People are so weird

I may be drunk, but I am rarely as horrified as I am right now, about this .

Die Walkure

It's not a movie, but Imna review it anyway.

Last night I saw the Washington National Opera's current production of Die Walkure, with 66 year old Placido Domingo singing the role of Siegmund. Unfortunately for me, he had a cold and was singing well but not at full volume and in full force. Whatever, now I can check "see one of the world's best tenors in one of history's greatest operas" off my list of things to do. The much in vogue Anja Kampe failed to impress me as Siegelinde, perhaps because her awkward body language and less polished stage presence must necessarily be compared to Domingo's performance, as the two characters play off each other constantly. Her singing was superb, but it was Domingo and the otherwise negligible Gidon Saks, as Hunding, who carried the burden of establishing her role as the downtrodden wife, barefoot and in the kitchen. No, seriously, they totally had Siegelinde barefoot and in the kitchen. I wonder if this is what director Francesca Zambello meant when she said she was making "an American Ring."

Linda Watson as Brunhilde and Elena Zaremba as Fricka were both outstanding, and haven't gotten the good press that they deserve. Bottom line, these folks can sing and most of them can act.

But now for the confusing part. Zambella made some head-scratch worthy decisions, and there was a lack of unity in the direction of the opera as a whole, not in terms of narrative and drama but in terms of sub-texts and allegorical interpretations. I was first caused to scratch my head when Hunding appeared, in boots, suspenders and a brown shirt. Huh, I thought to myself. Nazis. OK, we can bring Nazi's into this, I guess. Although why Hunding? Isn't that sort of an odd, re-appropriation and reinterpretation of post-Wagner conceptions of this work's significance, specifically in terms of political revolution and German nationalism? And if so, isn't it a bit of an over simplification? We get it, Hunding is evil. The Nazi's were evil. Is anything interesting being communicated? Or was it non-intentional? How could you unintentionally dress a character in Der Ring like a skinhead?

THEN: the ride of the Valkyries. The third act began with imagery that appeared to be lifted straight out of Apocalypse Now, a screen was lowered and images of helicopters and fighter planes were projected as the Valkyries entered the stage by parachute. Which seems to me to be a pretty strange way to go with that. THEN I noticed that the Valkyries were also dressed as skinheads. No suspenders this time, but that's sure what it looked like to me. So either it was a huge oversight on the part of the costume designer, or perhaps everyone who would get in the way of Siegmunde's victory over Hunding is a Nazi. Except Wotan, who was an evil capitalist, for some reason. So you can understand my confusion. I'm pretty unclear on what the director intended to communicate through these particular decisions, making it pretty clear to me that the direction lacked focus and theoretical continuity. And originality. I feel like the helicopter/parachuting ride of the Valkyries was in fact just lifted from Apocalypse Now, and I'm uncomfortable with the kind of reverse pop-culture reference being made. Also, the Wotan as evil capitalist angle was lifted straight from the '76 Bayreuth production, but isn't put into context at all. It is almost as if the director felt that precedent was enough context, and that this kind of superficiality is acceptable.

To top it off, all of these decisions inject war into the piece, and by her own admission Zambella was intending to make "an American Ring," and god knows that revolution and upheaval, the institution of a new regime, are the most overwhelming themes in the cycle. So where was our war? This was an amazing opportunity to do something really interesting with this piece, and they did nothing.

Don't get me wrong, it was spectacular, and as a music drama everything carried and resonated. But the art direction, set and costume design, not to mention certain thematic decisions, lay a strange and opaque film of confused allegory over an otherwise solid production of a wonderful piece.

The Black Lizard (1968)

The Black Lizard (Kurotokage) Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, screen
adaptation by Yukio Mishima

The Black Lizard is a noir-ish detective story based on the novel of the same name by Rampo Edogawa. The film centers around the interactions of two strong characters; The Black Lizard, played by transvestite actor Akihiro Maruyama, an elegant gender-ambiguous criminal mastermind; and Akechi, Japan's best detective. When Akechi is hired by a wealthy jeweler who has been alerted to a plot to kidnap his daughter, a battle of wits between Black Lizard and Akechi begins. Over the course of the film both parties develop a mutual appreciation and respect for the other. In the interims between the almost erotic mental battles these two engage in there is plenty of time for treachery, crime, plot twists, false identities, lavish set design, and flowery language.

This movie is similar to other Japanese crime films of it's time in that it is unabashedly stylish and saturated with bravado(Tokyo Drifter, Lady Snowblood, etc..) but the subject matter and it's treatment are unique. The gender-ambiguous title character is only the icing on the cake; the really interesting moments in this film draw their power from the sexualized battle of wits, to the death, enacted by our protagonist and the title character. Although predatory, their relationship develops into something overwhelming intimate and undeniably sexual.

The Black Lizard, although the villain, comes through as the most developed character in the film despite being the most reprehensible. Her acts are almost unconscionable, and the extent of her evil gradually unfolds throughout the film, building up until the viewer finally reaches her headquarters, decorated with stolen jewels and the taxidermied corpses of her beautiful victims, posed at the Black Lizard's whim for eternity (um, sorry Gunther von Hagens, but that does seem pretty evil. I know, I know... it was for science.) But we identify with her. We feel her loneliness, sense her intense attraction to beauty and danger,to intellect, and her keen desire to be bested by Akechi. The love that went into crafting her character; her appearance, her cruelty, and her desire to be dominated; must trace back to Mishima's script. This is the character that he identifies most with, and the power of his fantasy makes this callous, shallow, criminal highly empathetic.

I watched this film because I find Mishima intensely interesting, and got even more than I bargained for. Sets, lighting, costumes and acting are all spot-on. Subject matter is overblown (in the best possible sense of that word)outrageous and fantastic (in the original sense of that word). I'd be interested to read the novel and see how and where Mishima's influence really shaped the telling of this story; the dialogue is clearly representative of his tendency towards imagery, and the plot and characters themselves reek of his particular ability to sexualize death. It would be interesting to see where inspiration left off and deeply personal ideas and aesthetics took over.

Recommended viewing


Available for download from cinema obscura, previously secret cinema (http://www.cinema-obscura.com/)

The Fountain

OK. Here I go. So about Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain": To the filthy hippies who brainwashed the maker of pi; shame on you! The Fountain sucked so hard it created a vacuum. What happened to the Aronofsky with potential? The Aronofsky whose movies interested me as a teenager, who used images and content in a really neat symbiotic way where some of the images were the content, who could shock and surprise me and make me feel stuff? I mean, sure, as a film maker he had a lot of flaws, but he had some pretty good, er, OK, some ideas. But the fountain is so empty of meaning and infused with obnoxious new-age self indulgent self important shit it makes me want to punch the next hippy I see in the face. It's so empty of meaning that even the mechanics of the film are empty gestures; sure, you made all that stuff happen on film without using a computer, but I couldn't tell. My buddy who watched the movie with me couldn't tell. Basically, you blew god knows how much money in some kind of new age film-snob revolt against digital animation techniques for no good reason. There are a million instances where there is a good reason NOT to use CGI, for example, if you are representing fire. Fire cannot be CGI. I don't care how good you think you are at it, you're not, just don't do it. But that hippy shit in the fountain? I thought it was CGI until I read otherwise. So, good job of not disrupting the flow and feel of the movie by not using CGI, it really made a difference. Idiot.

Also, a whole movie and all that overblown drama about some chick who dies of cancer? (Yeah, she dies, now you know the end so you don't have to see it.) Big deal. Something sadder happened to me on my walk to the bus this morning and you don't see me making a movie about it, especially not one in which I become some kind of ascetic who makes out with trees in the sky for eternity because of it. Also, brain surgery? In a drug trial? With results that are worth something in days? Whoever did the research for that aspect of the story deserves to be shot in the knees, because my kid sister could tell you that drugs enter the brain through the blood-brain barrier and drug trials last no less than 5 years. If you're developing a drug that requires direct access to the brain you're probably in Nazi Germany, and it's probably not a drug. My kid sister is pre-med, but my point still stands.

In conclusion: Return Darren Aronofsky to us, you filthy filthy hippies, and I will give each one of you a brand new filthy sleeping bag and some used dread wax. Seems fair to me.

Available: doesn't matter, don't see it.

The Host

1) Go see Bong Joon-Ho's "The Host" immediately.

2) Actually, there is no 2 but I'll have more to say about this later.

ANGRY

OK, so I just got chastised for my apparel at work, by a doctor I work closely with, after someone else in the department (Dr. Palatucci) mentioned something to him. It began with the qualifier "I know this is something I've mentioned before...."

1) If you mentioned it before, it wasn't to me.

2) I'm wearing a button down collared shirt and dress slacks.

So I asked, "what exactly about the way I dress is it?"

Apparently, I need to cover more skin. Because I work with 8-12 year old mentally handicapped boys, blah blah blah.... I look down, to see what offending bit of skin I could have missed. Well, I can see... my hands... and.... my neck from the collar bone up, and then my face. That's it. So, a burqa? And some gloves? Or what? It's obvious that by "showing too much skin" he meant "I find you attractive" because I wasn't showing ANY skin and if a collared shirt and black slacks are inappropriate work attire then I have been severely misinformed about many, many things. So suck my fat dick, Dr. Palatucci, if you think it's inappropriate for attractive young women to work with young boys with developmental disabilities then maybe you should start hiring some ugly chicks, or MAYBE EVEN A DUDE. I know it's no coincidence that the majority of my co-workers are leggy 20-something female psych students with pretty faces, I just didn't want to hate you for it.

I don't mean to imply that I find myself attractive, only that the only implication the statement "showing too much skin" could have, under the circumstances, is that my sex appeal is inappropriate for the workplace.

Imagine what would happen if I started wearing make-up.

Notes on culture and perspective in film:

In my study of the human mind and human social cognition specifically (which is what I do when I'm not watching movies) I have become very familiar with a set of theories that I am beginning to think are relevant to my recent discussion of black cinema; specifically my post on Melvin van Peebles and the inaccessibility of his work to white audiences. This is also relevant to my more recent rant about how Sofia Coppola is an inane whiny bitch. Theory of Mind is the study of how people make inferences about the contents of other people's minds: for example, when a stranger opens a door at the train station and hesitates for just an instant, you have to infer from contextual cues whether this person is holding the door open for you, for another person they are with, or for themselves; and your behavior should appropriately reflect an understanding of their intention. If there is a failure to make the correct inference, you may end up bumping into this person or cutting off their aging mother... at any rate, you get the idea. The simulation theory of mind, which I am a proponent of, suggests that we are capable of making such inferences by simulating the mental state of the person holding the door open: in other words, we put ourselves in their shoes and infer what they will do based on an understanding of what we would do, given their perspective. This is a super-simplified summation (alliteration!) of the theory, but hopefully a useful one. In theory, from infancy we learn about our selves by imitating members of our species; everything from how to move our arms to language, and that we learn about inaccessible internal states of others by simulating their situation within our selves. This is, in theory, how empathy works. You feel the pain or joy of another human being because having access to the internal states of other people helps you infer what they are likely to do, and to behave appropriately given their mental state. OK, one final item, and then I'll get to my point: humans don't, and can't invent things. Yes, it's true that most people consider our ability to make and use tools one of the things that truly makes us human, and yes, we have devised a plethora of novel and useful STUFF, so how, you ask, can I make a statement like that as I sit here typing on a freaking computer for god's sake. The answer is that we are inventive, but the human mind is not capable of creating something out of nothing. It IS capable of abstracting information about objects and inventing new ways to combine, tear apart, or use objects, concepts, and thoughts that exist in this world. But it can't make something from nothing. Even monsters, creations of pure fantasy, are frequently composites of things that exist given a novel arrangement and context. (The griffin?) So what does this have to do with Melvin van Peebles and Sofia Coppola, you ask? Well I, for one, have a hard time identifying with the characters and scenarios in their films. It could be argued that I don't have access to the world's of these films because I don't have access to the minds of the film makers, because our cultures are so disparate. Not just because I've never been a blond millionaire or a black soldier serving overseas, but because these people belong to completely different cultures than I do; cultures in which elements present in these films are familiar, even if placed in a novel context. In the case of Sofia Coppola,I have no problem not identifying with her because I find her despicable; and I place the burden of responsibility on her to make a movie about the human condition, and not about the Sofia Coppola condition, which is apparently blond and spoiled. To some degree, I believe that all artists are responsible for communicating something to their audience. It should be something new, something that pushes us to see and experience new thoughts or perspectives, but if it's entirely inaccessible to an audience, then how can it change them? I probably shouldn't bring this up, because it's a bit of a scary topic to bring up in a public forum, but Wagner's infamous article "Judaism in Music" recently made me think about what I wrote about van Peebles (Oh god, I'm in trouble now). I will not touch upon whether or not I read the article as anti-Semitic, which I did, but will instead focus on one point that he makes. He seems to express that he feels Jewish composers of his era were unsuccessful in composing Opera in the western tradition because it had not been a part of their culture up until that point. This reminded me a lot of what I said about van Peebles work, that it was essentially outsider art that exhibits a lack of fluency in the art form, a form which up until the making of that movie had not been a part of van Peebles' cultural heritage. However, unlike Sofia Coppola, van Peebles does communicate with his audience: just not with all audiences. And at that time, it was very important to start to establish a black cinema, something for and about the experiences of that specific community. But it is also important for that kind of work to be accessible to culturally distinct communities: isn't the spreading of information what it's all about, in the end? In conclusion, I guess I don't really have a point. The issues that I (hope) I've brought up are these: what role does cinema have in culture, and what is the responsibility of the film-maker to communicate and inform audiences? How precious is the idea of a culturally distinct black cinema, a new form that serves specifically to express identities and ideas within a community? I don't have any answers, and I barely had any real questions, but this intersection of the anatomy of the real world (or in this instance, American culture) and our minds' abilities and limitations regarding empathy and understanding of minds separate from our own, really interests me. If that makes any sense.

Marie Antoinette

I never thought it would come to this, but yesterday I actually watched Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. To clarify something for those of you who don't know any better or have been confused by positive media reactions to Sofia Coppola's films, THEY ARE NOT GOOD. Even Lost in Translation; not good. In fact, really, really bad. If you think you liked the movie, I hate to tell you this but it was actually just the soundtrack that you liked, and possibly some vague sense that Tokyo, Scarlett Johanssen, and Bill Murray are things that you should think are cool and that therefor the combination of those things, set to the chill sounds of My Bloody Valentine = a good movie. Such is not the case. In fact, that proclaimed "love letter to Japan" was just another weak, theoretically incoherent, inane movie about an attractive privileged white girl and how hard it is to be one, and in fact is insulting to the Japanese and completely marginalizes important issues like misogyny in Japan, among other things. But I digress. Marie Antoinette was, (surprise!) a weak, theoretically incoherent, inane movie about an attractive privileged white chick and how hard it is to be one. Sofia Coppola's main flaw as a film maker, besides a lack of talent, is a lack of perspective. Like many spoiled people, she only has one perspective, and it happens to be her own. All of her characters are representations of herself, and in making Marie Antoinette, she makes a pretty clear statement. She thinks she's royalty, and deserves our pity. Aside from my attack on the character of the director, which is directly related to the lack of value in her films, she's barely even trying in this one. The births and deaths of the children of the title character are represented by a 20 second montage of taking down and putting up family portraits; while at least an hour of the film is dedicated to shots of Kirsten Dunst's snaggle-toothed cackle as she gambles and, for some reason, runs a lot. Good to know what Sofia Coppola's priorities are. The dialogue is poorly written, with inconsistencies in style from scene to scene and between characters. Austrian characters speak English with a British accent(?) except for Kirsten Dunst, and her daughter is inexplicably the only character who speaks French. The only real attempt at making this a period piece and not a piece of card-board with the words "I am Sofia Coppola I have good taste in music and I want to be the queen of France I am so misunderstood identify with me!" written on it are the costumes and set design, which I will admit were kind of nice. But used to no good end. In conclusion, Sofia Coppola: shut the hell up.

Available from wherever total crap is distributed.