Hideo Nakata’s Ringu is an effectively creepy horror film, which well deserves its cult reputation. The power of the film comes from its minimalism and restraint, as well as the fact that we the viewers get to see the (strange, disjunctive, and oddly haunting) video that kills anyone who watches it. The film’s double ending – an apparent resolution, followed by a twist in which the danger is still active – is in itself a genre cliche, but both “endings” are emotionally resonant. The corpse’s emergence from the well is quite beautiful. The overall theme of electronic media as vectors of contamination is also poetically apt (and it seems to be in the air right now: a similar scenario, of a video that kills whoever watches it, can be found in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest; the same theme, only with a song instead of a video, is the basis of Chuck Palahnuik’s Lullaby. But the particular twist of Ringu, which I won’t mention here in order not to ruin the experience for anyone reading this who hasn’t seen it yet, has a special resonance).
Hideo Nakata’s Ringu is an effectively creepy horror film, which well deserves its cult reputation. The power of the film comes from its minimalism and restraint, as well as the fact that we the viewers get to see the (strange, disjunctive, and oddly haunting) video that kills anyone who watches it. The film’s double ending – an apparent resolution, followed by a twist in which the danger is still active – is in itself a genre cliche, but both “endings” are emotionally resonant. The corpse’s emergence from the well is quite beautiful. The overall theme of electronic media as vectors of contamination is also poetically apt (and it seems to be in the air right now: a similar scenario, of a video that kills whoever watches it, can be found in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest; the same theme, only with a song instead of a video, is the basis of Chuck Palahnuik’s Lullaby. But the particular twist of Ringu, which I won’t mention here in order not to ruin the experience for anyone reading this who hasn’t seen it yet, has a special resonance).
The Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is one of my all-time favorite writers, so I was glad to come across Three Novellas that had not previously been translated into English. Bernhard’s fiction usually consists of long paragraphs consisting of fragmentary sentences just piled on, one after another; the sentences are usually made of multiple layers of indirect discourse, speakers reporting on other speakers reporting on other speakers. Thus in the third and best of these three novellas, Walking, the narrator recounts to the reader what his friend Oehler recounts to him about what he said to the psychiatrist Scherrer about what Karrer, who has gone insane, said to him (Oehler). These convolutions in the narrative voice are accompanied by convolutions in the events narrated, as the multiply layered narrators circle around what they cannot directly describe, mixing anecdotes, rants, digressions, and obsessive repetitions. The overall effect is at once gruesome and hilarious: the narrators insist that life is unbearable, that suicide is the best and only way out, that Austria in particular is a nasty and unlivable country, filled with Nazis and charlatans and ignorant vulgar bullies with a violent, resentful enmity against true and original thought. But these monologues are comic more than tragic because they are so obsessive and so over-the-top. Reading Bernhard is exhilarating, and makes me laugh out loud, even though at the same time his fiction more than confirms my most negative, doom-ridden, and misanthropic feelings and thoughts. Bernhard’s books work because they implicate their narrators, and their readers, in everything they are ranting against: finally they are about the incapacity of thought – or of writing – to realize itself, to cohere with itself, to coincide with itself. Consciousness is always riddled with otherness: the otherness of the body, and of language, as well as of other people and society and nature. This makes thought a painful process, the more excruciatingly painful the more exacerbatedly turned back upon itself; but it always does turn back upon itself, like an itch that one cannot help scratching, even though this only makes it itch more in the long run. So Bernhard’s fiction, beyond its critique of the falseness and superficiality of Austrian culture, dramatizes the impossibility of mastering thought, of mastering one’s own discourse, of being triumphantly masterful and creative, which is what the myth of art and creativity in modern society comes down to. And yet Bernhard’s fiction is itself wonderfully creative, precisely by expressing, and wallowing in, this abject impossibility. Reading Bernhard means inoculating oneself against the nauseating myths of creativity, genius, mastery, moral uplift, etc. – one has to reject these myths, not because art is worthless and meaningless, but precisely because art matters, and Bernhard gives us an account of how and why it matters. The exhilarating laughter of excruciating pain and disgust.
The Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is one of my all-time favorite writers, so I was glad to come across Three Novellas that had not previously been translated into English. Bernhard’s fiction usually consists of long paragraphs consisting of fragmentary sentences just piled on, one after another; the sentences are usually made of multiple layers of indirect discourse, speakers reporting on other speakers reporting on other speakers. Thus in the third and best of these three novellas, Walking, the narrator recounts to the reader what his friend Oehler recounts to him about what he said to the psychiatrist Scherrer about what Karrer, who has gone insane, said to him (Oehler). These convolutions in the narrative voice are accompanied by convolutions in the events narrated, as the multiply layered narrators circle around what they cannot directly describe, mixing anecdotes, rants, digressions, and obsessive repetitions. The overall effect is at once gruesome and hilarious: the narrators insist that life is unbearable, that suicide is the best and only way out, that Austria in particular is a nasty and unlivable country, filled with Nazis and charlatans and ignorant vulgar bullies with a violent, resentful enmity against true and original thought. But these monologues are comic more than tragic because they are so obsessive and so over-the-top. Reading Bernhard is exhilarating, and makes me laugh out loud, even though at the same time his fiction more than confirms my most negative, doom-ridden, and misanthropic feelings and thoughts. Bernhard’s books work because they implicate their narrators, and their readers, in everything they are ranting against: finally they are about the incapacity of thought – or of writing – to realize itself, to cohere with itself, to coincide with itself. Consciousness is always riddled with otherness: the otherness of the body, and of language, as well as of other people and society and nature. This makes thought a painful process, the more excruciatingly painful the more exacerbatedly turned back upon itself; but it always does turn back upon itself, like an itch that one cannot help scratching, even though this only makes it itch more in the long run. So Bernhard’s fiction, beyond its critique of the falseness and superficiality of Austrian culture, dramatizes the impossibility of mastering thought, of mastering one’s own discourse, of being triumphantly masterful and creative, which is what the myth of art and creativity in modern society comes down to. And yet Bernhard’s fiction is itself wonderfully creative, precisely by expressing, and wallowing in, this abject impossibility. Reading Bernhard means inoculating oneself against the nauseating myths of creativity, genius, mastery, moral uplift, etc. – one has to reject these myths, not because art is worthless and meaningless, but precisely because art matters, and Bernhard gives us an account of how and why it matters. The exhilarating laughter of excruciating pain and disgust.
Shuman Ghosemajumder has a very sensible proposal for file sharing. Basically it comes down to unlimited downloads and sharing of music files for a flat monthly fee; the fee would compensate creators and copyright holders. This is more or less the model currently used by emusic, of which I am a subscriber. The emusic service is worth a lot more to me than the $10/month I pay as a subscriber; I can get albums I want easily, in unencrpyted mp3 format, without the annoying searches and problems of download times and falsely labeled files that I encounter on the services that the RIAA is trying to suppress. The sole problem with emusic is that it only carries music by certain (not all) independent labels. Shuman’s proposal would generalize this sort of model to all recorded music. I am inclined to think that the record companies would be better off in the long run if they adopted such a business model (together, perhaps, with a small tax on blank media such as already exists in Canada in return for the legalization of personal file copying). But the record industry will never do such a thing as long as they maintain their current gangster mentality (the current RIAA lawsuits are essentially shakedowns of people who can’t afford to pay; and I suspect that, if push came to shove, the industry would sacrifice profits in order to maintain absolute control over their “product”). I suppose we can only hope….
Shuman Ghosemajumder has a very sensible proposal for file sharing. Basically it comes down to unlimited downloads and sharing of music files for a flat monthly fee; the fee would compensate creators and copyright holders. This is more or less the model currently used by emusic, of which I am a subscriber. The emusic service is worth a lot more to me than the $10/month I pay as a subscriber; I can get albums I want easily, in unencrpyted mp3 format, without the annoying searches and problems of download times and falsely labeled files that I encounter on the services that the RIAA is trying to suppress. The sole problem with emusic is that it only carries music by certain (not all) independent labels. Shuman’s proposal would generalize this sort of model to all recorded music. I am inclined to think that the record companies would be better off in the long run if they adopted such a business model (together, perhaps, with a small tax on blank media such as already exists in Canada in return for the legalization of personal file copying). But the record industry will never do such a thing as long as they maintain their current gangster mentality (the current RIAA lawsuits are essentially shakedowns of people who can’t afford to pay; and I suspect that, if push came to shove, the industry would sacrifice profits in order to maintain absolute control over their “product”). I suppose we can only hope….
I’ve never really liked the movies of the Coen Brothers. All their films are formally exquisite, but way too snide and condescending, in an annoyingly facile and self-congratulatory way. Fargo is probably their best film; I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, and they maintained a better balance between suspense and sarcasm than they usually do. But it still feels slick and empty afterwards. Maybe I’m just being a curmudgeon about Joel and Ethan Coen; everyone else seems to love them.But something just doesn’t connect for me; it’s not that I object to cynicism, necessarily, but it annoys me how they are too cynical to even own up to their own cynicism.
I’ve never really liked the movies of the Coen Brothers. All their films are formally exquisite, but way too snide and condescending, in an annoyingly facile and self-congratulatory way. Fargo is probably their best film; I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, and they maintained a better balance between suspense and sarcasm than they usually do. But it still feels slick and empty afterwards. Maybe I’m just being a curmudgeon about Joel and Ethan Coen; everyone else seems to love them. But something just doesn’t connect for me; it’s not that I object to cynicism, necessarily, but it annoys me how the Coens are too cynical to even own up to the consequences of their own cynicism.
Warren Ellis‘ Switchblade Honey is a Star Trek parody; Ellis warns us in his Introduction that “this isn’t me at my most blisteringly intellectual.” So it isn’t Transmetropolitan or Global Frequency. But it’s a hoot. I admit it, I get off on seeing starship crews smoke and drink and curse and wonder whether the human race is even worth saving.
Warren Ellis‘ Switchblade Honey is a Star Trek parody; Ellis warns us in his Introduction that “this isn’t me at my most blisteringly intellectual.” So it isn’t Transmetropolitan or Global Frequency. But it’s a hoot. I admit it, I get off on seeing starship crews smoke and drink and curse and wonder whether the human race is even worth saving.
The Tooth Fairy, by Graham Joyce, is a compelling and ultimately poignant coming-of-age story. Oh yes,and it’s also a weird fantasy novel. We follow the protagonist, Sam, and his friends from age four until they graduate from high school. The time is the 1960s, the place a working-class British town in the middle of nowhere (more or less). We get many of the usual, as well as some highly unusual, heterosexual-male childhood and adolescent traumas, having to do with parents and friends and authority and school and masturbation and girls and drugs; but we also get something more, because Sam is haunted by the Tooth Fairy, a foul-mouthed gender-shifter who originally appears to collect a fallen-out baby tooth, but keeps on coming back, insinuating to Sam, seducing him, repelling him, messing with his life, causing tragedies in all the people about him, and generally tormenting and obsessing him far beyond what his actual situation would seem to call for. Joyce leaves it an open question to what extent we should regard this apparition as “real,” and to what extent we can see it as just a kind of psychological projection. But the presence of the Tooth Fairy transfigures this otherwise more-or-less naturalistic story, giving it a haunting intensity that has absolutely nothing to do with the putrid, pseudo-poetic nostalgia that so often ruins adult reminiscences of childhood and adolescence. Instead, Joyce achieves the effect of a primordial beauty and terror amidst what is otherwise , and simultaneously, quotidian banality.
The Tooth Fairy, by Graham Joyce, is a compelling and ultimately poignant coming-of-age story. Oh yes,and it’s also a weird fantasy novel. We follow the protagonist, Sam, and his friends from age four until they graduate from high school. The time is the 1960s, the place a working-class British town in the middle of nowhere (more or less). We get many of the usual, as well as some highly unusual, heterosexual-male childhood and adolescent traumas, having to do with parents and friends and authority and school and masturbation and girls and drugs; but we also get something more, because Sam is haunted by the Tooth Fairy, a foul-mouthed gender-shifter who originally appears to collect a fallen-out baby tooth, but keeps on coming back, insinuating to Sam, seducing him, repelling him, messing with his life, causing tragedies in all the people about him, and generally tormenting and obsessing him far beyond what his actual situation would seem to call for. Joyce leaves it an open question to what extent we should regard this apparition as “real,” and to what extent we can see it as just a kind of psychological projection. But the presence of the Tooth Fairy transfigures this otherwise more-or-less naturalistic story, giving it a haunting intensity that has absolutely nothing to do with the putrid, pseudo-poetic nostalgia that so often ruins adult reminiscences of childhood and adolescence. Instead, Joyce achieves the effect of a primordial beauty and terror amidst what is otherwise , and simultaneously, quotidian banality.
Tonight I went to, not one, but two meetings arranged through meetup.com. The first (pictured) was for users of Movable Type, the software that runs this blog. The second was for supporters of drafting General Wesley Clark for President. Due to the fact that both meetings were at the same time, as well as that we needed to go home to put Adah to bed, I didn’t get to spend much time at either meeting. Hopefully I will get another chance to meet my fellow bloggers, all of whom seemed to be genuinely nice folks.
As for the Wesley Clark meeting, it was enormous, and showed that many people have great enthusiasm for a Clark Presidential run. Me, I’m supporting Clark, at least for the time being, because I think he has the best chance of actually being able to defeat Bush. Among the Democratic contenders, Kucinich and Sharpton are the two with whom I am most in ideological agreement, but neither of them has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning either the nomination or(if one of them did, by some fluke, get nominated) the general election. As for the party hacks who are in the race – Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, Kerry – they are all tired, and spell worse-than-Gore disaster in November 2004. That leaves Dean, who is in some ways admirable, and who is very popular in Seattle, but I don’t really believe he can defeat Bush either (not because he is too “liberal”, which he really isn’t, but because I think is appeal is too limited, and he is too unexciting a candidate; he could carry the northern tier of states (like New England and the Pacific Northwest) which more often than not go Democratic anyway, but not much else. Clark, however, is telegenic and smart – I really think he’s the only Democrat who could wipe the floor with Bush in a debate. I don’t know many of his stands in detail, but his defense of Enlightenment values and secular liberal democracy on Bill Maher last weekend was quite encouraging, and he can get away with it because he’s a General (no way Bush, Rove, and company will be able to impugn his patriotism).
So I guess you could say I am taking a Kierkegaardian leap of faith in endorsing Clark – just as Hunter Thompson did when he came out for Jimmy Carter.
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Tonight I went to, not one, but two meetings arranged through meetup.com. The first (pictured) was for users of Movable Type, the software that runs this blog. The second was for supporters of drafting General Wesley Clark for President. Due to the fact that both meetings were at the same time, as well as that we needed to go home to put Adah to bed, I didn’t get to spend much time at either meeting. Hopefully I will get another chance to meet my fellow bloggers, all of whom seemed to be genuinely nice folks.
As for the Wesley Clark meeting, it was enormous, and showed that many people have great enthusiasm for a Clark Presidential run. Me, I’m supporting Clark, at least for the time being, because I think he has the best chance of actually being able to defeat Bush. Among the Democratic contenders, Kucinich and Sharpton are the two with whom I am most in ideological agreement, but neither of them has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning either the nomination or(if one of them did, by some fluke, get nominated) the general election. As for the party hacks who are in the race – Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, Kerry – they are all tired, and spell worse-than-Gore disaster in November 2004. That leaves Dean, who is in some ways admirable, and who is very popular in Seattle, but I don’t really believe he can defeat Bush either (not because he is too “liberal”, which he really isn’t, but because I think is appeal is too limited, and he is too unexciting a candidate; he could carry the northern tier of states, like New England and the Pacific Northwest, which more often than not go Democratic anyway, but not much else). Clark, however, is telegenic and smart – I really think he’s the only Democrat who could wipe the floor with Bush in a debate. I don’t know many of his stands in detail, but his defense of Enlightenment values and secular liberal democracy on Bill Maher last weekend was quite encouraging, and he can get away with it because he’s a General (no way Bush, Rove, and company will be able to impugn his patriotism).
So I guess you could say I am taking a Kierkegaardian leap of faith in endorsing Clark – just as Hunter Thompson did when he came out for Jimmy Carter.
Seeing that Alex Cox film the other day reminded me of other recent films which, from my point of view, OUGHT to be recognized as great cult films but which unaccountably aren’t. Here’s a short list (undoubtably, I am leaving things out, but here are some that come to mind immediately, in addition to Cox’s Revengers Tragedy):
These are all astonishing films which almost nobody has seen, and which have yet to get anything like the recognition they deserve; not even the underground following of, say, Donnie Darko.
Seeing that Alex Cox film the other day reminded me of other recent films which, from my point of view, OUGHT to be recognized as great cult films but which unaccountably aren’t. Here’s a short list (undoubtably, I am leaving things out, but here are some that come to mind immediately, in addition to Cox’s Revengers Tragedy). These are all astonishing films which almost nobody has seen, and which have yet to get anything like the recognition they deserve; not even the underground following of, say, Richard Kelly’s brilliant Donnie Darko.
Alex Cox is mostly known for just one film, his first, Repo Man. But in fact, he has been making superb, innovative films for two decades now, mostly outside Hollywood, and without access to Hollywood funding. Many of his films are not well distributed and hard to see, but among the ones I’ve seen, I certainly think that Sid and Nancy, Walker, and El Patrullero, at the very least, are major works. To their number can now be added Cox’s latest work, Revengers Tragedy. This film is a contemporary staging – set in grimy Liverpool – of the Jacobean play of that name by Thomas Middleton. Murder, rape, incest, fratricide, revenge, venality, corruption, and grotesquerie (poisoned skulls!) are the order of the day; Middleton’s vision translates well to a contemporary world of grimy slums and fashionable clubs. Cox’s direction is always visually inventive, with fluid camera movement, odd framings, and unexpected cuts and inserts. The soundtrack is mostly pounding dance music, together with a wide variety of modes of speech, from Middleton’s blank verse to British working-class slang to the formal, standardized language of media and political pronouncements. The film as a whole is both kaleidoscopic and subtle, and it really does manage to convey the tone of the play, at once grimly nihilistic and absurd.
Alex Cox is mostly known for just one film, his first, Repo Man. But in fact, he has been making superb, innovative films for two decades now, mostly outside Hollywood, and without access to Hollywood funding. Many of his films are not well distributed and hard to see, but among the ones I’ve seen, I certainly think that Sid and Nancy, Walker, and El Patrullero, at the very least, are major works. To their number can now be added Cox’s latest work, Revengers Tragedy. This film is a contemporary (or rather, near-future) staging – set in a postapocalyptic, grimy Liverpool – of the Jacobean play of that name by Thomas Middleton. Murder, rape, incest, fratricide, suicide, revenge, venality, corruption, and grotesquerie (poisoned skulls!) are the order of the day; Middleton’s vision translates well to a contemporary world of grimy slums and fashionable clubs. Cox’s direction is always visually inventive, with fluid camera movement, odd framings, and unexpected cuts and inserts. The soundtrack is mostly pounding dance music, together with a wide variety of modes of speech, from Middleton’s blank verse to British working-class slang to the formal, standardized language of media and political pronouncements. The film as a whole is both kaleidoscopic and subtle, and it really does manage to convey the tone of the play, at once grimly nihilistic and absurd.
I finally got to see The Wicker Man, a British cult film from 1973 with a checkered release history, which was quite difficult to see until it was finally released (in cut form) on video and DVD in 2001. It’s a clever and effective ultra-low-budget horror thriller about a Scottish island where the inhabitants observe the old pagan customs, up to and including human sacrifice to propitiate the gods after a poor harvest. The protagonist is an uptight cop from the mainland, a devout Christian, who comes to investigate the alleged disappearance of a young girl, and is shocked and scandalized by the islanders’ sinful ways. The mood could be described as low-key delirious, with scenes ranging from hilariously kitschy (especially Biritt Eklund’s nude dance scene!) to genuinely creepy, to…. I’m not quite sure what to call Christopher Lee’s amazingly weird performance as Laird of the island and leader of the pagan cult: it’s sort of low-key demented and blandly cheerful at once. There are lots of other eccentric performances, and though the culminating Mayday pagan ceremony is a bit lethargic, the final plot twist is well staged and delightfully perverse. All in all, I was glad to finally see this film.
I finally got to see The Wicker Man, a British cult film from 1973 with a checkered release history, which was quite difficult to see until it was finally released (in cut form) on video and DVD in 2001. It’s a clever and effective ultra-low-budget horror thriller about a Scottish island where the inhabitants observe the old pagan customs, up to and including human sacrifice to propitiate the gods after a poor harvest. The protagonist is an uptight cop from the mainland, a devout Christian, who comes to investigate the alleged disappearance of a young girl, and is shocked and scandalized by the islanders’ sinful ways. The mood could be described as low-key delirious, with scenes ranging from hilariously kitschy (especially Biritt Eklund’s nude dance scene!) to genuinely creepy, to…. I’m not quite sure what to call Christopher Lee’s amazingly weird performance as Laird of the island and leader of the pagan cult: it’s sort of low-key demented and blandly cheerful at once. There are lots of other eccentric performances, and though the culminating Mayday pagan ceremony is a bit lethargic, the final plot twist is well staged and delightfully perverse. All in all, I was glad to finally see this film.