Ben Peek's Blog, page 15
February 11, 2013
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
I'm suppose to be editing this short story I have, 'Upon the Body'. I kind've need to finish this story up: I don't have any short stories unsold at the moment, and I like to have a few, to sell and send out, and just to feel like I'm working when it's quiet. There'll be work soon enough, though: I have a lecture tomorrow to give, agent will have edits on the novel by the end of the week, and there's teaching in between, not to mention various other things. So, I need to get working on this story.
Instead, I found myself at a Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a web show that Jerry Seinfeld worked up last year. In it, he grabs a car, picks up a friend, they grab coffee and chat. I like it, but then I always liked Seinfeld. However, the episode that made me love the show, just a little, is when Seinfeld visits with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, the former 90, and the latter at 86. They live close by and Brooks comes over to Reiner's place and they watch taped episodes of Jeopardy, old and new movies, and talk about the old times.
It is, I shit you not, the sweetest thing you have ever seen.
There's something just adorable about the fact that Brooks comes over each evening, that they have little dinner trays, that the help for Reiner gives Seinfeld dirty looks because he's obviously bought over a ton of food that'll be bad for them both. There is, in it, this sense of mortality, of humour, of success, but also this great sense of friendship that has endured from the 1950s and to now, where both men, having outlived their partners, keep each other company and tell jokes. It's honestly wonderful. I cannot recommend the episode enough, especially, if like me, you have enjoyed the things that all three men have created at one point in their lives.
Instead, I found myself at a Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a web show that Jerry Seinfeld worked up last year. In it, he grabs a car, picks up a friend, they grab coffee and chat. I like it, but then I always liked Seinfeld. However, the episode that made me love the show, just a little, is when Seinfeld visits with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, the former 90, and the latter at 86. They live close by and Brooks comes over to Reiner's place and they watch taped episodes of Jeopardy, old and new movies, and talk about the old times.
It is, I shit you not, the sweetest thing you have ever seen.
There's something just adorable about the fact that Brooks comes over each evening, that they have little dinner trays, that the help for Reiner gives Seinfeld dirty looks because he's obviously bought over a ton of food that'll be bad for them both. There is, in it, this sense of mortality, of humour, of success, but also this great sense of friendship that has endured from the 1950s and to now, where both men, having outlived their partners, keep each other company and tell jokes. It's honestly wonderful. I cannot recommend the episode enough, especially, if like me, you have enjoyed the things that all three men have created at one point in their lives.
February 10, 2013
The Fifty Year Sword, Mark Z. Danielewski
Originally published in a limited edition in 2005, then performed in 2010, Mark Z. Danielewski's The Fifty Year Sword was finally released in the US in 2012.
A short story more than a novel or a novella, The Fifty Year Sword takes place on Halloween, when Chintana arrives at a party. She is unsure if she should attend, given that the party is in part a celebration of the birthday of Belinda Kite, the woman with whom her husband recently had an affair, but attend she does, running into five children, their social worker, and a storyteller who has arrived with a case to tell them the tale of how he found the sword inside. A soft horror story, it takes no real work to figure out that something bad will befall someone during the party, but in case you can't figure it out, Danielewski foreshadows it fairly easily, offering no twists, shocks, or reveals at the end. All of this sounds pretty slight and, to be honest, it really is--there's not a lot of substance here for the price that you will pay for the book, especially in terms of narrative, or prose invention.
Partly, the problem is how the book is narrated. Stepping out of a traditional narration in the form of a first person, second, or third narration, Danielewski tells the events of the night through five speakers, each of them identified by different coloured speech marks. These are the children, older now, and Danielewski attempts to create that cross stitched narrative by bringing both their younger and older voices to it. A good idea, it is unfortunately let down as Danielewski produces the cardinal sin of the narrative choice and offers no difference in each of the five voices who narrate the story, their conversation overlapping each and defined only by differently coloured speech marks. Now, before you think that harsh, let me assure you that there are plenty of options that Danielewski has open to himself, from changes of grammar, stronger language choices, etc. He doesn't need to fall into the trap of bad comic book accents to distinguish the difference, which perhaps he thought he would, given that no attempt has been made to provide to give them distinguishing qualities. In the end, his sin of prose ends up turning the voices of The Fifty Year Sword into the voices of a script, waiting from an actor to give them flesh, to have them spoken, of which I am sure the later performances would have exactly done. There, the overlapping, interrupted, broken narrative of five voices would have become a thing of fabulousness. Here, however, on the page, you can be forgiven for thinking it's one voice, and one voice retelling a story that, at its base, is a fairly uninspired short story.
But, to be fair, Danielewski is not just about narrative, and the substance of his work is not provided just through that, no. His use of page space, and in this case, his use of it in conjunction of images of real stitching to create an illustrated novel, bring a nice weight to the book. It has a good resonance with his narrative, allowing the reader to pick up on the story that binds the five children together, that sows their lives to Chintana's, to Belinda Kite's, and to all of those who attended the party. For the most part, the illustrations work well, though my one criticism is that they never seem to be sure if they are part of the narrative or an accompanying illustration, which creates a sense of imbalance in their use. There are also long sections where they just don't appear in the book, leaving a huge amount of white space to occupy the early pages. The downside of this it that it further leaves the reader with an impression of book not having a lot of content to it, either in its story, its ambition with the page, or its structural play.
In the end, I kept returning to that. No matter your opinion of Danielewski's previous novels, there's no arguing that there is a lot of substance in both, and that is, in truth, what is lacking in The Fifty Year Sword. The design of the book is so that it gives you the impression of being a weighter work, one that will engage you for more than thirty, forty minutes, wherein the actual content of it doesn't support that. It was the kind of piece that, if it were part of a collection, a portion of a larger display of Danielewski's shorter work, it would be considered interesting. Coupled with half a dozen other similarly sized projects, The Fifty Year Sword would result in a nice, meaty volume of work. After all, there was nothing I overtly disliked in it, despite the lack of difference in each and every voice that narrated, and there were things to like, such as when the children opened the case. But there's no denying that there's really just not much there for what you pay.
Bit of a shame, really.
A short story more than a novel or a novella, The Fifty Year Sword takes place on Halloween, when Chintana arrives at a party. She is unsure if she should attend, given that the party is in part a celebration of the birthday of Belinda Kite, the woman with whom her husband recently had an affair, but attend she does, running into five children, their social worker, and a storyteller who has arrived with a case to tell them the tale of how he found the sword inside. A soft horror story, it takes no real work to figure out that something bad will befall someone during the party, but in case you can't figure it out, Danielewski foreshadows it fairly easily, offering no twists, shocks, or reveals at the end. All of this sounds pretty slight and, to be honest, it really is--there's not a lot of substance here for the price that you will pay for the book, especially in terms of narrative, or prose invention.
Partly, the problem is how the book is narrated. Stepping out of a traditional narration in the form of a first person, second, or third narration, Danielewski tells the events of the night through five speakers, each of them identified by different coloured speech marks. These are the children, older now, and Danielewski attempts to create that cross stitched narrative by bringing both their younger and older voices to it. A good idea, it is unfortunately let down as Danielewski produces the cardinal sin of the narrative choice and offers no difference in each of the five voices who narrate the story, their conversation overlapping each and defined only by differently coloured speech marks. Now, before you think that harsh, let me assure you that there are plenty of options that Danielewski has open to himself, from changes of grammar, stronger language choices, etc. He doesn't need to fall into the trap of bad comic book accents to distinguish the difference, which perhaps he thought he would, given that no attempt has been made to provide to give them distinguishing qualities. In the end, his sin of prose ends up turning the voices of The Fifty Year Sword into the voices of a script, waiting from an actor to give them flesh, to have them spoken, of which I am sure the later performances would have exactly done. There, the overlapping, interrupted, broken narrative of five voices would have become a thing of fabulousness. Here, however, on the page, you can be forgiven for thinking it's one voice, and one voice retelling a story that, at its base, is a fairly uninspired short story.
But, to be fair, Danielewski is not just about narrative, and the substance of his work is not provided just through that, no. His use of page space, and in this case, his use of it in conjunction of images of real stitching to create an illustrated novel, bring a nice weight to the book. It has a good resonance with his narrative, allowing the reader to pick up on the story that binds the five children together, that sows their lives to Chintana's, to Belinda Kite's, and to all of those who attended the party. For the most part, the illustrations work well, though my one criticism is that they never seem to be sure if they are part of the narrative or an accompanying illustration, which creates a sense of imbalance in their use. There are also long sections where they just don't appear in the book, leaving a huge amount of white space to occupy the early pages. The downside of this it that it further leaves the reader with an impression of book not having a lot of content to it, either in its story, its ambition with the page, or its structural play.
In the end, I kept returning to that. No matter your opinion of Danielewski's previous novels, there's no arguing that there is a lot of substance in both, and that is, in truth, what is lacking in The Fifty Year Sword. The design of the book is so that it gives you the impression of being a weighter work, one that will engage you for more than thirty, forty minutes, wherein the actual content of it doesn't support that. It was the kind of piece that, if it were part of a collection, a portion of a larger display of Danielewski's shorter work, it would be considered interesting. Coupled with half a dozen other similarly sized projects, The Fifty Year Sword would result in a nice, meaty volume of work. After all, there was nothing I overtly disliked in it, despite the lack of difference in each and every voice that narrated, and there were things to like, such as when the children opened the case. But there's no denying that there's really just not much there for what you pay.
Bit of a shame, really.
February 7, 2013
Australian Generations Oral History Project
For the last couple of days, I have been out at Cremorne, recording an interview for the Australian Generations Oral History Project. I had a good time, actually, and recommend it entirely.
I did it not because I like to hear myself talk, though of course the chance to hold court on a number for subjects for an undefined amount of time is, of course, enticing. But mostly, I did it because one of the things I truly appreciated when I was doing my PhD was personal histories. It was, I thought, incredibly interesting and important that you could sit down and read or listen to people who had experienced a different time and life. I'm fairly sure that whatever I do with my life, or whatever happens to me, that I'll be forgotten two hundred years from now, if not much, much earlier--but that researcher, or whoever, who is searching through people who were alive now has the chance to come across my interview, to hear what I said on issues such as immigration, generation change, and the like. My opinions, for example, will likely be incorrect at times, vaguely stated at others, and fine again another time. But it will be for someone else to listen to in the far flung future, someone who can write about the past, the people in it, and the influences that the time had.
The project is still looking for people to take part and, honestly, I fully recommend. Just follow the link at the top of the page.
I did it not because I like to hear myself talk, though of course the chance to hold court on a number for subjects for an undefined amount of time is, of course, enticing. But mostly, I did it because one of the things I truly appreciated when I was doing my PhD was personal histories. It was, I thought, incredibly interesting and important that you could sit down and read or listen to people who had experienced a different time and life. I'm fairly sure that whatever I do with my life, or whatever happens to me, that I'll be forgotten two hundred years from now, if not much, much earlier--but that researcher, or whoever, who is searching through people who were alive now has the chance to come across my interview, to hear what I said on issues such as immigration, generation change, and the like. My opinions, for example, will likely be incorrect at times, vaguely stated at others, and fine again another time. But it will be for someone else to listen to in the far flung future, someone who can write about the past, the people in it, and the influences that the time had.
The project is still looking for people to take part and, honestly, I fully recommend. Just follow the link at the top of the page.
February 6, 2013
February 5, 2013
Magnificence, Lydia Millet
Magnificence, Lydia Millet's final book the sequence she began with How the Dead Dream and followed with Ghost Lights is a strong book to finish on. Perhaps the strongest of the three, in fact.
The novel opens with its protagonist, Susan, heading to an airport with her daughter to met her husband, Hal, and her employer, T. She doesn't yet know the tragedy that has befallen Hal at the end of Ghost Lights, but soon will (as much as I'd like to avoid spoiling that for you, it is said on the jacket of the book). Believing herself responsible for Hal's death, since it was his discovery of her infidelity that saw him leave the country, Susan is wracked with guilt, in a daze from mourning, and finds herself through a long lost uncle, the inheritor of a giant mansion full of stuff animals. The inheritance is a bit clumsy--Millet has had three books to layer the world of her protagonists and this is just a random plot device insertion--but it is serviceable. In addition, the house itself, sprawling across huge grounds with the trophies of dead animals hung upon the wall and a secret beneath the ground, does make up for the narrative laziness by the end of the book.
As I said, there is a lot to like about Magnificence. Millet's prose, as with the previous two, is wonderful, and her characterisation of Susan, a woman who has used sex to define herself since the accident of her daughter, is superbly done. Likewise, the narrative, in contrast to that of Ghost Lights, which just felt flat for its entirety, was interesting, engaging, and more than enough to make me read the book in two sittings. It also made Ghost Lights a lot better of a book, giving it more depth and more reach than it had while I was reading it. Magnificence does that with How the Dead Dream as well--in that way, in functions very well as a third novel--but to a lesser extent, possibly because of the connection that Hal and Susan have due to their marriage.
Having read all three in successive order, however, I have to say that my initial belief that all three narratives would have felt better layered upon each other as a novel has proved true. My one criticism throughout all three novels is that, isolated, none have enough substance to warrant being a single book. Magnificence is the only one of the series that you could argue has enough to be stand alone, but of course, it is the least stand alone of them all, since as the third, it is tying up narratives and bringing the thematic conversation of extinction to a close. In combination with the strong influence that it has on Ghost Light's narrative in particular, it becomes almost impossible to view it as a singular book. That, of course, isn't a problem--and in fact, makes me believe that Millet, had she decided to layer each narrative in one novel, would have had a superb book instead of three novels of varying success.
Such a complaint isn't a very fair one, however. Millet wrote and sold the books how she saw fit, and they are how they are, but I recommend, if you plan to read the sequence, just putting aside the time to read all three back to back.
It is best that way, I believe.
The novel opens with its protagonist, Susan, heading to an airport with her daughter to met her husband, Hal, and her employer, T. She doesn't yet know the tragedy that has befallen Hal at the end of Ghost Lights, but soon will (as much as I'd like to avoid spoiling that for you, it is said on the jacket of the book). Believing herself responsible for Hal's death, since it was his discovery of her infidelity that saw him leave the country, Susan is wracked with guilt, in a daze from mourning, and finds herself through a long lost uncle, the inheritor of a giant mansion full of stuff animals. The inheritance is a bit clumsy--Millet has had three books to layer the world of her protagonists and this is just a random plot device insertion--but it is serviceable. In addition, the house itself, sprawling across huge grounds with the trophies of dead animals hung upon the wall and a secret beneath the ground, does make up for the narrative laziness by the end of the book.
As I said, there is a lot to like about Magnificence. Millet's prose, as with the previous two, is wonderful, and her characterisation of Susan, a woman who has used sex to define herself since the accident of her daughter, is superbly done. Likewise, the narrative, in contrast to that of Ghost Lights, which just felt flat for its entirety, was interesting, engaging, and more than enough to make me read the book in two sittings. It also made Ghost Lights a lot better of a book, giving it more depth and more reach than it had while I was reading it. Magnificence does that with How the Dead Dream as well--in that way, in functions very well as a third novel--but to a lesser extent, possibly because of the connection that Hal and Susan have due to their marriage.
Having read all three in successive order, however, I have to say that my initial belief that all three narratives would have felt better layered upon each other as a novel has proved true. My one criticism throughout all three novels is that, isolated, none have enough substance to warrant being a single book. Magnificence is the only one of the series that you could argue has enough to be stand alone, but of course, it is the least stand alone of them all, since as the third, it is tying up narratives and bringing the thematic conversation of extinction to a close. In combination with the strong influence that it has on Ghost Light's narrative in particular, it becomes almost impossible to view it as a singular book. That, of course, isn't a problem--and in fact, makes me believe that Millet, had she decided to layer each narrative in one novel, would have had a superb book instead of three novels of varying success.
Such a complaint isn't a very fair one, however. Millet wrote and sold the books how she saw fit, and they are how they are, but I recommend, if you plan to read the sequence, just putting aside the time to read all three back to back.
It is best that way, I believe.
February 4, 2013
Phosphorescent - 'Song for Zula'
As the girl and I drove down the coast, at times with the ocean beside us, at times with burnt bush, at times with neither, we played Phosphorescent's previous albums. He has a new one out in March and here is a sample for it.
January 29, 2013
January 28, 2013
Ghost Lights, Lydia Millet
Ghost Lights is the second in Lydia Millet's interlocking cycle of narratives, following on from where How the Dead Dream finished, changing protagonists to focus not on T., but on Hal, the husband of Susan.
Similar to the previous book, Ghost Lights is a quiet novel, expanding Millet's thematic concern of extinction to take in a cultural focus, turning to the life of a middle aged man who works for the IRS and who, in the years since his daughter's accident, has become less and less a presence in his life. A character portrait more than a narrative based novel, Ghost Lights ultimately falls short of the book that preceded it, due in part because of Millet's need to create a structural bridge between the end of How the Dead Dream and the start of Magnificence, and because Hal, the central character of the book, isn't very interesting.
Indeed, my central complaint of the book is that nothing very interesting happens, at all. After discovering his wife's affair, Hal travels to Belize to aid in the search of T., wherein he stays in a nice hotel, finds T. in a truly unremarkable way, develops a relationship with a German couple, and then goes to a few bad parties. There's the ending, but I didn't much care either way by the time I'd reached it, having toured through Hal's uninteresting life and an uninteresting portrayal of Belize. Now, while the unremarkable narrative matches the unremarkable man, Millet's lovely prose cannot make up for the feeling that it is all just a bit shallow, in the end. From the German's (their names are Hansel and Gretel) to Hal's own response to his marriage breakdown, there's a pervading lack of originality, of Millet coasting, and at the end of the book, I thought how little substance there was in it. How, when placed next to How the Dead Dream, it just felt pale.
At the end of How the Dead Dream, I began to entertain the idea that the three novels of Millet's trilogy would not, by themselves, have enough substance for each to be a singular novel. Taken individually, I thought, I suspect that it would feel fractured, thin, but there is a good chance that, when the narratives are layered, that they will present something quite compelling, and this is what I continue to feel. My opinion is slowly coming to be that the three novels should have been part of one larger novel, with each new narrator just being a new section, one that juxtaposed and complimented the one that came before or after it. Viewed in that fashion, the weakness of Ghost Lights does not have the same condemnation that it carries to an individual book, in part because Millet is, as always, a superb author of prose, and her ability in this and other aspects of craft would easily carry the narrative for its structural weakness. In addition, you would have the final part of the book ahead of you, and it would fill the role of bringing all the points together.
In many ways, my problems with Ghost Lights is that I rather wish Millet had put the series together differently, had decided on a different structure. In that way, it is a strange position to view the book, because it becomes not a question of what I did or didn't like, but rather what she did or didn't write, and that, in the end, simply did not happen.
Similar to the previous book, Ghost Lights is a quiet novel, expanding Millet's thematic concern of extinction to take in a cultural focus, turning to the life of a middle aged man who works for the IRS and who, in the years since his daughter's accident, has become less and less a presence in his life. A character portrait more than a narrative based novel, Ghost Lights ultimately falls short of the book that preceded it, due in part because of Millet's need to create a structural bridge between the end of How the Dead Dream and the start of Magnificence, and because Hal, the central character of the book, isn't very interesting.
Indeed, my central complaint of the book is that nothing very interesting happens, at all. After discovering his wife's affair, Hal travels to Belize to aid in the search of T., wherein he stays in a nice hotel, finds T. in a truly unremarkable way, develops a relationship with a German couple, and then goes to a few bad parties. There's the ending, but I didn't much care either way by the time I'd reached it, having toured through Hal's uninteresting life and an uninteresting portrayal of Belize. Now, while the unremarkable narrative matches the unremarkable man, Millet's lovely prose cannot make up for the feeling that it is all just a bit shallow, in the end. From the German's (their names are Hansel and Gretel) to Hal's own response to his marriage breakdown, there's a pervading lack of originality, of Millet coasting, and at the end of the book, I thought how little substance there was in it. How, when placed next to How the Dead Dream, it just felt pale.
At the end of How the Dead Dream, I began to entertain the idea that the three novels of Millet's trilogy would not, by themselves, have enough substance for each to be a singular novel. Taken individually, I thought, I suspect that it would feel fractured, thin, but there is a good chance that, when the narratives are layered, that they will present something quite compelling, and this is what I continue to feel. My opinion is slowly coming to be that the three novels should have been part of one larger novel, with each new narrator just being a new section, one that juxtaposed and complimented the one that came before or after it. Viewed in that fashion, the weakness of Ghost Lights does not have the same condemnation that it carries to an individual book, in part because Millet is, as always, a superb author of prose, and her ability in this and other aspects of craft would easily carry the narrative for its structural weakness. In addition, you would have the final part of the book ahead of you, and it would fill the role of bringing all the points together.
In many ways, my problems with Ghost Lights is that I rather wish Millet had put the series together differently, had decided on a different structure. In that way, it is a strange position to view the book, because it becomes not a question of what I did or didn't like, but rather what she did or didn't write, and that, in the end, simply did not happen.
January 24, 2013
Django Unchained
Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino's new film, a work similar to his previous film, Inglorious Basterds, in that it offers an alternate history that aims to empower a group of people for who power has been stripped away.
Set two years before the American Civil War, Tarantino's new film opens with the German bounty hunter slash traveling dentist, Dr. Schultz, stopping a pair of men leading a group of chained slaves. He is looking for a particular man, and is willing to pay for him, should he be there--which, of course, he is, second from the end of the line: a man named Django. Afterward, Schultz, who is uncomfortable with slavery, offers Django a deal: work with him to find three men and he can have his freedom and seventy-five dollars. A friendship ensues and the two band together to track down Django's wife, the German named Broomhilda, who is now owned by Calvin Candie, a wealthy slave owner who also takes great interest in making slaves fight unto the death.
It is, by and large, a good film, with much to recommend it--Christoph Waltz is once again great, but it is Samuel L. Jackson who is the standout to me--but with a few structural issues mostly centred around the transition from Schultz and Django's friendship to the end of winter, when they head off in search of Broomhilda. There is also an awful bit involving Australians which had everyone in the cinema laughing at the accents--and that's fair enough, because frankly, they were awful. Not just bad, but awful.
Yet, what marks the film mostly got me is that it is the least enjoyable of Tarantino's films. Now, I want to be clear on this distinction before I continue: when I talk about enjoyment, I mean the ability to sit back, chill and move along to the film, viewing it strictly as entertainment, and leaving the subject out of it. Tarantino's films leading up to Inglorious Basterds were enjoyable films, and I have enjoyed them all to greater or lesser degrees. But with his previous film, there was a change in Tarantino the director, and a subtext and layering began to enter the work, most of which was uncomfortable. It was there in Kill Bill, but that was a film about Kung Fu films, and had very little social subtext, unlike Inglorious Basterds. It is difficult not to watch the superb opening scene of that film and not be chilled by what is happening and not to read into it a statement of what the filmmaker's intent will be.
However, Inglorious Basterds was a film that was still part of Tarantino's older work, and the parts of the film including Brad Pitt and the Americans felt unnecessary, as if they were part of a different film. I remember thinking, then, that if Tarantino dropped that from his film, he would have a lot stronger film--and that has what has happened in Django Unchained, but it has also resulted in a film that is less enjoyable in the way his previous films are.
Part of that, however, is the point: Django Unchained is a film meant to make you angry.
It is a film that is building up to its final scenes of violence, much like Inglorious Basterds, and which offers a cathartic experience through it. But in Django Unchained the build up to that, without the comic element the Americans in the previous film provided, is intense, relentless, and awful. Slavery is shown not just as a degrading, awful institution, but also as an institution in which African American men and women lived, loved, and succeeded in it, though all these successes, due to slavery, were but illusions. It is the 'success' of their lives within slavery that is the truly angering part for there is no success in it but rather a division and awfulness that results in the continual persecution from within their own community, on each other. Tarantino develops this slowly throughout the film, but it is not until Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen, the elderly house slave who jealously controls his power in the Candie estate, that the point is made. That it is he, not DiCaprio's Calvin Candie, that is viewed as the most knowing villain in the film is a dangerous statement, if you do not believe that the film has made the argument that he is also a tragic figure, having 'succeeded' in the world of slavery where other African American men and women did not, and views himself as being 'apart' from the slave community, when he is clearly not.
Regardless, at the end, Django Unchained is a good film, and continues the evolution of Quentin Tarantino as a director, showing a rare development of craft and themes that is, by and large, missing in mainstream Hollywood cinema.
Set two years before the American Civil War, Tarantino's new film opens with the German bounty hunter slash traveling dentist, Dr. Schultz, stopping a pair of men leading a group of chained slaves. He is looking for a particular man, and is willing to pay for him, should he be there--which, of course, he is, second from the end of the line: a man named Django. Afterward, Schultz, who is uncomfortable with slavery, offers Django a deal: work with him to find three men and he can have his freedom and seventy-five dollars. A friendship ensues and the two band together to track down Django's wife, the German named Broomhilda, who is now owned by Calvin Candie, a wealthy slave owner who also takes great interest in making slaves fight unto the death.
It is, by and large, a good film, with much to recommend it--Christoph Waltz is once again great, but it is Samuel L. Jackson who is the standout to me--but with a few structural issues mostly centred around the transition from Schultz and Django's friendship to the end of winter, when they head off in search of Broomhilda. There is also an awful bit involving Australians which had everyone in the cinema laughing at the accents--and that's fair enough, because frankly, they were awful. Not just bad, but awful.
Yet, what marks the film mostly got me is that it is the least enjoyable of Tarantino's films. Now, I want to be clear on this distinction before I continue: when I talk about enjoyment, I mean the ability to sit back, chill and move along to the film, viewing it strictly as entertainment, and leaving the subject out of it. Tarantino's films leading up to Inglorious Basterds were enjoyable films, and I have enjoyed them all to greater or lesser degrees. But with his previous film, there was a change in Tarantino the director, and a subtext and layering began to enter the work, most of which was uncomfortable. It was there in Kill Bill, but that was a film about Kung Fu films, and had very little social subtext, unlike Inglorious Basterds. It is difficult not to watch the superb opening scene of that film and not be chilled by what is happening and not to read into it a statement of what the filmmaker's intent will be.
However, Inglorious Basterds was a film that was still part of Tarantino's older work, and the parts of the film including Brad Pitt and the Americans felt unnecessary, as if they were part of a different film. I remember thinking, then, that if Tarantino dropped that from his film, he would have a lot stronger film--and that has what has happened in Django Unchained, but it has also resulted in a film that is less enjoyable in the way his previous films are.
Part of that, however, is the point: Django Unchained is a film meant to make you angry.
It is a film that is building up to its final scenes of violence, much like Inglorious Basterds, and which offers a cathartic experience through it. But in Django Unchained the build up to that, without the comic element the Americans in the previous film provided, is intense, relentless, and awful. Slavery is shown not just as a degrading, awful institution, but also as an institution in which African American men and women lived, loved, and succeeded in it, though all these successes, due to slavery, were but illusions. It is the 'success' of their lives within slavery that is the truly angering part for there is no success in it but rather a division and awfulness that results in the continual persecution from within their own community, on each other. Tarantino develops this slowly throughout the film, but it is not until Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen, the elderly house slave who jealously controls his power in the Candie estate, that the point is made. That it is he, not DiCaprio's Calvin Candie, that is viewed as the most knowing villain in the film is a dangerous statement, if you do not believe that the film has made the argument that he is also a tragic figure, having 'succeeded' in the world of slavery where other African American men and women did not, and views himself as being 'apart' from the slave community, when he is clearly not.
Regardless, at the end, Django Unchained is a good film, and continues the evolution of Quentin Tarantino as a director, showing a rare development of craft and themes that is, by and large, missing in mainstream Hollywood cinema.
January 22, 2013
All That Is Wrong with Nova Peris
Indigenous leader Warren Mundine says Julia Gillard should be congratulated for ''correcting a wrong within the Labor Party'' by endorsing Ms Peris to become Labor’s first indigenous representative in federal parliament.
''I have always argued they have got to correct this wrong, otherwise it was an embarrassment for the party,'' said Mr Mundine, a former Labor national president who quit the party last November partly because he was disillusioned by Labor’s treatment of indigenous Australians.
''‘We couldn’t continue going on saying that we were the party for aboriginals without having people sitting in the parliament.
''Today is an historic day, the Prime Minister needs to be congratulated for her stance, and Nova needs to be congratulated for putting her hand up and running.
No, sadly Warren Mundine, no.
Yesterday was not a proud day for Indigenous Australians, nor a proud day for any Australians, or advocate for equality. In truth, yesterday was a painful, frustrating day.
I am actually somewhat furious, but lets get the details out first. Yesterday the Prime Minister announced the Nova Peris, one time Olympian and Indigenous Australian, would be installed as the number one Labor candidate for a seat in the Northern Territory (NT). To do this, she bypassed the party election cycle and dumped a senator of fifteen years standing, Trish Crossin. In part, the decision to ditch Crossin is reported to be motivated by her backing of Rudd, and is further sweetened by the Labor Party losing their election due to what many feel as not being able to motivate the black vote in NT. This latter point will, of course, be completely and utterly fixed by putting in a token Indigenous woman.
I'm sorry, did my anger and sarcasm get ahead of me already? Well, fan-fucking-tastic, lets have it: What you see before you is the fear of every bogan red neck racist shit who thinks that racial equality means that someone is going to take away their job and give it to someone who is entirely untested, but save for their background and colour of their skin. "They took mah job!" is the catchphrase that can and will be used in this situation.
Look, equality is an important part of our world, but it is a hugely difficult thing to achieve and requires constant vigilance. It also requires that you don't cherry pick it--I see a lot of that in many different areas and it frustrates me to no end, and in this case, just deciding you want an Indigenous politician and inserting one is such a bad idea on a number of levels. For starters, it doesn't even begin to address the issues of selection, party promotion, and the culture within the Northern Territory Labor Party that has forced Gillard to play her hand so strongly. It won't now, either. What will happen is a strengthening of the divides based on race, the further ostracisms of Indigenous politicians by Non-Indigenous ones and resentment from legit Indigenous politicians who have worked to reach their positions.
Yes, you can argue that this is part of affirmative action step, and yes, affirmative action programs are a part of bringing equality forth, but they are not a mechanism that is free from criticism. Affirmative action does, unfortunately, include the result of reinforcing the racial and cultural difference that it seeks to put aside by showing that everyone is equal. For most programs, you have to cop it sweet as a necessary evil and just live with that detraction, understanding that the people who fill the rolls are totally valid for the position.
However, Nova Peris is not that.
Nova Peris is nothing more than a celebrity pick, a token black women in a room of white people.
Nova Peris does not promote Indigenous people in this roll. Instead, she creates a narrative that the only way an Indigenous person--much less a woman--is going to be given a position of power is to have friends in high places. Her selection in this fashion is nothing more than 'mates rates' and 'who you know', rather than built on any strong political background. Her position in this fashion totally invalidates her and makes her not a 'bold' choice, nor 'great' candidate, but rather a cold piece of political cunning from a party that is desperate to pull itself into a winning position for the year's election, and willing to use whatever show stopper it can.
It is a disgrace.
