Seth Kupchick's Blog: Bet on the Beaten, page 17
February 13, 2014
"Reeling" with Pauline Kael
Reeling: Film Writings, 1972-1975 by Pauline KaelMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pauline Kael was a 'new journalist' disguised as a film critic, disguised as a war reporter, and this gives any collection of her criticism an incredible point of view that was completely unique to her at the time, and I think in the history of film criticism. She became an artist through the back door, in the sneakiest slyest way imaginable. She used movies as a way to write little stories of her going to the movies, though you rarely if ever got personal anecdotes like you do today when a critic sees fit to tell you every personal problem they are having, and treating the movie as secondary to their neurouses. Pauline Kael treated every movie like it was the last one she might ever see again, so even if they were horrible, they were an opportunity for her to express something on her mind, because she had the uncanny ability to treat every movie like it was the first. I don't think any other critic in modern times has taken on the style of a literary movement and dressed it up as criticism, the way Kael did, and in so doing became an artist through the back door, because many of the reviews in this book are as good as seeing the movie itself, and elucidate culture, and Kael's sensibility, that they are like a fine wine, even if they are shit. I found myself enjoying glowing reviews of movies I hated, or bad reviews of movies I held as sacrosanct, and both freed me. It was great to hear someone be critical of "Sleeper," or to hear her go on about how Ingrid Bergman was like Ibsen, and wasn't contemporary at all, but kind of staid and boring for the most part.
The war quality tone of the book is clear not only from the title, but the way it is presented as dispatches from a hot field of action, :72-,'75, and what many consider the greatest era of American film, bar none. As any sports fan could appreciate, it's exciting to see Kael nailing what have become historic films and I think she was really surprised that her talents were allowed to blossom like they did, becuase part of her cleverness was that she was able to review indisputably fine films, and to see the good and bad in them, with the intent of trying to make them better, and that's where the artist in her came out over the critic. She was taking the role of critic very seriously, not just as a gossip hound bent on taking people down, or raising them up, but an actual new journalist disguised as a film critic, going to the movies for material to write about, and to elevate to the point of fiction even though it was criticism. Maybe "Reeling" was the beginning of the new criticism, where she attempted to fictionalize her criticism in a rather intellectual and round about way so that we fell in love with her mind as a moviegoer, rather than aa a character in a plot, because she took on everyone's plot as her character, and that is a very complex portrait. Part of her genius was that Kael was able to expose so much of herself without ever really telling us anything about herself, because we fell in love with her mind, not her actions, but the mind is the most erotic organ of all, so it's no surprise that one of Pauline Kael's biggest unrealized literary ambitions was to write a book about the erotic experience of going to the movies, because in a way that's what "Reeling" is. We read through dozens of reviews of some of the most canonized movies of our time in real time and not only gauge our opinion of them next to hers to see how the original stands up, but we're also able to see Pauline Kael in the theater, watching the movie alone, probably taking notes for posterity, and are amazed. We actually fall in love with her as a filmgoer more than anything, like Mia Farrow in "The Purple Rose Of Cairo," and Kael manages to make a character of herself, and for this it is a beautiful book to read.
I don't know what to say about her actual taste except that she thought the old fogey critics who thought that movies should be a black and white morality tale, were completely off base, and that movies encompassed high and low culture. Kael was such a fan that she realized you had to love bad movies, or else you'd never go to the theater, and if you stayed away then you couldn't be the world's biggest fan, and then you'd lose your character entirely. I think she thought that the Seventies movies were a real breakthrough because they strayed from formula, and incorporated elements of camp and a certain 'funkiness' that high culture abhorred, and therefore were free of the restraints of clalssic bourgeoise values, and thus free to be art, like Dadaists attacking the bourgeoise collectors in the name of being free. In that way, Pauline Kael was really a revolutionary as a critic by promoting movies that most of her colleagues hated on grounds of good taste, because I think she thought the movies were for the people, and that the people were free. Kael was essentially a pre-postmodernist wanting the movies to mix high and low culture, and to be free to be bad, or irreverent, or just plain goofy, anything but staid and dull, because at heart she didn't believe in films that made one restless in their seats, but movies that were fun, or crazy sad, but not dull, not real, but like a dream. She wanted to be swept off her feet when she went to the theater and I think it's this side that makes a reader of her work fall in love with her, and be swept off his feet with her, even if the object of attratction is the movie she's talking about, and not actually her.
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February 10, 2014
Beatleizing
I was born in '68 and "Cry Baby Cry," from the White Album was recorded on my birthday, and for a few years of my childhood I considered myself the world's biggest Beatle fan, and even wanted to play guitar left handed because Paul McCartney was left handed, never mind that he played bass. I took it upon myself to listen to every song they ever recorded, and would listen to their tapes to go to sleep at night, so you'd think I'd be more excited by the 50th anniversary of their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, but I'm not. In fact, I barely care, and I realize this must label me as someone that's not a 'vinyl' collector (I hate that word), or something else that Gen X has made up to rationalize our existence as aesthetes, not that I have anything against vinyl collecting, or living for the Beatles, but I feel like their reign is truly over, and this anniversary mania makes that clear. I watched CBS's special to the Beatles tonight and I couldn't get through five minutes of it, and the child in me would've thought this was impossible, but the adult in me cheers me on.
It's not that I don't like the Beatles, or think they weren't great, but I question their relevance as a 'pop' act and wonder what their music really will mean to future generations, if it will mean anything at all and how much they were just a product our parents sold to us. In John and Yoko's famous Rolling Stone interview given to Jann Wenner right after the band broke up, Lennon said the Beatles would never be given bad press, because they were a cash cow, and too many people were making millions off them to ever bring them down, and unbelievably enough that trend seems to be going on to this day, and it's weird to watch men in their Sixties or Seventies talking about the Beatles appearance on Sullivan as if they were discussing D-Day, or the Tet Offensive. I know that the Beatles are an important pop culture moment, and might've changed the direction of rock music forever, and think that aspiring singer/songwriters should listen to their music, and yet they've come and gone, but they are still making people money, and as long as they keep doing this they'll never die.
I work with lots of 20 somethings at a pizzeria and I can tell you straight out that none of them care about the Beatles, or their influence, or anything they stood for, and in many ways this last hurrah is the kiss off of an entire generation as it is a band. At first, I was mortified that young people didn't like the Beatles like I did, or think their music sublime, but I think I was fearing my own mortality, because I don't listen to the Beatles anymore, either, and their music means very little to me, or who fucked who in India when they visited the Maharishi. They had a great legend and their music certainly evolved in almost unreal way that let you watch them grow from children ("Please Please Me") to men ("Let It Be") and very few artists are allowed this opportunity, since most are one or two hit wonders, put out a few albums, and etch themselves in the public imagination forever, frozen in a moment of time. But the Beatles defined a decade bewildered by J.F.K.'s assasination, and destroyed by R.F.K.'s assasination, cutting their hair short at first, and then letting it grow wildly long, and being the accidental inspiration to Manson. They went on a wild ride, no doubt, and one that our generation looked at the way our parents looked at their parent's war service, but conflating the two is insane, except for vinyl collectors, and people writing interminable term papers.
The Beatles grew and changed very quickly like our parents did, but they spent the rest of their lives remembering that change, rather than becoming the change they represented, and the political backlash against the 'Beatle' inspired Sixties was huge. I do think this backlash is finally ending, but it makes the Beatles look more obsolete than ever, just like I'll be obsolete one day too, or how a facebook post becomes obsolete almost a second after it is written. We all become obsolete but some art lasts and I'm not so sure the Beatles music will as much as what they stood for, or the political moment they represented, when the Beatniks were out, and the Hippies had yet to come into existence, but the Hippies didn't take over the world, and remembering them was weird in the Eighties, and almost impossible now.
I don't really blame the Beatles for any of this. They were musicians wanting to make it and didn't think of themselves as revolutionaries, or rather did in the Cavern, and then were talked out of it for their Ed Sullivan performance, and then rebelled agains their manager, Brian Epstein, making them wear silly suits and the same mop top. They became individuals more than anything, and in that way ushered in the 'Me' generation perfectly, but no one seems to be remembering this, or anything else about them for that matter, save how boring it is to remember them, or how great they were, or a mixture of the two. The truth is we're remembering the Boomer generation when we remember the Beatles, not the Vietnam war, or the march on Washington, and my repugnance with this generation is so great I can't really take it seriously.
It's not that I don't like the Beatles, or think they weren't great, but I question their relevance as a 'pop' act and wonder what their music really will mean to future generations, if it will mean anything at all and how much they were just a product our parents sold to us. In John and Yoko's famous Rolling Stone interview given to Jann Wenner right after the band broke up, Lennon said the Beatles would never be given bad press, because they were a cash cow, and too many people were making millions off them to ever bring them down, and unbelievably enough that trend seems to be going on to this day, and it's weird to watch men in their Sixties or Seventies talking about the Beatles appearance on Sullivan as if they were discussing D-Day, or the Tet Offensive. I know that the Beatles are an important pop culture moment, and might've changed the direction of rock music forever, and think that aspiring singer/songwriters should listen to their music, and yet they've come and gone, but they are still making people money, and as long as they keep doing this they'll never die.
I work with lots of 20 somethings at a pizzeria and I can tell you straight out that none of them care about the Beatles, or their influence, or anything they stood for, and in many ways this last hurrah is the kiss off of an entire generation as it is a band. At first, I was mortified that young people didn't like the Beatles like I did, or think their music sublime, but I think I was fearing my own mortality, because I don't listen to the Beatles anymore, either, and their music means very little to me, or who fucked who in India when they visited the Maharishi. They had a great legend and their music certainly evolved in almost unreal way that let you watch them grow from children ("Please Please Me") to men ("Let It Be") and very few artists are allowed this opportunity, since most are one or two hit wonders, put out a few albums, and etch themselves in the public imagination forever, frozen in a moment of time. But the Beatles defined a decade bewildered by J.F.K.'s assasination, and destroyed by R.F.K.'s assasination, cutting their hair short at first, and then letting it grow wildly long, and being the accidental inspiration to Manson. They went on a wild ride, no doubt, and one that our generation looked at the way our parents looked at their parent's war service, but conflating the two is insane, except for vinyl collectors, and people writing interminable term papers.
The Beatles grew and changed very quickly like our parents did, but they spent the rest of their lives remembering that change, rather than becoming the change they represented, and the political backlash against the 'Beatle' inspired Sixties was huge. I do think this backlash is finally ending, but it makes the Beatles look more obsolete than ever, just like I'll be obsolete one day too, or how a facebook post becomes obsolete almost a second after it is written. We all become obsolete but some art lasts and I'm not so sure the Beatles music will as much as what they stood for, or the political moment they represented, when the Beatniks were out, and the Hippies had yet to come into existence, but the Hippies didn't take over the world, and remembering them was weird in the Eighties, and almost impossible now.
I don't really blame the Beatles for any of this. They were musicians wanting to make it and didn't think of themselves as revolutionaries, or rather did in the Cavern, and then were talked out of it for their Ed Sullivan performance, and then rebelled agains their manager, Brian Epstein, making them wear silly suits and the same mop top. They became individuals more than anything, and in that way ushered in the 'Me' generation perfectly, but no one seems to be remembering this, or anything else about them for that matter, save how boring it is to remember them, or how great they were, or a mixture of the two. The truth is we're remembering the Boomer generation when we remember the Beatles, not the Vietnam war, or the march on Washington, and my repugnance with this generation is so great I can't really take it seriously.
February 3, 2014
Peyton Manning, loser or winner
After a stunning Super Bowl defeat at the hands of the Seahawks, I'm starting to think Peyton Manning just can't win the big one, either, and I'm a fan of his. I know that he's going to down in history as one of the great quarterbacks of all time, and though I'm not a stats junkie, I guess he should, but it would be hard to call him the best after watching him flail yesterday in perhaps the game of his life. I know his career should already be over, and it's a miracle he's playing at the level he is given his age and his injuries, but Manning had a real chance yesterday to silence the thought that 'he can't win the big one,' once and for all, and I don't even think he had to win, just play a strong game, but he didn't even show up. I know football is a team sport and the Broncos just kind of folded on all counts, but what I found must troubling yesterday was his lack of leadership on the field or the sideline. The Broncos coach looked like he was a hundred years old and had none of the enthusiasm or verve of a leader (don't even remember his name), and this was clearly Peyton's team, but he wasn't able to motivate them in the least. I guess if the loss was an isolated incident in his career, you could write it off as just 'one of those days,' but it seemed to fit a pattern that I don't think you can shirk off too easily.
I'm not sure what it means not to be able to win 'the big one,' but yesterday a friend of mine said 'he's overthinking it,' and as simple as the thought was it stopped me in my tracks, and I couldn't help but concede she was right. Manning is obviously a perfectionist and almost like a mini coach with a helmet on, a player coach, and indeed he has the reputation of calling all the plays, and being one of the great students of the game, not a partier, or a fuck up, but a guy who studies defenses week-in and week-out to know the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent in an almost scientifc like way, and another friend of mine called him 'the scientist.' He is fun to watch and I do think he's done a lot of great things for the league by being such a great classic player, but he is rigid and I've always preferred watching looser quarterbacks. His brother, Eli Manning, is looser than him and while he may not have the stats, or the hall of fame status (I'm not sure about this), he's done better in the big games, because he doesn't overthink it. He just goes out there and fires it up, but you can almost feel Peyton Manning's brain getting in the way of his performance, and this is frustrating. To make it worse, he gets this look on his face on the sideline that say's 'this shouldn't be happening to me, I'm the smartest guy out there,' but sometimes it takes more than smarts in life.
Like Maynard (my last post), Peyton Manning would be another great study in zodiacal releasing from a Hellenistic astrological perspective, because there's no doubt that his fate seems strangely cast. Here's the greatest quarterback of his generation with a flaming Achilles heel that just can't be ignored, and in some ways was only accentuated yesterday. I can almost read the bio sketch for him in a Valens like way, 'you will receive great honors and be known throughout the land as a heroic athlete, and the best among your countrymen, and yet will be undermined by your own insecurity in the big battles,' or something like that. In some ways, I'd like to think the big ones didn't matter and that life was judged by our accomplishments day in and day out, and I'm sure it is, but it's undeniable that Manning just sort of gets yellow in the face when push comes to shove, and the Gods have it in for him. It's true that he won a Super Bowl years ago as a sort of consolation prize so he can put this behind him and act like yesterday never happened, but it did and everyone watched.
I'm not sure what it means not to be able to win 'the big one,' but yesterday a friend of mine said 'he's overthinking it,' and as simple as the thought was it stopped me in my tracks, and I couldn't help but concede she was right. Manning is obviously a perfectionist and almost like a mini coach with a helmet on, a player coach, and indeed he has the reputation of calling all the plays, and being one of the great students of the game, not a partier, or a fuck up, but a guy who studies defenses week-in and week-out to know the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent in an almost scientifc like way, and another friend of mine called him 'the scientist.' He is fun to watch and I do think he's done a lot of great things for the league by being such a great classic player, but he is rigid and I've always preferred watching looser quarterbacks. His brother, Eli Manning, is looser than him and while he may not have the stats, or the hall of fame status (I'm not sure about this), he's done better in the big games, because he doesn't overthink it. He just goes out there and fires it up, but you can almost feel Peyton Manning's brain getting in the way of his performance, and this is frustrating. To make it worse, he gets this look on his face on the sideline that say's 'this shouldn't be happening to me, I'm the smartest guy out there,' but sometimes it takes more than smarts in life.
Like Maynard (my last post), Peyton Manning would be another great study in zodiacal releasing from a Hellenistic astrological perspective, because there's no doubt that his fate seems strangely cast. Here's the greatest quarterback of his generation with a flaming Achilles heel that just can't be ignored, and in some ways was only accentuated yesterday. I can almost read the bio sketch for him in a Valens like way, 'you will receive great honors and be known throughout the land as a heroic athlete, and the best among your countrymen, and yet will be undermined by your own insecurity in the big battles,' or something like that. In some ways, I'd like to think the big ones didn't matter and that life was judged by our accomplishments day in and day out, and I'm sure it is, but it's undeniable that Manning just sort of gets yellow in the face when push comes to shove, and the Gods have it in for him. It's true that he won a Super Bowl years ago as a sort of consolation prize so he can put this behind him and act like yesterday never happened, but it did and everyone watched.
January 31, 2014
writing again (ho-hum)
I'm writing a novella inspired by my Gramps' death and seeing lots of old friends on facebook and in real life. I'm conceiving of it as art, meaning it's not just rambling, and I really feel the words flowing out of me in a careful and precise way. I'm writing out of love and compassion and I think that's about the only place I want to write from anymore though anger has its own charge, but in the framework of compassion, anger becomes more real and vital. I'm writing about my childhood friends, and seeing connections in my life that I never saw before and never got down so lucidly. This isn't my first foray into writing about my childhood, and the last successful novella of mine "Keep Your Childhood Memories Locked In A Drawer, Someone Might Steal Them And Ask For More," was about my relationship to J.P. and his family not to mention my Mother the star. I'm not so sure this one takes off where that one left off but I can already tell it's going to be novella length (30 to 50 pages), and about the same time in my life, though different stories and characters.
I'm writing it in my friend's unused notebook from Sonoma State, 1991, and this feels great. I love the way the notebook looks like it's from a pre-computer world and the pages have a real texture when you flip through them. I bought two special pens to do the writing for $7 at Bartells, and they got me through a lot of the story, but not as much as I wished they would've for the price, but art is worth it, isn't she? I'm going to buy a couple of more tomorrow and scratch it up, because these pens are only for writing, and have no pretense at being drawing pens. I can't explain it but when I sit down to write I just know I have it when my mind is in sync with my hand, and I'm writing at exactly the right speed for my brain. I don't know what it is with people who don't want to talk about a story too much when they're writing it but also know it's good to leave well enough alone, so I'll go against my own advice and not talk about a word that I'm writing while pretending I am.
I'm writing it in my friend's unused notebook from Sonoma State, 1991, and this feels great. I love the way the notebook looks like it's from a pre-computer world and the pages have a real texture when you flip through them. I bought two special pens to do the writing for $7 at Bartells, and they got me through a lot of the story, but not as much as I wished they would've for the price, but art is worth it, isn't she? I'm going to buy a couple of more tomorrow and scratch it up, because these pens are only for writing, and have no pretense at being drawing pens. I can't explain it but when I sit down to write I just know I have it when my mind is in sync with my hand, and I'm writing at exactly the right speed for my brain. I don't know what it is with people who don't want to talk about a story too much when they're writing it but also know it's good to leave well enough alone, so I'll go against my own advice and not talk about a word that I'm writing while pretending I am.
January 26, 2014
Joyce Maynard, Salinger's teenage lover
I'm not exactly a Salinger scholar, but of all his friends and lovers Joyce Maynard is by far the most fascinating to me, and it isn't only because of her beautiful big eyes. Her essay "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back At Life," written for a supplement in the New York Times back in 1972 is a very beautiful piece of writing and I'm not surprised Salinger fell in love with her for writing it because very few people can write like that at any age, and it is remarkable. Not soon after she moved in with Salinger and after reading the biography this didn't go so well and her career took a weird turn, and she became known not so much for being herself, but for being one of the few people alive to get close to Salinger, or to even know him, and she seems to have kept his secrets to herself up until the Eighties, or so. I believe in astrology so I'm not so sure if she had much of a choice in her fate, but I can't help but feel she'd be a great study for the Hellenistic astrological timing technique called zodiacal releasing.
It would seem that after getting published in the New York Times for a stand out essay and showing such promise that she was well on her way to literary success, and I'd argue that she never really reached that and petered out at 18, like one of Salinger's characters. Yes, she wrote her whole life and I'm sure you could read one of her 8 or so books on Amazon, but no one is going to remember her for her literature, save that one essay that stands out like a pop song, but she flamed out as a writer at 18. It would be easy to blame Salinger for this since he is one of the great writers and myths of 20th century American literature, and I'm sure Joyce and many others have done this, and yet she would have no right doing this since whatever lasting fame or importance she has is all linked up to Salinger, and she exploits this. I'm not sure if she does this out of bitterness, or as an attempt to exhume the fumes of the past, but she will forever be known as Salinger's intellectual teenage lover that he mistreated, and as a source into Salinger's life and habits.
In the case of Maynard, it would be safe to say that her relationship with Salinger, however brief, defined her forever, and that is what she will be remembered for. If nothing else, zodiacal releasing looks at a life as a book with chapters, sections, breaks between sections, and paragraphs, and makes no bones that not every minute of one's life will be remembered, but that like a biography we have stand out moments and years that really mark us and leave an indelible imprint. You would've thought that her publication of her breakthrough essay at 18 was this for Maynard and in a way I guess it was since it lead to her meeting Salinger, but her life seems to diminish after this, or becomes something of an afterthought, in some greater biographical vision of life, where we're not looking at the personal intimate relationships that make us whole, but how we're remembered. I suppose everyone's life has these moments - the day they meet their husband or wife, for example, or get a job that changes their trajectory, or have a baby - but these are the substance of life, whereas how we're remembered in the public light, under greater scrutiny, would be our calling, or what my generation liked to call 'making a difference.' The Hellenistic astrologers really seemed to look at life as a biography with great sweeping strokes, and Maynard's life really has this feel.
Maybe I'll do a zodiacal releasing study on her, and see what I come up with, but it's important to remember that Hellenistic astrology is not very much like modern astrology that centers around one's Sun sign and their personality. It's much more literary than that, and less psychological, though the two do blend.
It would seem that after getting published in the New York Times for a stand out essay and showing such promise that she was well on her way to literary success, and I'd argue that she never really reached that and petered out at 18, like one of Salinger's characters. Yes, she wrote her whole life and I'm sure you could read one of her 8 or so books on Amazon, but no one is going to remember her for her literature, save that one essay that stands out like a pop song, but she flamed out as a writer at 18. It would be easy to blame Salinger for this since he is one of the great writers and myths of 20th century American literature, and I'm sure Joyce and many others have done this, and yet she would have no right doing this since whatever lasting fame or importance she has is all linked up to Salinger, and she exploits this. I'm not sure if she does this out of bitterness, or as an attempt to exhume the fumes of the past, but she will forever be known as Salinger's intellectual teenage lover that he mistreated, and as a source into Salinger's life and habits.
In the case of Maynard, it would be safe to say that her relationship with Salinger, however brief, defined her forever, and that is what she will be remembered for. If nothing else, zodiacal releasing looks at a life as a book with chapters, sections, breaks between sections, and paragraphs, and makes no bones that not every minute of one's life will be remembered, but that like a biography we have stand out moments and years that really mark us and leave an indelible imprint. You would've thought that her publication of her breakthrough essay at 18 was this for Maynard and in a way I guess it was since it lead to her meeting Salinger, but her life seems to diminish after this, or becomes something of an afterthought, in some greater biographical vision of life, where we're not looking at the personal intimate relationships that make us whole, but how we're remembered. I suppose everyone's life has these moments - the day they meet their husband or wife, for example, or get a job that changes their trajectory, or have a baby - but these are the substance of life, whereas how we're remembered in the public light, under greater scrutiny, would be our calling, or what my generation liked to call 'making a difference.' The Hellenistic astrologers really seemed to look at life as a biography with great sweeping strokes, and Maynard's life really has this feel.
Maybe I'll do a zodiacal releasing study on her, and see what I come up with, but it's important to remember that Hellenistic astrology is not very much like modern astrology that centers around one's Sun sign and their personality. It's much more literary than that, and less psychological, though the two do blend.
January 21, 2014
In search of a ghost
Salinger by David ShieldsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am a big fan of oral biographies and J.D. Salinger, so in a way this bio was conceived and created for me, and I'm biased. That said, I can't say it's the best oral biography I've ever read (boy, does that sound dirty) and I'm sure that's the way Salinger would've liked it, or intended it to be. The great author was famously anti-social and add to this most of his contemporaries were dead when the book was made (Salinger was born in 1919), so one does not get the feeling of the recent past being relived like I did in the great oral biography "Edie" about Warhol and the Factory written soon after her death, and the social characters of the Factory ready to talk. I didn't really recongnize the names of anyone retelling their thoughts on Salinger, and the insights probably weren't as great as they could've been, and yet it's a far-reaching sprawling attempt to put Salinger's life in perspective, and I think Shields did this. I certainly came out of the book knowing much more about Salinger than I ever did, and certain episodes that I'd read a sentence or two about, such as how he befriended the high school kids of Cornish, N.H., soon after the publication of "The Catcher In The Rye," were brought more vividly to life and fleshed out. My biggest criticism is the intrusion of David Shields into the oral biography because there are several sections where he just starts writing and opining, almost as if he's a psychological prose writer (Salinger's least favorite kind of guy) and I didn't appreciate this. I'll admit Shields' conceit that "Catcher" was really Salinger's response to PTSD was interesting, but I didn't need to hear so much about Jerry's one testicle, and how this shaped his writing.
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January 16, 2014
books vs. movies
When I was growing up, laddies, I was told that seeing the movie of a famous book was a cop out, but that didn't stop me. Now I hear that the Y'ers like to read more than watch movies, not that they are reading great books most of the time, but they are reading, which was more than you could say for Gen X. I almost had to teach myself to read in my twenties, and then I gave up. A movie is a commitment to them because it means you have to block out hours in your night, that you could spend drinking, or on social media. Books can be read anytime night or day, and therefore not as much of a commitment, since no one wants to spend time with each other anymore. I'm convinced the boomers burnt everyone out on the phone long ago, and that's why everyone texts now, pissing them off, since they always thought they controlled everything, including their parents. I'm glad more people are reading. Maybe they'll buy my books one day, but more importantly the idea of a book will take hold again, and change the world, or so goes the lie. Art never changes the world, but it makes a nice dessert.
January 15, 2014
Howlin' Wolf!!!
The "Wolf Of Wall St." is a comic masterpiece, and that Scorsese was able to do this regarding such a vile, morally contemptible character, is a tribute not only to moviemaking in general, but to any theological vision of a life full of morally contemptible characters, and angels, and so it will ever be. Jordan Belfort is despicable, and I get why DiCaprio and Hill feel it's their karmic duty to spell it out for those that can't figure it out, but I think they are doing this because the movie is so comically brilliant, that you almost forget that you are watching despicable characters, with almost no cheesy reedeming factors, but doing so guilt free because the movie is so over the top, and comical, that you the viewer are having too much fun to care that they are despicable, though I can imagine others not getting it is a comedy, and justy hating every frame, and I could understand that too. Jordan Belfort throws midgets against dartboards, cheats on his wives perenially without thinking twice about it, and does so many drugs, it's a wonder he's alive. He also say's so many disgusting morally reprehensible things in his narration (I made $49 million dollars one year, and I was pissed that it wasn't $52 million, so I could say that I made a million a week) that you're just left sort of flabergasted because the excess is so great, that the dialogue becomes humorous in spite of itself, though I can't believe this wasn't intentional, but maybe it wasn't since DiCaprio looked bewildered at the Golden Globes, after winning the award for the best comic performance, kind of like Jack Nicholson looked after winning the Golden Globe for a comic performance in "About Schmidt," thinking they made a drama, but I'd argue Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt" really worked in spite of itself, while I think Scorsese had a real grand plan for "The Wolf," or that DiCaprio infused with him the idea, or so he suggested at the globes. Whatever the case, it's a great great movie.
And by 'movie,' I mean, 'movie' and not 'film.' There is a serious B element in "The Wolf Of The Wall St." that I think is it's crowning achievement, because I haven't seen this kind of B movie ever before, and may never again, and I'd say it was B because it almost never plays it straight, like Goodfellas, that I've already written about at length. Or maybe it was an A list movie with a B outcome, as opposed to something like "High Noon" that was a B movie, with an A list outcome, because there were stars galore in this picture, and love it or hate it "The Wolf Of Wall St." is one of the freest most liberated movies I've seen in years, a quality of the best of B movies, but not A movies that go by a stricter code of conduct, whether they be drama or comedy. Scorsese threw all convention to the wall, and like a great artist I once knew said, "Down With Good Taste!"
"The Wolf Of Wall St." is a tasteless movie, but deliciously so, and so abrasively, that it feels free, and yet it is Scorsese, with some great actors, and to be honest, tasteless or not, funny or serious, it's kind of an unforgettable character study. If you love the movie, you'll think Jordan Belfort is hilarious, not that you cheer him on, but you watch in a a kind of stunned disbelief, because you're not necessarily rooting for his downfall, and yet you don't really care if it comes, just like he doesn't really care if his clients win or lose money on his shady investement deals, as long as he Jordan makes money. If you hate the movie because it's lack of good taste and that you think it's begging you to take Jordan Belfort seriously, I'd bet it's a scathing indictment of the American economy, and I wanted to think this going in, or before I had decided to see the movie, writing it off in an fb post, but I changed my mind and am glad I did.
In some ways, I thought it was Scorsese's most religious picture, though this could be dived into endlessly in its own essay (The Last Temptation of Christ, and his first movie with Harvey Keitel as a failed priest) not to mention that Scorsese was considering the priesthood at one point, and admitted to a religious theme in his work. It's funny I say that about this movie except that the characters moral sins are writ so large, that you almost end up looking at it as a morality tale, free of personal judgement, because I really felt the only judgement worthy of Balfort and his sleazy friends, was that of God, leaving me free of any moral incrimination as the viewer, and this was a relief, since I think so many great movies try to incriminate the viewer. As priest, Scorsese the filmmaker gave me the freedom to abdicate to God, letting me off the hook, and absolving me of my sins through Balfort's licentiousally absurd behavior.
I don't usually talk about this, but I'd like to comment on the music in the movie, because I really felt it enlightened the picture, or gave it a certain indefinable stroke and music, especially 'contemporary' rock and blues, has always been Scorsese's style, and a defining color in his pallete. I think "Easy Rider" was the first movie to use a rock n' roll soundtrack because it was cheaper than having a score, and Dennis Hopper had a preview without any music and had to do something and voila, you have one of the best movie soundtracks of all time, influencing generation. I know there were a lot of movies in the early to mid-Seventies that used a 'rock n' roll' soundtrack, such as Harold and Maude, but then it was one artist, Cat Stevens, that was highlighted. I'd say Scorsese took off where "Easy Rider's" soundtrack left us hanging, and literally filled a whole movie with popular hippie era rock and no soundtrack unlike Coppola with the "Godfather," as great as the theme for that was. I'd argue this gave Scorsese's movies a looseness and contemporary quality that many of his contemporaries lacked, or were striving to achieve, though Altman sort of did in "Nashville," but then it was all country, whereas Scorsese almost became the guy at the bar punching in all the right songs.
In some ways, I'd say Scorsese initiated this style, that Tarantino developed, and many movies copy, even if "Easy Rider" was the accidental initiator. Admittedly, I haven't been a big fan of Scorsese's for awhile, but I do remember Van Morrisons "T.B. Sheets," defining "Bringing Back The Dead." I think he did something new in "The Wolf Of Wall St." by literally playing oodles of Howlin' Wolf (pun intended!), along with a Bo Diddley song, and I'm sure many others that I don't remember, since the movie was three hours long almost to the minute, and effused with music, but I don't think I've seen a Scorsese movie in a long time that really gave me the feeling he'd made an evolution with a soundtrack, and the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" scene, when DeNiro enters the bar, and "The Monkey Man" scene, when Ray Liotta is tooting up in "Goodfellas," are standouts, but I'd say he achieves the same in the "Wolf Of Wall St." Scorsese manages to make Howlin' Wolf, one of the great Chicago Blues singers, completely contemporary, if not ahead of his time, and I haven't heard Howlin' Wolf in this way for a long time.
I
And by 'movie,' I mean, 'movie' and not 'film.' There is a serious B element in "The Wolf Of The Wall St." that I think is it's crowning achievement, because I haven't seen this kind of B movie ever before, and may never again, and I'd say it was B because it almost never plays it straight, like Goodfellas, that I've already written about at length. Or maybe it was an A list movie with a B outcome, as opposed to something like "High Noon" that was a B movie, with an A list outcome, because there were stars galore in this picture, and love it or hate it "The Wolf Of Wall St." is one of the freest most liberated movies I've seen in years, a quality of the best of B movies, but not A movies that go by a stricter code of conduct, whether they be drama or comedy. Scorsese threw all convention to the wall, and like a great artist I once knew said, "Down With Good Taste!"
"The Wolf Of Wall St." is a tasteless movie, but deliciously so, and so abrasively, that it feels free, and yet it is Scorsese, with some great actors, and to be honest, tasteless or not, funny or serious, it's kind of an unforgettable character study. If you love the movie, you'll think Jordan Belfort is hilarious, not that you cheer him on, but you watch in a a kind of stunned disbelief, because you're not necessarily rooting for his downfall, and yet you don't really care if it comes, just like he doesn't really care if his clients win or lose money on his shady investement deals, as long as he Jordan makes money. If you hate the movie because it's lack of good taste and that you think it's begging you to take Jordan Belfort seriously, I'd bet it's a scathing indictment of the American economy, and I wanted to think this going in, or before I had decided to see the movie, writing it off in an fb post, but I changed my mind and am glad I did.
In some ways, I thought it was Scorsese's most religious picture, though this could be dived into endlessly in its own essay (The Last Temptation of Christ, and his first movie with Harvey Keitel as a failed priest) not to mention that Scorsese was considering the priesthood at one point, and admitted to a religious theme in his work. It's funny I say that about this movie except that the characters moral sins are writ so large, that you almost end up looking at it as a morality tale, free of personal judgement, because I really felt the only judgement worthy of Balfort and his sleazy friends, was that of God, leaving me free of any moral incrimination as the viewer, and this was a relief, since I think so many great movies try to incriminate the viewer. As priest, Scorsese the filmmaker gave me the freedom to abdicate to God, letting me off the hook, and absolving me of my sins through Balfort's licentiousally absurd behavior.
I don't usually talk about this, but I'd like to comment on the music in the movie, because I really felt it enlightened the picture, or gave it a certain indefinable stroke and music, especially 'contemporary' rock and blues, has always been Scorsese's style, and a defining color in his pallete. I think "Easy Rider" was the first movie to use a rock n' roll soundtrack because it was cheaper than having a score, and Dennis Hopper had a preview without any music and had to do something and voila, you have one of the best movie soundtracks of all time, influencing generation. I know there were a lot of movies in the early to mid-Seventies that used a 'rock n' roll' soundtrack, such as Harold and Maude, but then it was one artist, Cat Stevens, that was highlighted. I'd say Scorsese took off where "Easy Rider's" soundtrack left us hanging, and literally filled a whole movie with popular hippie era rock and no soundtrack unlike Coppola with the "Godfather," as great as the theme for that was. I'd argue this gave Scorsese's movies a looseness and contemporary quality that many of his contemporaries lacked, or were striving to achieve, though Altman sort of did in "Nashville," but then it was all country, whereas Scorsese almost became the guy at the bar punching in all the right songs.
In some ways, I'd say Scorsese initiated this style, that Tarantino developed, and many movies copy, even if "Easy Rider" was the accidental initiator. Admittedly, I haven't been a big fan of Scorsese's for awhile, but I do remember Van Morrisons "T.B. Sheets," defining "Bringing Back The Dead." I think he did something new in "The Wolf Of Wall St." by literally playing oodles of Howlin' Wolf (pun intended!), along with a Bo Diddley song, and I'm sure many others that I don't remember, since the movie was three hours long almost to the minute, and effused with music, but I don't think I've seen a Scorsese movie in a long time that really gave me the feeling he'd made an evolution with a soundtrack, and the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" scene, when DeNiro enters the bar, and "The Monkey Man" scene, when Ray Liotta is tooting up in "Goodfellas," are standouts, but I'd say he achieves the same in the "Wolf Of Wall St." Scorsese manages to make Howlin' Wolf, one of the great Chicago Blues singers, completely contemporary, if not ahead of his time, and I haven't heard Howlin' Wolf in this way for a long time.
I
January 10, 2014
Going to see the Wolf
I'm going to see the Wolf of Wall St. tomorrow, and at first I thought going to see this movie was something of a capitulation tio a long lost love for Scorsese, and I really don't like carrying the torch for directors who've seen their best days. On Xmas, I saw American Hustle instead of The Wolf, thinking that was the movie everyone was going to be talking about, that would send shockwaves through the culture, and that the Wolf would be another forgotten Scorsese film from his later period, that only future movie junkies watched to understand the arc of a great director, even if the movie sucked, but boy was I wrong. The Wolf is the movie everyone is talking about and it seems like it is a far greater seismic digit counter of where our culture is at than American Hustle, which was a fine movie, but a little top heavy with plot, and a love story that didn't quite gel, in spite of great performances all the way around.
I'm not saying the Wolf Of Wall St. is going to be a good movie, or that I'm even going to like it, but it seems to have quickly gone to a place better than good or bad. This week I read that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, the two stars, gave press conferences saying that the protagonist's behavior was vile, and Leo went onto say "he's everything that's wrong with America." Politically, I couldn't help but think both of these actors were distancing themselves from the movie even as it is still out, and well reviewed for the most part and in all of my years as a movie junkie I don't think I've ever seen the two main actors do this. Usually, it is the movie's job to explain its moral implications and Leo's statements were very strange both defending Scorsese for making the picture and getting a conversation started, but seeming a little confused as to the director's intent for the film, if not his artistry, and I believe this is often the case with movies, that get made quickly. I think they were reacting to the fact that audiences seem overwhelmingly disgusted by the protagonist, giving the movie a bad rating on rotten tomatoes, or something like that, and I read another story that investment bankers absolutely loved the Roman debauchery of the film, and were cheering the protagonist on. I do think some of the most interesting movies are those with unintended consequnces, and this may be one of those rare finds. Stay tuned.
I'm not saying the Wolf Of Wall St. is going to be a good movie, or that I'm even going to like it, but it seems to have quickly gone to a place better than good or bad. This week I read that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, the two stars, gave press conferences saying that the protagonist's behavior was vile, and Leo went onto say "he's everything that's wrong with America." Politically, I couldn't help but think both of these actors were distancing themselves from the movie even as it is still out, and well reviewed for the most part and in all of my years as a movie junkie I don't think I've ever seen the two main actors do this. Usually, it is the movie's job to explain its moral implications and Leo's statements were very strange both defending Scorsese for making the picture and getting a conversation started, but seeming a little confused as to the director's intent for the film, if not his artistry, and I believe this is often the case with movies, that get made quickly. I think they were reacting to the fact that audiences seem overwhelmingly disgusted by the protagonist, giving the movie a bad rating on rotten tomatoes, or something like that, and I read another story that investment bankers absolutely loved the Roman debauchery of the film, and were cheering the protagonist on. I do think some of the most interesting movies are those with unintended consequnces, and this may be one of those rare finds. Stay tuned.
January 8, 2014
Bad art movies vs. bad Hollywood movies
A bad Hollywood movie and a bad art movie, don't have that much in common, and yet they produce the same queasy feeling in the viewer. In my true heart, I want to forgive all bad art movies because though they may fail miserably, there is at least the sense that the people making the film, had the best intentions, and that making good art of any kind is a very hard task, whereas a bad Hollywood movie has no pretense to such artistic ambitions wanting only to entertain, and so the question seems easily solved. The problem is that the same intent that makes me want to forgive all bad art movies, that the creators were trying to make good art, also makes them worse than bad Hollywood movies, because in a way they give a bad name to art, and take down the very ideal they are trying to erect. A bad Hollywood movie uses art to entertain, but in and of itself, is not trying to be art, and therefore isn't really dessicrating any high ideal, save an abstract notion that movies are supposed to be better than they are, but anyone holding onto that dream just doesn't understand the game.
I think this is one of the hardest questions to answer, actually, and really gets at the heart of any aesthetic conversation. The actual act of watching a movie is so singular that one is inclined to say 'this is the worst movie ever,' after seeing a bad art movie, and therefore will tip the balance to thinking that bad art movies are worse than bad Hollywood movies, but the same will happen after seeing a bad Hollywood movie, and so there really is no right answer, since the accidental outcome of both is the same, but the intent is different, and I guess this is the key point. The intent of a bad Hollywood movie is almost always the same and that is to entertain and make money, without any artistic pretense, even though a lot of art goes into making them and this is confusing, to use art to make entertainment. A bad art movie's intent sometimes seems not to be to entertain, but to educate or illuminate, because that's what one imagines art doing, as opposed to entertainment, and there is no doubt that the serious young man in me has to think that this is a more lofty ambition than entertainment, or so the filmmakers think, but I wonder if this is true, or rather the truth of the intent is too often regarded as a matter of fact, rather than an interesting inquiry. The truth is that there is a certain pretension in thinking you have some high and mighty point to make in your intent, when the outcome is so failed, and this makes the viewer think that you must be the most pompous artist on earth, and since not many people want to be this a bad art movie is more cringeworthy, since the intent, or expectation, is so great.
At the same time, the failed artist in me, can't help but empathize with the bad art movie, more than the bad Hollywood movie, especially if the intent seems pure, but the outcome just a disaster, because the failed artist knows that you have to fail a lot at painting, writing, or sculpting, to make a break through and be a success. Therefore, the failed artist in me can see a a bad art movie as an experiment, or part of a process, and on this level I excuse even the worst art movies, but the viewer in me doesn't really care that an artist was experimenting, and wonders why he had to spend $10 on a ticket, $5 on popcorn, and sit in a dark theater waiting for the lights to go on, and this makes a bad art movie far more self absorbed than a bad Hollywood movie with the ego of the director/visionary taking over all discussion.
I guess there are two kinds of bad art movies, or let's start there for now, with two very different intents. One kind is the pure art movie where the intent is to 'boldly go where no man has gone before,' and to make really good art, without the ego of the director interfering, but unfortunately the outcome was bad. Then, there's the art movie that really seems like an exercise, or part of the artistic process, rather than a realized whole, and the failed artist in me completely empathizes with this kind of bad art movie, more than all of the other kinds, except that I always wonder why it was unleashed on the public, or not shelved, and though I know there are financial reasons for this, there is a certain self absorption in making someone pay money to sit through a practice session. I suppose all bad art movies could be seen in this light, as failed experiments, but there are some that really feel like an organic failure, and that the filmmaker may or may not be onto something, and then there are some that have the dramatic ring of failure to them, without any organic authenticity, and while they may be part of the process, since everything is, they don't feel like they are leading anywhere, and I think these are the bad art movies that give a bad name to art, because the failed artist in me has a hard time rationalizing them as part of a process, or an experiment, or anything to do with the necessary failures one must go through to ever make anything good.
The intent of a bad Hollywood movie is usually more uniform and formulaic and in this way more anonymous, and while the anonymity maddens the failed artist in me, the viewer tends to like it, because the anonymous hand behind a Hollywood movie is trying to steer you to an entertaining two hours without any of the pretense or convolution of the bad art movie. In a way, a bad Hollywood movie is kinder to the viewer, because one doesn't look at it as part of a process, or an experiment, or a necessary failure in the oevure of an artist, or one in a line of movies, to be realized at a later date. A bad Hollywood movie exists wholly on its own, without any of the confusion of art, but even more than that, without any of the confusion of having to imagine the ego of the artist that made it, which is one of the worst feelings of all. Instead, a bad Hollywood movie makes you think of the society that produced it, which could be a troubling meditation on its own, but that becomes more political than artistic, and has different ramifications.
I think this is one of the hardest questions to answer, actually, and really gets at the heart of any aesthetic conversation. The actual act of watching a movie is so singular that one is inclined to say 'this is the worst movie ever,' after seeing a bad art movie, and therefore will tip the balance to thinking that bad art movies are worse than bad Hollywood movies, but the same will happen after seeing a bad Hollywood movie, and so there really is no right answer, since the accidental outcome of both is the same, but the intent is different, and I guess this is the key point. The intent of a bad Hollywood movie is almost always the same and that is to entertain and make money, without any artistic pretense, even though a lot of art goes into making them and this is confusing, to use art to make entertainment. A bad art movie's intent sometimes seems not to be to entertain, but to educate or illuminate, because that's what one imagines art doing, as opposed to entertainment, and there is no doubt that the serious young man in me has to think that this is a more lofty ambition than entertainment, or so the filmmakers think, but I wonder if this is true, or rather the truth of the intent is too often regarded as a matter of fact, rather than an interesting inquiry. The truth is that there is a certain pretension in thinking you have some high and mighty point to make in your intent, when the outcome is so failed, and this makes the viewer think that you must be the most pompous artist on earth, and since not many people want to be this a bad art movie is more cringeworthy, since the intent, or expectation, is so great.
At the same time, the failed artist in me, can't help but empathize with the bad art movie, more than the bad Hollywood movie, especially if the intent seems pure, but the outcome just a disaster, because the failed artist knows that you have to fail a lot at painting, writing, or sculpting, to make a break through and be a success. Therefore, the failed artist in me can see a a bad art movie as an experiment, or part of a process, and on this level I excuse even the worst art movies, but the viewer in me doesn't really care that an artist was experimenting, and wonders why he had to spend $10 on a ticket, $5 on popcorn, and sit in a dark theater waiting for the lights to go on, and this makes a bad art movie far more self absorbed than a bad Hollywood movie with the ego of the director/visionary taking over all discussion.
I guess there are two kinds of bad art movies, or let's start there for now, with two very different intents. One kind is the pure art movie where the intent is to 'boldly go where no man has gone before,' and to make really good art, without the ego of the director interfering, but unfortunately the outcome was bad. Then, there's the art movie that really seems like an exercise, or part of the artistic process, rather than a realized whole, and the failed artist in me completely empathizes with this kind of bad art movie, more than all of the other kinds, except that I always wonder why it was unleashed on the public, or not shelved, and though I know there are financial reasons for this, there is a certain self absorption in making someone pay money to sit through a practice session. I suppose all bad art movies could be seen in this light, as failed experiments, but there are some that really feel like an organic failure, and that the filmmaker may or may not be onto something, and then there are some that have the dramatic ring of failure to them, without any organic authenticity, and while they may be part of the process, since everything is, they don't feel like they are leading anywhere, and I think these are the bad art movies that give a bad name to art, because the failed artist in me has a hard time rationalizing them as part of a process, or an experiment, or anything to do with the necessary failures one must go through to ever make anything good.
The intent of a bad Hollywood movie is usually more uniform and formulaic and in this way more anonymous, and while the anonymity maddens the failed artist in me, the viewer tends to like it, because the anonymous hand behind a Hollywood movie is trying to steer you to an entertaining two hours without any of the pretense or convolution of the bad art movie. In a way, a bad Hollywood movie is kinder to the viewer, because one doesn't look at it as part of a process, or an experiment, or a necessary failure in the oevure of an artist, or one in a line of movies, to be realized at a later date. A bad Hollywood movie exists wholly on its own, without any of the confusion of art, but even more than that, without any of the confusion of having to imagine the ego of the artist that made it, which is one of the worst feelings of all. Instead, a bad Hollywood movie makes you think of the society that produced it, which could be a troubling meditation on its own, but that becomes more political than artistic, and has different ramifications.
Bet on the Beaten
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