Category: Film

Comments on film, directors, Hollywood, biopics, music in film, and so on.

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You Don’t Have to Put out the Red Light

No matter how desperately you try to imbue the form with substance and meaning and importance, a musical is still just a musical: a ridiculously implausible, trivial, trite, and boring art form.

So with all the raves “Hamilton” received, I think I kind of thought Lin Manuel Miranda was different.  That, like the creators of “Cabaret”, he had found a way to integrate the form into a serious drama with real art to it.  Sadly, I now know that Miranda’s models, his ideals, include “The Little Mermaid”, and “Chicago” and “Moulin Rouge” and “The Bandwagon” and– god help us– Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth”, which I believe is one of the worst movies ever made.  Let me emphasize: it is extremely difficult to reconcile the acclaim given to “Hamilton” with it’s creator’s fondness for one of the worst fantasies, with the worst script, and the most inept direction, ever perpetrated on the screen.

I grew up ridiculing musicals, for obvious reasons: people sing to each other, accompanied by invisible orchestras and choirs, in the middle of what otherwise appears to be a realistic drama.  (The “Wizard of Oz” is different: it is a fantasy set in a fantasy world– it makes “sense” to establish ridiculousness as part of the fantasy landscape.)  But there is more to it than that: most musicals had plot lines that made situation comedies like “My Mother the Car” seem plausible and richly developed.  It seemed to me that the art form itself, the musical, was hospitable to the most heavy-handed, clumsy, contrived expression imaginable.

Just to confirm my views, both “Mary Poppins” and “West Side Story” dubbed the voices of the stars.  I mean, all musicals are dubbed anyway (the songs are recorded in the studio and then lip-synched in front of the cameras).  What kind of artist would use the body of one actress and the voice of another?  The same kind of artistic imagination that would use a drum machine (and today, believe me, they do and they are).

I do not anticipate great things from Miranda.  I think his current projects reveal that “Hamilton” was a bit of a fluke.

 

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Decidedly Blue

A few years ago, I saw a movie called “Blue is the Warmest Color” about a lesbian relationship between a younger and (relatively) older woman, which disintegrated as the younger woman decided she was not sure of her sexuality.

It was a beautiful, incandescent film, full of startling sequences of physical intimacy.  It was a landmark.  It attracted favorable critical appreciation, and made it’s two stars famous.

And now we have this.

Why now?  Why not the minute you experienced this harassment?  Why didn’t you leave the set and go to the police?  Why did you wait until the film was released, until it was acclaimed?

And why is the author, Julie Maroh, more concerned about getting recognition for her source material than she is about making her own film, if she really believes she could make a better one?

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The Wives

There is a movie coming out soon called “The Wife”.  From the early reviews and synopsis it sounds like this: a great American writer wins the Nobel Prize for literature.  We are assumed to believe that because he is a great writer he must also be a great husband and father, even though nobody I know of, who has any awareness of the biography of any well-known person, would ever assume this.   But, shockingly, we find out that he has been mean and unfaithful, while his loyal and selfless wife has sacrificed her own stellar career to serve as his constant help-meet, washing his clothes, making his meals, cleaning his house, and raising the son who now resents his successful father.  So we are to hate him and admire the plucky woman for, apparently, in the end, finally–finally!– summoning the amazing courage to stand up to him.

We are supposed to be shocked, as I said, that a brilliant writer might be a lousy husband.  We are supposed to find irrelevant any aspects of the wife’s character that might diminish the horror we are to feel.  But then, they don’t tell that story.  In the story I expect, she is faultless.  She’s not manipulative or needy or nagging or petty or vindictive.  She didn’t push him into marriage.  She didn’t spend his money as if she had earned it.   She is just perfect.  It wouldn’t shock me– this is Hollywood– that we find out that she actually wrote all his books.  [I just checked a review: I think I’m correct.  That’s too bad: it would probably have been a more interesting movie if he had been terrified of her, that she would reveal the secret, and she used this dynamic to toy with him.]

And it is incredible how someone in a relationship with such a perfect being could fail to treat her like a goddess.

[When the movie arrives, I’ll see it, and correct my impression if necessary.]

Added January 19, 2019: I have seen the movie now: I was correct.  Pretty well, exactly correct.  Though I think the film-makers thought her nagging of Joe was adorable in some way.  What it reveals is that this story, written by a woman, is really judging Joe as a husband who didn’t appreciate everything his wife did for him.  The fact that she supposedly wrote most of his work– the most preposterous and unbelievable aspect of the story– is incidental to the real point:  he wasn’t nice enough to her.   Or to his son– in the movie, Joe is a prick for not being more supportive.  In real life, of course, we all are especially appreciative of those privileged people who get published because they were related to someone with strings to pull, like Joe Castleman.  (Look at Ingmar Bergman’s daughter, Linn Ullmann, who was extremely wary of attracting readers who were more interested in her famous parents than in her writing.)  The fact that David, the son, doesn’t seem to realize what position he has put his father in — how dare you not recognize my talent!– tells you just how mediocre the thinking behind this film is.

From the start, Joan seems paralyzed by the realization that she has wasted her life devoting herself to a man incapable of even the most momentary act of selflessness.  [Slant]

WTF?  Wait a minute– you are trying to suggest that she is actually an incredibly worthy person because she actually wrote the award-winning books so her husband could take all the honors.  Then you suggest that what really matters is that he wasn’t grateful! 

So Joan is “selfless”?  But if she was– think about this– if she really was selfless, she wouldn’t care.  That is what selflessness is.  But she is in fact very selfish because she expects a considerable amount of gratitude and respect in exchange for the waste of her life.  Her “love” is more like overflowing self-infatuation.  Her view of justice is that now that I’ve done all these things for you, you owe me.

Is the remarkable thing here that a person can be an asshole?  Or that a person can devote her life to serving an asshole and not realize it until she is old?  I’m not sure, in the end, that there is anything to admire about this woman.  Seriously?  You didn’t leave?  Are you an idiot?  Are we now supposed to be moved by your predicament?

It also appears “The Wife” will suggest that the wife would not have received recognition if she had struck out on her own, as a woman, right at the start.  Because the establishment is dominated by men.  But that only matters if she didn’t really care about literature— if it was the recognition that mattered, and the material success.   That men think she is just as good as they are.   Even though she didn’t take any of the steps necessary to become a successful novelist.

Besides, this will be shocking news to Doris Lessing, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Flannery O’Conner, Francoise Sagan, Agatha Christie, Sylvia Plath and others.

Because she’s entitled.

Isn’t that exactly the difference between great artists and mediocre ones?

You think you’re so smart, you men.

It would be a far, far more interesting movie if she didn’t care about the fucking Nobel prize or any other prize: if what she really cared about was writing something beautiful and true, for the satisfaction of those who didn’t care about awards or celebrities or what fucking outfit she was wearing, or if Oprah will have her on, or if men still find her sexually attractive at 50,  but only about the really beautiful and original and profound and true.

Like Doris Lessing.  Or Muriel Spark.  Or Alice Munro.

And I would wager that, in this movie, her outfits are to die for.  Because, she really only cares about real literature.  [They were.  At least, if you care about the fashion.]

It will be irresistible to the Oprah crowd.  Oprah, who wouldn’t make Jonathan Franzen’s novel a book of the month unless he agreed to appear on her show and, frankly, grovel.  He rejected it at first but (after his publishers begged him) finally took the bait and his novel flourished.  I’ll bet, in his own mind, he still can’t wash away the stink.  That, my friends, is a story for a movie.  For a potentially great movie.  For a movie that Hollywood will never make.

Here’s the thing, feminists: if Oprah Winfrey had had a single ounce of real integrity, she would have made Franzen’s book her selection and would have praised him for his refusal to kowtow to narcissistic tv hostesses who wanted to use him to enhance their own prestige.  Well, she wouldn’t have had to go that far to show any class.  It would have been enough to say, “I don’t care if he won’t come on my show: it’s a great book and I want to talk about it and urge all my viewers to read it.”

And is this dynamic supposed to be representative of which spouse takes advantage of which spouses’ abilities?  See Hillary Clinton below.  See Melinda Gates.  See Greta Gerwig.  See Soulpepper.

That’s mainstream Hollywood.  For the adult version of this story– I mean “adult” in the sense that it presents a mature intellectual context– see “Wild Strawberries” by Ingmar Bergman, one of my favorite films of all time.  Or try his “Autumn Sonata” if you want the more likely story.   Or “Scenes From a Marriage” if you can handle complexity.  Or Asghar Farhadi’s  brilliant “A Separation“.  Or even Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People“.  But then, those are not feminist fairy tales.

This in an era where women have accused numerous brilliant men of being monsters because, even though they created great art or produced important products or were very funny, they were not nice to them.  Because even though they took the money, they still feel aggrieved and wronged.   You took the money.  Bill Cosby (whose work I generally can’t stand anyway), Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Al Franken, Jeff Fager, Leslie Moonves, Louis C.K., Albert Schultz.

Steve Jobs is accused of being a lousy dad by his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.  He was a lousy dad.  He was not nearly the brilliant innovator his acolytes claim, either, but he did something important and significant.  And the role of his daughter’s book is to excoriate him because he was not nice to her.   She is asking you to buy and read her book because you will want to know that he was not nice to her.    Because we all needed to know this, just in case we assumed that because he ran Apple he was also a great husband and father.  Because he didn’t make her a princess.  Because maybe you don’t think she is important enough to merit your attention (whereas, he is).  He didn’t give her his Porsche, even after she asked for it.  He didn’t love her unconditionally.  [Lisa’s book deserves a much more extensive discussion: it’s complex and alternately self-serving and expressive.]  He merely acquired the fame that allows his daughter to write a book and go on the talk shows and talk about me, me, me, and me.

And how mean it was of him to not give her a Porsche.

Therefore, he is not worthy of respect or admiration or awards?  We are supposed to be shocked that a man admired for one thing should not be admired for something else?

Apparently, Brennan-Jobs was concerned that people would believe she was writing a book just to cash in on her relationship with her famous dad.  She should be concerned about that.  It sounds to me like nobody would buy a book by Lisa Brennan-Jobs if the book was not about her father.  That’s not to say she can’t write.  That’s not to say she didn’t have editorial help from the kind of editor you get if your book is assured of big sales and high profile.  And you will be invited onto Oprah, or Ellen, or whoever that audience worships today.

Here’s the problem I have with this.  The implication of #metoo is that the work done by these artists and geniuses is now worthless because they were not nice to their accusers.  The implication is that the sources of these allegations are convinced that we are all under the illusion that because a man is famous for his films or paintings or music or jokes we all assume he was a fine person as well.  We don’t.  We never did.  It was never the point.

So we should fire these men, boycott their films, rescind their honorary titles, retract their Oscars and Grammys and Nobels, and so on?  We should all hate them and declare that we are no longer moved by their art, or amused by their jokes?

While some of the most famous musicians of all time may be our favorite idols, it can be easy to forget that they’re not as great as we build them up to be. Yes, they may make amazing music, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a good person.  From Here

What?!  It is “easy to forget” that they might be assholes?  We’re supposed to be shocked to find out that even artist might be jerks?

You people think this guy is great? Well, he was very mean to me, so that proves he is not great.  And he wanted to have sex with me– he saw me as an object, so he is now subhuman and I get to decide when he has paid enough for his monstrous sins.

Dylan Farrow displays conspicuous anger directed towards people who continue to regard Woody Allen as a great director.  What about me?  He treated me badly, so he’s not so great.  Why do you keep saying “Manhattan” was a great film?

Because “Manhattan” was wildly greater than anything you will ever do in your entire life.  Especially if your claim to fame is that you were a victim.

And Greta Gerwig, who was delighted to star in a Woody Allen film when it helped her career, now says she would never do it again.  Really?  I don’t believe her.  (There are women who now insist that Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” is as good as a Woody Allen film– no, better.  It’s not true, not even close.   “Lady Bird” will be completely forgotten in a year; “Manhattan”, “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, “Annie Hall”, “Hannah and Her Sisters” will endure.)

It’s an odd equation.  I can’t find a good analogy for it.  Is “Manhattan” now a bad film?  Should we remove all the Picasso’s from our art galleries?  Should we stop watching the only serious prime-time news program on the big three networks, “60 Minutes”?

Is the equation this: your novels, your movies, your music doesn’t matter, because you were mean to me.

It is the argument of a narcissist.

I don’t mean to use the word “mean” in a demeaning way.  That is, in a way that minimizes the seriousness of the offenses.  In some cases, like Woody Allen, I don’t believe the allegations at all.  In other cases, like Weinstein, I believe he was exactly the kind of creepy, awful person it is claimed.  So does that mean “Thin Blue Line”, “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (the most aptly named of Weinstein’s films), “Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down”, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover”, “The English Patient”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Clerks”, “Shakespeare in Love”, “Good Will Hunting”, and so on… are now crummy films?

The people accusing Albert Schultz of improprieties did not go out and found their own theatrical group, find donors and raise money, build a theatre, develop training programs, select plays, develop talent, arrange a New York tour, and win awards for their productions.  No, they deposed him and then took over Soulpepper, which is entirely the result of Albert Schultz’ visionary work.  Does nobody at least find this distasteful?  Are those women now parading around going, “look at this great theatre company we made!  You’re welcome!”

The people who took over “Q” on CBC are benefiting, to an overwhelming degree, from the pioneering work performed by– like him or not– (I always found him a contemptible sycophant) Jian Ghomeshi.  If the CBC had meant to be honorable, they should have cancelled the program, and taken the hit in ratings.  Instead, they are cashing in on the format and style and memes that Ghomeshi brought to the program while pissing all over his reputation.

And I find the name “The Bill and Melinda Gates” foundation a bit cheesy.  Bill Gates– whom I regard as an asshole for what he did to computing-– built a gigantic software company that dominates the entire world of computing.  Melinda Gates married a man who built the company that dominates the entire world of computing.  So their accomplishments merit equal recognition in the name of the foundation?  Without a doubt, Melinda Gates will share innumerable awards for handing out her husband’s money.  And she shares equal billing on the foundation even though her contribution to the funding that gives it all of its cache is exactly zilch.

(Bill Gates is a unique case: he is widely and mistakenly admired for his personal character and for his material success.  His charitable work is admirable, but I refuse to let him off the hook for the damage he did to the progress of computers for at least ten years.  I believe he did for software what Harvey Weinstein is alleged to have done for actresses).

Fortunately, Bill Gates reserved his predatory behavior for other software companies, like Word Perfect and Novell and Lotus and Geoworks and Vermeer Technologies, and not women.  So this is not about #metoo.  Well, it is.  It’s about women asserting that there is something about themselves that is just as valuable and just as admirable as the accomplishments of the men they were attached to.  But there is a similar equation going on here: why should the wife share the recognition?  Why should Bill Gates get all the love when I’m his wife.  I’m just as good.  I’m just as important.  The foundation should have my name on it.  Because I help run it.  With Bill’s money.

For the same reason, I annoyed some of my female friends by complaining about the fact that the wife of a former President was running for president.  I found it bizarre.  Is the U.S. like those tin pot dictatorships in the 60’s and 70’s in Latin America?  This is Eva Peron territory.   This is Isabel Peron territory.  This is Imelda Marcos territory.   This is Rosario Murillo territory.  This is Mary Bono territory.

Why on earth, in a nation of 350 million people, could the Democratic Party have found no one to nominate for president except for Bill Clinton’s wife?  It’s absurd.  It was Bill who ran for governor, and then president, and won, and served for 8 years.  So Hillary stepped up and said, well, I’m his wife.   I should be Senator from New York.  And then, I should be Secretary of State.  And then, I should be president.  I am entitled to be president.  And several of my acquaintances really insisted that, remarkably, the most qualified person to be president of the United States was the wife of the former President of the United States.

She came along and jumped to the front of the parade, because that’s where her husband, who started in the back and actually worked his way to the front, was now marching.  And then she brought along Kirsten Gillibrand, mentored her, supported her move into politics, came out with Bill to support her candidacy to the House of Representatives, pulled strings to get her appointed to  her vacant Senate seat, raised money for her, only to have Gillibrand turn around and smear Bill Clinton during the #metoo campaign.  Once again, a woman riding on a man’s coattails (Bill Clinton->Hillary->Kirsten) acts as if her position was entirely or even mostly the result of her own hard work and determination.  Bill Clinton stood in my way.

Now, somebody is going to claim that Bill Clinton would never have got as far as he did without Hillary.  Bullshit.  Hillary was smart, well-educated, and would have been an exceptional lawyer.  She was also interchangeable with any number of smart, educated, talented women.  On her own, she did nothing particularly unique, other than bungling the Clinton health-care initiative.  Bill Clinton was not interchangeable; Hillary Clinton was.

I think sooner or later a balancing will occur and people will recognize that just because a famous man was an asshole– and many of them were– doesn’t mean that his accomplishments were not remarkable.

And we know that no biographical movie or book is going to give you the chapter showing these women suggesting, politely, discretely, ever so seductively, and persistently, to their husbands, that they be given prestigious positions in their company, foundation, or party, ahead of all the other employees, campaign workers, artists, and political staff who worked their entire lives to get to that position.  They won’t mind: I’m your wife.

No more than the latest “Star is Born” is going to show you Ally begging Jackson Maine to give her a slot on stage.  No, no, no– the convention that is required here is that she is begged to perform because the star is indisposed or no one else can do it, and besides, the backup band just adores you– they know you are really fantastic, and the audience– they didn’t need to be told by the director to give you a standing ovation– they just felt it!

No, because it would be a dead giveaway to the audience if you were to ask for it.  It must be deserved, not weaseled for.

Or Consider

Vanity and Barbara Walters

What’s Wrong with Windows?

How Microsoft Killed Geoworks

 

[whohit]The Wives[/whohit]

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The Settlements

Harvey Weinstein is a jerk.

As reported in the New York Times, he often invited women looking for work in the movie industry up to his “luxury suites” for a meeting and then would hit on them.  By most accounts, he didn’t exactly use force, but he clearly didn’t want to wait until a deep friendship had been established before asking for sexual favors.  Several women, including Sarah Polley, have reported that he attempted to initiate something with them and they refused and walked away.  When the other women complained and threatened to report him, he offered them money.  A lot of the women took the money, in exchange for which they signed non-disclosure agreements.

It is highly probable that some women acquiesced.   There might be some uncomfortable attempts to come to terms with the compromises made, which, in effect, enabled further abuse.   [See Salma Hayek]  It is probable that some of those women received choice roles in Miramax films.  This will be an uncomfortable issue in the future for some people, though, so far, nobody has named them.

In the article linked above, Bari Weiss thinks that Weinstein should release these women from the non-disclosure agreements they signed so they can speak out.    Nowhere does she suggest the obvious corollary: that they return the money.  That is a glaring omission and one I think she might regret eventually: to accept the money and then proceed to break the agreement would be repugnant, though in today’s culture it would probably be readily dispensed with by the media.  To accept the money in the first place, in exchange for not alerting other women to the possibility of harassment, was also, probably, repugnant.  Weiss wants to argue that the agreements were illegitimate in some way, and that the women are entitled, therefore, to break them.  But they took the money, and that cannot bed swept conveniently under the carpet.

In essence, they agreed not to blow Weinstein’s cover, and prevent him from exploiting other actresses, in exchange for a large sum of money.  Nobody wants to discuss that.

She also suggests that there is hypocrisy out there because Weinstein won’t receive the same treatment as Bill O’Reilly or Roger Ailes received from the liberal establishment, because Mr. Weinstein is a well-established liberal icon and fund-raiser.  [2018-09: obviously she was wrong about that.]

It’s always poor form to make assumptions like that.  You get to make your rhetorical flourish and feel all pious and righteous about it without having to actually wait and see if your accusations are true.

But the first issue is this bullshit idea that Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly suffered any real consequences at all for their behaviour towards women.  Like Harvey Weinstein, they paid off most of the women who made allegations against them.  And, as in the case of Harvey Weinstein, most of the women accepted the money and agreed not to warn other women about these gentlemen in exchange for cash.

We know all about the consequences suffered by Donald Trump after allegations of his harassment of women came forwards: nada.  Not a thing.  Not a blessed thing.

So perhaps Weiss is publishing in the wrong forum here: you need to get on Fox News and find out why so many women– especially, good Christian evangelicals– went ahead and voted for Trump anyway.

I might add that there is another difference: Ailes and O’Reilly are both stalwarts of the allegedly “family values” party, the Republicans, and have long been advocating for a return to “traditional values” in America, to abstinence instead of birth control, to “character” development instead of gratification, to valued institutions instead of self-fulfillment, and so on.  They proclaim their alliance with evangelical Christians who don’t seem to believe what they say about sexual morality, unless it concerns a Democrat like Bill Clinton.

It always was obvious that conservatives believe that everyone should live by those values, except themselves.

Which leads to this question: what of the women that accepted these payouts from The Weinstein Company rather than reporting the behavior?

Reporting to whom?

Take note of this, from NYTimes 2017-10-10, offered as an indictment:

Zelda Perkins

In 1998, Ms. Perkins, then a 25-year-old assistant in London,
confronted Mr. Weinstein over his alleged harassment and threatened
to go public or take legal action if it continued, according to former
colleagues. A lawyer for Mr. Weinstein was later dispatched to
negotiate a settlement with her.

Which she accepted.

Which, yes, makes her complicit.  And which has not adduced any critical comments whatsoever from Bari Weiss or Amy Schumer or any of the other women who are insisting that women don’t have to not be complicit to be innocent of this tacit arrangement.  It hasn’t even stopped them from calling Ms. Perkins “courageous” even though she accepted the pay-off.  The “courageous” thing to do would have been to say, “I will never accept money in order to hide your criminal behavior.  That would allow you to victimize others.  I’m calling the police”.

But isn’t Ms. Perkins in dangerous territory there?  We are told over and over again that the women should be believed and that men who try to discount their allegations by alleging that they are seeking a payout are wrong.  But if you accept the money, are you not validating the charge?  Are you not agreeing to deceive people in exchange for money?  You weren’t seeking money, but you took it anyway?

Weinstein’s behavior may have been ugly and offensive, but I doubt that it really crossed a line into criminality.   He was a hustler and a pig and disgusting.  Some of the women might be able to show that their careers didn’t advance after they refused him, but some women, like Gwyneth Paltrow,  can show that their careers advanced very quickly at Weinstein’s organization after the incident.

Without a doubt, a lot of established feminist opinion believes that Weinstein’s behavior was “criminal”.   I don’t.  I believe the women should have walked away or told him off and reported it to the media and to other employees and the board of the organization: not to the police.  Weinstein would easily have been deterred very quickly if thought that most women in the situation he placed them in would be likely to report his actions.

But at least some of the women accepted money instead in exchange for silence– or acquiesced to his wishes.  Or obtained good roles in films he controlled.

We now have the gruesome process– which we were spared in the cases of O’Reilly and Ailes– of Weinstein toadying to the cultural avatars and proclaiming how he will reform himself, get therapy (oh please!), and donate to good causes.  And various female politicians declaring that they will take the money he donated to their campaigns and forward it to charities instead of using it to get elected.

I don’t blame him entirely for the absurd “therapy” angle he’s putting out there: the absurdity comes from the social entities who really believe in that crap.  He’s just following the script and I’d almost admire him more if he would just say, “look, I’m a creep, but explain to me why they accepted the money and I’ll explain to you why I didn’t stop”.

[whohit]The NDAs[/whohit]

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The Scream

“The Work” is a searing documentary about a program at Folsom Prison to get men imprisoned for violent crimes to face their deepest anxieties and grievances about their past, their absent fathers, brothers who betrayed them, and so on, in a kind of large psycho-therapy session moderated by social workers and joined by volunteers from the community, and largely led by the inmates themselves.

Filmed in 2009 but not released until 2017. Frighteningly raw at times– and not to everyone’s taste. You can see some of the volunteers hang back, then get drawn into the confessional style confrontations.  Violent fathers.  Absent fathers.  Abusive fathers.  Fathers who expected too much or too little.

Then one of the volunteers reluctantly recounts how his father was disappointed in him for fetching the wrong tool several times, and then sent him into the house. This is transformed by some of the inmates into some kind of traumatic thing that contaminated the volunteer’s relationship with his father, though it seems more likely it was and remained trivial. No, no, you’re concealing a deeper wound.  It must come out.  It was a strange sequence.

Other sequences are more intense, in which a person howls and thrashes his outrage while embraced tightly by the other men. One volunteer, Brian, says something condescending that really aggravates an inmate.  He seems to actually believe he should be automatically respected by these men because he is smart and wise and together.  They hate him.  Later, he calls a native inmate, Dark Cloud, “gentle”, which he misinterprets as an insult.  Dark Cloud lunges at him, prevented by the other inmates.  Just how suitable was Brian for the experience?  Didn’t they screen?

At times, searingly compelling. It is claimed that none of 40 men who went through the program returned to prison. I remain skeptical. I see some of this kind of programming as similar to faith healing and charismatic church services, speaking in tongues, and so on. It’s all very dramatic and full of lingo, but is there any real evidence that, 1) all of the experiences related by the participants are real or true, and, 2) that any of it is really therapeutic, at least, in the way the conveners think it is.

It is not difficult to imagine that the love and acceptance these men express towards each other doesn’t make them less dangerous to anyone outside of their artificially created circle of trust. Implicit in all of this is the suggestion that these men committed crimes primarily as a consequence of a deprived or abused childhood. If you are in this circle, you seem obligated to come up with something and to cry and to thrash and scream, and it would not be hard to imagine a deprived participant making something up, or exaggerating, in order to fit in.

I’m not sure it doesn’t work.  Maybe, for it’s own reasons, it does.

When the volunteer relates about his dad’s frustration with his inability to find the right tool, he also adds that he feels guilt over bringing this relatively trivial issue up among men who have experienced genuine trauma, but the men will have none of it.  They like him.  They urge him on to confront his trauma-inducing father, to weep and thrash, and break through, and confront him (one of the inmates role-plays for him).   It’s a moment in the film that is nearly comical and made me think of a potential SNL skit, which some might think disrespectful.

Yes, it is.  But let’s be clear: in my mind, it doesn’t diminish the real emotions felt by the inmates, or their expressions of rage.

 

[whohit]The Scream[/whohit]

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Ronan Farrow, Sit Down and Shutup

Well, now it’s CBS News and 60 Minutes.

At Last: Someone Takes a Closer Look at Ronan Farrow’s Journalistic Credibility

Stop everything you’re doing, all the research and investigation and interviews, travel, exploration, documentation and exposure– stop it all and resign and crawl into a hole, because Ronan Farrow has managed to find some former female employees and associates who didn’t like the way you hit on them.  No matter how long ago, or how disputed, or how misinterpreted or misjudged, or how marginal it is to whatever it is you do with your life, you must now resign, because the almighty, pitiless, puritanical Inquisitor Ronan Farrow, son of Frank or Woody– we don’t know– has deemed you to be shriek-worthy and foul and you must be replaced by some woman or transgender woman or man or gay man or gay woman or black transgender gay indigenous being, because he or she or it is really just as talented and hardworking as you, but you, oppressor, bully, monster!— kept him, her, or it from fulfilling the great destiny worthy of his, her, or it’s talents, by kissing without permission, by expressing your desire for him, her, or it, by leaning too close, by initiating sex with her, him, or it while he, her, or it was asleep.

By not asking politely, in writing, before hand, if you could say to them, “you are hot– I’d like to have sex with you.”

Let us gather a red cloak for Ronan Farrow and  begin the purge of our libraries and museums and art galleries,  and let us expunge all the works, the films, the books, the paintings, the sculptures, the music, the podcasts, the radio programs, by all the horrible men who made them, who created the models we use today, who inspired generations of other artists, who moved us, who wrought the world of culture– let us take all their works and burn them.  For it doesn’t matter and never mattered that you actually built or created or invented or led or organized or directed– it never mattered at all.  It doesn’t matter that you saw beauty or truth in a gesture, an expression, a conversation, a shape, a way of describing a scene.  None of your acts of compassion or generosity, or wit, or improvisation, or imagination can now be countenanced: you must be expelled from human society!

The only thing that mattered, ever, is that in one of the millions of small moments of your life, you offended one of God’s dainty little angels who, though gentle and delicate and innocent, and helpless, when roused, is mighty and bold and courageous and will now speak out and tell her story!  On Oprah, if possible, or Jerry Springer, if necessary!   Now that it is safe to do so.   That is enough.  It erases everything else you were or could be.  And it makes a monument of courage and genius of the accuser, who never had any such courage or genius when it was all that would have been required for her, to turn around and spit in your face and say “no” and leave.

Let’s replace them all with Ronan Farrow’s scribbles.  Or the films written and directed by Mia Farrow.  Or Illeana Douglas’s exposes.  Or Kirsten Gillibrand’s mountains of legislation.

[whohit]Ronan Farrow: Please Shutup[/whohit]

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Suffering as Entertainment

In the last few seasons of the Americans– which I continued to watch, frankly, because I wanted to see how it ended– Paige, and then Elizabeth, spent most of their screen time grimacing, frowning, and suffering.  The artistic message required, I suppose, was that this character was unhappy.  Did you get it?  The artistic technique consisted of close-up images of actors looking very unhappy.  Lots and lots of images.   Over and over again, interspersed with short passages of narrative development which didn’t really advance the story very much at all.  Paige at home being unhappy.  Paige unhappy in a car.  Paige unhappy walking the street at night.  Paige unhappy in her bedroom.  Paige unhappy meeting with Pastor Tim.  Paige unhappy in the bathroom.  Paige finally walking off the train, unhappy.  Did you get it yet?

Your boring uncle might tell you a joke.  It might be mildly funny so you chuckle a little.  Then he tells is over and over again.  That’s why he’s your boring uncle.

A good drama requires revelation, narrative, plot, dialogue, and development.  Repeatedly dramatizing suffering, without development, makes the narrative inert and imposes stasis on the drama.

And that’s what the first two episodes of Season 2 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” are all about: very brief, modest narrative developments awash in long periods of dramatic stasis as the drama wallows in the suffering of its characters.

It’s very comparable to those bad dramas about alcoholism or drug abuse that repeatedly explore just how drunk or stoned the character is and how his unchanged behaviors lead to less and less interesting consequences.  The consequences are less interesting because they are already inevitable from the earliest revelations.  It is far more interesting to explore how a character might escape his addictions, or how a family rebuilds after a devastating loss, or how a lover might acquire the wisdom of moving out of the addict’s orbit, or how someone uses the addict to further his or her own aims.

But you can tell sometimes that the author or director or both really think you will be deeply impressed in some way by just how contemptible the character has become.  They seem to believe that there is something raw and authentic in honestly revealing a character’s total degradation.  They don’t understand that it’s not raw or authentic at all: it’s narcissistic.  It’s a constant whiny battering: I am so interesting.  You want to watch me suffer forever.  You wish that you could be so blessed, so lucky, so gifted, that I would allow you to respond to my suffering.

So Elisabeth Moss,  star of “The Handmaid’s Tale”– and a producer– don’t forget that–, appears to believe that the audience wants just that: let’s have lots of closeups of my beautiful unhappy, beautiful scared, or beautiful angry face, without any particular narrative development.  And, from reviews, it doesn’t sound like any such development is imminent.  One reviewer questioned just how long a series can continue without hope.  I’m not particular about “hope” necessarily– there could be an interesting trajectory towards total disaster– but I am particular about development, and exploration, and revelation.  It doesn’t sound like anything like that is forthcoming, and I knew from “The American’s” that a dramatic series can spend a long, long time wallowing in the suffering part of it.

That is why this development is so alarming:   I know this could go on for a long time, for episode after episode after episode.

What is going on here?   What is the matter with you, audience?  Don’t you see that I’m suffering?  Don’t you feel bad?  Why don’t you give me what I want?

This time, I’m going to bail more quickly.

Will anyone else bail?  Probably not.  Here’s the real world logic:

“I feel awful,” the son says after his mother berates him for not calling. “

If I could believe that,” she says, “I’d be the happiest mother in the world.”

[whohit]Suffering as Entertainment[/whohit]

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Tell us the Truth or Else

In Episode 11 of Season 5 of “The Americans”, Philip and Elizabeth are informed that a woman named Natalie Granholm,  currently living in the U.S., may be a war criminal from the Nazi era, a Russian who participated in the mass slaughter of Russian soldiers.  They  secretly observer her and take her picture, and gather some information.  Moscow informs them that she is who they think she is and instruct them to murder her.

Philip and Elisabeth are ambivalent about the task.  They arrive at her house one night and  wait for her to come home.  It is implied that they want to double-check the veracity of the information they were given.

They have guns.  They break in.  They confront Natalie.

Here this episodes loses me.  What did they expect to do?

They confronted her and demanded that she tell them the truth.  In TV land, that works.  All right, darn it, since you’re pointing a gun at me I won’t lie any more.

Even with a transparent attempt to make it more credible– we are asked to believe that she thinks telling them the truth will lead them to spare her husband– the episode is ridiculous.  It is simply not believable that Natalie, confronted by two strangers in her own house who are clearly intent on identifying her as a vicious war criminal, would not continue to deny it.   Why on earth would she confess?  Surely, she doesn’t expect to be spared if she admits she is the one they are looking for?   And surely she doesn’t think that confessing– falsely or not (it is hinted that it’s false, or, at least, that she had some justification)– would cause these murderers to spare her husband.

Why would she think they would kill her husband anyway?   He’s not the war criminal.

And if they intend to kill him (if gets home before they leave) because he is a potential witness, her offer has no realistic value.  The dynamic is utterly preposterous.

Natalie’s confession is presented as an illustration of moral ambiguity.  She claims that her family was murdered in front of her, and she was manipulated (much like Philip and Elisabeth are manipulated) into performing the ghastly act.  Once again, Philip and Elisabeth have no reason to believe this story.  Are they really naive enough to buy it?  They really never thought of that kind of rationalization before they broke into her house?  They really wanted to give her time to tell them her story before killing her?

The audience is bullied into believing in it because of Lydia Fomina’s performance as Natalie, aimed at extracting our tears.  But surely Philip and Elizabeth, masters of deception themselves, can’t be taken in– can they?

They can be, and they are.  [Spoiler alert]: they do kill her, but they feel really, really bad about it, because, well, they are no longer the ruthless spies they were in Season 1.

That kind of scene has long been an essential element of American crime dramas.  The good guy, acting exactly like the bad guy, confronts the bad guy, shoves him against the wall, points a gun at his cheek, and demands the truth.  And the bad guy, preposterously, gives it to him.  All so the viewer can comfortably regard the subsequent atrocity– usually murder– as justified.  He had the right guy. No doubt about it.  He deserved it.

Nowadays, we know all about cops being convinced that they are confronting some guy who deserves to be killed.  Unfortunately, we’re finding out that many times the guy had nothing to do with anything.

“The Americans” is less fun to watch as they continue to explore the increasing ambivalence Philip and Elizabeth feel about their mission, particularly after murdering the innocent lab assistant while investigating an alleged biological weapon.   Really?  They are deeply, deeply disturbed by a single casualty of the great cause?  Are they really that delicate?  Were they not all that disturbed by the other killings they’ve had to commit?

Yet the idea of ambivalence is a good one.  Dramas that focus on moral ambiguity are almost always more interesting.   But not when they resort to cliche and tired tropes.

We are witnessing a familiar pattern in episode dramas and comedies.  The producers start polling their audiences, and they find that they like the major characters, but would prefer them bloodless.  The first years of “The Americans” showed us a pair of ruthless, cold-blooded, violent Russian agents, who could be cruel and efficient when necessary.  They are slowly removing their balls and trying to make them more attractive to the audience by making them more harmless and far less interesting.

They could do one thing that would really, really liven it up, and improve the quality of the show by 100%.  Have them decide one night that Stan is getting too close and has to go.  Philip strolls over across the street one night and shoots him in the head.  No conversation, no whining, no self-recrimination.  Just do it.

I must add: I could do without a single minute more of Paige moping around and around and around.  Please.  Maybe they could kill her off in an upcoming episode: I wouldn’t mind.  But then, Elizabeth and Philip are starting to mope around a lot too.

I don’t get why the producers of “The Americans” think self-absorbed misery is good drama.  I’m a bit fascinated by it: who likes watching Paige whine and mope?  Why do they like it?   Is it narcissism?  Is it the nausea of one who becomes aware of how no one cares if you are unhappy?

 

[whohit]Tell the Truth or Else: The Americans[/whohit]

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The Contemptible Herd: The Mia Farrow Clan

You will be shocked to learn that Woody Allen liked young, attractive women.

I’m not talking about the Dylan Farrow issue, by the way.  In my opinion, the allegations of child abuse related to Farrow deserve considerable skepticism, and the fact that the adult Dylan now insists the allegations are true are likely the product of memories that were created and manipulated by her mother, Mia Farrow, in her rage at Allen.  (Dylan’s brother, Moses, recently published an essay contesting the allegations as well.  The family is split.)

And you can be as circumspect as you want about Farrow’s motivations but one of them appears to be the loss of her career as a star in Woody Allen’s films.  Isn’t it ironic?

A rather thorough investigation conducted by the authorities at the time came to the conclusion that Dylan’s account varied from telling to telling and was too inconsistent to sustain even a single charge.  There is a suspicions that she was manipulated by Mia, who, obviously, had a motive.

There is indisputable evidence, in the form of a written note in the possession of Woody and in Mia’s handwriting, that Mia Farrow constructed the charge of abuse before the date on which she alleges the abuse occurred.   Think about that.  She does not claim any abuse occurred before the note was written.  She writes the note, posts it on the door at a birthday party, and then, much later, claims there is an actual incident.

Unsurprisingly, we are now getting a lot of blurred lines.  In the middle of arguments about how Weinstein got away with it, we transition to Al Franken– how did he get away with it– as if his offenses were of the same level of magnitude.

So the author (linked above) ravishes Woody Allen’s history looking for evidence that he (gulp!) was sexually attracted to women.  Incredibly, Allen has been getting away with being sexually attracted to women for years!  With impunity!  In movie after movie, he is depicted as having a romantic interest in a young, attractive woman.  It’s repulsive!  Why is this even allowed?

The discussion sometimes takes absurd turns.  From the New York Times:

Online and in interviews, many people said they were appalled by what they saw as Mr. Baldwin’s belligerence toward Ms. Farrow and his wading into circumstances about which he has no firsthand knowledge.

No firsthand knowledge?  So said one of the millions who got all their information from an emotional television interview, now condemning Alec Baldwin for defending Woody Allen.

And nobody is going to discuss this angle: Dylan Farrow has set out on an angry campaign to destroy Woody Allen’s career and reputation.  Why?  The stock answer in these situations is almost always “so nobody else ever has to go through what I went through”, but that is ridiculously inapplicable here.  Allen is 80 years old and married, controversially, of course, to the adopted step-sibling of Dylan.   (Mia Farrow, at 21, married 52-year-old Frank Sinatra.  Take that!  Then she began an affair with Andre Previn– who was married at the time– which caused his wife, Dory, a nervous breakdown leading to institutionalization.  Bam!  Pow!   Dory eventually recovered and released an album including a song “Beware of Young Girls” that is likely a reference to Farrow! )   Allen’s marriage to Soon Ye may be distasteful to some, but it’s not illegal, and not even conventionally unethical: he was not her adoptive father though many repeat this myth in condemning him.  So what drives Dylan?

Is it really admirable in any way that she is whining about people still liking her father?  Dylan is a young woman of no discernible achievement and her only claim to fame– her value as a talk-show guest or interviewee– are her scabrous attacks on a man famous for producing one great film after another during a very long and successful career.  She seems, in some ways, to be jealous.  Why am I not more loved than my father?  He’s the bad person, because he was not nice to me.  If you are not nice to me, you are a bad person.  

Incidentally, where is all the disgust for Leonard Cohen?  Cohen, unlike Allen, was unambiguously well-liked.  Yet his behavior, as clearly recounted in his own words, was not much less disgusting, if at all.  Over and over again, in song, he expresses a passionate longing for sexual consummation with women with beautiful bodies.  “I sang my songs\I told my lies\to lie between your matchless thighs”.  He exposes Janis Joplin “giving me head on the unmade bed”.  He talks about the “joint of her thighs”.   He wants to “come up to you from behind”.  He celebrates “all the fifteen year old girls I wanted when I was fifteen”.

He must be evicted from the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame for these grievous offences!  But Cohen was a master at ingratiating himself with his potential accusers: they would instantly forgive him, because, in that weird sauce of intermingled celebrity and projection, he was nice to them.  All is forgiven.

People: grow up.

[whohit]Woody Allen and the Farrow Clan[/whohit]

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John Kasich Hated Fargo

In his book “Stand for Something: The Battle for America’s Soul.” John Kasich spends three pages stating his hatred for the film.  IMDB Trivia

Next morning, I got on the phone to Blockbuster and demanded that they take the movie off their shelves.”  John Kasich

I actually like John Kasich.  He’s a rare thing: a compassionate, consistent, reasonable conservative.  When his Republican caucus in Ohio demanded that he reject the Obama Medicaid expansion for his state, he refused because, he said, as a Christian, he felt an obligation to reach out and help the less privileged.  This made him an apostate to many Republicans who passionately believe that Christ commanded us to arm ourselves, big massively expensive weapons, neglect the poor and reduce taxes on the rich.

But Kasich hated Fargo, a very good movie.  He hated it because it just didn’t seem to display those sunny virtues all Americans should share, like “The Sound of Music” and “Meet Me in St. Louis” did.  He hated it because he didn’t get it.  And he didn’t get the portrait of middle America in that film.  He was disgusted by the explicit violence, particularly the wood-chipper scene near the end.

I don’t think he was able or willing to articulate what was really so offensive about the film– and it was offensive, in a positive sense.  The “normal” mid-western characters of the film, and that includes the two prostitutes, are vividly characterized as honest, well-meaning, law-abiding, and reasonable– given their own assumptions about life and culture and social behavior.  Yes, the prostitutes themselves are very nonchalant about what they do and the most distinctive aspect of their relationship with the protagonists is their observation that one of them was “kind of funny-looking”.  “In what way?” asks Marge.  “You know, just kind of funny-looking”.  And they both nod.  The assumption is that being paid for sex with a couple of strangers is just part of the social scene here, the contract everyone has with each other to maintain a semblance of normality even when indulging in behaviors that might seem outside the norm.  But being “funny-looking” jumps out at them.  This is a consistent thread in “Fargo” and it implies a slight sense of ridicule of these people, especially when they are confronted with genuinely criminal behavior.  They are perturbed and confused.  And it’s by conscious design: that’s why Marge makes ridiculous observations about the weather being so nice and yet there goes Gaear Grimsrun putting a body through a wood-chipper!

I think it is that subtle ridicule that sets off John Kasich, who is himself very much like Marge Gunderson: a decent, lawful, person– not stupid– who expects everyone to behave decently, after all.  In fact, play the movie out in your own mind with John Kasich in that role: it works doesn’t it?

He tells the story in “Stand for Something: the Battle for America’s Soul”– the title tells it all.  This is the classic Republican attitude towards the progressive movements of the 1960’s, from “free love” to women’s liberation to the peace movement, and so: the Republicans really want to fight those battles over again.  They want your soul.

That’s all well and good, but then he crosses a line.  He tries to persuade Blockbuster not to carry the film.  The Oscar-winning film.

[whohit]John Kasich Hated Fargo[/whohit]