K.P. Webster's Blog, page 13

Feedback Friday :: All This and Kittens Too

editors pitched :: 5

commissions :: 0

ongoing commissions/projects :: 3

shopkeepers offended :: 1

ructions walked away from :: 1

lessons taught :: 4

weight to shed :: 14 pounds

physical exercise :: lots

metaphysical exercise :: none

week 8/52 overall rating :: 7/10

Good. Good. Good. Things are happening. Or rather, I’m making things happen.

First, this journalism lark. Christ, it’s a tough nut to crack. I know all freelancers have the same experience and it’s boring and pointless to complain but Christ on a bike, most editors are cold, inhuman, ignorant shitbags. I know they’re busy. I know they have a heap of pitches to get through every day, but how difficult is it to have an automated ‘no thanks’ that’s a single click away?

I used to be an editor. Granted it wasn’t on a particularly grand publication but I used to get a fair few pitches and requests for help and claims upon my time and there must have been some to which I didn’t respond, of course there must, I’m only human, but I swear there weren’t many. I mean, it’s just common decency isn’t it, if someone communicates with you, to communicate back?

Anyway, fuck it.

I’m starting a three-month training course next week, which I’m not going to say any more about until I’m out the other side. But it’s going to mean a lot of work, and a whole new routine. It’s also meant turning down other work, which seems on the surface kind of illogical, but I don’t think it is. I need to concentrate on making a living out of what I do best, and what I love best. And that’s writing.

Yesterday I was interviewed for a book that will hopefully be out in a year’s time. At the end of the interview, I stripped down to my socks and was photographed.

Life is funny.

I’m also doing a lot of work on a film-related project that hopefully I’ll be able to talk about very soon.

I’m also back to teaching a few afternoons and evenings a week. I have another student, another WAG. Who I’m not charging anywhere near enough. Because I’m a sap. But I’m glad I’m not ruled by money, or the desire for it. Overall, I’m very glad.

I will interview a poet on Sunday. And will probably end up out of pocket for the privilege. Ha!

Fuck it.

And nothing else to report.

Oh wait – my mum had another birthday, and after being reminded by Facebook that it was two years’ ago this week that she was lying in hospital on a ventilator, very possibly dying, I am very grateful.

And also, some friends took possession of some posh kittens. See above.

Who could ask for more? Eh?

I hope you are well, whoever you are.

x

Filed under: FEEDBACK, REAL LIFE Tagged: cats, health, money

Feedback Friday :: Too Much, Too Old

Feedback Friday is away.

Next week though, there’ll be a shitload of shenanigans. You’ll see.

 

Filed under: FEEDBACK, REAL LIFE

Feedback Friday :: Voodoo Warrior

editors pitched :: 0

commissions :: 0

ongoing commissions/projects :: 5

weeks without milk :: 4

cows rescued :: 12

films watched :: 9

weight to shed :: 17 pounds

physical exercise :: none

metaphysical exercise :: none

major distractions :: I don’t know. What is a distraction? When is a distraction not a distraction? Let’s agree I lack focus.

week 6/52 overall rating :: 6/10

So, I’ve got a few things going on, you see, and they’re filling up my days without me even trying, and teaching starts up again next week and there’s more gardening on the horizon but I have plans in place, plans for which I must make time.

I need time to train myself. I need to become a voodoo warrior. Yeah. You heard me. A voodoo warrior. Where money is dark magic, and war is focus. Are you feeling me? Are you feeling my ass? I’m not making it easy, I know, but I’m enjoying myself. Why be burdened by constant clarity? Sometimes there’s joy in an unbuttered parsnip.

What else?

I saw Deadpool last night. It’s a Marvel film.

In the end credits there is an animated stick version of Deadpool (the eponymous superhero) masturbating a unicorn’s horn until it ejaculates rainbows. That’s the whole film right there. A dick joke for every occasion. It’s great for teenage boys, as was evidenced by the whoopin’ and the hollerin’ of fellow audience members, but it’s by no means sophisticated. Occasionally funny but mostly rather wearing, and wearying, which is a pity because it could have been great. It’s a sterling set-up – unpleasant man becomes mildly disfigured superhero. And yeah, yeah, the effects. But where does it go? And must he really be so incessantly glib?

Dudpool.

Go see Room again.

Nothing else. But I got this in the post…

…and I want in.

Nothing else. Got to get on. Sit tight, progress fans.

Enjoy your weekend.

Anon!

 

Filed under: FEEDBACK, REAL LIFE Tagged: cinema, Deadpool, Idler, Marvel, training

Feedback Friday :: Will Write for Food

editors pitched :: 0

replies from last week’s pitches :: 2

commissions :: 2

paid commissions :: 1

interviews arranged :: 1

interviews conducted :: 1

money made :: I’m not disclosing this anymore. Maybe I’ll do a monthly total. OK, it was zero. I made no money. Happy now?

alcohol consumed :: again, I don’t really see that this is any of your concern. Very little. One heavy night. Quite a lot on that night but otherwise nothing. Next to nothing. Move along.

films watched :: 8

weight to shed :: 14 pounds

physical exercise :: two tennis sessions and some cycling

metaphysical exercise :: none

major distractions :: 1

week 5/52 overall rating :: 7/10

So my dedication to the pitch-a-day thing wavered this week but that doesn’t mean I’m done with it. It just means I’m one of those people who wavers. I’m free, man. Don’t fence me in.

I did a lot of work on the upcoming film project I’m working on. This included me once again being blown away by Oldboy, which if you haven’t seen, you should seek out and watch. Not the Spike Lee version, of course, which I am assured is a turd, but the South Korean original, which is spellbinding and horrific and, importantly, spellbindingly horrific.

The two commissions I secured are both kind of travel things, one about Las Fallas, one about Peckham, equally exotic in its own way. The Peckham one is unpaid but may very well result in other things. It also gives me an excuse to go and meet some people, which is always nice. I’m also hoping to get at least one free meal out of it. I know that as writing freebies goes, this is nothing to shout about, but fuck me, it’ll taste nice.

I remember years ago I was interviewed by the Metro freesheet in London on the back of the publication of one of the London by London books. The interview was about the things I liked best about London. I mentioned a local restaurant in East Dulwich that had the best Sunday lunch in the city. The next time I went in, the following Sunday, they gave me a free lunch. I still remember the joy I felt. I remember saying to anyone who’d listen, ‘They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But they’re wrong! Do you hear me, they’re wrong!’

I’m easily pleased, I know. I love free stuff.

Writing things and not getting paid for them is a tricky thing though. It’s a problem. No one wants to do it obviously, and there is an argument that says every time you accept an unpaid writing gig, you are basically propping up an exploitative system and kind of making it worse for everybody else. But I guess with every job, you weigh up the pros and cons, and if you do decide to do it, you hope that it’ll lead somewhere. And of course you always hope that you’re doing the right thing.

Life is tough. Money is elusive. Free food is delicious. It’s all a game.

Have a great weekend, you hear?

x

Filed under: FAMILY, REAL LIFE Tagged: Las Fallas, Metro, Oldboy, Peckham, Spike Lee

The Definitive Guide to Getting the Absolute Least Out of Life

An inspirational list for slimeballs, scumbags and would-be sociopaths. Inspired in part by hateful tabloid bile-spreaders Katie Hopkins and Giles Coren.

…

Abuse Your Body. Ignore what the health-nuts and so-called experts say. Your body is not a temple. It is landfill in ill-fitting underwear. Fill it with junk and never ever exercise. Exercise will only make you happy.


Cigarettes and Alcohol Are Your Friends. Illegal drugs may expand your consciousness and lead you to question the status quo. Stick to cigarettes and alcohol, acceptable legal highs that kill troublesome brain cells and have been proven to reduce stress by reducing the length of your life.


Do Not Drink Water. What’s the point? It doesn’t even have any sugar in it.


Eat Things Steeped in Suffering. Avoid fresh fruit and vegetables at all costs and make sure your diet is a rancid fusion of nutrition-free, health-damaging chemicals and things that are routinely tortured and killed in extraordinarily unpleasant ways. This includes the vast majority of all meat and dairy products, and pretty much all processed food. Essentially, anything that isn’t fresh fruit and vegetables.


Be Cruel to Animals. Eating animals that society deems edible is a start, but it’s not nearly enough. To fully scrape the barrel of human existence, you will need to extend your heartlessness to domestic animals, as well as sneering at those who claim that animals enrich their lives. Animals are meat, milk and muscle to be worked. Getting attached to them is a sign of weakness.


Be Selfish. Martin Luther King said that life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’ And look what happened to him. Shot to death, courtesy of ‘others’. You know that in reality, life’s most persistent question is this: ‘What are you doing for yourself?’ And if that answer isn’t ‘Everything I can, every second of every day’, then you’re doing it wrong. To truly get the least out of your life, let this be your mantra: fuck other people.

Be Greedy. Everything has to belong to someone and it might as well be you. Worship money and the trappings of wealth. Devote your life to it. Sure, you can’t take it with you, but you can hoard it pointlessly and drool over it in the small hours when dark thoughts make you question everything you think you believe. Better still, invest in companies that destroy the environment and treat humankind like vermin and just watch your money magically multiply. Our entire economic system is set up to encourage your ruthless greed. You’d be an absolute fool not to buy into it.


Spurn Spirituality. We are not all connected. We are all totally separate. You are born alone and you die alone. Everything else is garbage for the gullible. There is no god. There is no unity. There is only surface. Searching for something invisible is lunacy. Meditation is merely laziness in disguise. Mindfulness is a scam. Compassion is for saps. The Dalai Lama may smile a lot but when was the last time you saw him at a film premiere? The man is a nothing but a glorified tramp.


Adopt Poisonous Opinions to Get Attention. If saying outrageous, hurtful and downright stupid things will help you get ahead in your career, then just go ahead and say them. You don’t have to believe them. In fact, you will get a lot less out of life if the only reason you say them is for personal gain. Look to Hopkins, who has carved out a name for herself as one of the most spiteful, poisonous, unkind people on the planet. Look to Coren, who openly admits to being deliberately disagreeable for money…

Boast. Never waste an opportunity to tell everyone how great you are, how much money you make and how much everyone loves you. Like Donald Trump does. Like Jimmy Savile did.


Choose Your Heroes With Care. Any of the following are worthy of your admiration: Hopkins and Coren, obviously. Donald Trump. Bill O’Reilly. Rupert Murdoch. Paul Dacre. Robert Mugabe. Vladimir Putin. Dick Cheney. Kim Kardashian. And so on. The list, happily, is a long one.


Fear and Despise Anything That Is Different. Whether it is a person’s colour, their accent, their language, their religion, their sexuality, their body-shape, the music they like, the way they dress or adorn their bodies, or simply the opinions that they have, know that they constitute a challenge to your unwavering righteousness, and do everything in your power to limit their influence. Ignoring them is not an option. ‘Live and let live’ leaves the whole world in a confused and scary mess. Start a hate campaign instead. Stamp them out. They are ‘the other’. They are a threat.


Be Cruel to Children. Sure, you may have to be cruel to be kind on occasion, but let’s not forget being cruel just to be cruel. Children deserve to know, as soon as is humanly possible, that life is a simmering sewer of bitter, hateful people just like you. Take their candy. Crush their dreams. Relish their tears. Remember at all times that anyone of them could grow up and take something away from you. And you don’t want that.

Lie. If it helps you get what you want, tell anyone whatever you think they most want to hear. They may find out one day that you have deceived them. It may destroy them. Good. Anyone weak enough to be destroyed by your lies has it coming. If for some reason you need to keep them onside though, don’t hesitate to lie to them again.


Use People. Use them up and spit them out. They exist for your pleasure, profit and amusement. When they no longer please, profit or amuse you, turn your back on them and walk away.


Disparage the Efforts of Others. This is especially effective when people are trying to change things for the better in a creative or unusual way. Ridicule them. Their efforts at encouraging human evolution are anathema to you.


Create Nothing. Devote all of your energy to destruction. Delight in the negative effects that emanate out from your heart and spread poison throughout your body, ultimately becoming everything that you are.


Let Your Anger Be Your Guide. Lash out and hurt people whenever they irritate or question you. If you feel anger, and I know that you do, react to it immediately. If someone gets in your way, for whatever reason, crush them. You’ll be surprised how easy it is. Other people’s feelings are not your concern. Your fury must be indulged. Indulge it.

Turn Your Back on Your Loved Ones. If your parents are still alive and still insist on trying to be a part of your life, ignore their calls. A friend in need is a pain in the backside. Blot them out. Move on.


Never Question Authority. Authority is authority for a reason: the people in charge know better than you. Why would they be in charge otherwise? Dumbass. The police represent the government and the government represent you. So toe the line and do what they say. It’s for your own good.


Watch More Television. Avoid documentaries or anything remotely challenging or educational. Stick to the worst kind of reality TV, anything with the word ‘Shore’ in the title and programmes that encourage you to enter competitions or vote for something meaningless on premium rate telephone numbers. Be sure to call those numbers as much as possible to increase your chances of winning or of having your voice heard. Your voice must be heard. It is the only voice that counts.


Leave Hateful Comments on YouTube. Or anywhere on the internet, or indeed in real life. Hateful comments are like cold germs sneezed into the open mouths of crying babies. They cause nothing but pain and misery, which will come back to you tenfold.


Be Cruel to Adults. Although generally much older, adults are also child’s play when it comes to causing pain. Especially the vulnerable. Oppress them. Humiliate them. Exploit them.

Take Everything at Face Value. Never look beyond the surface. If meaning is hidden in any way, it is not meant to be found. Why should you make an effort to understand something if the meaning is not staring you in the face?


Kill yourself. I tried to think of another way to end this, but the fact is, you’re a sociopath and you’re ruining the planet for the rest of us. There is no cure for what you are and you’re responsible for everything that is stopping us evolving any further. It doesn’t have to be messy or gruesome. Just go off somewhere quiet and stop eating.

Thanks.

x

 

Filed under: LIST, SOCIOPATHY Tagged: Dalai Lama, Giles Coren, Katie Hopkins, Martin Luther King

Feedback Friday :: Labours of Love

editors pitched :: 5

replies received :: 0 (although one editor, pitched twice, is away this week, and two other pitches were sent this morning – keep hope alive)

commissions :: 0

money made :: £60 (not for writing)

money spent :: £72.81

tobacco consumed :: some (we don’t need to talk about this particular failure)

alcohol consumed :: a large share of a box of red wine, followed by a large share of another box of red wine; 4 pints of San Miguel

weight to shed :: 14 pounds

physical exercise :: none (something must be done)

metaphysical exercise :: none (ditto)

major distractions :: 2

week 4/52 overall rating :: 7.5/10

So I stuck to my target and sent out five pitches this week, and as a consequence, I’m pleased with myself. Because I almost didn’t do it, and believe me, had I not, I would have been angry with myself. And that would have been awful. I don’t like me when I’m angry.

None of them have garnered a response yet, but that’s OK. It’s a numbers game. And it’s fine not to receive a response. As long as I’m putting the effort in, my spirits will remain high. For, as Mark Manson pointed out to me only this morning, ‘our struggles determine our successes‘. (Or of course, our failures.)

Also this week I spent a day on a boat on a river helping a friend fix it up to let it out. That’s the view from the boat above – I touched up the colour because frankly, the day was too grey to keep it real. As grey as it was though, and as cold and wet as it was, it made me think, and not for the first time, that a life on the river would be a fine life.

But not for me. Not now at least. In the future, however, who knows? There are still many, many different lives to be lived.

My other major distraction this week was a film- and film-writing-related issue. I’ll talk a little more about it in a few weeks when it’s properly up and running. It won’t be a paid gig at first – maybe not ever – but it’s something I’m going to enjoy massively and it should at the very least result in a lot more exposure. I know that sounds a bit wishy-washy but bear with me. It’s a labour of love, and you should never pooh-pooh a labour of love.

Speaking of labours of love, if you haven’t seen it already, you should probably watch this…

Have a great weekend.

x

Filed under: BLOG, REAL LIFE Tagged: Mark Manson, The Chickening, writing

How to Be a Successful Writer When Nobody Even Bothers Rejecting You Anymore

The following advice is really an open letter to myself, to pick me up when I become discouraged and need to silence the hopeless, bitter, vengeful voices. If you can take some solace from it too, all the better. Incidentally – in case you were wondering – a successful writer, in my estimation, is someone who makes a living solely out of writing. As far as I can tell, these blessed creatures are few and far between. So yes, if you want to be one of them, here’s what you need to do…

1. PERSEVERE. I could actually stop right there because this is what it all boils down to. Everything else is just ‘persevere’ wearing a different hat and blazer. But you can’t make an inspirational list with just one item in it. You just can’t.

So. I know it’s obvious but it’s absolutely essential that you remember at all times to KEEP PLUGGING AWAY UNTIL YOU DIE. You’re never going to break through into the realm of the successful writer if you give up, even after 30 years of rejection and disappointment. Besides, what else are you going to do? Get a proper job? Don’t even think it.

2. COURT REJECTION. Embrace it. Learn to feel genuine love for it. Hold it to your chest and rock it back and forth till eventually it stops sobbing and gives a tiny smile. Rejection is your friend. Maybe your only friend. Remind yourself every time you’re rejected, or more likely simply ignored, that success is a numbers game. The more you put yourself out there, the more possibilities you create. The more ideas you pitch and the more editors, agents and publishers you hassle, the more likely it becomes that one of them will say yes. And then you’re off!

3. DEVELOP A MASOCHISTIC STREAK. Similarly, if you can manage to cultivate some perverse joy from the fact that nobody wants to read your work, then every editorial snub becomes like a soft spear of hot wax falling slowly onto the soft underbelly of your ego. It stings at first, sure, but just give it a moment and … ahhhhhhhhh. That’s nice.

4. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. There is always the chance that like those harrowing tone-deaf mutants on TV talent shows who genuinely believe they can be the next Charlotte Church, your self-belief is misguided. Do not give this a second thought. You have the voice of an angel.

5. DELUDE YOURSELF IF NECESSARY. Some might say there comes a point when you simply have to give up. Maybe 30 years and 11,000 rejections down the line, you have to face facts, accept that you simply do not have what it takes to be a successful writer and find some other basket in which to put at least some of your eggs. This is nonsense. These people are miserable, defeatist doom-merchants. Ignore them.

Keep hope alive! Believe in tomorrow. Better still, believe in later this afternoon. Lives are transformed out of nowhere every second of every day. Be sure to stop work and check your email every fifteen minutes. Just in case.

6. THROW CAUTION TO THE WIND. When it comes to writing your pitch, proposal or covering letter, be adventurous, be audacious, be outrageous. You have nothing to lose and remember, you’ve got absolutely nowhere with your standard, cautious, courteous approach, and editors read that bland garbage every day. Try a different tack. Better to stand out as a lunatic than blend into the background with all the other beige toads.

7. MAKE YOUR NEGATIVES INTO A POSITIVE. You are unique. No one has failed in your wonderfully inimitable style. Now, make like a high-functioning sociopath and mould your utter uselessness into your unique selling point.

8. DON’T BE BITTER. Send off the odd snotty email if you really can’t help yourself, sure, but forget those fantasies you have about tracking down and murdering – in a hauntingly appropriate manner – every editor who’s ever ignored you. (Like injecting silicone into flaccid buttocks of the ex-editor of Loaded.) It might have worked for Vincent Price, but the fledgling Buddhist in you would not be happy. So yeah, let it go. I was joking about the snotty emails too. Swallow it. Move on.

9. STOP READING RIDICULOUS LISTS AND GET ON WITH IT. Face facts – even if you want to give up – and you know you’ve tried – you can’t. You’re driven. And although in many ways being driven in this way is an unmitigated curse, it also gives your life meaning and without it – failure or not – you would not exist. You are defined by your desire to write, and to be read, because your ego is overpowering and because writing is just about the only thing you believe you can actually do. So just get on with it.

Or in other words, persevere, and know that one day – one day – people will be queuing up to pay for your words.

It’s only a matter of time.

(Self-belief is key.)

Good luck.

 

Filed under: HOW TO BE A PROPER WRITER, JOURNALISM, RESILIENCE Tagged: failure, lists, success, writing

Feedback Friday :: And We’re Off!

editors pitched :: 1

replies received :: 0

commissions :: 0

things written for no money :: 3

things written for money :: 1

money made :: £150 (or at least invoiced)

money spent :: £158.75

films watched :: 7

films watched twice :: 1

tobacco consumed :: none

alcohol consumed :: 4ish bottles of wine, four pints of Guinness, five or six bottles of beer (written down, that seems like quite a lot)

physical exercise :: none (written down, that doesn’t seem like enough)

metaphysical exercise :: none (ditto)

physical setbacks :: 2

week 3/52 overall rating :: 7/10

The pitch that was still pending last Friday at this time came through a half hour after posting last week’s feedback report, and I wrote it over the weekend. It was a small piece about The Battle of the Oranges. And it was a relief, and a start.

What I’m going to aim to do next week and from now on is send off one pitch a day. That’s my new minimum. No more distractions. Total concentration. I’m a force, I’m a force, I’m a force.

Yeah, alright. But seriously. Now’s the time.

So far this year though, I have a strike rate of one in three. If I could keep that up – especially at one pitch a day – then I’d be happy. I might even finally get to call myself a proper writer.

We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve got nothing else this week. Apart from the fact that I have developed two new old-person maladies in the past week. Blepharitis is one and a cricked neck that will not go away but rather appears to be getting worse and worse is the other. Not necessarily old-person maladies I know, but I am an old person, and they are my maladies. For the moment, I am treating one with bicarbonate of soda and one with Deep Heat. (Insert hilarious mix-up gag here.)

Now I must carry on writing – a writer writes – and then prepare myself mentally for Room. I have heard it is a six-tissue film. (Insert hilarious self-abuse gag here.)

You have a wonderful weekend now, you hear?

x

Filed under: FEEDBACK, REAL LIFE Tagged: illness, Room, The Battle of the Oranges

Trolling The Revenant :: Carole Cadwalladr’s Journalism is Meaningless Clickporn

Alejandro González Iñárritu on the set of his Isis recruitment video, apparently…

According to Carole Cadwalladr in The Guardian, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s soaring, exhilarating revenge epic The Revenant is empty, meaningless and – furthermore – somehow complicit in the video recordings of torture and murder released by fundamentalist terror groups.

In a deliberately provocative but rather silly article that has scooped up a hugely impressive number of comments and shares, Cadwalladr suggests that the brutality depicted in The Revenant tells us significant things about our society’s relationship with violence. Unfortunately, she can’t quite figure out what those things actually are. Sprinkled throughout her opinion-piece, however, are references to the ongoing clusterfuck that is the West’s relationship with fundamentalist Islam, specifically with Islamic State.

She has two points to make. This is the first:

‘So the landscape is chilling and the violence is pointless and the whole thing is meaningless. A vacuous revenge tale that is simply pain as spectacle. The Revenant is pain porn.’

Which is fine. Small-minded, but fine. She’s entitled to her opinion, incorrect and wholly vacuous though it is. One explanation for this terrifically superficial reading is that the film has gone way over her head. She simply lacks the intellectual capacity to grasp its themes – the potency but ultimate futility of revenge, the subordination of man to his environment, the perils of greed, the towering beauty of the natural world – or else, of course, she’s just trolling.

There’s a lot of trolling in professional journalism these days. Witness virtuoso troll and spiteful misanthrope Giles Coren and his piece on David Bowie this week, which I’m not going to link to. In the resulting fall-out from his loathsome Bowie bit, Coren freely, shamelessly admitted that the excrement he trots out weekly often bears no relation to his actual beliefs and is just something he does for cash. Like Jeremy Clarkson. He tweeted on Saturday: ‘I positively need people to disagree [with the bullshit I write but don’t even believe] to get the traction that feeds the clicks that gets the advertising that pays me.’

Similarly, it seems, Carole Cadwalladr’s piece in The Guardian, with its deliberately gratuitous and inflammatory comparisons of The Revenant to videos released by Islamic State, is meaningless contrarian clickbait.

Or else she really is thick. Which is still a possibility, and brings us to her second point. In something of a mad confused leap, Cadwalladr suggests that Isis record themselves murdering and torturing perceived enemies because they have been inspired to do so by Hollywood. Or in other words, terrorism videos are the epitome of copycat violence.

Her evidence for this is that ‘…all of Isis’s video output is inspired by our own entertainments – in its subject matter, its soundtrack, its editing.’ By which she appears to mean, they use film. ‘Islamic State hasn’t invented new narrative tropes, it’s simply lifted them straight from Hollywood. All it’s done is to go one step further, trumped Hollywood at its own game. It has seen what we want, what we thrill to, and given it to us.’

Then, in a predominantly senseless paragraph that reads like she simply couldn’t be bothered to finish it, she writes:

‘The Revenant isn’t responsible for this. It’s simply the kind of tedious, emotionally vacant film that has certain critics and Academy Award judges wetting their pants. Don’t pay £10-£15. You might as well wait for it to come out on Netflix and fall asleep on your own sofa. Or stay awake and enjoy the raping and somebody or other getting a machete in the head just for the hell of it. Or just wait for the next Isis offering.’

This is a very poorly constructed hodge-podge of half-baked ideas, but also, somewhere at the heart of it, it’s pretty damning stuff. Cadwalladr pretends to believe that if you appreciate The Revenant – and presumably any other film that dramatises violence in a realistic way – then you’re also the kind of person that gets off on snuff movies. You’re – essentially – a terrorist sympathiser. You’re Jihadi John.

‘Isis’s films are simply the next logical step of our films,’ she concludes. ‘Their culture is actually our culture too. Isis hasn’t invented any of this. It is just a bit more honest about it. More “authentic”. More “visceral”. More “real”.’

Sure, Carole. Whatever you say.

In a culture that’s saturated with opinion, columnists with no integrity will write any old garbage in order to stand out from the crowd, in order to get their clicks and earn their crust. That includes provoking, cajoling and pretending to believe the most ludicrous, offensive nonsense. Every attention-whore Hopkins-wannabe has to consult their conscience – if they have one – and make a choice. How far are they prepared to go?

Anyone who’s seen The Revenant and also read Carole Cadwalladr’s column will have little doubt as to which of them is a considered, carefully wrought work of art and which is a worthless, self-serving piece of crap on The Guardian website.

Ultimately, whether she means a word of what she’s written or not – and I’m going to pretend I mean absolutely no disrespect by this – Carole Cadwalladr is a fucking idiot.

 

Filed under: FILM, JOURNALISM Tagged: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Carole Cadwalladr, Giles Coren, Guardian, Isis, Observer, terrorism, The Revenant, trolling

The Revenant :: A Really Real Apple

Contains mild spoilers.

If you like cinema, go see The Revenant, and while you have the chance, go see it on the big screen. Set in 1820s Missouri, in the guts of the fur-trapping trade, it is a film about revenge and survival. More specifically, it’s about how in extreme and extraordinary circumstances, a desire for the former can help ensure the latter. It’s also like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

In reality, of course, revenge is a hateful, morally redundant and utterly pointless endeavour, perhaps the lowest of all human motivations. However, it’s also one of the most natural human instincts – someone wrongs us or destroys something or someone we love and we are consumed with the desire to get even, to see the person who has caused us so much pain suffer in turn.

As well as acting upon this desire, we’ve chosen to base entire judicial systems upon its execution. We’re still killing people or locking them away because of the bad things they do. We’re still waging war or bombing innocent people because of the bad things they – or people who may or may not live in the same town – do. Revenge is what we do when we’re too small-minded or lazy to think of another solution, when we allow our pain and our anger to overwhelm us. Revenge is stupid. But being so central to our dumb human instincts, it makes for great drama.

The Count of Monte Cristo springs to mind, a novel it’s impossible to read without willing its wronged protagonist onward, urging him to make his malefactors pay for destroying his life. And yet, Edmond himself recognises that it is ‘human hatred and not divine vengeance’ that propels him ever forward in his quest for payback. And human hatred is not something to be commended.

In terms of actual filmmaking, The Revenant is a breathtaking achievement that will have you puzzling over how on earth such dizzying levels of authenticity were achieved. Alejandro González Iñárritu – favourite to win the Best Director Oscar, making it two in a row – has made a film that looks and feels like no other. There are long, achingly long, Birdmanesque takes – even in battle – that baffle. Watching it a second time, I tried to figure out where scenes were stitched together, but I remained baffled, and astonished.

The Revenant has the kind of immersive quality that 3D boasts of achieving but almost always fails to achieve because it ends up looking video game-like and fake. Nothing about this film looks fake. Even when the camera gets so involved that it’s spattered with blood and snow or steamed up by the breath of Leonardo di Caprio’s dogged fur-trapper Hugh Glass, or the bear that mauls him in the first half hour, the film still manages to feel utterly authentic. The 65mm lens pulls you into the action, feeling almost like it’s the lens of your own glasses being steamed up and splashed.

Breath as a central and indeed peerless symbol of survival recurs throughout the movie. It creeps across the camera and into the sparse voiceover, spoken by Glass in the Native American tongue of Pawnee: ‘As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe. Keep breathing.’ It’s central to the attempt by Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) to hasten Glass’s demise, post-mauling, and it’s there in the final shot of the film, imposing itself.

Another important theme is man’s bestial nature. In this land before all but the most basic technology – musket rifles and pocket watches – man is intrinsically no more evolved than any other beast. Whether it’s Glass protecting his young like the bear that undoes him, or Glass and the Pawnee tribesman who protects him, both tucking into raw bison guts, the line between man and animal is blurred into non-existence. Ultimately, it is only man’s self-serving cruelty and greed – exemplified by Fitzgerald and the pelt trade in general – that separates him from the blameless simplicity of nature.

At one stage, above the body of a hanged man there is a plaque that reads, in French, ‘We are all savages.’ It is chillingly appropriate. The Revenant inhabits a wholly savage world, where kidnappers are scalped, rapists castrated and revenge is a driving force.

From the first insane sprawling battle scene to the staggering, drawn-out denouement, The Revenant is a film that almost demands that reviewers use the word ‘visceral’ at least once. It is, undeniably, an astonishingly visceral film, never more so than when Glass re-enacts the tauntaun scene from The Empire Strikes Back.

Di Caprio is generally considered a shoo-in for the Best Actor Oscar, but Tom Hardy is equally good playing Fitzgerald, an utterly convincing shit of a man. Not only is he instrumental in all of Glass’s woes, he’s also consistently acquisitive and wholly mercenary. He even has the gold-plated gall, on finding a watch in a ransacked Indian encampment, to utter the line, ‘They always stealin’ our shit.’

More than revenge, The Revenant is about man’s relationship with his environment. Set at a time in history when capitalism was only just beginning to take root, it foreshadows the wilful destruction of nature in pursuit of wealth that today threatens our entire existence. Naturally then, the environment is the real star of the film. In an interview with Anne Thompson for Indiewire, Iñárritu talks about people’s reaction to shooting the film entirely on location, entirely in natural light.

‘People have been doing things in the pixel world so much, they suddenly have forgot that the reality is still available for us and it’s much more interesting and complex than the pixel world we have created. People are surprised, in shock. “You shot real locations, with natural light?” They can’t believe. They’re used to going to the supermarket, where the big red apples look incredible but when you buy them they’re tasteless. When you get an apple that is real, it looks more suspicious and not as perfect but then we taste it – it’s incredible! It’s a really real apple!’

Although at two-and-a-half hours, The Revenant never seems overlong, one or two of the dream sequences do seem a little unnecessary. (Even then, they’re still kind of fascinating, one of them featuring what appears to be a tantalising detail of a little-known fresco from fifteenth century Italy, Giovanni da Modena’s L’Inferno.)

Despite this minor quibble, in a world of predominantly insipid and tawdry cinema, The Revenant stands out as a work of art, a labour of love and yes, a really real apple.

If you haven’t done so already, do yourself a favour: go see it at the cinema.

By the way, it makes The Hateful Eight look like an episode of Bonanza.

Filed under: FILM, REVIEW Tagged: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Giovanni da Modena, Indiewire, Leonardo di Caprio, revenge, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Empire Strikes Back, The Revenant, Tom Hardy