I am blown away.
I don't usually walk away from a movie pondering if anybody else could do what I've just seen, but Mrs. Speculator and I spent the whole trip home wondering if there were any current bands with the catalog, the showmanship...the presence to accomplish what we got to see this afternoon.
Everything comes together perfectly in this movie. First, there's the technology: not only is the film in IMAX, it's IMAX 3-D. It's so life-like, at one point I wanted to ask the person in front of me to stop raising her hands until I realized it was someone in the audience at the concert. It's so big and so vividly shot, you really do feel like you are at the show.
Second is the band. I have to admit to not being a big U2 fan. I have some of their albums and I know a lot of the songs, but I had never seen a show before. They put on a hell of a show. Bono remains full-voiced and exubverant, adn there is something of an actor in him as he pleads with the audience to sing or cheer or to feel what his songs express. The Edge is an awesome guitarist, and I never realized how strong a bassist Adam Clayton is. But with 40 speakers in the theatre all working together, I heard things I had not heard before, let alone seeing them. And their catalog of anthemic rock, including some ballads as well as thumpers is perfectly suited to the experience they are trying to create. And they can afford the best crew as well; the show they perform is just amazing, brought together by years of experience together.
Finally, there is the atmosphere. Shot in many huge arenas, including Buenos Aires, all the fans are passionate about the band and raise the adrenalin level of any potential audience. But unlike a lot of other concert movies, there is nothing here but concert footage--no backstage interviews, no following the band around as they set up. They come on stage and they perform.
Altogether, this movie has ruined live concerts for me forever. I got digital quality 3D visuals and I got digital sound--and I could understand what was being said and sung and played without any distortion whatsoever. I looked around the theatre and I watched people doing what they do in concerts--heads bobbing, bodies swaying; it's a totally immersive experience.
This film is a must-see for any fan of rock music in the last 25 years. And the experience just will not be the same anywhere else than an IMAX.
I am blown away.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Cloverfield
I thought I knew what Iwas in for when I saw Cloverfield. I had read so many comparisons to The Blair Witch Project that I assumed it would be much like that. And while there are some fairly obvious similarities, such as the hand-held camera technique, there are not differences that I was surprised, pleasantly, at the craft used to create Cloverfield.
For instance, the story of The Blair Witch Project, while promising, was just not very good. I understand the background of the story, but I never reached a place in the movie where that story moved me to fear. I never understood what it was that so scared the characters...rocks moved, tents shook. That might be enough to make me nervous, but not as terrified as they made themselves out to be. On the other hand, the reason to be scared in Cloverfield is very clear, from the moment that the building shakes and all the lights go out. Unlike Blair Witch in which we never see the antagonist (if infact there really is any), we are offered fleeting glimpses of the creature in Cloverfield, enough to hint at its size and scope, always enough to make it more terrible and ironically, making the viewer want to see more even as we watch New York City being destroyed.
Another big difference between the two films is that, as I understand it, a lot of Blair Witch was improvisation by some not very talented actors. I never felt what they felt, nor truly understood wat they were feeling. But the young actors in Cloverfield are generally pretty good, even (or perhaps especially) T. J. Miller, who plays the devoted but dense camera-man, Hud. We barely ever see Hud, but he begins as a constant narrator and then just becomes the unseen actor in the story as he takes his camera around New York City. Sometimes his commentary is a little expository ("What is that?" happens a few more times than I might like) but given that he is set up to be a loyal sidekick in the flight through the city, he plays his role especially well.
Also like Blair Witch, it should be very clear where Cloverfield is going to end from its first few frames. Nonetheless, the story is engaging as it winds down, a remarkable show of the power of media in the current state of our culture. There are moments when the characters find out more about what is going on just a few blocks from them by watching TV. When the famous scene from the commercials occurs, featuring the head of the Statue of Liberty coming to rest in our camera's viewfinder, right after that head is surrounded by people taking pictures with their cell phones, oblivious to what dangers might be around them. And for those moments, it felt that much more true.
But one of the weaknesses of the film is the back story of the characters. I felt like it spent too much time establishing the purpose everyone had for coming together for a party in the first place and then spent a lot of time introducing the characters and creating crisis. Ultimately, the events that surround a giant monster attacking New York City generally blanches away the personalities of the characters because there is very little nuance of choice--fight or flee. I felt that this part could have been far more generic boy has party, has a fight with girlfriend, girlfriend leaves and is trapped by rampaging monster. We didn't need to know that Rob (played by Michael Stahl-David) is leaving the next day for Japan or that most of his adult life has been spent in unrequited love for Beth (Odette Yustman). The unrequited feelings Hud has for Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) does add some texture to the rest of their interactions and some humor when things appear most bleak, but the rest of the emotions are easily described without all the set-up.
And after the monster strikes, things mostly follow the generic monster movie script. Run from the monster, find your path out blocked, run back and then do your darnedest to save the girlfriend who has had the bad luck to be trapped in a building partially destroyed by the monster. There are some resoundingly strong moments, like when Rob gets a phone call and has to tell the caller that a loved one has died. And Hud, while sometimes the voice of idiocy ("What time is 0600?") is also the voice of normalcy. When faced with a ridiculously daunting task, he responds "You do it. I'll just document." It's a funny moment, made more humorous by its reality.
And given the nature of what the movie purports to be, there are many questions left unanswered. We never really get a clear picture of what the monster looks like, seeing it only as it moves between buildings or as it is under fire, shrouded by smoke and steam. The cameraman is always running when the monster is near, and even when they watch telecasts of the monster, it is hidden by the cityscape. The purpose of the parasites the monster carries is completely unclear as well, but they offer a more human-level threat and a chance for the filmmakers to throw in a winking reference to otehr great monster movies (like Alien and Pitch Black). But again, none of these are what the movie is about--it's about the human response to tragedy of outrageous scope.
I think this is a fascinating idea and a real challenge to the tenets of movie-making, though not necessarily story-telling. I would love to see similar movies about what other people on the streets saw that night, or failing that, a nice comic anthology with those stories would be interesting. A lot of noise was made about the viral advertising for the movie (which I must have completely missed--I didn't see a special documentary nor any web sites), put a post-movie web site containing some of the pictures other people had taken that night would be fascinating as well.
Finally, this is a good movie, not necessarily living up to its hype but sliding away from it, becoming something more than the generic monster movie which appeared to have all the fanboys up in arms. It's also going to take some additional viewings to see everything. As the final credits rolled by, they mentioned stills from Them and The Beast from 20000 Fathoms. I'd like to see where those appeared in the movie, but until I do they serve as a reminder that the makers of this movie know the tradition they are coming from and, I believe, push it artfully in a direction rarely explored. Unfortunately, I don't think this kind of movie can be made again without being in the same world without appearing derivative. But when it's out on DVD, I know many people will be using their pause function to look at individual images that much more clearly.
For instance, the story of The Blair Witch Project, while promising, was just not very good. I understand the background of the story, but I never reached a place in the movie where that story moved me to fear. I never understood what it was that so scared the characters...rocks moved, tents shook. That might be enough to make me nervous, but not as terrified as they made themselves out to be. On the other hand, the reason to be scared in Cloverfield is very clear, from the moment that the building shakes and all the lights go out. Unlike Blair Witch in which we never see the antagonist (if infact there really is any), we are offered fleeting glimpses of the creature in Cloverfield, enough to hint at its size and scope, always enough to make it more terrible and ironically, making the viewer want to see more even as we watch New York City being destroyed.
Another big difference between the two films is that, as I understand it, a lot of Blair Witch was improvisation by some not very talented actors. I never felt what they felt, nor truly understood wat they were feeling. But the young actors in Cloverfield are generally pretty good, even (or perhaps especially) T. J. Miller, who plays the devoted but dense camera-man, Hud. We barely ever see Hud, but he begins as a constant narrator and then just becomes the unseen actor in the story as he takes his camera around New York City. Sometimes his commentary is a little expository ("What is that?" happens a few more times than I might like) but given that he is set up to be a loyal sidekick in the flight through the city, he plays his role especially well.
Also like Blair Witch, it should be very clear where Cloverfield is going to end from its first few frames. Nonetheless, the story is engaging as it winds down, a remarkable show of the power of media in the current state of our culture. There are moments when the characters find out more about what is going on just a few blocks from them by watching TV. When the famous scene from the commercials occurs, featuring the head of the Statue of Liberty coming to rest in our camera's viewfinder, right after that head is surrounded by people taking pictures with their cell phones, oblivious to what dangers might be around them. And for those moments, it felt that much more true.
But one of the weaknesses of the film is the back story of the characters. I felt like it spent too much time establishing the purpose everyone had for coming together for a party in the first place and then spent a lot of time introducing the characters and creating crisis. Ultimately, the events that surround a giant monster attacking New York City generally blanches away the personalities of the characters because there is very little nuance of choice--fight or flee. I felt that this part could have been far more generic boy has party, has a fight with girlfriend, girlfriend leaves and is trapped by rampaging monster. We didn't need to know that Rob (played by Michael Stahl-David) is leaving the next day for Japan or that most of his adult life has been spent in unrequited love for Beth (Odette Yustman). The unrequited feelings Hud has for Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) does add some texture to the rest of their interactions and some humor when things appear most bleak, but the rest of the emotions are easily described without all the set-up.
And after the monster strikes, things mostly follow the generic monster movie script. Run from the monster, find your path out blocked, run back and then do your darnedest to save the girlfriend who has had the bad luck to be trapped in a building partially destroyed by the monster. There are some resoundingly strong moments, like when Rob gets a phone call and has to tell the caller that a loved one has died. And Hud, while sometimes the voice of idiocy ("What time is 0600?") is also the voice of normalcy. When faced with a ridiculously daunting task, he responds "You do it. I'll just document." It's a funny moment, made more humorous by its reality.
And given the nature of what the movie purports to be, there are many questions left unanswered. We never really get a clear picture of what the monster looks like, seeing it only as it moves between buildings or as it is under fire, shrouded by smoke and steam. The cameraman is always running when the monster is near, and even when they watch telecasts of the monster, it is hidden by the cityscape. The purpose of the parasites the monster carries is completely unclear as well, but they offer a more human-level threat and a chance for the filmmakers to throw in a winking reference to otehr great monster movies (like Alien and Pitch Black). But again, none of these are what the movie is about--it's about the human response to tragedy of outrageous scope.
I think this is a fascinating idea and a real challenge to the tenets of movie-making, though not necessarily story-telling. I would love to see similar movies about what other people on the streets saw that night, or failing that, a nice comic anthology with those stories would be interesting. A lot of noise was made about the viral advertising for the movie (which I must have completely missed--I didn't see a special documentary nor any web sites), put a post-movie web site containing some of the pictures other people had taken that night would be fascinating as well.
Finally, this is a good movie, not necessarily living up to its hype but sliding away from it, becoming something more than the generic monster movie which appeared to have all the fanboys up in arms. It's also going to take some additional viewings to see everything. As the final credits rolled by, they mentioned stills from Them and The Beast from 20000 Fathoms. I'd like to see where those appeared in the movie, but until I do they serve as a reminder that the makers of this movie know the tradition they are coming from and, I believe, push it artfully in a direction rarely explored. Unfortunately, I don't think this kind of movie can be made again without being in the same world without appearing derivative. But when it's out on DVD, I know many people will be using their pause function to look at individual images that much more clearly.
Comics for 23 January
The list this week was bigger than last, but there are fewer things that stand out to me from the stack. Countdown seems to be dragging nearly everything down, and that title itself has become more or less distracted from its multiple storylines, instead relying on associated titles to do some of the heavy lifting. More about that below.
Spoilers ho!
Countdown to Mystery 5 - Something like an anthology series, this title is supposed to introduce the new Dr. Fate and continue the story for Eclipso. But up to now, the stories have been plodding and somewhat uninteresting. There is the mystery of how Dr. Fate's helmet has ended up in the hands of a Dr. Kent Nelson, who it has been revealed is distantly related to the original Dr. Fate's Kent Nelson. And there hsa some interesting bits about Fate learning some of the arcane powers of the helmet. But before this issue came out, there were only four more issues left, and what I would suspect a lot of ground to cover. This issue, Dr. Nelson reads the comic written by a victim of his own inexperience, a young woman named Inza, and the majority of the story takes place in the pages of that comic, entitled Killhead. Every now and again, the story draws back out of that comic as Nelson tries to use his psychiatric skills to learn something about Inza through her craft, but the comic-within-a-comic is more interesting than those attempts. The problem is that it doesn't really advance the story very much, and now we have three issues to ...do what, I'm not sure.
My expectation was that we would at least see the new Dr. Fate in costume and attempting to do good by the end of this series, but I don't believe that is possible at this slow rate. He might just get to resolve his first case, avenging (reversing?) the death of Inza, but that would be somewhat unappealing, if only for the epxectations set up by the publicity of what this was going to be. Meanwhile, the art for his story is lovely, a combination of the work of Tom Derenick and Wayne Faucher. But it doesn't assuage the slow pace of a story in an antholgy with a limited run that is much more suited to an ongoing series. Perhaps that ultimately is the goal--to try out the idea for a new Fate series, but ifit is, the target audience is going to be a small one, with tremendous patience. It would feel more like a Vertigo title than mainstream DC, and thus be forced to the smaller audience and dividing line between "mainstream" and Vertigo DC work.
The other half of the title belongs to Eclipso and her turning of the Creeper, Plastic Man and Dove into eclipsoid villains before Jean Loring loses the Eclipso power. The turned heroes are an interesting story but they are decidedly in the background and I fear the resolution for them will be less than rewarding. Meanwhile, off in another title, Jean Loring has lost the Eclipso power and it has returned to its original owner, Bruce Gordon. He doesn't want it, but the new Spectre attempts to guide him its use so it will not take him over, with mixed results. Of more interest is Gordon's decision not to be a super-hero, but to be a physicist with the power to study his subjecxts that much more closely. His giddy exposition as he circles around a black hole may be worth the price of the comic alone.
Unfortunately, the art for this half of the story is very uneven, and I believe the story is already on its third artist. But it is faster moving and there will appear to be some sort of resolution by the end, somehow placing Eclipso in the pantheon either of heroes or of villains. But this one doesn't feel like it has the potential to be an ongoing story, if the intent is to measure that possibility.
Wonder Woman 16 - Gail Simone's first story arc with the Amazon explores her distant past and the resolution of the changes to Themyscira with interwoven stories. For the past, she asks a very interesting question--if the Amazons were not allowed to reproduce, did all of them celebrate when Hippolyta was allowed to create Diana? The answer is an unmistakable negative, and this story follows the most unhapy of the Amazons'--known as the Circle--as they act on their unhappiness. Currently, however, Themyscira has been invaded by neo-Nazis searching for advanced Amazonian technology and weapons, who unwittingly free the Circle from their prison.
Simone also appears to be working on redemming Hippolyta following the recent ridiculous Amazon invasion. It's unfortunate that such redemption is required, but that mini-series so badly characterized Hippolyta that the repair work going on here and in Countdown should do something to bring Hippolyta back. Simone, as usual, does fine work of interweaving different plot threads, leaving the reader in something like suspense even though you know all of the threasd are going to come together somehow.
It's a fine first story, taking small steps as Simone gets used to the characters in her new playpen. And even though the focus is not clearly on Diana through most of the issue, it does bode well for the future of the series.
Dan Dare 3 - I have to admit I know nothing about this long-running English series, though I am told that Dan Dare is to the Brits what Captain America is to Americans. But I can say that Garth Ennis is writing a rousing space opera, sure to pull in modern audiences. Dan has been called back into service as the dreaded Mekon--a sort of Venusian overlord and long-time arch-nemesis--appears headed to EArth with an invasion fleet from beyond the solar system.
However, the story is taking a long time to build, as the last two issues have been spent on a sidetrack, a planet under attack by other forces that Dan runs into as he leads the Earth fleet out to meet the Mekon's forces. The last issue and Dan'srescue attempts in the face of an invading fleet were enough to convince me this is a real hero--seeing the details in the midst of the big picture. And this issue, where Dan's rescue attempt continues, does give a good opportunity to provide exposition and back-story to the Mekon threat. But we've now spent two issues dealing with a tangential issue to the thrust of the story, and we're going to have spend at least part of another issue. And meanwhile, when there isn't exposition, Dan's forces actually fighting the aliens on the threatened planet are doing nothing new, using tactics from the Roman phalanx and the American Revolution.
Like Countdown to Mystery, if this were an ongoing story, paying an homage to the serialized nature of comic strips, this would be well and good. But this is supposedly a nine-issue mini-series and we're going to be about halfway into it before the supposedly main plot is taken up.
Meanwhile, the art by Gary Erskine is better than average, evincing a nostalgic feel without getting in the way of the story-telling. His lines are clean and compact, and the panels nicely rendered, propelling the story on its way. I really am enjoying this, just mindful of its slow pace and hoping it doesn't interfere with concluding the story as nearly as a serial story can be. Here's hoping for more of Dan Dare, either as more mini-series or as an ongoing.
Spoilers ho!
Countdown to Mystery 5 - Something like an anthology series, this title is supposed to introduce the new Dr. Fate and continue the story for Eclipso. But up to now, the stories have been plodding and somewhat uninteresting. There is the mystery of how Dr. Fate's helmet has ended up in the hands of a Dr. Kent Nelson, who it has been revealed is distantly related to the original Dr. Fate's Kent Nelson. And there hsa some interesting bits about Fate learning some of the arcane powers of the helmet. But before this issue came out, there were only four more issues left, and what I would suspect a lot of ground to cover. This issue, Dr. Nelson reads the comic written by a victim of his own inexperience, a young woman named Inza, and the majority of the story takes place in the pages of that comic, entitled Killhead. Every now and again, the story draws back out of that comic as Nelson tries to use his psychiatric skills to learn something about Inza through her craft, but the comic-within-a-comic is more interesting than those attempts. The problem is that it doesn't really advance the story very much, and now we have three issues to ...do what, I'm not sure.
My expectation was that we would at least see the new Dr. Fate in costume and attempting to do good by the end of this series, but I don't believe that is possible at this slow rate. He might just get to resolve his first case, avenging (reversing?) the death of Inza, but that would be somewhat unappealing, if only for the epxectations set up by the publicity of what this was going to be. Meanwhile, the art for his story is lovely, a combination of the work of Tom Derenick and Wayne Faucher. But it doesn't assuage the slow pace of a story in an antholgy with a limited run that is much more suited to an ongoing series. Perhaps that ultimately is the goal--to try out the idea for a new Fate series, but ifit is, the target audience is going to be a small one, with tremendous patience. It would feel more like a Vertigo title than mainstream DC, and thus be forced to the smaller audience and dividing line between "mainstream" and Vertigo DC work.
The other half of the title belongs to Eclipso and her turning of the Creeper, Plastic Man and Dove into eclipsoid villains before Jean Loring loses the Eclipso power. The turned heroes are an interesting story but they are decidedly in the background and I fear the resolution for them will be less than rewarding. Meanwhile, off in another title, Jean Loring has lost the Eclipso power and it has returned to its original owner, Bruce Gordon. He doesn't want it, but the new Spectre attempts to guide him its use so it will not take him over, with mixed results. Of more interest is Gordon's decision not to be a super-hero, but to be a physicist with the power to study his subjecxts that much more closely. His giddy exposition as he circles around a black hole may be worth the price of the comic alone.
Unfortunately, the art for this half of the story is very uneven, and I believe the story is already on its third artist. But it is faster moving and there will appear to be some sort of resolution by the end, somehow placing Eclipso in the pantheon either of heroes or of villains. But this one doesn't feel like it has the potential to be an ongoing story, if the intent is to measure that possibility.
Wonder Woman 16 - Gail Simone's first story arc with the Amazon explores her distant past and the resolution of the changes to Themyscira with interwoven stories. For the past, she asks a very interesting question--if the Amazons were not allowed to reproduce, did all of them celebrate when Hippolyta was allowed to create Diana? The answer is an unmistakable negative, and this story follows the most unhapy of the Amazons'--known as the Circle--as they act on their unhappiness. Currently, however, Themyscira has been invaded by neo-Nazis searching for advanced Amazonian technology and weapons, who unwittingly free the Circle from their prison.
Simone also appears to be working on redemming Hippolyta following the recent ridiculous Amazon invasion. It's unfortunate that such redemption is required, but that mini-series so badly characterized Hippolyta that the repair work going on here and in Countdown should do something to bring Hippolyta back. Simone, as usual, does fine work of interweaving different plot threads, leaving the reader in something like suspense even though you know all of the threasd are going to come together somehow.
It's a fine first story, taking small steps as Simone gets used to the characters in her new playpen. And even though the focus is not clearly on Diana through most of the issue, it does bode well for the future of the series.
Dan Dare 3 - I have to admit I know nothing about this long-running English series, though I am told that Dan Dare is to the Brits what Captain America is to Americans. But I can say that Garth Ennis is writing a rousing space opera, sure to pull in modern audiences. Dan has been called back into service as the dreaded Mekon--a sort of Venusian overlord and long-time arch-nemesis--appears headed to EArth with an invasion fleet from beyond the solar system.
However, the story is taking a long time to build, as the last two issues have been spent on a sidetrack, a planet under attack by other forces that Dan runs into as he leads the Earth fleet out to meet the Mekon's forces. The last issue and Dan'srescue attempts in the face of an invading fleet were enough to convince me this is a real hero--seeing the details in the midst of the big picture. And this issue, where Dan's rescue attempt continues, does give a good opportunity to provide exposition and back-story to the Mekon threat. But we've now spent two issues dealing with a tangential issue to the thrust of the story, and we're going to have spend at least part of another issue. And meanwhile, when there isn't exposition, Dan's forces actually fighting the aliens on the threatened planet are doing nothing new, using tactics from the Roman phalanx and the American Revolution.
Like Countdown to Mystery, if this were an ongoing story, paying an homage to the serialized nature of comic strips, this would be well and good. But this is supposedly a nine-issue mini-series and we're going to be about halfway into it before the supposedly main plot is taken up.
Meanwhile, the art by Gary Erskine is better than average, evincing a nostalgic feel without getting in the way of the story-telling. His lines are clean and compact, and the panels nicely rendered, propelling the story on its way. I really am enjoying this, just mindful of its slow pace and hoping it doesn't interfere with concluding the story as nearly as a serial story can be. Here's hoping for more of Dan Dare, either as more mini-series or as an ongoing.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Against a Dark Background
I first read Against a Dark Background in the early 90s and remember being completely blown away by it. And so as I re-read the novel in a fit of nostalgia, there was an interesting dialogue in my head regarding what about it had so captivated me at its first reading. Ironically, there was not so much captivation this time around, which is not to say that Against a Dark Background is not a good book. Instead, I think the last 15 years have changed the reader a great deal.
I can see the elements that did fire my imagination at the first reading. For instance, there is the nonchalance with which Banks writes. The reader is thrown into a mysterious alien world (though populated in most part by humans) and little explanation is given to the setting. Some historical background is provided, but even that is somewhat obscured by allusions to a shared history that the reader is assumed to have. Names and references are tossed about in description and action as though the reader is native to the world and time, which has the effect of completely immersing the reader. Banks practices it in broad strokes, only moving away from it to describe the world-plant of Miykenns. In fact, I was so thrilled with my first reading that I didn’t miss this parting of the veil, and now the fairly standard narrative technique which resorts to exposition in the Miykenns passages really stands out compared to the rest of the book. When I first read this novel, it was most likely the first time I had come across this type of narration. Evidence that I appreciated it is in the list of my favorite writers of the moment, most of whom have practiced this style somewhere in their writing. Reading Background a second time, I appreciate it but am not awed at it as I was when I was first exposed to it.
Another element that I more deeply appreciate is the picaresque, wandering nature of the plot itself. Banks teases the reader with the idea that this is going to be something like the classic fantasy pattern: recover the artifact and save the princess. And much like those fantasies, the process of finding and retrieving the artifact is never so easy as it appears when it is laid out in such a linear fashion. And in this case, Lady Sharrow and her team move throughout a solar system in order to pick up the clues necessary for them to recover the sole remaining Lazy Gun. Even here, Banks plays with the trope of the magical weapon: the Lazy Gun is an artifact of an unknown type, an apparently sentient weapon capable of destroying whatever it is pointed at while deploying a very sarcastic sense of humor. Aim it at a person, and perhaps an anvil will fall out of the sky on their head, or an animated set of jaws will snap through the victim’s neck before disappearing. Aim it at a ship, and perhaps the ship will suddenly find itself torpedoed or swept away by an unexpected tsunami. Attempts to discover the nature of other Lazy Guns have ended up with the destruction of cities, so its exact nature can never be known.
At any rate, the novel appears to wander as the quest is followed. This appearance is enhanced by the narrative style—maybe the team really is traveling in a straight line, but if we don’t know the names of the cities or have a map of the world, we can never really know. This really was the first time I can remember reading a quest being so creatively deconstructed, such that later different deconstructions of the fantasy genre feel more natural to me and are no surprise.
One element I may not have noticed so much when I first read the novel is the powerful physical descriptions that Banks provides. There is little in the way of internal dialogue in Background, so the novel is made up action, dialogue, or description—and of those, only description gives a writer a lot of space to play with the language: “A cold, keen wind cut out of a sky the color of verdigris. The sun dangled like a hopeless bauble dispensing thin amounts of light. Leeward, the dark train of a departing storm trailed its snowy skirts high into the swiveling tides of light.” Banks has powerful evocative moments like this scattered throughout Background, and I suspect that my reading and own writing helps me to see those moments more clearly than I would have fifteen years ago.
Against a Dark Background really shook me up when I first read it, opening my eyes to a different, more modern kind of writing. Since then, its power has been eclipsed by other even better books, including a few from the same author. But like returning home after many years, re-reading Background has provided me with the opportunity to see my own roots with a less biased view. And while I recognize it, warts and all, I also recognize that it’s still a good solid book, a precursor and perhaps forerunner of the good speculative fiction I have enjoyed reading in the fifteen years since.
I can see the elements that did fire my imagination at the first reading. For instance, there is the nonchalance with which Banks writes. The reader is thrown into a mysterious alien world (though populated in most part by humans) and little explanation is given to the setting. Some historical background is provided, but even that is somewhat obscured by allusions to a shared history that the reader is assumed to have. Names and references are tossed about in description and action as though the reader is native to the world and time, which has the effect of completely immersing the reader. Banks practices it in broad strokes, only moving away from it to describe the world-plant of Miykenns. In fact, I was so thrilled with my first reading that I didn’t miss this parting of the veil, and now the fairly standard narrative technique which resorts to exposition in the Miykenns passages really stands out compared to the rest of the book. When I first read this novel, it was most likely the first time I had come across this type of narration. Evidence that I appreciated it is in the list of my favorite writers of the moment, most of whom have practiced this style somewhere in their writing. Reading Background a second time, I appreciate it but am not awed at it as I was when I was first exposed to it.
Another element that I more deeply appreciate is the picaresque, wandering nature of the plot itself. Banks teases the reader with the idea that this is going to be something like the classic fantasy pattern: recover the artifact and save the princess. And much like those fantasies, the process of finding and retrieving the artifact is never so easy as it appears when it is laid out in such a linear fashion. And in this case, Lady Sharrow and her team move throughout a solar system in order to pick up the clues necessary for them to recover the sole remaining Lazy Gun. Even here, Banks plays with the trope of the magical weapon: the Lazy Gun is an artifact of an unknown type, an apparently sentient weapon capable of destroying whatever it is pointed at while deploying a very sarcastic sense of humor. Aim it at a person, and perhaps an anvil will fall out of the sky on their head, or an animated set of jaws will snap through the victim’s neck before disappearing. Aim it at a ship, and perhaps the ship will suddenly find itself torpedoed or swept away by an unexpected tsunami. Attempts to discover the nature of other Lazy Guns have ended up with the destruction of cities, so its exact nature can never be known.
At any rate, the novel appears to wander as the quest is followed. This appearance is enhanced by the narrative style—maybe the team really is traveling in a straight line, but if we don’t know the names of the cities or have a map of the world, we can never really know. This really was the first time I can remember reading a quest being so creatively deconstructed, such that later different deconstructions of the fantasy genre feel more natural to me and are no surprise.
One element I may not have noticed so much when I first read the novel is the powerful physical descriptions that Banks provides. There is little in the way of internal dialogue in Background, so the novel is made up action, dialogue, or description—and of those, only description gives a writer a lot of space to play with the language: “A cold, keen wind cut out of a sky the color of verdigris. The sun dangled like a hopeless bauble dispensing thin amounts of light. Leeward, the dark train of a departing storm trailed its snowy skirts high into the swiveling tides of light.” Banks has powerful evocative moments like this scattered throughout Background, and I suspect that my reading and own writing helps me to see those moments more clearly than I would have fifteen years ago.
Against a Dark Background really shook me up when I first read it, opening my eyes to a different, more modern kind of writing. Since then, its power has been eclipsed by other even better books, including a few from the same author. But like returning home after many years, re-reading Background has provided me with the opportunity to see my own roots with a less biased view. And while I recognize it, warts and all, I also recognize that it’s still a good solid book, a precursor and perhaps forerunner of the good speculative fiction I have enjoyed reading in the fifteen years since.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Comics for 16 January
The pull-list was short this week, so the selection is a little smaller....
Spoilers ho!
Checkmate 22 - This issue completes the origin of Mademoiselle Marie, with a nice movement back and forth from past to present. The writign is excellent, and Marie is a much more interesting character now that her backstory has been filled in. The idea of a national French heroine who is a member of a secret organization made of only two people at a time is ingenious, adn this issue nicely fills out the 20th-century portion of her origin. At the same time, the current Mademoiselle Marie works to end a hostage crisis in the Mideast, and we get to see what the character is capable of. There are personal touches throughout, adn the portrayal of the "swearing in" ceremony is very nicely paced and drawn.
As a side story, we see who may become the newest White Queen's Knight. We haven't seen enough of Rocket Red in the last few years, and if I had put some thought into it, his inclusion in the international family of Checkmate would have been obvious.
Birds of Prey 114 - I have to admit I was nervous about anyone but Gail Simone writing this title, and I knew very little about Sean McKeever. But so far, his run has been good, not yet living up to the standards Simone set. This issue concentrates on an old villain coming back to harrass Lady Blackhawk, and she appears to be rapidly taking over the focus of the series. Oracle is reeling from the lecture she received from Superman between issues, taking it out both on her operatives and Misfit, who she begins to train.
The segments written from Misfit's point-of-view are the best, accurately catching the emotional turmoil of a teen, especially a teen superhero being trained by an unhappy taskmaster. And while the reader has some idea of why Oracle is acting the way she is, watching the distress it puts Misfit through from Misfit's eyes is some nice characterization. The last page promises the return of a recurring character thatprobably should have been a member a long time ago, but this issue points out that there may not be a female hero in the DC Universe who has not been recruited by Oracle. Even some female not-quite-heroes.
The one constant is Nicola Scott's continuing strong pencils. At this point, I think I can safely say the comic's appearance and voice rely a great deal on her solid talents. If she ever gets away, the continuity will be lost and what small changes McKeever makes in the characters will become magnified. Right now, it feels like a fairly smooth changing of the guard with a minor change in emphasis. Birds of Prey remains one of the best reads in the DC Universe.
Booster Gold 6 - Speaking of which. After the last issue, Rip Hunter thinks he has taught Booster that most of the past is immutable, except where it is broken. That is, until three Blue Beetles show up at his doorstep ahd demand Booster's help in rescuing Ted Kord. Of course, this is what Booster has claimed he wanted all along if he had time travel powers.
The writers, Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz, create a nice synergy between Blue Beetles past, present, and future, and of course, since we know so very little about future Blue Beetle, something about him seems more than a little sinister. But by the end of the issue, Ted Kord is safely alive and teamed up with Booster; together they will fight to correct the timestream and no one will know of their heroism. The pay-off is a little blah given its build-up; they don't tell Ted Kord that he actually died in another timestream. And Booster seems very calm in the face of achieving his personal goal. Of course, Rip is put out and summons Booster's ancestor to try to help fix things, so even though this is the last issue in the story arc, it is not at all clear that the story of Beetle and Booster is over.
Also of note is the solicitation for the next issue, as the team goes back to Zero Hour, and the issue will actually be #0. As good as this comic generally is, I don't think that they can fix the horror associated with Zero Hour (that is, horror from the readers...). But I look forward to the attempt.
Robin 170 - He's baaaaack. Chuck Dixon returns as writer to the series he wrote for so very long. And you know what? It feels right. I didn't notice how strained the storytelling was in past issues until Dixon took over and it's not so strained any more. With him, Dixon brings back recurring background character Ives, so that there is more tying TIm's old life to his new life. Somewhere along the way Tim and Zo got things worked out and there seems to be a relationship forming there. Zo is forgiving, much in the way Lois Lane was before she found out Clark Kent's secret--her boyfriend is a bit of a space cadet, but the times that he is attentive are very good times indeed.
Dixon also brings a new character with him, a woman con artist, robbing from villains before the money can be dispersed. She dresses in purple, which of course puts Tim in mind of Spoiler/Stephanie Brown. So when he fights her, as he must even if they become some sort of partners eventually, he is often a little behind. It is no help that she appears to be a formidable opponent in her own right. This looks promising, and welcome back Chuck Dixon--thanks for levelling out the keel. Just please please don't make this character a Stephanie Brown from an alternate timestream or another Earth....
Spoilers ho!
Checkmate 22 - This issue completes the origin of Mademoiselle Marie, with a nice movement back and forth from past to present. The writign is excellent, and Marie is a much more interesting character now that her backstory has been filled in. The idea of a national French heroine who is a member of a secret organization made of only two people at a time is ingenious, adn this issue nicely fills out the 20th-century portion of her origin. At the same time, the current Mademoiselle Marie works to end a hostage crisis in the Mideast, and we get to see what the character is capable of. There are personal touches throughout, adn the portrayal of the "swearing in" ceremony is very nicely paced and drawn.
As a side story, we see who may become the newest White Queen's Knight. We haven't seen enough of Rocket Red in the last few years, and if I had put some thought into it, his inclusion in the international family of Checkmate would have been obvious.
Birds of Prey 114 - I have to admit I was nervous about anyone but Gail Simone writing this title, and I knew very little about Sean McKeever. But so far, his run has been good, not yet living up to the standards Simone set. This issue concentrates on an old villain coming back to harrass Lady Blackhawk, and she appears to be rapidly taking over the focus of the series. Oracle is reeling from the lecture she received from Superman between issues, taking it out both on her operatives and Misfit, who she begins to train.
The segments written from Misfit's point-of-view are the best, accurately catching the emotional turmoil of a teen, especially a teen superhero being trained by an unhappy taskmaster. And while the reader has some idea of why Oracle is acting the way she is, watching the distress it puts Misfit through from Misfit's eyes is some nice characterization. The last page promises the return of a recurring character thatprobably should have been a member a long time ago, but this issue points out that there may not be a female hero in the DC Universe who has not been recruited by Oracle. Even some female not-quite-heroes.
The one constant is Nicola Scott's continuing strong pencils. At this point, I think I can safely say the comic's appearance and voice rely a great deal on her solid talents. If she ever gets away, the continuity will be lost and what small changes McKeever makes in the characters will become magnified. Right now, it feels like a fairly smooth changing of the guard with a minor change in emphasis. Birds of Prey remains one of the best reads in the DC Universe.
Booster Gold 6 - Speaking of which. After the last issue, Rip Hunter thinks he has taught Booster that most of the past is immutable, except where it is broken. That is, until three Blue Beetles show up at his doorstep ahd demand Booster's help in rescuing Ted Kord. Of course, this is what Booster has claimed he wanted all along if he had time travel powers.
The writers, Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz, create a nice synergy between Blue Beetles past, present, and future, and of course, since we know so very little about future Blue Beetle, something about him seems more than a little sinister. But by the end of the issue, Ted Kord is safely alive and teamed up with Booster; together they will fight to correct the timestream and no one will know of their heroism. The pay-off is a little blah given its build-up; they don't tell Ted Kord that he actually died in another timestream. And Booster seems very calm in the face of achieving his personal goal. Of course, Rip is put out and summons Booster's ancestor to try to help fix things, so even though this is the last issue in the story arc, it is not at all clear that the story of Beetle and Booster is over.
Also of note is the solicitation for the next issue, as the team goes back to Zero Hour, and the issue will actually be #0. As good as this comic generally is, I don't think that they can fix the horror associated with Zero Hour (that is, horror from the readers...). But I look forward to the attempt.
Robin 170 - He's baaaaack. Chuck Dixon returns as writer to the series he wrote for so very long. And you know what? It feels right. I didn't notice how strained the storytelling was in past issues until Dixon took over and it's not so strained any more. With him, Dixon brings back recurring background character Ives, so that there is more tying TIm's old life to his new life. Somewhere along the way Tim and Zo got things worked out and there seems to be a relationship forming there. Zo is forgiving, much in the way Lois Lane was before she found out Clark Kent's secret--her boyfriend is a bit of a space cadet, but the times that he is attentive are very good times indeed.
Dixon also brings a new character with him, a woman con artist, robbing from villains before the money can be dispersed. She dresses in purple, which of course puts Tim in mind of Spoiler/Stephanie Brown. So when he fights her, as he must even if they become some sort of partners eventually, he is often a little behind. It is no help that she appears to be a formidable opponent in her own right. This looks promising, and welcome back Chuck Dixon--thanks for levelling out the keel. Just please please don't make this character a Stephanie Brown from an alternate timestream or another Earth....
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Comics for 9 January
I was travelling to see the in-laws last weekend, so I didn't get to pick up the comics for the first week of January until this week. I'm not sure which week some of these titles were supposed to come out with (one of them has DC's Thanksgiving editorial in the back), so I'm just treating them all as if they came out this week.
Spoilers ho!
Green Arrow and Black Canary 3 -- So, last month Connor gets shot while the Arrow family is trying to leave Themiscyra. This issue begins with the efforts to get him help. Ollie invokes the name of "Clark" and Superman comes flying in to carry Connor off to a hospital. The rest of the issue is centered on the waiting room, as Ollie goes back and forth between begging his friends for help and berating them for not helping fast enough. His venom is especially sharp for Hal Jordan. In some ways this feels real: this is how a man reacts when his child has been injured. And of course, Ollie soon begins a monologue about how he was a such a bad father in the first place, ending up as these scenes usually do, with someone pointing out that Connor knew about Ollie's faults and loves him anyway. This is all fairly routine stuff.
But them Hal comes out of the surgery to tell Ollie that first, all of Connor's injuries have been healed, but secondly that the bullet was laced with toxin and Connor is brain-dead. Of course, Ollie goes to be at his son's side in an emotion-filled scene we don't usually get from him.
The results of the shooting feel like a cop-out to me. Writer Judd Winick couldn't decide to keep Connor alive or not, so he postponed the decision and thus used the most cliche of all the soap opera tropes. Now, at any point the writers want, Connor can awaken in some sort of deus ex machina scene. It also clumsily sets up all sorts of possible directions, and the writer will always have the trump card of bringing Connor back without much repercussion. At least in stories like the recent "One More Day" in Spider-man, the creative team took a position in their story-telling. It may not be a well-received position, but they commited themselves and the characters to it, at least for a little while. But Winick didn't even do that and the rest of the series hangs in limbo as a result.
Cliff Chiang's art was pretty good, but it couldn't save this issue from the trap it laid for itself.
Detective 840 -- After the resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, the newly reborn would-be world conqueror has decided to set up his base of operations in Gotham, because he has decided that Batman should no longer be treated with benign neglect. Because Batman thwarted Al Ghul's original plan, Al Ghul has decided to take the battle to Batman on his home turf. It seems, however, that Al Ghul did not count on the newly re-energized Batman, who now feels as if he has a family that he will defend at nearly any cost.
The bulk of this issue is the fairly standard bluster between the two of Batman and Ra's Al Ghul, but it is where the comic ends up that takes the title to places we've not seen before. After Batman defeats him, he manages to get Al Ghul a new identity and then commited to Gotham, where Batman has further arranged a prescription that "guarantees slurred speech and next to zero mobility." In other words, Batman has trapped Ra's in his own mind, in Arkham, with apparently no ability to get free. However, it leads to some fascinating questions, such as why the same prescription couldn't be given to the Joker? And given the reaction of his friends to his past machinations, what would they, especially Superman, think of this?
I'll ride along on this because Paul Dini is writing it, and I'm pretty sure he's got a plan, but it's pretty clear this situation is not tenable. A lot of time was spent to bring Ra's back from the dead, and it seems really unlikely that he was brought back just so he could be incarcerated permanently. This issue stretches my credulity a good bit, but I'll hang in with Dini....
Wonder Girl 5 -- Cassie and her friends take on the Female Furies and Hercules. The whole issue is one long fight, with a little interesting repartee between former members of Young Justice Empress and Arrowette. That's nearly all there is of interest, except at the very end, the God Killer, the person responsible for the deaths of the New Gods, shows up to pick off the Female Furies while they are distracted. There is only one issue of this mini-series left, and unless the identity of the God Killer is revealed in 52 or Death of the New Gods, that last issue will reveal a major player in the last 9 months of DC continuity. That's the way to bury an important piece in an otherwise totallyt forgettable mini-series....
The Spirit 12 -- This is the last of Darwyn Cooke's issues. In the past I have complained about how I didn't feel this title was reaching its potential, but it appears that Cooke was saving the best for last. In short, he nails it, crafting a brilliant noir story that actually uses The Spirit as the narrator and protagonist, rather than the run of issues where he is either a witness or a victim.
The issue reveals the backstory between Denny Colt and Sand Saref, his lost love in some deftly handled flashback, while The Spirit rushes to stop or save Sand. The emotional impact of their shared childhood and forced separation, and the causes for that separation are wonderfully handled. And at last, I feel some of the winsome grief that underlies a lot of the dark humor of the original Spirit. There is that dark humor here as well, though not much of it, as Cooke seems to have gone to the opposite extreme from the issues that are almost all goofiness.
This is what The Spirit should have always been, and it saddens me that it is the last we'll see of Cooke's work. If you can only read one of his issues. this is the one to pick up.
Simon Dark 4 -- Steve Niles and Scott Hampton continue to do brilliant work on this series. It still has much more of a Vertigo feel than DC, and I pray that we don't have any huge crossovers with "mainstream" DC. In this issue, the cast of support characters begin interacting more, alternately pulling back the sheets on some things that need revealing and creating solid relationships between those characters. The main character himsef, Simon, only appears in the background of a few panels of this issue, as those that know him or know of him begin to share their feelings and theories about him. Simon does take center stage in the last panel, in a heart-rendingly sad scene that just deepends the mystery about him.
Hampton's art is fantastic as well. His painting is nuanced and doesn't appear remotely hurried. Faces show character and emotion that complement the ongoing story and overall this is someof the best aret going in a book anywhere right now.
Here's hoping that this book finds an audience because it needs to have a long life. I anticipate this book every month and it has yet to let me down.
Spoilers ho!
Green Arrow and Black Canary 3 -- So, last month Connor gets shot while the Arrow family is trying to leave Themiscyra. This issue begins with the efforts to get him help. Ollie invokes the name of "Clark" and Superman comes flying in to carry Connor off to a hospital. The rest of the issue is centered on the waiting room, as Ollie goes back and forth between begging his friends for help and berating them for not helping fast enough. His venom is especially sharp for Hal Jordan. In some ways this feels real: this is how a man reacts when his child has been injured. And of course, Ollie soon begins a monologue about how he was a such a bad father in the first place, ending up as these scenes usually do, with someone pointing out that Connor knew about Ollie's faults and loves him anyway. This is all fairly routine stuff.
But them Hal comes out of the surgery to tell Ollie that first, all of Connor's injuries have been healed, but secondly that the bullet was laced with toxin and Connor is brain-dead. Of course, Ollie goes to be at his son's side in an emotion-filled scene we don't usually get from him.
The results of the shooting feel like a cop-out to me. Writer Judd Winick couldn't decide to keep Connor alive or not, so he postponed the decision and thus used the most cliche of all the soap opera tropes. Now, at any point the writers want, Connor can awaken in some sort of deus ex machina scene. It also clumsily sets up all sorts of possible directions, and the writer will always have the trump card of bringing Connor back without much repercussion. At least in stories like the recent "One More Day" in Spider-man, the creative team took a position in their story-telling. It may not be a well-received position, but they commited themselves and the characters to it, at least for a little while. But Winick didn't even do that and the rest of the series hangs in limbo as a result.
Cliff Chiang's art was pretty good, but it couldn't save this issue from the trap it laid for itself.
Detective 840 -- After the resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, the newly reborn would-be world conqueror has decided to set up his base of operations in Gotham, because he has decided that Batman should no longer be treated with benign neglect. Because Batman thwarted Al Ghul's original plan, Al Ghul has decided to take the battle to Batman on his home turf. It seems, however, that Al Ghul did not count on the newly re-energized Batman, who now feels as if he has a family that he will defend at nearly any cost.
The bulk of this issue is the fairly standard bluster between the two of Batman and Ra's Al Ghul, but it is where the comic ends up that takes the title to places we've not seen before. After Batman defeats him, he manages to get Al Ghul a new identity and then commited to Gotham, where Batman has further arranged a prescription that "guarantees slurred speech and next to zero mobility." In other words, Batman has trapped Ra's in his own mind, in Arkham, with apparently no ability to get free. However, it leads to some fascinating questions, such as why the same prescription couldn't be given to the Joker? And given the reaction of his friends to his past machinations, what would they, especially Superman, think of this?
I'll ride along on this because Paul Dini is writing it, and I'm pretty sure he's got a plan, but it's pretty clear this situation is not tenable. A lot of time was spent to bring Ra's back from the dead, and it seems really unlikely that he was brought back just so he could be incarcerated permanently. This issue stretches my credulity a good bit, but I'll hang in with Dini....
Wonder Girl 5 -- Cassie and her friends take on the Female Furies and Hercules. The whole issue is one long fight, with a little interesting repartee between former members of Young Justice Empress and Arrowette. That's nearly all there is of interest, except at the very end, the God Killer, the person responsible for the deaths of the New Gods, shows up to pick off the Female Furies while they are distracted. There is only one issue of this mini-series left, and unless the identity of the God Killer is revealed in 52 or Death of the New Gods, that last issue will reveal a major player in the last 9 months of DC continuity. That's the way to bury an important piece in an otherwise totallyt forgettable mini-series....
The Spirit 12 -- This is the last of Darwyn Cooke's issues. In the past I have complained about how I didn't feel this title was reaching its potential, but it appears that Cooke was saving the best for last. In short, he nails it, crafting a brilliant noir story that actually uses The Spirit as the narrator and protagonist, rather than the run of issues where he is either a witness or a victim.
The issue reveals the backstory between Denny Colt and Sand Saref, his lost love in some deftly handled flashback, while The Spirit rushes to stop or save Sand. The emotional impact of their shared childhood and forced separation, and the causes for that separation are wonderfully handled. And at last, I feel some of the winsome grief that underlies a lot of the dark humor of the original Spirit. There is that dark humor here as well, though not much of it, as Cooke seems to have gone to the opposite extreme from the issues that are almost all goofiness.
This is what The Spirit should have always been, and it saddens me that it is the last we'll see of Cooke's work. If you can only read one of his issues. this is the one to pick up.
Simon Dark 4 -- Steve Niles and Scott Hampton continue to do brilliant work on this series. It still has much more of a Vertigo feel than DC, and I pray that we don't have any huge crossovers with "mainstream" DC. In this issue, the cast of support characters begin interacting more, alternately pulling back the sheets on some things that need revealing and creating solid relationships between those characters. The main character himsef, Simon, only appears in the background of a few panels of this issue, as those that know him or know of him begin to share their feelings and theories about him. Simon does take center stage in the last panel, in a heart-rendingly sad scene that just deepends the mystery about him.
Hampton's art is fantastic as well. His painting is nuanced and doesn't appear remotely hurried. Faces show character and emotion that complement the ongoing story and overall this is someof the best aret going in a book anywhere right now.
Here's hoping that this book finds an audience because it needs to have a long life. I anticipate this book every month and it has yet to let me down.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sweeney Todd may be the quintessential Tim Burton film. It revels in its darkness, not only in its emotional tone but in its cinematography, and it is starkly gothic. Its two lead actors are long-time staples of Burton films, his wife Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp (as I was watching the film, I kept thinking to myself how far the kid has come from 21 Jump Street. I have no idea why that show kept coming to my mind, because its only relation to the film is Depp). And given the effective but strange rhythms and lyrics of Steven Sondheim's score, Burton had a wealth of resources to work with. Sweeney Todd is brilliantly good and darkly beautiful.
It's also tragic, not heart-tuggingly like Ed Wood, but deep in the soul sad. Benjamin Barker has everything a man could want—a loving wife, a beautiful newborn daughter, and the beginnings of a career as a well-respected barber. But all of that is ripped from him when Judge Turpin (played with a deft combination of menace and despair by Alan Rickman) lusts for the family Barker has and so uses his power to take them away from Barker. The movie opens with Barker returning to London after being in prison for 15 years, taking up the new name Sweeney Todd and vowing revenge. But first he returns to the home above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop that he shared with his family. Mrs. Lovett tells him that his wife took arsenic and his daughter is a ward of the despised Turpin. Now Todd's sole purpose for living is revenge, no matter the cost.
Johnny Depp nails the character of Todd, swinging back and forth between melancholy and murderous intent. And, unexpectedly, he is a more-than-adequate singer. He may never become a music icon, but since there is barely any dialogue in Sweeney Todd, only song lyrics and the occasional spoken word interspersed in the music, Depp has to be able to express himself through that music. And he succeeds brilliantly. Carter plays Mrs. Lovett, who apparently has been hiding a secret love for Barker/Todd and makes several life-altering decisions based on that love. But Todd is truly a man possessed, and so he never sees her devotion. There is one striking portion of the movie where Mrs. Lovett imagines a life with Todd, complete with picnics and seaside cottages. For a few moments the darkness is lifted, except that a close observer will note that Todd and Lovett always remain in some kind of shadow and never change their color schemes—Todd wears black and white, even when it comes to relatively festive clothing and Lovett always wears shades of red. Clearly these dreams are not going to come true.
Nearly all the important characters in the movie cannot act against the forces that move them. Even Judge Turpin is a prisoner of his own desires and self-loathing. Rickman has Turpin wear the mask well, but that mask slips on occasion, especially when he opens up to Todd about his desire for a loving woman, never realizing that his process of obtaining such a woman would forever keep that woman at a distance. Even the hero of the story, if such a story can have a hero, is unable to escape the powers that move him. Anthony, played by Jamie Campbell Bower, is a sailor who accompanies Todd on his return to London who then stumbles upon and falls in love with Todd's imprisoned daughter, Johanna. His every thought, his every move, is predicated on freeing her from her prison and wining her for himself. And even though he becomes a cog in the machinations between Turpin and Todd, he presses on.
The only free actor in the story is young Toby, played by Ed Sanders, who settles in as a worker in Mrs. Lovett's pie shop and manages to escape all the plotting that surrounds it and the barber shop upstairs. Also of note is Sacha Baron Cohen, playing a competitor barber for Todd. His role is altogether too short-lived, but like the rest of the cast, the acting is very strong.
The only thing that drags the movie down for me is the copious amounts of blood. There are moments when it is used for artistic effect and I can accept it—the closing scene is stunning beautiful despite it being covered in blood. But along the way, many people die from having their throats slit, and those scenes are not played down. There are gaping wounds and tremendous amounts of blood everywhere, all showing in part, that nothing will move Todd from the role he has laid out for himself. But it's graphic and not at all humorous (despite the woman behind me in the theatre who giggled at every scene). And for some reason, I never became numb to it, unlike the scenes in the Kill Bill movies. Again, I think this is because of the emotions surrounding the scene: Todd doesn't care what gets in his way; he will be revenged. It's not that people are being killed; in fact they are complete unknowns generally, mere props to the story. It is what they represent, the horror and ugliness of the situation that Todd was put in and how he isn't even trying to escape it, but instead revels in it, comparing himself to those who had power over him. It's an artistic choice, and I understand it; it just got to me after a while.
The final scenes bring all the principles together in the basement of Mrs. Lovett's shop. That by itself should be ominous enough, but it should also be clear that this story is not going to have a happy ending. Sweeney Todd has a compelling conclusion, reflective of the best Shakespearean tragedy. I've already mentioned the closing shot and all its power. It encapsulates human frailty and darkness in a stunning image, and Burton chose it as a symbol that will haunt the movie-goer for a time to come. It also encapsulates the brilliant hand of Burton behind everything in the film.
It's also tragic, not heart-tuggingly like Ed Wood, but deep in the soul sad. Benjamin Barker has everything a man could want—a loving wife, a beautiful newborn daughter, and the beginnings of a career as a well-respected barber. But all of that is ripped from him when Judge Turpin (played with a deft combination of menace and despair by Alan Rickman) lusts for the family Barker has and so uses his power to take them away from Barker. The movie opens with Barker returning to London after being in prison for 15 years, taking up the new name Sweeney Todd and vowing revenge. But first he returns to the home above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop that he shared with his family. Mrs. Lovett tells him that his wife took arsenic and his daughter is a ward of the despised Turpin. Now Todd's sole purpose for living is revenge, no matter the cost.
Johnny Depp nails the character of Todd, swinging back and forth between melancholy and murderous intent. And, unexpectedly, he is a more-than-adequate singer. He may never become a music icon, but since there is barely any dialogue in Sweeney Todd, only song lyrics and the occasional spoken word interspersed in the music, Depp has to be able to express himself through that music. And he succeeds brilliantly. Carter plays Mrs. Lovett, who apparently has been hiding a secret love for Barker/Todd and makes several life-altering decisions based on that love. But Todd is truly a man possessed, and so he never sees her devotion. There is one striking portion of the movie where Mrs. Lovett imagines a life with Todd, complete with picnics and seaside cottages. For a few moments the darkness is lifted, except that a close observer will note that Todd and Lovett always remain in some kind of shadow and never change their color schemes—Todd wears black and white, even when it comes to relatively festive clothing and Lovett always wears shades of red. Clearly these dreams are not going to come true.
Nearly all the important characters in the movie cannot act against the forces that move them. Even Judge Turpin is a prisoner of his own desires and self-loathing. Rickman has Turpin wear the mask well, but that mask slips on occasion, especially when he opens up to Todd about his desire for a loving woman, never realizing that his process of obtaining such a woman would forever keep that woman at a distance. Even the hero of the story, if such a story can have a hero, is unable to escape the powers that move him. Anthony, played by Jamie Campbell Bower, is a sailor who accompanies Todd on his return to London who then stumbles upon and falls in love with Todd's imprisoned daughter, Johanna. His every thought, his every move, is predicated on freeing her from her prison and wining her for himself. And even though he becomes a cog in the machinations between Turpin and Todd, he presses on.
The only free actor in the story is young Toby, played by Ed Sanders, who settles in as a worker in Mrs. Lovett's pie shop and manages to escape all the plotting that surrounds it and the barber shop upstairs. Also of note is Sacha Baron Cohen, playing a competitor barber for Todd. His role is altogether too short-lived, but like the rest of the cast, the acting is very strong.
The only thing that drags the movie down for me is the copious amounts of blood. There are moments when it is used for artistic effect and I can accept it—the closing scene is stunning beautiful despite it being covered in blood. But along the way, many people die from having their throats slit, and those scenes are not played down. There are gaping wounds and tremendous amounts of blood everywhere, all showing in part, that nothing will move Todd from the role he has laid out for himself. But it's graphic and not at all humorous (despite the woman behind me in the theatre who giggled at every scene). And for some reason, I never became numb to it, unlike the scenes in the Kill Bill movies. Again, I think this is because of the emotions surrounding the scene: Todd doesn't care what gets in his way; he will be revenged. It's not that people are being killed; in fact they are complete unknowns generally, mere props to the story. It is what they represent, the horror and ugliness of the situation that Todd was put in and how he isn't even trying to escape it, but instead revels in it, comparing himself to those who had power over him. It's an artistic choice, and I understand it; it just got to me after a while.
The final scenes bring all the principles together in the basement of Mrs. Lovett's shop. That by itself should be ominous enough, but it should also be clear that this story is not going to have a happy ending. Sweeney Todd has a compelling conclusion, reflective of the best Shakespearean tragedy. I've already mentioned the closing shot and all its power. It encapsulates human frailty and darkness in a stunning image, and Burton chose it as a symbol that will haunt the movie-goer for a time to come. It also encapsulates the brilliant hand of Burton behind everything in the film.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Gentlemen of the Road
I finished this book New Year's Eve but have been spending a good bit of time thinking about what to say about it. My immediate reaction to the book was that it was something of an homage to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but the more I thought about that, the more I had to wonder if it was possible that any two companions doing fantasy-like things would not evoke comparisons to Fritz Leiber's best-known heroes. And this led me to thinking about the whole "buddy" trope in books, TV, and movies and its possible roots. Is there a history of "buddy" writing outside the 20th century, or is it something relatively new? All of which distracted me from serious thought about Gentlemen of the Road and what needed to be said about it.
The novel itself is a lot of fun, and Chabon's mastery of sentence structure has never been more evident than this novel, where he spends time creating a voice that feels like a hybrid of Howard in the Conan books and Alexandre Dumas. I didn't discover until after I finished it that it really was a serial novel, published by chapter in the New York Times Magazine, and while I doubt he was getting paid by the word, Gentlemen of the Road certainly has that feel to it. I doubt, however, that the readers of the New York Times got the wonderful pen-and-ink illustrations from Gary Gianni (current illustrator of Prince Valiant) that the novel includes.
Zelikman and Amram are adventurers in Middle Ages Asian Russia, when the land was fairly peacefully shared by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Following the trope fairly closely, Chabon gives these two characters wide-ranging backgrounds: Zelikman is a non-practicing Jewish Frank and Amram is far-travelling African whose home country is never definitively stated. And also like Leiber's characters, tragedy seems to be the most important factor in their background. We're never quite sure why Zelikmann has abandoned his family, but we do know that Amram is searching for his daughter, missing for some twenty years. Together they are swept up from their mild con jobs, used to get them spending money between real working jobs, into the effects of a coup in their region. Their camaraderie is evident in the con they pull and their reaction to events as they unfold, returning Filaq, formerly an heir to the overthrown kingdom, to the capital city of Atel with an eye towards revenge.
And as usually happens in this kind of story, things never quite work out as expected; after a few missteps getting started, the companions find themselves with a new manservant (named Hanukkah) and tri-partite war on their hands. And somehow, elephants show up as important plot points throughout the story, including the moment revenge is achieved in a scene that is on the one hand brutal but also blackly funny in Chabon's hands. Sadly, this is one of the few moments that are really funny in the novel, which gets away from the tradition of Leiber and Dumas. In fact, Zelikman is almost always portrayed as dour or even depressed, and a lot of what Amram does are attempts to distract him from his cares. Fortunately, just the very name of Hanukkah is humorous and he acts as a decent foil to their world-wariness.
Nonetheless, Gentlemen of the Road is an enjoyable (if really short) read, and it is clear that Chabon is having a lot of fun putting the characters and settings together. When you set a novel down and wish that you could read more about the characters, that's always a good sign. More adventures of Zelikman and Amram are needed.
The novel itself is a lot of fun, and Chabon's mastery of sentence structure has never been more evident than this novel, where he spends time creating a voice that feels like a hybrid of Howard in the Conan books and Alexandre Dumas. I didn't discover until after I finished it that it really was a serial novel, published by chapter in the New York Times Magazine, and while I doubt he was getting paid by the word, Gentlemen of the Road certainly has that feel to it. I doubt, however, that the readers of the New York Times got the wonderful pen-and-ink illustrations from Gary Gianni (current illustrator of Prince Valiant) that the novel includes.
Zelikman and Amram are adventurers in Middle Ages Asian Russia, when the land was fairly peacefully shared by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Following the trope fairly closely, Chabon gives these two characters wide-ranging backgrounds: Zelikman is a non-practicing Jewish Frank and Amram is far-travelling African whose home country is never definitively stated. And also like Leiber's characters, tragedy seems to be the most important factor in their background. We're never quite sure why Zelikmann has abandoned his family, but we do know that Amram is searching for his daughter, missing for some twenty years. Together they are swept up from their mild con jobs, used to get them spending money between real working jobs, into the effects of a coup in their region. Their camaraderie is evident in the con they pull and their reaction to events as they unfold, returning Filaq, formerly an heir to the overthrown kingdom, to the capital city of Atel with an eye towards revenge.
And as usually happens in this kind of story, things never quite work out as expected; after a few missteps getting started, the companions find themselves with a new manservant (named Hanukkah) and tri-partite war on their hands. And somehow, elephants show up as important plot points throughout the story, including the moment revenge is achieved in a scene that is on the one hand brutal but also blackly funny in Chabon's hands. Sadly, this is one of the few moments that are really funny in the novel, which gets away from the tradition of Leiber and Dumas. In fact, Zelikman is almost always portrayed as dour or even depressed, and a lot of what Amram does are attempts to distract him from his cares. Fortunately, just the very name of Hanukkah is humorous and he acts as a decent foil to their world-wariness.
Nonetheless, Gentlemen of the Road is an enjoyable (if really short) read, and it is clear that Chabon is having a lot of fun putting the characters and settings together. When you set a novel down and wish that you could read more about the characters, that's always a good sign. More adventures of Zelikman and Amram are needed.
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