, Jorge Luis, Collected Fictions, Trans. Andrew Hurley, (New York: Penguin, 1999) 81.
^[2] Borges 81
^[3] Tolkien, J. R. The Fellowship of the Ring, (New York: Ballantine Books Inc, 1969) 19 [Prologue]
^[4] C.S. Lewis ended his novel Out of the Silent Planet with a retroactive false document breaking the fourth wall and pleading with the reader to believe that everything in the book is true, that C.S. himself was friends with the pseudonymous hero and villains, and that they all really went to Mars. The sequel, Perelandra, is a sort of Mythopoeia about a new creation and the threat of a repeat fall from grace on Venus.
^[5] Duriez, Colin, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship, (New York: Paulist P, 2003) 140-141
^[6] Borges 77
^[7] Borges 73
^[8] Borges 73
^[9] Tolkien, J. R. The Return of the King, (New York: Ballantine Books Inc, 1969) 510 [Appendix F, I, "Of Other Races"]
^[10] ibid. 318, [Book Six, ch. 6]
^[11] Tolkien, J. R. The Two Towers, (New York: Ballantine Books Inc, 1969) 133 [Book Three, ch. 5]
^[12] ibid. 354 [Book Four, ch. 5]

This is As Real As it Gets: Michael Bay's War in Cinema

2008-12-06T23:09:00.000-08:00

"Well actually this is as real as it gets." - Billy Bob Thornton in Armageddon

"This is as real as it's ever gonna get." - Jon Voight in Transfomers

"Shit just got real." - Will Smith in Bad Boys II

Why do Michael Bay's characters always feel compelled to convince us that what's happening in their world is "real?" In the first two quotes above, it's because a character essentially declares the movie's plot so ridiculous that they don't believe it's actually happening. Oddly, they're echoing the sentiments of the audience.

There's nothing real about Michael Bay's cinema. He gets the details right, from the army uniforms and the guns to the street language and crass humor, yet even when his film involves something that gets really close to being believable, like two black cops investigating an Ecstasy drug ring in Miami (Bad Boys II), he manages to make it a fantasy of explosions, breasts, car chases, slow motion, and one-liners. (That those two cops end up in Cuba of all places, only to get into another car chase, is the film's greatest accomplishment). Bay is the master of making a serious idea into something really stupid (see also: Pearl Harbor).

Bay's films are filled with flesh, sweat, and metallic edges. He finds a way to combine the fleshiness of humans with the raw crunchiness of sports cars, diesel trucks, tanks, and of course, Transformers. All of his characters can learn to be violent within a matter of minutes: training means nothing, but purpose means everything. Presented with a "common enemy," anyone can pick up a gun and start shooting. The best part of Transformers is when Jon Voight's Rumsfeldian Secretary of Defense grabs hold of a shotgun in the middle of a firefight. (I imagine a documentary about Donald Rumsfeld's reaction to mechanical terrorists wouldn't look much different than this sequence as it already exists).

On a certain level, Michael Bay seems to be making pro-America propaganda/military recruitment films (not unlike this music video that played in movie theaters in 2007), but even the audiences who get off on his specialty mix of macho heroics, crude humor, and de-contextualized violence will (I hope) laugh at his orgiastic excess. His explosions are too big, his jokes are too rude, his characters too large and caricatured. For all his military fetishism, the governmental authority figures in his films are often inept or at odds with the renegade heroes who are under-qualified for the heroic deeds they must accomplish. In Transformers Bay even has the shadowy U.S. operative, while arguing with the Secretary of Defense, reference his "ridiculous government salary." Bay is a true conservative: pro-military, anti-government. Only the individual can make a difference in Bay's America.

How can we justify a filmmaker who presents America as so ridiculously militarized, so drenched in urban and government warfare, so ready to pick a fight? Or, put a different way, one could ask: "is he for real?" The lack of an answer is, I think, part of the fun.

I Didn't Win the Election

2008-11-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

Ever since January, I've been telling my fellow Christians about Barack Obama. I thought he was new, courageous, inspiring, intelligent, and all the other accolades I can think of. His honesty, decency, presentation, and attitude towards politics not only impressed me, but changed me, forcing me to reject the typical jaded and disillusioned college student stereotype that I had so comfortably fit into. I began a crusade to get this man elected, and the first (and last) place I went was in the church.

Instantly, my father told me that I had drank the Kool-Aid; others said that I'd bought into the liberal agenda. I don't deny it: I bought it. After the historic spectacle that was tonight, I don't regret buying it at all. Whether that historic victory was worth the price that I paid, that I must wait to find out.

The past eleven months have been brutal for Christian Obama supporters. I think a lot of younger Christians have been experiencing this as well. (One friend told me that she's unwilling to bring up her politics at church; she agonized privately over the decision for several months before coming to a very strong conclusion that Obama was the best candidate, very much contrary to her congregation's general opinion.) The responses I heard from my fellow Christians were rote: "Democrats believe in abortion, or didn't you know? They also support gay marriage. Obama himself is a super-liberal, maybe even a socialist. At the very least, he's big government and anti-gun."

I think there's reasons to talk about these issues, and I don't intend to argue them now. Certainly for many Christians, some or all of these are dealbreakers. Fair enough: stick with your convictions, so long as they are well-reasoned.

The problem for people like me is that the Red v. Blue divide is not just a friendly squabble over government or taxes. It is a war of ideals and ethics, fought over the foundation of truth itself, fought against neighbors and friends, and for some of us, our families. In fighting this cultural war, both sides have claimed corners that many people found uninhabitable. In 2004, I was a proud third-party voter (though even I couldn't tell you the name of the person I voted for). The Republican corner seemed irresponsible, absolutist, religiously immature, and arrogant, while the Democratic corner seemed soft, undefinable, hostile to my religious conviction, and unwilling to take a clear stand for its beliefs. The person that I found who represented none of these traits, Barack Obama, was ironically a member of one of these parties. When he began reshaping and rebuilding his party, I very easily went along with him and the Democrats. I drank the Kool-Aid and suddenly found myself in a corner that I had previously despised.

I told everyone about my newfound candidate. It didn't take very long to realize that I was alone, and I was turning my back on that precious conservative philosophy that had reshaped America and the church over the last twenty five years. When I uttered my beliefs in my church, I was largely alone, although tolerated and encouraged to say my peace (thank you, Cornerstone). On the Internet things were less friendly, as they always are, but especially harsh were the denouncements from Reformed churches around the United States. Least surprisingly, but hardest to bear, was in my household, where my philosophy was considered stupidity, heresy, and an outright rejection of my upbringing. I shouldn't have been so surprised at this response, and I know I could've responded better to my friends and family, but my heart was set and I wasn't going to shut up. Now that my spirit has been chipped away, slowly, perhaps now I will have to shut up. The ramifications of my mistaken outspokenness will be seen soon enough.

Perhaps it's shocking to be a Christian and a Democrat. I used to think it was too, being raised by the most conservative man on the earth, but today, living the dichotomy, I believe it can be done. Religion and politics are for many of us inseparably tied, no matter how disparate our final conclusions are. I don't live two lives, one where I make political decisions with my mind and the other where I work out spiritual beliefs in my heart. I don't turn off my politics when I walk into church, nor do I become an atheist when I vote. None of us separate ourselves in this way, yet herein lies the problem: many of the church's strong spiritual leaders, holding to this singular view of the human person, see no distinction between their politics and the gospel. To believe that abortion, no matter how wrong it is, may need to stay legal for the sake of liberal democracy is considered by them to be a pragmatic acquiescence to liberal humanism. To believe that there is a valid (though not absolute) separation of church and state that protects our government, our religion, and the religion of others is to them a rejection of religious freedom. To tax the rich at a higher percentage than the poor is to them theft and socialism. To fight for gay rights is to them a systematic undermining of Biblical values. Satisfactory counter-arguments to these statements exist, and many Christians believe them. I will not provide them here, but I will say that face-value absolutisms sometimes, perhaps often, have no relation to the truth.

Feeling as strongly as I do, it is probably weird that I would wonder out loud whether my outspoken allegiance for Barack Obama was worth it. My reasons are thus: firstly, I believe that every strong opinion must be tempered by a healthy amount of self-doubt. Doubting has been a safe-haven away from the overbearing political posturing that I (and others) very easily slip into in contentious times (forgive me when I have slipped, friends); said another way, the weight of self-assuredness is heavy. Secondly, and more importantly, the Red v. Blue divide puts people at odds with those they love. Despite my convictions (which themselves are despite my doubts), I really didn't want to end this eleven month journey as alone as I started it, or lonelier. To seek peace for its own sake is stupidity when justice hangs in the balance, yet I was compelled both by other people and my own insecurity to let all this go in order to bring some much needed peace to our collective Christian life. Certainly it would have saved me some squabbles with my father, who already doesn't like our conversations; it would have saved me some tough emotions at church; and it would have kept my friendships slightly more stable. This is why I cannot answer the question, "Was it worth it?" I may have lost more than I thought.

In order to help elect a President, I had to rub sandpaper on my friends and family. The words weighing on my heart right now are Christ's:

"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?"

Surely government is part of the world, and I believe we have gained something great; I know that my family and friends are not my soul, but in straining our relationship I believe I have lost something of considerable greatness.

Let me put it another way: Barack Obama won. I'm confident that the American people won, too. I'm just not sure that I won anything.

No Litmus Test: A Layman's Guide to the Right to Privacy

2008-10-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

Image stolen from New York Times

Both Obama and McCain said at Wednesday's debate that they will apply "no litmus test" for their potential appointments to the Supreme Court. As far as anyone can see, what they both mean by "litmus test" in this context is a strict requirement for a nominee by way of a single specific question, like, "do you believe in abortion rights?"

John McCain:

"I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test."

Barack Obama:

"Now I would not provide a litmus test, but I am somebody who believes that Roe v. Wade was rightly decided."

Both men are misrepresenting the issue, as both are saying "I won't apply a litmus test, but I do have a premise about Roe v. Wade that I want fulfilled." (Obama is not as forthcoming as McCain, but later in the debate he made claims about the right to privacy that clear the issue up, and I quote them later in the blog). The "no litmus test" proposition is such a false dilemma that it's embarrassing for both candidates that they are echoing it. Certainly, no president wants to appoint a Supreme Court justice based entirely on their opinion of abortion, nor should any judge's personal opinion about the act of abortion play into their judicial decisions. However, what leads a person to their treatment of abortion cases (to be clear: their judicial philosophy), is absolutely a test that both candidates would impose on their potential nominees. Both McCain and Obama are misrepresenting their opinions about the judiciary and the entire premise of jurisprudence.

"An Activist Judge..."

The "no litmus test" political smokescreen is of little concern when compared to the idea of an ever-present "judicial activism" that has crept into our discourse about the Supreme Court. The contrary, idealistic belief that judges are "umpires" that "call balls and strikes," was promoted (though definitely not created) by Chief Justice John Roberts during his opening statement before his confirmation hearings. John McCain echoed this idea at the debate:

"I will find the best people...in the United States of America who have a history of strict adherence to the Constitution, and not legislating from the bench."

McCain's misrepresentation here (and, for that matter, John Roberts' as well) is the inference that this statement is not a judicial philosophy. "Strict adherence to the Constitution" and its opposite, "legislating from the bench," are both popular phrases used by people like George W. Bush, intended to give the impression that some judges disrespect or disregard the Constitution; that liberal "judicial activists" believe in altering the Constitution in order to promulgate their personal political or social beliefs. The alternative, as presented by Bush, McCain, Roberts, and others is of a judge that is truly impartial, that doesn't bring his or her personal beliefs into the Court. Would that that is what they meant. What these phrases actually mean is a specific judicial philosophy known as Originalism (a cousin of Textualism).

It's beyond the scope of this blog post (and my status as a layman Supreme Court enthusiast) to dissect or refute the philosophy of Originalism on theoretical grounds. Briefly, it is the belief that the original meaning of the Constitution (defined as the intent of those who wrote it and the interpretation of those who had to work with it) is the beginning AND the end of all judicial interpretation of the Constitution. This belief at first seems to stand on steady ground, until you consider the ramifications: the Constitution says nothing about the Internet, cars, or cell phones. How can a judge know what the framers would have said about the regulation thereof? The framers of the Constitution had no concept of African American civil rights, gay rights, or abortion rights. Can a state make consensual homosexual sex illegal?

Justice Antonin Scalia began a speech laying out his opinion with this example:

"It’s a pizzazzy topic: Constitutional Interpretation. It is however an important one. I was vividly reminded how important it was last week when the Court came out with a controversial decision in the Roper case. [Ed - In Roper v. Simmons, the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute a criminal found guilty for crimes committed prior to the age of 18. Scalia and three other Justices dissented.] And I watched one television commentary on the case in which the host had one person defending the opinion on the ground that people should not be subjected to capital punishment for crimes they commit when they are younger than eighteen, and the other person attacked the opinion on the ground that a jury should be able to decide that a person, despite the fact he was under eighteen, given the crime, given the person involved, should be subjected to capital punishment. And it struck me how irrelevant it was, how much the point had been missed. The question wasn’t whether the call was right or wrong. The important question was who should make the call. And that is essentially what I am addressing today."

Scalia's dissent in Roper v. Simmons asked the majority to consider whether execution of juveniles was considered "cruel and unusual" at the time the Bill of Rights was amended. Scalia's argument is that if the majority of the populace has changed its mind about what is cruel and unusual, let them act democratically and overturn previous legislation (through ballot measures and bills passed by the state legislature).

This same premise works for the abortion argument, but in reverse: the principles set forth in the Bill of Rights and the subsequent amendments were never intended or interpreted, until now, to say anything about abortion. It is this fact, not the rightness or wrongness of abortion, that leads Originalists like Clarence Thomas and Scalia to declare abortion unconstitutional and juvenile capital punishment constitutional.

Justice Stephen Breyer says this about Originalism in his book "Active Liberty:"

"...the more "originalist" judges cannot appeal to the Framers themselves in support of their interpretive views. The Framers did not say specifically what factors judges should take into account when they interpret statutes or the Constitution.

...

Why would the Framers, who disagreed even about the necessity of including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution, who disagreed about the content of that Bill of Rights, nonetheless have agreed about what school of interpretive thought should prove dominant in interpreting that Bill of Rights in the centuries to come?" (p. 117)

Breyer and other opponents of Originalism do not pretend that the original meaning of the Constitution is unimportant; indeed it is very important, but is it a single thing at all? It is untrue that every Framer, judge, and politician in the 1780s had a consistent understanding of what the Constitution meant. For that matter, the original meaning of "We the People" was "white men who owned property." Original meaning as an interpretive mode is the micro version of a much larger, much more faithful mode, what Breyer calls "a more purposive approach." (p. 88)

"I am not arguing for a new theory of constitutional law. In my experience, most judges approach and decide most cases, including constitutional cases, quite similarly. They are professionals. And their professional training and experience leads them to examine language, history, tradition, precedent, purpose, and consequences." (p. 110) (emphasis mine)

It is these last three points that an Originalist would disagree with. Precedent, or common law, is only significant insofar as it adheres to the original meaning; the overriding purpose of any given Constitutional article or legislative statute is not as significant as the written words held within; and the consequences of different interpretations should hold absolutely no weight over the judge's decision.

Maybe the Originalists have a point. Is it not judicial activism to declare, for instance, that abortion is a right, when indeed the document used to justify it was never intended to say anything about it? In order to examine this question, we must dig into how and why judges have declared abortion a Constitutional right, and the best place to start is Roe v. Wade.

Privacy in Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade was a Supreme Court case whereby an anonymous unwed female, Jane Roe, desired to abort her pregnancy. The state of Texas, where she resided, had a law restricting abortions. Her case was won, lost, then finally taken to the Supreme Court, where it was argued twice (for procedural reasons).

Roe claimed that she had a right to privacy "protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments." Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion on Roe v. Wade, gave a list of cases where the Court invoked a right to privacy, thus supporting her claim that the Constitution holds that right within its ideas implicitly. (Links to cases included for reference, please read around them.)

"The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, (link, link) (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley v. Georgia, (link, link) (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Terry v. Ohio, (link, link) (1968), Katz v. United States, (link, link) (1967), Boyd v. United States, (link) (1886), see Olmstead v. United States, (link), (link) (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, Griswold v. Connecticut, (link); in the Ninth Amendment, [same case] (link) (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Meyer v. Nebraska, (link, link) (1923). These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," Palko v. Connecticut, (link, link) (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage, Loving v. Virginia, (link, link) (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma, (link, link) (1942); contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird, (link); [same case] (link, link) (White, J., concurring in result); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, (link, link) (1944); and childrearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, (link, link) (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, supra.

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

This last sentence is the most important. Some may disagree with the Court's ruling, indeed, that even if there is a right to privacy, it does not include the right to an abortion (Justice Blackmun had a lot more to say in defense of this conclusion than I have allowed him to say here). The Originalists, however, do not disagree simply with the extension of the right to privacy to women seeking abortions, but to the extension of the Right to Privacy to anyone at all.

Let us examine the text of the amendments that Roe claimed gave her a right to privacy. The Fifth, Fourth, and First amendments (respectively: trial by jury, search and seizure, and freedom of speech, press, et al) are common enough to modern discourse that I won't quote them here. The Ninth amendment is a side note to the issue, since Justice Blackmun (and the majority of the court in 1973) ruled that the Ninth amendment may be used to justify the Right to Privacy, but was not the greatest argument for it. Here's the full text of that amendment:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

This is a pretty damning amendment, it seems, for the Originalist, but there's a valid argument as to how far this amendment reaches. To what level can the Federal Courts allow for rights that were never democratically amended to the Constitution or passed as legislation? But this argument is tangential to Roe v. Wade, as Blackmun finds the full force of his argument in the Fourteenth Amendment, section 1:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This amendment was ratified in 1868, after the Civil War. Taken as a piece, it includes a broad definition of citizenship and the rights of citizens. In many ways it is a mini Bill of Rights, and includes wordings similar to those found in the Fifth Amendment and the Declaration of Independence. In yet another sense, this statement goes above and beyond the Bill of Rights in explicitly identifying the basic goal from which the Bill of Rights was derived. This broad statement of citizenship and its inherent rights, along with what is called the "due process clause," is considered by some judges and politicians to protect what 20th and 21st Century American society considered "privacy." (It should also be noted that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not find the right to an abortion in the due process clause but in the "equal protection of the laws" clause, saying that women should have just as much of a right over biological decisions as men.)

Privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut

The Court has also stated that the Right to Privacy can be found in the "penumbras" of the Bill of Rights, in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut. This case was decided in 1965, eight years before Roe v. Wade. Griswold was the director of the newly formed Planned Parenthood League in Connecticut when a married couple were given birth control by a Planned Parenthood physician. Subsequently, Griswold and the medical director of the facility were arrested, and fined $50 a piece (the law also allowed for them to be jailed for anywhere from sixty days to a year). According to the law, it was illegal to use any birth control in any form, and the person who abetted the crime could be tried as if they committed it (this allowed the State to prosecute the sale or delivery of contraception while pretending to prosecute the use).

In that case, Justice Douglas argued for a kind of Constitutional interpretation contrary to what is being promoted by Conservatives today. He said:

"The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights."

Later, after discussing a case where the Court ruled that a law firm could not discriminate against hiring someone based on their membership in the Communist Party, Justice Douglas said this:

"The right of "association," like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, link), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion, and, while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment, its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful."

Originalists hate this stuff.

Now, believing that there is a right to privacy does not necessarily mean that a woman's right to an abortion is automatically included, but no Supreme Court Justice that I know of has argued in favor of the former but not the latter (Roberts and Alito have been more evasive on the topic; both claimed to believe in a certain kind of right to privacy, as found in the First and Fourth Amendments, but that argument carefully leaves out all of the details. While working for the Reagan administration, Roberts referred to it as the "so-called right to privacy" and ambiguously described two different types of privacy in his Senate confirmation hearing. In his hearing, Alito went so far as to say that Griswold was good law, but equivocated on how and why).

It should be noted (as was pointed out by Justice Scalia in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas) that Justice Douglas declined to support his case in Griswold v. Connecticut with the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. Either way, it doesn't matter to Scalia: neither amendment, once written, was intended or interpreted at the time to say anything about "privacy," so they can't and they don't.

An Application

When the Court was presented with the case of Lawrence v. Texas (2003), where two men were caught committing sexual acts in a private bedroom and charged with "sodomy" (which under Texas law meant either anal or oral sex, but only between homosexuals), Scalia and Thomas voted that Texas could keep their law. Scalia claimed (in a complex and worthy argument) that not only is there no inherent right to homosexual activity in the Constitution, but that a State ought to be able to legislate sex acts between adults, because the state already does so in cases of "prostitution, adult incest, adultery, obscenity, and child pornography." His argument is that the morality of certain actions is legislated in our society by democratic action. Quote:

"Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive."

Thomas concurred with Scalia's dissent, but wrote a succinct and straightforward statement of his ideals:

"I write separately to note that the law before the Court today "is ... uncommonly silly." [Ed - This phrase that Thomas quotes, and the next two, are from Justice Stewart's dissent against the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut.] If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.

Notwithstanding this, I recognize that as a Member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is to "decide cases 'agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.'" And, just like Justice Stewart, I "can find [neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a] general right of privacy," or as the Court terms it today, the "liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions."

This is what Barack Obama said regarding the right to privacy at Wednesday's debate:

"...I think that Constitution has a right to privacy in it that shouldn't be subject to state referendum anymore than our first amendment rights are subject to state referendum, anymore than many of the other rights that we have should be subject to popular vote."

The Litmus Test

I want to leave this topic with three quotes from Wednesday's debate by John McCain.

"I think that the decision [of the legality of abortion] should rest in the hands of the states, I'm a Federalist."

"It was clear-cut votes [on abortion] that Senator Obama voted, I think, in direct contradiction to the feelings and views of mainstream America."

"We have to change the culture of America. Those of us who are proudly pro-life understand that."

No one disagrees that we need to change the culture of America, but many people disagree as to what the word culture, and what the word change, actually mean. For the Christian Conservative, change means "homogenize" and culture means "the domestic life." Is this the small government policy we want implemented in our country, where a state legislature can determine what actions are allowed inside a bedroom (among many other liberties that the Right to Privacy has afforded Americans)? Are "state rights" really a way to diminish the power of government, or do they enhance the degree to which a faction (in this case, the church) can control the government and dictate the lifestyles of its citizens? If you think I'm being extreme, please note that popular Christian author Randy Alcorn aligns himself with the Originalists' views in his book "Why Pro-Life?" when he says "Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. Constitution says nothing of a right to privacy." (p. 65)

The culture war that McCain is trying to reignite, was never fought (and is not currently being fought) for the souls of Americans; it has always been after their votes. The intended result? A truly "Christian" nation that, at least in appearance, upholds God's law. The attempts to achieve that result are the way Christians have most affected the political process, the judiciary, and perhaps the entire country over the last half century. That is not the legacy I want to leave behind.

I disagree with both John McCain and Barack Obama. I do believe we should apply a litmus test -- for the Presidency. However, "Do you support abortion rights?" is not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is "Do you support the rights of the people?"

Editorial: Money, Politics, and College

2008-09-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

I don't know anything about economics. I've been trying as hard as I can to grasp what's going on in the world right now, who it effects, whose fault it is, and what I can do about it.

The answer to the last question is obvious: nothing. I can't do anything. The world is crumbling, and I'm sitting here, unemployed, waiting for my college loan check from Citibank, trying to find a job, and wondering if I'm even going to be able to finish this term.

Right now House Republicans are telling us that the federal bailout plan failed because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "too partisan" in her speech. She criticized Bush, yes, and she mentioned that the Democrats were leading the charge, yes, but she never once disparaged the Republicans. (McCain spread the blame around, saying: "Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain, and refused to even say if he supported the final bill." Actually, McCain was just as wishy-washy at the debates as Obama about the bill. McCain's statement also said "This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country." Doesn't making a political attack invalidate your claims of post-partisanship?)

(According to McCain and his surrogate in this video, the Democrats are now responsible for the Republicans votes. The Democratic caucus got half of their party to support the bill, while the Republican caucus didn't get half of that.)

I do not wish to take sides in this issue (despite my obvious virulence towards the Republicans' rhetoric) seeing as I have no idea if this bill is the right solution or not. But at this moment, from my armchair it seems that all the supposed "work" that McCain put into this bill, all the compromises between Paulson, and Democrats Reid, Pelosi, and Frank, all of it was just a lot of hot smoke up the ass of the citizenry. Some called the 2004-06 Republican controlled session the "Do-Nothing Congress," (a quote from Truman). Others, mostly on the Conservative side, have called this current Democrat controlled congress the same thing. Now the Conservatives have to answer for their recalcitrance by ponying up: what plans do you have to fix this mess? Did you notice that your vote (your "No" vote) in the name of small government, more or less caused the largest point drop in the Dow ever? Ever, as in, history?

Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain offered any substantial policy changes after the latest economic "downturn" or "crisis" or whatever buzzword they have. Neither of these guys counted on the bailout plan NOT being passed. One of them needs to step up to the plate.

The questions asked about the bill were fair, for instance: why were we "bailing out" the people who helped put us in this mess? The answers varied, depending on who you ask. I have heard local investment types say that it wasn't just Wall Street and the investment firms but the greediness of the little guy who took loans beyond his means. I've heard others say that we've got to follow the money, and see if Congress' pockets were being filled by this $700 billion. And finally, Pelosi, and the CFO of Umpqua Bank (who was a guest on The Jefferson Exchange last week), didn't want to refer to the plan as a "bailout" but as, respectively, a "buy-in" and "liquidity plan." By buying "illiquid" mortgage backed securities, the government would be removing the insecurity in the market, allowing the big players in Wall Street to continue business while we, the people, who now own the illiquid securities, wait until they are "safe" (don't ask me what that means) to sell back to the market. It's a serious intervention by the government.

Some would even say it's a big-government plan, and to many (the constituents of House members who phoned and mailed, pleading with their representatives in our representative government to vote no) it was patently unfair to give our money to them. Yet the effect of that no vote will be, in fact has already started to be, far-reaching.

Let us consider, please, that it was a Big Government socialism that brought us out of the depression, and for the past thirty years Washington has been undergoing a "Federalist" or "Devolution" Revolution, where the powers of the federal government have been devolving slowly towards the state and local authorities, with the odd exception of the Executive Branch (this process was mostly accomplished by Bill Clinton and his conservative Congress).

The only way that FDR could get his "New Deal" through the courts was by stuffing it with judges that supported his plans. Now that George W. Bush and his father have provided us with four of the five conservative Supreme Court justices who hold to a generally free-market ideology, I wonder if even this bailout could be approved by "The Nine," were it to come to a vote. And that brings up the inherent contradiction: George W. Bush's promises of "small government" have resulted in the biggest budgets, the largest budget deficits, and the greatest expansions of executive power in history. Certainly the taxpayers haven't been paying as much in taxes, and far be it from me to say that Reaganomics is the cause of this current mess. Yet more money in the hands of the people was supposed to be an economic booster. Isn't it ironic that McCain, the "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution" (read: devolution revolution) is promoting tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of which would go to the same top 1% that received them from Bush? Isn't it inconsistent to decry giving money to Wall Street in exchange for an improved economy, and in the same breath promote cutting their taxes in exchange for nothing?

With no alternative currently on the table, what will happen?

Again, I must present my ignorance and discontinue the commentary. I have no clue what will happen now. All I can talk about now is the broad generalities. It is true that the ends never justify the means. I am willing to stake my claim in that moral land. If indeed the bailout was a bad, maybe even immoral bill, and House Republicans have succeeded in squelching it for the sake of the country, then we have to hope that either they have some other, less-expensive alternative plan, or that their free-market concept of "market suffering" (which really means people suffering) will lead to a period of "self-correction" and improved prosperity. Otherwise, this bill needs to be renegotiated and resubmitted immediately. Holding dearly to the mast of the U.S.S. Small Government while it sinks (with the American people on board) is foolhardy and, by its ultimate definition, fiscally irresponsible.

In the short-term, I have to look at my own life, and wonder what will happen because of this year, this month, this week, and particularly, this day. We're a loaning type society. We take out loans for houses, cars, furniture, TVs everything. I have taken out loans to get myself through college.

Today's society (the well-to-do, the upper-middle, the conservatives, and the politicians) is overly focused on who to blame - democrats, republicans, regulation, deregulation, predatory lenders and overstuffed financial firms, the greedy American consumer who makes choices without thinking, etc etc on and on. None of the focus seems to be on who it effects. Why are we so focused on a politics of punishment? I know it means nothing to some political persuasions, but at this exact moment I cannot afford to continue attending college. I have about a week, even with the loans that I'm terrified will disappear as a result of this crisis (none of this would be a problem if I qualified for a Pell Grant, but I won't tell you who's to blame for that situation. Here's a hint tho: he's my least favorite American President).

So what can I say? The world is crumbling, I'm still unemployed, and I'm still waiting for that loan check. At the end of the day, none of this is in my control.

Things To Do on September 11th

2008-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

9/11: a day that has been given two numbers as a signifier instead of words, as if words were inadequate. These numbers are a sign of defeat and resignation. These numbers say "what else can we call it but what it was? A day in September; September the 11th..."

It is easy for me to get emotional about 9/11 even though the physical event was thousands of miles away from me. It was not the physical but the emotional proximity to the event that struck me, that struck all of us. We never thought our empire could be so badly crippled, so terrorized, so knocked speechless and wordless and empty. Why, then, am I not shocked to hear of ravaged villages in South Ossetia and Georgia, this very week? Why, then, do I not memorialize and mourn the torture and murder of Iraqis (both in Iraq and in our own detention camps), Afghans (at the hands of a tyrannical theocratic government), Sudanese, Kenyans, Tibetans, Chinese, and on and on and on? Why are my landmarks of human injustice only those that shook my nation and my people? What evil goes on every day that I never hear about, or if I do hear, that I never care about? Why did the falling towers hurt me by proxy when other events do not? Why do only American deaths make me cry?

Things To Do on September 11th
Today I plan to read Art Spiegelman's comic book "In the Shadow of No Towers." Spiegelman wrote the great holocaust horror-comic Maus, which I recommend. In that work, Spiegelman wrestles with the fact that his father Vladek survived the Holocaust and the guilt he feels for living a relatively easy life when his father suffered so much. He considers how many dead that were taken in place of his father, and by extension, himself; in one scene Spiegelman is trying to focus on writing his comic book while his writing stand is propped up by several emaciated corpses. Spiegelman lived in New York during 9/11, and "In the Shadow of No Towers" is billed as his struggle with that horror and how it was transformed by our government into the horror(s) of Iraq (et al.), and so terror bleeds on into other terror, and on and on again.

Here are some other suggestions.

Listen to Philip Glass' album Solo Piano. Also, the Philip Glass piece "Opening" from Glassworks was played on NPR the day of the attacks and seemed to capture the national melancholy of that day.

Read Nancy Gibbs' article If You Want to Humble an Empire published in TIME Magazine on September 14, 2001. In it she details, minute by minute, the events of that day. Excerpt below:

If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, planted at the base of Manhattan island with the Statue of Liberty as their sentry, and the Pentagon, a squat, concrete fort on the banks of the Potomac, are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God.

Watch The Fog of War by Errol Morris (music by Philip Glass).

Read Holy Sonnet 10, or "Death, be not proud" by John Donne (full text below)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go--
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

Read this short piece by Jorge Luis Borges, which he wrote (I assume in the early 60s) in response to the assassination of JFK. It is titled "In Memoriam, J.F.K." (full text below)

This bullet is an old one.

In 1897, it was fired at the president of Uruguay by a young man from Montevideo, Avelino Arredondo, who had spent long weeks without seeing anyone so that the world might know that he acted alone. Thirty years earlier, Lincoln had been murdered by that same ball, by the criminal or magical hand of an actor transformed by the words of Shakespeare into Marcus Brutus, Caesar's murderer. In the mid-seventeeth century, vengeance had employed it for the assassination of Sweden's Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of the public hecatomb of a battle.

In earlier times, the bullet had been other things, because Pythagorean metempsychosis is not reserved for humankind alone. It was the silken cord given to viziers in the East, the rifles and bayonets that cut down the defenders of the Alamo, the triangular blade that slit a queen's throat, the wood of the Cross and the dark nails that pierced the flesh of the Redeemer, the poison kept by the Carthaginian chief in an iron ring on his finger, the serene goblet that Socrates drank down one evening.

In the dawn of time it was the stone that Cain hurled at Abel, and in the future it shall be many other things that we cannot even imagine today, but that will be able to put an end to men and their wondrous, fragile life.

And finally, some scripture.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."

-Isaiah 25:6-9

Also 1 Corinthians 15. Here is Verse 26: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death."

Holy Grail Movies: Playtime in 70mm

2008-07-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

Holy Grail Movies is a series wherein I watch movies I should've watched years ago and reflect upon them in a stylistically inconsistent manner.

To say the words "70mm" is to instantly label yourself as technical and particular; I've had to explain what 70mm film is so many times over the past week that I'll be glad when it becomes a permanent part of my friends' vocabulary. Normally I wouldn't bother trying to explain, not out of haughtiness or pride, but simply because it isn't important, especially here in Southern Oregon where no one, including me, has ever seen a movie projected in that format. Yet I've had to change this "don't bother" rule because I took a trip to San Francisco in order to see the french film Playtime projected in 70mm. This level of devotion demands explanation to most people, but I made matters worse by staying in California only for a few hours. Because I had no plans other than to see Playtime, I drove back to Oregon as soon as it was over.

Before Tuesday I had never seen Playtime. For a while, the only Region 1 DVD version, by Criterion, was poorly mastered and out of print. When Criterion announced plans to reissue, I had to make a choice. Based entirely on the reviews by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Roger Ebert, and the intelligent posters of the Criterion Forum (dot org!), I decided to wait until I could at least see the DVD on a giant screen, since apparently the size of this film was significant. But my apprehensions prevented even that, and I waited longer. Getting impatient, one day I rented the film planning to watch it and let luck decide, but I couldn't let myself waste the experience. So I gave up. For a while, I thought I would never get to see Playtime as it was intended, and I wasn't going to try. Then, two weeks ago, on a whim, I checked whether it was playing anywhere and found out that it was, in San Francisco, and in 70mm. So my adventure began - after five years of waiting.

It is a rare treat to get to see a film, any film, projected on 70mm, even moreso to see a film that depends so heavily on 70mm for its success. Before I saw Playtime, I could only make these statements theoretically, but in all honesty, it really does make a difference in picture quality. The number "70" reflects the width in millimeters of film in a camera during exposure, as well as the width of the film once it is developed and finally projected. That width is directly correlated to the amount of information stored on each individual frame. Thusly, the larger the film is, the more detail and the higher the resolution. Essentially.

Practically every movie you see in the theatre is projected on 35mm, likely because it was shot in 35mm. Some films, like Playtime, may be shot on 70mm, but then duplicated over to 35mm for projection due to the rarity of 70mm projectors. On small screens, this may not make a difference, but some films were meant to be seen on big screens and with lots of detail: Playtime is one of them.

The reason why Playtime is different from other movies is multifaceted. The film itself is plot-less, and has no hero, though there are many characters who we watch throughout, particularly Jacques Tati's most famous character, Monsieur Hulot. Hulot (played by Tati himself) was Tati's lead character in two other films prior to Playtime. The first film, Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, is a borderline-silent slapstick comedy about Hulot's attempt to blend in while on vacation, which for him is impossible. He is constantly causing problems on accident, usually while attempting to help someone; he is always nervous and always apologizing. From the start, Tati was juxtaposing man and his environment, focusing on when the two mesh and when they don't. The second film about Hulot, Mon Oncle (My Uncle), showed us a slightly developed (though equally bumbling) Hulot who lives in an antiquated and nostalgic Paris while a new modern Paris is growing around him.

Mon Oncle
This shot, which is repeated throughout Mon Oncle, is one of the few that contains both modern Paris and old Paris in it, and it serves as the conjunction between the two halves of the movie. Hulot's sister lives in an ultra-modern house, and Hulot is eventually employed at his brother-in-law's firm working amongst gray machines in gray buildings while wearing a gray uniform. Given how comfortable (to a point) Hulot is in old Paris, and how drab and confusing modern Paris is, it's easy to think that Tati is making a statement about modernization run a muck. Perhaps he was, but Playtime, by removing old Paris altogether, resists that interpretation. Mon Oncle may be critical of the way we live, but above all it is about transition.

As stated earlier, Playtime has no hero despite technically being a Monsieur Hulot film. Hulot is definitely present, but he is given one of the many stories that play out through the course of one day, one night, and the subsequent morning. The modern Paris of Mon Oncle is fully developed here into a thriving city with skyscrapers, giant rooms filled with cubicles, and a restaurant packed with patrons. As Hulot or any of the other characters attempt to navigate this world, they invariably cause mini-havoc by behaving in unexpected ways. This world seems to function thanks to predictability, and sometimes the people move together in a choreographed dance:

One of the key stories in the film is of American tourists who are traveling through Paris for just one day. The tour guides try their best to keep the group together, but two or three of the tourists will always wander off and start their own tour. One of the great gags of the film takes place in a travel agent's office, where all the exotic destinations look pretty similar.

This is the point where most audiences try to jump ahead of Tati, and assume that he is criticizing the modern world. The first half of the film may give that impression, but in the second half, Hulot and pretty much every character we met in the first half go to a newly opened nightclub to let loose and party. These scenes layer gag after gag about the restaurant's construction, which was being completed even after the first patrons were seated. As the restaurant fills up with eaters and dancers, it begins to slowly fall apart. Tati's perverse twist is that the patrons don't seem to mind that the walls are coming down, so long as they can have a good time. The anarchy slowly builds over an hour of the film, until by the end it has become a kinetic and claustrophobic orgy of dance.

Where the first half of the film feels impersonal, the second half becomes unrepentantly communal.

By morning the restaurant must close, and in this final segment of the film, Tati connects the first two segments by showing that the way we live, during the day and at night, is nothing but a dance. A roundabout filled with cars begins to resemble a carousel, and the communal society that's taken over the streets seems to be a traveling circus.

Though Tati was probably concerned as much as anyone about the world we were creating, his films do not preach about the right way or the wrong way to live, instead simply noticing the behaviors we exhibit in the worlds we've shaped. Playtime recreates the world he lived in (in a way), and communicates how he saw the beauty in being a human in a world so aesthetically spare.

Back to the ultimate question: why see this film on 70mm? On a purely stylistic level, looking at these screencaps, you may be able to notice that the film is dense and often doesn't have strong central (classical) composition. Instead of casting figures into a triangular shape that creates tension and drama, Tati favors putting his actors in the foreground, the middle ground, and the background, sometimes melding the three "grounds" until they become one giant mob. When he does focus on one activity, as in the shot below, he flanks the action with other actions that keep the shot busy, and in some cases, chaotic.

Yet Tati's stylistic decisions, however radical, would mean nothing if they did not have radical effects. By shooting on 70mm and packing his frame with detail, Tati demanded that the film be watched on giant screens, which hopefully means a large group of people. By watching any film with a group, one shares the experience with everyone else. With Playtime, it is entirely possible that you will miss a detail or a gag because the screen is so large and the amount of information delivered to your brain is so immense. At times in the Castro Theater in San Francisco, I would hear only a few people laugh, or sometimes only one, as if they were able to see something that the rest of us didn't. Immediately we began to scan the screen for the gag we were missing. Sometimes I was the only one laughing, and I saw how I was being used in Tati's game.

I suspect Playtime has the ability to create instant community wherever it is played. I also suspect the film would not work if it was played in Medford, whether it was projected on 70mm or not (and especially not on DVD). As I exited the giant theatre and entered the giant city, I saw Tati's perspective laid upon the world and put into action. San Francisco is no 1960s Paris, but the immensity of city community is the perfect place to experience this film. In the end, it's not so much 70mm (though the more detail the better) as it is a large group that makes Playtime such an absorbing and truly unique experience.

Notes:

1. When Criterion transferred this film to DVD, they used a 35mm duplicate, rather than a 70mm print. I think it was technically impossible (or uselessly expensive) to try and fit 70mm worth of information on a DVD, since even 35mm films have to be considerably compressed to fit on a disc. Nonetheless, the image on the DVD is fantastic for what it is, and I tried to capture my screencaps at the highest possible resolution before uploading them here.

2. One gag in the film drew only a solitary laugh in the whole Castro Theatre: a young man in the film wandered into a room trying to sell papers, wearing rolled up jeans and a yellow shirt advertising the New York Herald Tribune. It's a direct reference to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. I didn't think it was particularly funny, but I wondered why Tati would include it. In a way, Tati seems to be one of those directors so breathlessly consumed by their own art that other people's films wouldn't have such a great impact on their lives. Yet Jonathan Rosenbaum notes that Tati loved Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, making a grand total of two movies I can note that Jacques Tati admired. (I get a similar feeling about Bresson, Tarkovsky, and Kubrick himself, all of whom seemed to work in their own style regardless of the current taste or critical reception; contrast this with unabashed movie-lover filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Francois Truffaut, whose work has more flexibility.)

3. Right after posting this blog I re-read the end of my blog on the Maysles' films about the Christos. In it, I quoted Christo saying "I believe very strongly that 20th century art is not [a] single individualistic experience. It is the very deep political, social, economical experience [that] I live right now with everyone here. It is nothing involved with the make-believe." I then noted that "Both [the Christos and Albert Maysles] want to create something new and vibrant out of human interaction..." To that list we can add Jacques Tati. I guess it's easy to think of film as a solitary experience in the age of DVD, and perhaps that's a good thing (see YouTube or the personal documentary, like Tarnation or 51 Birch Street). Either way, it seems past directors, on up to the 70s, saw film as a group experience, whether that experience was a direct or indirect part of their work. I guess that makes this as good as any place to thank Travis Acord for going with me to San Francisco to see Playtime, and afterwords engaging two older ladies in a conversation about the film that practically doubled the joy of the experience.

When will Clinton and Obama have their first debate?

2008-05-01T03:02:00.000-07:00

In 1858, when Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were both running for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate, the political rivals engaged in seven nation-changing debates about slavery. These debates have become historically significant, for they shot Abraham Lincoln to stardom (and eventually the Presidency), even though Douglas won the election. The format of the debates was thus: the first man would speak for an hour, then the opponent would rebut for an hour and a half, and finally the first man would get a half hour rejoinder. The total time: three hours.

Neil Postman, in his essential book "Amusing Ourselves to Death," points out that this was actually an extremely short debate for these two Chatty Kathies. He gives this extreme example:

...on October 16, 1854, in Peoria, Illinois, Douglas delivered a three-hour address to which Lincoln, by agreement, was to respond. When Lincoln's turn came, he reminded the audience that it was already 5 p.m., that he would probably require as much time as Douglas and that Douglas was still scheduled for a rebuttal. He proposed, therefore, that the audience go home, have dinner, and return refreshed for four more hours of talk. The audience amiably agreed, and matters proceeded as Lincoln had outlined.

Postman's reason for mentioning these historic debates is to point out how much our national political discourse has fallen. The length of the debate is such an important factor here when you consider that the two men were discussing the political, constitutional, and moral advantages and disadvantages to slavery. They didn't waltz around the topic, especially in a day where the concept of black equality was unpopular even among abolitionists. Postman says that the people of this time were saturated in words, and though they were not intellectuals, they ate these highly technical public conversations up, with a spoon. Here's a quote from Lincoln:

The real issue in this controversy - the one pressing upon every mind - is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions, all their arguments circle; from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social and political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way and to all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for these, they desire a policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist that it should as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger.

I disagree with those who say we've had too many debates; by American standards, we haven't had a single one yet.

For many, the ABC debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on April 16th was a sideshow of stupid questions and non-issues. (I can add the time-delay for the West Coast and the terrible game show set to its list of crimes.) Yet this debate did not stand out, to me, from the rest. All of the debates match high production values with entry-level discourse. The ABC debate was especially, not uniquely, putrid.

Now, after 21 debates, four of which featured Obama and Clinton head-to-head, Hillary Clinton has put out the call for one more. She wants Obama to have a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with her before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 5th. The proposed setup: 90 minute total running time, no moderators, and whatever rules the two candidates want to set. So far Obama has rejected the proposal.

On an idealistic level, Hillary's call for an improved debate structure is warranted, and I would love nothing more than to see these two fight it out Lincoln-Douglas style. Furthermore, on a purely image level, Hillary would trounce Obama in this style of oratory, especially if she gets to go first. If the rules allow them to write their speeches beforehand (performed sans prompters, let's pray) and draft their responses onstage, then Obama will start strong and founder by the end. There's no denying that Hillary has a commanding presence in any type of debate, especially when she has to speak off the cuff (she is married to, uh, him). For a society that does not value oration or typography as much as previous generations, I would love to see how these two actually stack up next to each other.

On a more cynical and realistic level, let's be honest: this "new style" debate would actually reveal nothing. The 90 minute running time would be cut down substantially by commercials, if they can even have commercials within this format. Consider that under this scenario, with no moderators, it would be impossible for either candidate to prompt a commercial break. A "host" of some sort would be necessary, yet the whole point of the Lincoln-Douglas setup, for Hillary, is the complete removal of outside influence, which would include timekeepers elevated to moderator status. Yet without even that minor intrusion, where would the sponsors put their ads? (They should buy space on the candidates' clothes.) Surely no one would not be able to televise this live, except C-SPAN. Is it becoming a bit clearer why Barack Obama doesn't want to participate?

Even if these two did do something completely out of character, like meet in an unadorned auditorium, talk for a full uninterrupted 90 minutes, and record the debate for a later broadcast, there would still be ridiculous limits from the campaign "handlers," particularly the length each topic would receive and how long each candidate will be allowed to speak.

Finally, and most important to me, is that our society stupidly believes that complex topics like universal healthcare, the war in Iraq, the economy, and race relations can be discussed and decided in 10 minutes (admittedly, these two candidates have very similar stances on almost all the issues). The Lincoln and Douglas debates were about one topic, and yes, it was the most serious topic to ever touch American history. However, these men were more than able to discuss this topic in front of the people of Illinois without insulting them or over-simplifying their cause. They argued about their previous speeches ("a house divided against itself cannot stand"), associations with other politicians, the Dred Scott case, rights of territories to own slaves, the current president, and numerous other facets of the terror that was slavery. The problems facing us today may not have quite the same ramifications as that terrible system of oppression, but we have lessened the value of discourse in a disproportionate manner by cramming all of the "current issues" into one 90 minute block with three commercial breaks ("do Iraq war dissenters prefer Irish Spring or Dove?").

I would love to see if Obama and Clinton have the capacity to actually do this right. I'm worried that when Clinton says "Lincoln/Douglas style" she just means "no moderators," in which case I've wasted a blog post. I'm also worried that Obama, who has either within himself or within his campaign a great knowledge of the minute differences between modern media, does not see the great hoopla about an unmoderated and oratory-focused debate. In fact, it's entirely possible that he's scared of it. Either way, don't expect any of the future debates, however they're labeled, to actually look like what I've described above.

The MySpace Self-Portrait

2008-04-08T02:14:00.000-07:00

If you spend any time on MySpace you know that our current youth generation (which I'm only barely growing out of) is obsessed with taking photos of ourselves holding our cameras in mirrors. After looking at the above photo (which breaks the norms of this genre, something I will get into at the end of this post), I began wondering WHY we do it, and why MySpace is the forum for this type of self-portrait.

Please note: I'm not going to provide examples of this type of photography since it would require me to violate someone's (very public) private life. Also, I feel icky looking at strangers' MySpace pages.

The first answer to the question of "why" is functional and simple: we desire self-portraits for MySpace so we can show people what we look like in a creative way, and one way to do that is to take our cameras into our bathrooms and snap photos with the camera visible. Sometimes we use flash to create a blinding light that looks "neat." As for motivation, there's not much more than that.

When examined, though, I think this new genre can be seen as a reflexive/modernist impulse born from an individualistic and self-centered media-driven society. To begin, it is reflexive in that it is a way to acknowledge that the person who took the photo and the person in the photo are the same. This reveals the most important element of any photograph, that is, the reason the photo was taken at all. Since this question of "what is this photo about" is almost always answered with "the person taking the photo," that makes it an individualistic impulse in my mind. MySpace itself is built entirely for self-creation and -expression, and a photo that self-consciously declares "I took this myself" fits in perfectly. A close relative to this is the holding-the-camera-as-far-away-as-possible self-portrait.

And if this genre of self-portrait is reflexive by drawing attention to itself as a created art, then it goes without saying that it is modernist. It envelopes the very act of photography into its subject matter, and forefronts the instant digital world-cum-gallery that allowed it to exist. Notice too the highly manipulated and artificial poses reflecting the self-interest and self-promotion of the subject; thanks to digital cameras, we can take this photo over and over till we get it right. Mirrors are an essential part of this genre as well, as digital photos and mirrors are both ways for us to look at ourselves. A photograph isn't really a person, but a photo of a mirror is even less so. In this sense, the MySpace self-portrait requires conceptual thinking; the viewer must subconsciously compute the relationship between the subject, the camera, and the mirror (the latter of which is often not visible, unlike in our subject photo).

And on a final level, this form of photo also conveniently reveals the type of camera we are using, which makes it perhaps a materialist impulse as well, especially considering those people who take pictures of their abs or their bikinis in this fashion (wealth and beauty, what a combo).

The photo above masterfully undoes some of the basics of this formula, replacing specific self with a generic self by obscuring the subject/photographer's face. This forces our focus towards the location (the car) and the urban landscape. The photographer seems more concerned with capturing the landscape than herself, yet she is still the dominating force in the photo. Though it is possible she took many versions of this photo thanks to digital photography, the windswept hair and unposed face indicate that this was not a glamor shot. She has not photographed an exceptionally beautiful part of this urbania either, making even the roller coasters that sweep through the photo look mundane. Since we are leaving this location behind, the photo acts like a dour version of a tourist photo at the end of a trip, signaling the farewell to a location that once may have offered excitement. Now the photographer merely sits there, recording the event, retaining the individualism and consciously challenging us with the act of recording. It's quite a step up from the typical MySpace self-portrait.

Here's my own pathetic attempt to join this genre, taken with a Macintosh computer's built-in EyeSight camera:

Yeah.

Film and Fabric as Social Art

2008-04-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are environmental installation artists who use giant leaves of fabric to alter the world. They are most remembered for wrapping famous architecture like the Reichstag in Berlin or the Pont Neuf bridge in France:

Christo in Paris
...while in America they are well known from coast to coast for tracing 11 islands in Biscayne Bay in Miami:

Islands
"The Christos," as they are known, have been filmed by the legendary Maysles brothers for decades. The six films about the Christos depict the duo as they conceptualize their projects, draw and sculpt them in miniature, try to convince government leaders and bodies to allow them to create their work (at no cost to anyone but the Christos themselves), and put their artwork together with the help of hundreds of paid workers. Christo is "the artist" who creates the idea and draws the art, while Jeanne-Claude is the manager, publicist, producer, and more; together they form an artistic team.

My favorite portion of every film is the discussion over whether their work is art or not. In the film Running Fence, the Christos have to convince the landowners of Marin and Sonoma counties to allow them to build a giant silky fence tracing 24 miles of land, eventually diving into the sea.

Running Fence
The opposition is both political and cultural, even though the Christos have allies of both types. They tend to have more success when they talk to people face to face and explain their goals. Eventually, and this is the most magical part, the people involved in the project defend the art themselves. By the end of each film, the workers and inhabitants of each area reflect on the art, sometimes arguing about it, but most of the time rejoicing for someone's simple, yet colossal, aesthetic dream.

In the film Valley Curtain, Christo says that for him, the art isn't so much in the drawing and conceptualizing, but in convincing people to participate. If he and his wife have a gift, it is for gathering so many people who would not otherwise be involved in an art project, and getting them to work hard. Valley Curtain shows iron workers risking their lives to create something that was only hung for a single day.

Valley Curtain
The temporal nature of their work is another accusation leveled against the Christos, believe it or not. In Christo in Paris, we hear arguments about how wrapping the Pont Neuf couldn't be art because it was going to be unwrapped eventually. Christo's remarkable response is that today we have different ways of remembering, and that the experience of seeing and walking on the work can never be taken away. He's right, but he fails to mention that he hires a photographer for every project, and the Maysles' brothers had at that time been following them with cameras for thirteen years. Albert Maysles has continued to film their projects since his brother David's death in 1987.

I got to speak to Albert Maysles in an interview about his career that aired this morning on Jefferson Public Radio; he is being honored at the Ashland Independent Film Festival this weekend, and will be presenting clips from his career and life on Saturday. In the interview, Mr. Maysles said that his work and the Christo's are very similar, and that the films are a small but necessary part of the Christo's art, as they aid in helping to remember. But more importantly, both Christo and Maysles claim that their art is societal. In Running Fence, Christo says this during a governmental meeting:

"The work is not only the fabric, the steel post, and the fence. The art project is right now here. Everybody here is part of my work, if they want if they don't want, anyway they are part of the work. Instead [of having] color of red and white, they are integral part of this process of making that project. I believe very strongly that 20th century art is not [a] single individualistic experience. It is the very deep political, social, economical experience [that] I live right now with everyone here. It is nothing involved with the make-believe.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude gather people, while Maysles records people. Both want to create something new and vibrant out of human interaction, and you can see this beautiful fusion in the films.

Films by Albert Maysles at the Film Festival this weekend: Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens, The Gates (about the Christos), and a special presentation of clips from his new project, Handheld from the Heart.

The Southern Oregon Obama: With Notes on the Culture War

2008-03-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

Like everyone else who cares, I've been watching Barack Obama on television for months. I haven't needed MORE Barack, for sure, as anyone who watches the news has gotten way more Barack than they bargained for. I was excited to see Senator Obama in person, though, so I could compare his "real-life" persona to the television images and sounds that I've become numb to over the past few weeks. To my surprise, I felt like there was no difference.

This could be the mark of a man who presents himself honestly whether a national audience is watching or not, or it could indicate that Obama's genuine face is never visible, or it could even be a sign that media today give us a fairly accurate view of a political campaign. I cannot say. Either way, Obama did not sweep me up in emotion or compel me with rhetoric or soothe me with flowery words. Instead he came in like a rock star, said his piece, asked for ours, then left—like a rock star.

Perhaps this is the best form a media-conscious celebrity-politican can take; perhaps the shaking hands, holding babies, a-camera's-always-on rock star image is not a downside to American politics, but a necessary component. Perhaps this is the way that someone like Obama can introduce his form of leadership to our nation. Perhaps.

While my image of Obama has remained unaltered, my image of the media has not. When I watch the campaign trail on television I notice how each candidate will stand in front of a group of supporters who always look beautiful and perfectly diversified. Yet, when we gathered into the small basketball court in the Kids Unlimited building this morning, anyone who wanted to sit behind Obama could do so of their own volition. They would be seeing the back of Barack for most of his speech, but they would visually represent our valley for the rest of the nation (and from reports I heard, both CNN and FoxNews aired portions of the rally live as it happened). With the lights turned on, and the energy turned up, I noticed how my fellow Southern Oregonians started to morph, to subtly change. They began to look like any other group of (predominantly white) people who gather to watch a political candidate. After standing in line with these people for hours, noticing their Oregonian ticks (Columbia Sportswear and scarves, coffee from a nearby coffee stand, gentle and forgiving attitude coupled with general humorlessness), I was surprised that even while I was in the same room as them they began to resemble those crowds you see on TV. "People" felt small to me again, while "groups," "coalitions," "organizations," "political parties," and "churches" felt much larger. Having begun the day as an individual on a mission, arriving at the venue at 5:30 AM by myself, it was strange to feel suddenly like a part, and not even a unique part, of something much bigger than myself.

Southern Oregonians, Americans, or Obamacans?
I've been a supporter of Obama since right around his Iowa win (not sure if it was before or after); I wish I had joined the cause sooner, but the thing that ultimately made the decision for me was one of his fiery speeches. It wasn't a recent speech, but the speech before the Democratic National Convention in 2004 (youtube link here and continued here) that only existed in my memory at the time I made the decision. It was an impassioned speech about the Democratic platform for 2004, which most importantly was about ending the war in Iraq (then there were only 900 Americans dead; now it's close to 4,000). It touched on all the reasons why you should vote for John Kerry and "the democrats." I did not. Obama did not convince me that Kerry was the man to be President in 2004, and John Kerry most certainly did not convince me either. I ended up voting for a third party candidate. Yet the speech left a mark on me that I could not shake. When I made my decision to support this man, I could vaguely remember his talk of one America, not two. He said that red states and blue states have more in common than we want to admit. He said that there are religious folk who vote liberal, conservatives who may be more broad-minded than you would expect, and that you can be a patriot and support either political ideology.

"...it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we're all connected as one people. If there's a child on the southside of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription drugs, and [has] to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up, without benefit of an attorney, or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief, 'I am my brother's keeper,' 'I am my sister's keeper,' that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, and still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one."

There's a reason these words did not impact a young person like me to vote for Kerry (or Bush): the 2004 election was yet another in a long line of he-said-she-said, my side against your side, red vs. blue, and right vs. wrong style politics. Senator Obama's idealism did not match John Kerry's tepid party-line stance, focused entirely on the liberal America that Obama was trying to convince us didn't really exist.

This approach has not connected with Conservatives, at least in my valley. It has ennobled and empowered the young Independents, Democrats, and Moderates throughout the country, but the hardline Conservatives haven't bitten yet. What they don't know is that a vote for Barack Obama, this year, is a two-fold vote. The conservatives understand that on the one hand, a vote for Obama is a vote for a generally liberal public policy, mixed with some conservative attitudes towards civil liberties that Bush and the neocons have failed to uphold. But the part they miss is on the other hand: a vote for Obama is a vote for a new kind of politics, one that respects the opposition and seeks to unify the country rather than divide it. We all believe we have enemies who seek to do us harm in foreign lands, but some of us believe, to their great error, that our enemies reside in this country, in the form of an opposing political position. This "culture war" is the war that is critical to our success as a nation, perhaps moreso than the multiple wars we are fighting abroad. This war between "good and evil" "red and blue" "right and wrong" is the war that has shaped my political lifetime, and it is this war above all that must be stopped. When and how it is stopped will determine where we go next as the United States of America.

I have decided to vote for a Democrat, even though I have a history as a civil-liberties minded Libertarian, because I have seen this war tear apart family, church, and state. The choice this year isn't between good and evil but between a new way and an old way. My generation is helping to make that choice.

Against Christian Interpretation

2008-03-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

Game Politics pointed me to a story from The Baptist Standard about churches using Halo as a ministry tool.

"...many churches across the country are hosting Halo nights — evenings filled with pizza, camaraderie and multiple-player games emblazoning across several television screens. Proponents say the nights aim to reach teenagers — mostly boys — on their own terms and show that churches can be relevant in a world filled with emerging technologies."

Later on the article says that "...critics question the value of using shooter games to entice boys to attend church." Notice the wording in both of these quotes: we're not talking about using games as games, but using them as tools for some greater, perhaps nefarious purpose.

This is clarified when Greg Stier, president of a ministry called "Dare 2 Share," which uses 'alternative' means for 'reaching out' to today's youth, says this:

“[Master Chief] is kind of a messianic figure....That is an opportunity to talk about [Christianity]. Personally, I don’t think that was an accident. I think that was some programmer who was trying to make a point.”

Once again, the church misunderstands the value of art as art. These guys see Halo 3 not as a game but as a tract or pamphlet. A videogame, to them, is not valuable because it is interactive art, but because it is a trojan horse for an ideology.

The basic cultural misunderstanding of the day is that art's greatest purpose is to spread "messages." This is being fed to artists and audiences alike, the former creating detailed artistic treatises on their pet passions, forcing the latter to "interpret" what the author "really meant." Videogames have been free from this pretension for almost their entire lifespan because while beauty in theatre or film can come from social truth or human emotion, beauty in the completely artificial world of videogames is much more basic and immediate. The true art of games is control, and the level of enjoyment you gain from this control is probably the same as the feeling of catharsis that audiences used to get from Greek tragedy.

I think it is a laughable statement to say that any message hidden within Halo 3 is the result of some programmer, especially a message (if there is one) so central to the main plot of the game. Further, I think it's a complete misunderstanding of games to say that the only thing we'll get out of playing them is the "point" or "moral" of the story. This is a reductive view of literature and storytelling, as well as games.

Gamers get enjoyment from many aspects of a game, from controlling someone else, managing a complex strategic system, exploring a new world, or competing with friends. A gamer knows that the story in a videogame, while it can be deep and even great on a literary level, is ultimately not the impetus for playing. They play games to be a part of that story, or simply to be a part of something, anything that is different from their experience.

This is the Susan Sontag argument updated for the modern age. She fought the notion that art was an intellectual puzzle, and that the audience's goal was to discover the answer. She said that we must simply absorb the pureness of art, experience it and feel it. Surely this will impact our intellect as well as our emotions, but "meaning" is not what we seek. (This is also why she connected morality to a film's aesthetic quality rather than the morality of a character's actions, something that we Christians have a hard time understanding.)

Furthermore, it is silly and wrong to co-opt an artwork and claim it for any philosophy. This act always reduces and minimizes the art rather than lifting it up. Anyone can claim that Halo is a great game because it has a hidden message of anarchy, religion, or pro-feminist marxism, but that doesn't change how the game plays.

Final point and full disclosure: my church and its youth group occasionally get together for nights of Halo, or Guitar Hero, or even Smash Bros. The purpose of these gatherings is not to lure children into church by dangling candy in front of them, or to find hidden Christian themes in the games' stories. The purpose is merely to have fun, which is what most games aspire to be.

Liveblogging the "Old Politics"

2008-03-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

Clinton and Obama in wax at Madame Tussaud's

FoxNews' Shepard Smith said on his show today that he has been receiving mass e-mails on his Blackberry from the Hillary Clinton Campaign, all requesting that he and other networks start asking Barack Obama's camp about hot button issues, like Obama's link to Antoin Rezko. Obama supporter and Texas Representative Chet Edwards responded to the attack by saying, (paraphrased) "This is old politics. We're tired of the same ol' same ol'. This is typical Clinton stuff." (Shepard Smith said that he receives mass e-mails on his Blackberry every campaign, from every candidate.)

I've heard Chet Edwards' words before, though they came out of the mouth of George Stephanopoulos in 1992; in the documentary film "The War Room," Stephanopoulos is seen refuting the Gennifer Flowers scandal, saying the attacks on Clinton's character are "old politics." He says to the press that Bill Clinton is the "new politics" and that he exemplifies character. I have no idea what that meant then, and I have no idea what it means now. Either way, they're shaky words for Obama to emulate (or is it plagiarize?).

Later on in the FoxNews interview, Chet Edwards commented that Obama's new politics has been able to take down the "Clinton Dynasty" because he's a small-time politician with a grudge against Washington's impotence. Comparisons between Senator Obama and Mr. Smith are very common this year, as Obama is attempting to convince the country that he is not jaded by "politics-as-usual" (but at the same time has been a proven and capable elected official for over a decade). In reality, his political tool is merely to deflect all criticism from Hillary's camp and play the saint, while Hillary has to deflect the press and play the bulldog.

Based on Obama's minimal track record of scandals so far, he certainly cannot be compared to Bill Clinton, whose candidacy and presidency were plagued with oft-denied scandals, most of which proved to be true. And who was it standing by Bill's side every step, even when he trashed the names of the many women he slept with and discarded? Hillary. Clinton's Senior Adviser Maggie Williams responded to Chet Edwards' dynasty comments with this: "There is no such thing as a Clinton Dynasty. There is only Hillary Rodham Clinton."

...

The new generation, I hope, sees through that statement. Nothing said by either of the Democratic campaigns this year demonstrates the actual "new politics" as well as this video.

Will Success Spoil Rock Obama?

2008-01-31T20:41:00.000-08:00

Remember, back in early 2003, when the film Chicago won the Best Picture Academy Award over more deserving films like The Pianist and Gangs of New York (and the best films that year weren't even nominated)? There was a reason: the Academy wanted to make headlines. "The first movie musical to win Best Picture in decades!" and the votes poured in for the sympathy candidate, making the Oscars "culturally relevant" for one more year because they're just so damn innovative.

This metaphor is important to me, because it was Hollywood who started ignoring musicals and stopped making them altogether. To resurrect your own murder victim is not newsworthy, but a show of hypocritical self-worship.

Just a few minutes ago, in the same room where the Oscars are handed out every year (the Kodak Theatre), I saw CNN's Wolf Blitzer try to instigate a fight between the two Democratic Presidential candidates. When Senator Barack Obama said that he would not discuss health care behind closed doors, but in front of the American people, Wolf stepped in: "that was clearly a swipe at Senator Clinton." Well, yes it was. It was a subtle swipe at the failures of the former First Lady to create the first universal health care system in America. But note the key word: SUBTLE. This continued later when Blitzer pressured Senator Clinton about her vote to give powers to the President to wage war in Iraq. He said that she was admitting to be naive, which drew boos from the crowd and a giggle from Hillary. And again when Blitzer pressured Obama to clarify why he considered Hillary's immigration plan "inhumane," something he never said (though he got close).

Do we need the gloves to come off between these two? Was I watching this debate for the sake of entertainment? Well, apparently I was, for CNN's cameras not only swooped and dived over the faces of the candidates but also the star-studded audience. Oh look, Steven Spielberg! Rob Reiner! Stevie Wonder! Jason Alexander! Pierce Brosnan! Diane Keaton! These faces surely lend credibility to these typically boring proceedings. Let's also consider the Republican Debate, also hosted by CNN, where Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee were treated like has-beens as host Anderson Cooper concentrated on jostling the two front-runners into a boxing match.

It's clear to me, now, that this presidential race is a sham. I don't know if Obama is a sham, but the game he's playing is. Mobile reporters follow the candidates from early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, talking about the "momentum" they gain at these states that ultimately represent less than 2% of America; or they talk about the "electability" of the candidates as if the proceeding is a horse race, but it's not even as dignified as that: it's more like a cockfight. And my favorite candidate, Obama, for all his talk about change in Washington and uniting the Red and the Blue, is not reticent to go tit-for-tat with Hillary's obnoxious vote-mongering and engage in the surreal conflagration of celebrity, entertainment, and political issues that occurred tonight in the Kodak Theatre.

Why have these two horses been favored, by CNN, MSNBC, even FoxNews, by newspapers and blogs, over every other candidate? My friend Sarah would tell me that I am being unfair to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, perhaps even racist and sexist, by saying that they've gotten this far because they are "special." But though they have stumped for issues and argued about tiny details (in that pithy television soundbite way that we just assume is normal political speech), the media coverage of the race has focused on ONE, or make that, TWO things, and guess which two they are (and I look forward to Sarah's refutation of this). It's not racism or sexism, but commercialism: Gender and Race will play on national television, especially when the word "War" accompanies both. John Edwards represents neither, so he's out. The debates themselves are a joke, where 3 minutes of flashy talk about "direction" and "the future" counts as an actual political discussion. We treat our politics like a televised Wrestling Match.

Because of the distance between the early primaries and my own state's primary, I feel like I have little to no voice in this election. Super Tuesday will likely determine who the "leader" is in this race, and if it doesn't, I won't get to cast my vote until the Oregon Primary in May. The media onslaught has given the voice to those who cast their votes early, and more now than ever before I believe we should have all state primaries on one day. Then no one can tell me who the "frontrunner" is, and I don't have to hear about Hillary's cackle or Obama snubbing her handshake or Romney's bad temper or McCain's age. If not for television, third parties might actually be viable candidates; because of television, the field is narrowed fast and the race is dragged out for maximum visibility.

The voters don't get much say in this, when the giant media conglomerates get to decide how to paint the candidates from day to day. The horse race and the cockfight in each party isn't over, and barring some ridiculous Super Tuesday miracle, it won't change, no matter how much these candidates like that word. If you want change, be change, don't just say it, and the first thing to stop doing is participating in dog and pony shows like tonight's debate.

For reference, better films from 2002 include Adaptation, Changing Lanes, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Far From Heaven, Naqoyqatsi, Punch-Drunk Love, and the best film that year, Solaris. And that's just American movies; I could list four or five foreign movies that were eligible for awards that year that got pushed aside by the dreck that is Chicago. And then there are smaller movies that I haven't seen from that year that were likely better than any of this comparatively big-budget crap. The quality of the film is often inverse to the attention it receives.

The Kite Runner

2008-01-18T03:49:00.000-08:00

The Kite Runner is about anal rape in the Middle East, though most of the film's sequences are computer generated kite battles. It has two climactic scenes involving a ten year old dramatically pointing a slingshot at a bully, and one scene of a woman being stoned to death. Somehow, The Kite Runner is able to blindly switch between these disparate modes of ludicrous fantasy and "real, tough issues" as if the pieces are mere short stories with a related setting.

The story involves two young Afghan kids who are best friends; one, named Amir, witnesses the other, Hassan, being raped right after Amir wins the annual kite flying contest, but he is too chicken to stop it, or tell anyone about it. Eventually Amir's father must flee to America, and Amir's betrayal of Hassan is never rectified...until 20 years later, when he receives a fateful phone call from an old friend who says Hassan is dead, but he has a son, who is being raped right this very instant. Amir is told in no uncertain terms that saving Hassan's son, hidden deep in Taliban occupied Afghanistan, is his chance to make things right.

The film that follows is pandering, pathetically sentimental, and aesthetically barren. It appeals to the base instincts of easy-multiculturalism by providing ethnic actors in a homogenized, Western-friendly plot with a pleasant ending (the movie is directed by a Swiss immigrant to America). The story, with all its political overtones about Russia and the Taliban and its centerpiece gay rape scene, aspires to be a gritty Middle Eastern saga, while the filmmakers treat the material like a PG-13 bedside fable, where any ten year old kid can get over the horrors of being a sex slave. Rape itself is only barely discussed, and the sole scene where it is depicted was apparently edited by the MPAA themselves. More time is devoted to the computer generated kite flying, but I guess even the Afghanis prefer to look on the bright (fake) side of life. Despite the film's hands-over-the-eyes approach towards sexual abuse, the government of Afghanistan banned the film for what little rape it did show. The young Afghan boy who played Hassan has even expressed discomfort about going outside, for fear that people will assume he was actually raped. If the filmmakers are trying to speak to (and maybe undo) the homophobia of radical Islam, they're wasting their time.

The Kite Runner's only redeeming moments are of Amir and his father integrating into the more permissive American culture, but even these scenes are written in movie-character shorthand and much more worthy films have handled similar material. However, it wouldn't matter if these scenes were beautifully written as I can hardly get over the movie's offensive morality, where one mistake can be forgiven by performing an unrelated good deed. Because Amir puts himself into danger, traveling through Afghanistan without a beard (a dangerous offense to the Taliban), all for Hassan's son, surely he deserves atonement, the movie says; but would the action of saving an abused boy have seriously meant less if the boy was being held next door in his skyrise apartment? Does saving a life, no matter how difficult it is to do, truly negate ruining a different one? This tit-for-tat morality, whether it demands good deeds or suicide bombs, is what's destroying the Middle East.

The management at The Varsity Theatre in Ashland told me that The Kite Runner was selling out at almost every showing. To me, that's just as culturally damning as Tinseltown in Medford showing three prints of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Opening Credits: Candyman

2008-01-04T00:50:00.000-08:00

This post is part of the Opening Credits Blog-a-thon.

A street, some cars, a giant city. An urban maze. An unnerving, deliberate scrolling overhead helicopter shot shows us these few things, and we get the impression that we're not watching the opening credits of this movie from an objective perspective. Though the camera glides innocuously, we are looking downward, looking for a victim, looking for something to hate. Whose perspective is it? Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman.

This film is apocalyptic in the same way as The Last Wave. In fact, both have shots of supernatural forces destroying giant cities, and both have main characters concerned with truth, logic, and empirical science who are slowly transformed into lead roles in a mystical saga. The opening credits for Candyman are shot in God-view, looking down on the ants scurrying to their important places. This overture tells us that tangible reality is not the only reality, and that someone is watching over us. But it's not God, it's something more sinister and more evil.

The tone of this prologue is set by Philip Glass' score, which is almost entirely organ and voices. Church instruments, notice, except the music is not uplifting or contemplative; it pounds at us, defying us not to believe. And isn't the greatest sin to have no faith? Candyman is only real so long as people believe he is; not believing is the greatest insult to him, and spurs on his destruction. This apocalypse is city-wide, yet the story of Candyman narrows to just one character through an abrupt close-up that counters the broad viewpoint of the prologue. Who is looking at Helen so closely? Five guesses.

Opening Credits: Metal Gear Solid

2008-01-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

This post is part of the Opening Credits Blog-a-thon.

The aspirations of Metal Gear Solid are criticized for being too unlike videogames: the focus doesn't at first seem to be on the rules of the play, the control, the game itself. There are so many cutscenes, so many conversations over the Codec that someone looking for a videogame might at first wonder when he gets to play.

Yet the game's cutscenes inform in every way the future gameplay, if you are willing to invest in the characters and the plot. The cutscenes are not only goals but signposts that point to why you are playing at all.

Metal Gear Solid is made by a Japanese developer, Konami, about American politics and warfare, and that unique perspective constantly informs the sometimes realistic, sometimes absurd gameplay. Though each game has its own flavor, most often it feels like a cross between Neon Genesis Evangelion and a James Bond film. Characters in the first Metal Gear Solid game, who are modeled after pragmatic/realist American military personnel, sometimes react to Snake's cartoon-like ability to take down helicopters, tanks, and eventually the behemoth itself, a Metal Gear.

All of this comes out in the opening credits, which begin with lots of dialogue and cinema scenes, and segue into the game itself. As you accomplish the first mission credits lay over the screen as if you are playing a movie. A cheap trick? Perhaps, but it settles you into the game's more cinematic rules of operation. Sometimes in a Metal Gear game the actual portions that you play are short and the cutscenes in between are much longer. This game is trying to tell a story, and actually demands that you disassociate yourself with the lead character. The opening credits, unlike a movie's, which tend to set up the narrative through abstract means, actually compel us not to think of ourselves as "being" Snake but simply "playing" him in a much larger cinematic world. They do this by being foreign: the cinematic form that the game claims to live in ("movies") is opposite in many ways to the accepted cinematic structure of videogames. During the game, you will get to do some awesome stuff as Snake, but you also have to watch Snake do awesome stuff, without your help. This relationship between playability and cutscene is further developed as certain cutscenes are viewed through Snake's eyes with a controllable camera, or when you must listen to the monologue of a fallen comrade while watching him through the eyes of your missile-launcher.

Metal Gear Solid 3 has a very interesting opening credit sequence, worth mentioning for its explicit mimicry of a Bond opening sequence. You play through the first bit of the game encountering characters, learning about the plot, familiarizing yourself with the rules of the play, and when you have finished your first mission, the game goes to a Bond-like montage of snakes cut to a hilarious tongue-in-cheek song. This too helps inform our later playing, as we realize that this game, which is set in the 60s, is as much about the American male ideal (James Bond) as the other games are, only more explicitly. There are even parts of the game where Snake and his British commander discuss James Bond, and Snake must consider the differences between him and the fictional figure.

Unlike other games, the Metal Gear Solid games are concerned with the actual details of its story and the many modes of storytelling; other games, particularly Nintendo's, use a story to justify gameplay. Neither model is correct, but both are too often dismissed. The opening credits sequence of a Metal Gear Solid game are guidelines that help us absorb the rest of the game from the perspective of a movie-watcher, even while we play.

Opening Credits: Psycho and Psycho

2008-01-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

This post is part of the Opening Credits Blog-a-thon.

The opening credits of Psycho are a ballet of words and shapes, composed next to Bernard Herrmann's staccato and sharp-edged score. As the lines fly over our eyes, we are caught in the rhythm, free to watch and be entertained by simple movement; there is no meaning here, no moral. We may see names we know, and we see them fly in and out, dancing their part, then flying back into place.

The abstraction of this opening seems almost closer to Hitch's heart than the rest of the film, aside from the fact that he didn't create any of it. Saul Bass is the auteur of the overture, and he perfectly distills the film's themes into abstract images. Hitch makes Psycho less about sexual perversion and more about pure emotion through his dramatic usage of the cut, the camera movement, the light and the shadow. Bass makes those emotions palpable without ever bringing up their subject matter. These opening credits are mysterious.

As the ballet ends there is a fun moment with Alfred Hitchcock's name: the letters are cut into three pieces that dance back and forth in time with the music, as the opening title did. This is typical self-centered Hitchcock, who was more than happy to be the star of his own TV series (if only for a few minutes) and put himself in his own movie trailers. Hitch's attitude of “director as star” was one of many pieces that defined auteur theory in the future, and his name's dance at the end of the credits is a joke with a wink. “Don't worry, I'll be right behind you.”

This joke came full circle when Gus Van Sant made his remake, which is admired by some (including me) for daring to be identical. Van Sant's version seems to be a critique of remakes, a commentary of some kind on art's inability to replicate itself (even though cinema is reproducible by its nature). How important are the decisions of one man on one movie set in 1959? Van Sant's Psycho is a bunch of decisions attempting to be identical to those forty year old decisions, and the true auteur of the film is....well, who?

It is appropriate that Van Sant left the credits identical, but even better that he colored them green. He's saying to us that this is the same, but different. Black and white film and color film are not two interchangeable, neutral forms that can be swapped at will; by making the film color he has changed the original's aesthetic more than any other choice. The green coloring to these opening credits is a joke with a wink, and the final bit where Gus Van Sant's name dances is a punchline with a rimshot. Van Sant's name carries none of the power of Hitch's, and it is nonsense to emphasize his status as the star when he is remaking someone else's movie identically, especially Hitchcock's. This is the great thing about Van Sant's Psycho: it makes us look at Hitch's decisions twice, redone, in color, in the 90s, and love him all the more. Once again, the opening credits define our aesthetic response.